OPEC member Kuwait plans to re-examine two key oil projects soon, a top oil executive said Monday, after political disputes stalled the ventures, estimated to cost about $30 billion. “The two projects will shortly be referred to the Supreme Petroleum Council which has the ultimate decision-making authority on oil projects,” Saad Al-Shuwayeb, chief executive of national conglomerate Kuwait Petroleum Corp., told the official KUNA news agency. The projects include building a 615,000-barrels per day refinery for an estimated $15 billion, and upgrading two of three existing refineries at the cost of another $15 billion. The two projects have been stalled for years as a result of political disputes between the government and the outspoken parliament. The government scrapped the new refinery project about a year ago, months after awarding contracts to four South Korean companies, a Japanese firm and US giant Fluor. MPs have opposed the project, citing flawed procedures in awarding the contracts, because it did not go through the state-run Central Tenders Committee to ensure transparency. The project to upgrade the refineries has been running years behind schedule and its tendering process has been repeatedly delayed. Once completed, the two projects would give the oil-rich emirate a refining capacity of 1.4 million barrels per day, up from around 920,000 bpd at present. Meanwhile,-Indian mobile phone giant Bharti announced Monday a 10.7-billion-dollar bid to buy the African unit of Kuwait's Zain telecom as it seeks to enter one of the world's last high-growth markets. Bharti and Zain “have agreed to enter into exclusive discussions until 25 March, 2010 for the acquisition of Zain's African unit based on an enterprise value of 10.7 billion,” India's largest mobile phone firm said in a statement. Bharti's Africa play is part of a drive by the company to keep up growth momentum alongside its rapid push into rural India, as urban mobile markets become saturated. After years of soaring profits, Indian industry revenues are flattening as rivals engage in savage tariff wars.
