The Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC) will establish an office in Egypt as part of an agreement, according to Tarek El Molla, CEO of the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC).
The office’s purpose is to market the corporation’s crude oil products, as part of the plan to turn Egypt into a logistics centre for marketing and storage petroleum products.
El Molla added that the EGPC is studying a number of other options, alongside the establishment of the office, with the Kuwaiti side. These include providing Egypt with more crude oil for refining and then sale on international markets. Another option is the KPC storing the crude oil in EGPC warehouses, and then selling it through the Sidi Krir terminal in Alexandria.
Egypt imports 1.5m-2m barrels of crude oil every month from Kuwait, which are then refined and their petroleum products pumped to provide local market needs.
According to a report by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Kuwait sells approximately 1.995m barrels of crude oil daily in global markets, and its production reaches 2.867m barrels of crude oil.
Saudi Arabia controls approximately 10% of the world’s production of crude oil, as it produces 9.713m barrels of crude a day, and it exports 7.153m barrels of oil to global markets every day.
A number of memoranda of understanding (MoUs) were signed between Egypt and several Kuwaiti corporations last February, with total investments of approximately $6.8bn, to execute a number of petrochemical projects.
The MoUs were signed between the Egyptian Petrochemicals Holding Company (ECHEM), Misr Phosphate, Egypt Kuwait Holding (EKHO), Bawabet Al-Kuwait Holding Company (BKH), Saudi International Petrochemical Company (SIPCHEM), and Boubyan Petrochemical Company (BPC).
These will see investments pumped into establishing petrochemicals and phosphate fertiliser projects. These projects include a complex for propylene and its derivatives, a complex for refinement and petrochemicals, a project to produce formaldehyde and its derivatives, and phosphate fertilisers’ compound project.
