STATE refiner Kuwait National Petroleum Company has approved a KD1 billion ($3.33 billion) allocation to build a LNG import and re-gasification facility. Implementation of the project is expected to begin by the end of 2015, KNPC Deputy CEO for Projects Hatem Al Awadi says.

He did not provide further details about the project’s tendering process. Oil-rich, but gas-poor Kuwait has been importing LNG since 2009, after installing infrastructure to receive bulk shipments aboard re-gasification vessels. It needs the LNG to feed the country’s power stations, desalination units, and to power a growing petrochemical industry.

It is also trying to develop its own natural gas resources, but Kuwaiti oil officials have often said the imports along with its indigenous gas reserves barely fulfil the emirate’s needs, which rise significantly during the seasonally hot months between April and October.

In March 2014, KNPC awarded Foster Wheeler subsidiary Global Engineering and Construction Group a contract to complete the pre-front-end engineering design and the front-end engineering design for the new onshore LNG import and re-gasification terminal in Kuwait, according to the Foster Wheeler website.

The proposed terminal will have a design send-out capacity of approximately 1,500 mmscfd of gas, with four full-containment LNG storage tanks, each of 180,000 cubic metres.