Kuwait News Agency News

Kuwait Oil Tanker Company (KOTC) said that it received the giant liquefied natural gas (LNG) tanker, Umm Ruwaisat, as part of a major fleet overhaul.Accoding to Kuwait News Agency (KUNA), KOTC has entered the fourth phase of its fleet overhaul, which entails the delivery of eight carriers, three of which are gas tankers built by South Korean ship building firm Hyundai MIPO.The fourth phase of the fleet development includes the delivery of eight tankers of which three are giant LNG tankers built by Korea’s Hyundai Heavy Industries Co, in addition to four medium-term oil products tankers and a huge crude oil tanker currently being built in a Chinese firm.

Kuwait plans to increase the volume of crude oil exports to China to 500,000 barrels a day (bpd) in three years, an executive at the state-run Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC) said Saturday. On Monday, Kuwait concluded a new 10-year deal with a China's Sinopec Corp to nearly double its supplies by offering to ship the oil and sell it on a more competitive cost-and-freight basis. "With new and mutual cooperation between the two parties, there is a good sign of increasing the volume of our crude oil exports to China up to 500,000 bpd in the next three years," Nasser Al-Mudhaf, KPC's Managing Director of International Marketing told Kuwait's News Agency (KUNA).

Kuwait Oil Tanker Company (KOTC) has put into service a new VLCC and named another as part of a strategy aimed at increasing its tankship fleet to 30 by the end of 2014, reports the Kuwait News Agency. KOTC Chief Executive Officer Sheikh Talal Al-Khaled Al-Ahmed Al-Sabah inaugurated the enormous crude carrier, Al-Fintas, during an official ceremony held at the main compound of Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering Company (DSME) in South Korea. The ceremony was attended by Kuwaiti Ambassador to South Korea Jassem Al-Badawi, KOTC board members and Daewoo's senior executives. Earlier, KOTC named their new bi-products tanker Burgan, which was constructed by Hyundai Mipo Dockyard in South Korea.

According to a report from the Kuwait News Agency, Kuwait Oil Tanker Co. (KOTC) said it received a giant tanker from Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering Co. The tanker, named Al-Salmi, can carry up to 1.2 million barrels of oil.   Source: KUNA

Kuwait seized an Iraqi oil tanker for reportedly trying to smuggle 650 tons of fuel to the United Arab Emirates in violation of international sanctions. The official Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) quoted an Interior Ministry statement as saying that Kuwaiti patrol boats intercepted the tanker at dawn on Saturday (June 24) inside Kuwaiti territorial waters while sailing from Iraq's Umm Qasr port to the UAE. It said that 11 crew members were on board the tanker, which it said was carrying diesel fuel. The agency gave no details on what further action was being taken against the tanker. Ships caught smuggling Iraqi oil are usually auctioned off and proceeds are deposited with the United Nations, which supervises the purchase of humanitarian supplies by Iraq.

The Kuwait Oil Tanker Company (KOTC) plans to build four new crude oil tankers with a total capacity of 1.2 million tons, Kuwait News Agency (TUNA) reported on Wednesday. According to the report, each tanker will cost 120 million to 130 million U.S. dollars depending on technical specifications, while the previous cost was 100 million dollars per tanker. KOTC Chairman Abdullah al-Roumi attributed the higher prices to rising shipbuilding materials worldwide. KOTC will open a tender for the project in the next few months and shipmakers from the Far East are expected to submit their bids, said al-Roumi. As many old tankers were put out of service, KOTC has set up a plan to upgrade and enlarge its fleet. Source: Xinhua

Qatari Ras Laffan Liquefied Natural Gas Company (RasGas-3) on Monday signed a 20-year contract with two tankers companies to rent 12 natural gas tankers starting on 2008. The agreement was signed by Qatari Minister of Finance and Board Chairman of RasGas-3 Yousef Hussein Kamal, Deputy Board Chairman Dr. Ibrahim Al-Ibrahim, and representatives of the foreign companies. A company source said that the company will receive the ships between March and August 2008, noting that ships' capacity ranges between 210,000 and 217, 000 cubic meters of liquefied natural gas. Meanwhile, contracts to build the ships were signed between the two foreign companies and three Korean heavy industries companies of Hyundai, Samsung, and DAEWOO.

Nippon Yusen KK, Japan's biggest shipping company, has upwardly revised its plan to expand its fleet of liquefied natural gas (LNG) tankers, a major Japanese financial paper reported Wednesday. Nippon Yusen's initial business plan called for it to either own or have invested in the construction of about 60 such tankers by fiscal 2010. It has now raised that figure to roughly 80-100 tankers, the Nikkei Shimbun said. As the US and other countries are expected to dramatically increase their LNG import volumes, foreign tanker transport firms are scrambling to keep pace. By increasing its fleet, the firm aims to ship more of the fuel, according to the report.