By A Saleh

KUWAIT: Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) announced recruiting around 662 new Kuwaiti graduates to bring the total number of its Kuwaiti employees to 9,560. According to official statements, the percentage of Kuwaitis in KOC has risen to 90 percent. The company also managed to Kuwaitize 3,700 jobs in subcontracts to take the total percentage of citizens working through these contracts to 26.58 percent.

Meanwhile, a state of confusion spread within the oil sector following statements attributed to a Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC) subsidiary company's CEO about merging Kuwait National Petroleum Company (KNPC), Kuwait Integrated Petrochemical Industry Company (KIPIC) and Petrochemical Industries Company (PIC).

In this regard, informed oil sources said the statements made by KNPC CEO Waleed Al-Bader came during an unofficial meeting and that the reports were inaccurate and misinterpreted as they only came in response to an inquiry made by a staff member concerning the initially agreed upon merger pending concluding final studies.

The sources underlined that the merging process requires concluding ongoing studies, getting final approvals and up to a year or 18 months of arrangements and coordination before going any further.

In other news, Minister of Oil and Electricity and Water Khaled Al-Fadhel said the Al-Zour Northern power plant has been built according to a 40-year public-private-partnership (PPP) contract. Fadhel explained that the plant will produce 1526.8 megawatts per hour that would be sold to the state according to the contract conditions.