Kuwait opens its first permanent facility to import LNG, as Gulf States accelerate efforts to wean their power plants off crude and use cleaner forms of energy.
Event Location
Kuwait, Kuwait
Start Time
24 July 2021, 12:00 AM
End Time
07 August 2021, 12:00 AM
The Al Zour LNG terminal received its first cargo of gas, from Qatar, on Monday, according to state news agency Kuna.
The plant, roughly 10 miles from Kuwait’s border with Saudi Arabia, is designed to import as much as 22 million tons of the super-chilled gas each year, making it easily the largest of its kind in the Middle East.
BloombergNEF expects LNG use in the Middle East to increase almost 50% by 2025, with most of the increase coming from Kuwait.
Abhishek Rohatgi, an LNG analyst at Bloomberg NEF said, “Gas demand in Kuwait is set to rise in the power sector due to the planned phase-out of oil plants worth 10 gigawatts. Gas-demand growth is likely to outpace domestic production growth from the Jurassic fields, raising LNG imports.”
Kuwait, one of OPEC’s largest oil producers, needs to buy LNG from abroad since it pumps little gas of its own. The crude diverted from power plants will probably be exported.
Several of its neighbors are also trying to phase out oil from their power markets. Saudi Arabia aims to stop burning as much as 1 million barrels a day of crude in its electricity plants by 2030, instead using solar, wind and natural gas. Iraq is spending billions of dollars to ramp up gas output.
Kuwait, one of OPEC’s largest oil producers, needs to buy LNG from abroad since it pumps little gas of its own. The crude diverted from power plants will probably be exported.
Kuwait looks to import LNGKuwait Al Zour import terminal
