MANAMA: Bahrain is seeking to upgrade capacity of the national oil refinery from 267,000 barrels per day to approximately 400,000 bp at a projected cost of $6 billion, the Minister of Energy said Monday. Abdul Hussein Mirza said in an interview with Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) that the Bahrain Petroleum Company (BABCO) has recently finalized the first phase of upgrading the refinery, thus the company can put out larger amounts of high-grade bi-products such as gasoline, kerosene and diesel. With the prospected completion of the second phase of the mega project, BABCO will produce high-grade bi-products, but larger sums must be invested – $5-6 billion, Mirza said. Moreover, Bahrain is pondering a plan to renovate the oil pipeline between the kingdom and Saudi Arabia, built in 1945. Manama imports 230,000 barrels of crude per day from the neighboring Kingdom, pumped through this pipeline. The imported Saudi crude is refined locally. “Currently, we are studying possibility of altering the course of this pipeline and replacing it with a larger one with a capacity of 350,000 barrels per day,” Mirza said.
