KUWAIT Oil Company (KOC) has signed an agreement with the World Bank (WB) to join an international initiative to reduce gas flaring and improve utilisation of non-renewable energy resources, says KOC board chairman and managing director Sami Al Rushaid.

The State of Kuwait thus joins the World Bank-led Global Gas Flaring Reduction (GGFR) partnership.

A press statement says: “KOC’s phenomenal achievements in gas flaring reduction were initially driven by environmental concerns, but it soon became evident that millions of dollars in savings could be accessed by reducing a huge amount of waste of scarce gas resources.” Quoting Al Rushaid, the statement says: “These results were driven by the dedicated and well-coordinated efforts of various departments across the company.”

A subsidiary of Kuwait Petroleum Corporation, KOC reduced flaring from 17per cent down to 1.75 per cent over the past six years, he says. This brought great savings, reduced consumption of liquid fuel, and also brought down volume of liquefied gas import.

Kuwait is the third country in the Middle East to join the partnership after Iraq and Qatar. By cooperating with GGFR, KOC expects to reduce flaring to less than one percent of associated gas production at the earliest possible.

Meanwhile, director of the WB’s Sustainable Energy Department S Vijay Iyer says that, “Gas flaring reduction is a vital contribution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, improving energy efficiency, and mitigating climate change.”