KUWAIT - Shuaiba.

The 190,000 b/d Shuaiba refinery was destroyed during the 1991 war. It had to be rebuilt. It had been the most recent of the refineries, equipped with advanced units, and had been excluded in the big upgrading programme carried out in the 1980s.

Reconstruction at Shuaiba did not get under way until urgent repair work elsewhere was completed and KNPC had some effective refining capacity available at its two other plants. Work on Shuaiba started in the second quarter of 1992, when KNPC awarded a three-year contract to Catalytic Maintenance Ltd., a subsidiary of Delta Catalytic Corp. of Canada. This contract was for repairing facilities, making modifications and continuing to maintain the plant after its recommissioning.

Another contract was awarded by KNPC to Daelim in December 1992 for the reconstruction of the tank farm. Engineers India was involved at Shuaiba as part of studies it undertook on Kuwait's three refineries.

The plant was partly brought on stream in November 1993 with a capacity of 130,000 b/d from one of its CDUs, and was running at about 150,000 b/d early in 1994. KNPC announced on Feb. 16, 1997 that repair work at Shuaiba had been completed and that the refinery had reached its pre-war capacity of 190,000 b/d. The plant's control room was upgraded by Black & Veatch Pritchard of the US under a $23m contract awarded at the end of 1996.

The refinery's slate is weighted towards middle distillates, with gasoil accounting for 34% of its output, kerosine for about 20% and gasoline for almost 10%. The plant has a 42,000 b/d catalytic hydrotreater.

However, in June 2000 an explosion at the refinery caused by a gas leak killed two people and damaged the hydrocracker. A parliamentary committee recommended legal action against Chevron over the gas leak, because the US major had designed one of the gas supply system's components in 1968. The hydrocracker resumed operations in late February 2001 after repair work. The refinery was closed down on April 28,2001 for a 40-day maintenance period. Another fire and technical problems in early 2002 caused the refinery to be closed. It restarted in late February 2002.

The plant is to have an acid gas treatment system in a KD13m ($43m) project for which an EPC contract was awarded in 2003. Larsen & Toubro of India is upgrading and revamping sulphur recovery units at Shuaiba and Mina Abdullah refineries under EPC contracts worth KD7.5m ($24m) awarded in September 2002.A 300,000 t/y calcined petroleum coke plant is being built at Shuaiba. The plant will take 20 months to build. Its feedstock will be supplied by the Mina Abdullah refinery (see background in Vol. 56, DT No. 22).