In 1960, KOTC was granted the franchise of marketing and distributing liquefied gas into the local market as an alternative to the domestic fuel.
In 1962, an LPG Filling Plant was established in Shuwaikh Industrial Area. And due to the increasing of population in Kuwait, it became necessary to increase plant production capacity in order to meet the required consumption. It was difficult to increase the production capacity with the limited size of that plant.
Therefore, a new plant for LPG Operations & Projects “recently named LPG Filling Branch (Shuaiba)” was built in Shuaiba Industrial Area. This plant had been operated in 1985. The current production capacity of this plant is equivalent to 13 Million of 12Kg. LPG cylinders/year, using two work shifts to meet the needs of the Local Market.
In an effort to develop & increase the strategic reserves of LPG, KOTC announced in 2008 the commissioning of 6 LPG Mounded Tanks with storage capacity of 6,000 metric tons, which is enough to supply the Local Market with LPG for 14 days.
All LPG operations are fully automatic, as well as routine tasks such as safety examinations and pressure tests. Hence, KOTC is keen to provide LPG service to Kuwaiti community with high quality and safety guarantee.
Along with LPG cylinders’ production, LPG Filling Branch takes over the mission of deliver LPG cylinders by a fleet of distribution trucks to all Gas distribution centers in Kuwait.
Moreover, and in order to fulfill the Local Industrial Sector companies’ demands of LPG & Butane, LPG Filling Branch (Shuaiba) uses a fleet of LPG bobtails & road tankers. Therefore, KOTC delivers LPG & Butane to 20 local companies with an average of 670 tons of LPG & 310 tons of Butane per month.
Lastly, it’s worth mentioning that LPG Filling Branch (Shuaiba) contains three stores were established to create a storage space for all LPG Equipment spare parts, new LPG cylinders and accessories.
In 2015, the Liquefied Gas Filling Plant was inaugurated in Umm Al-Aish. The Plant is located on an area of 150 thousand square meters at Umm Al-Aish in the north of the country, which enhances the production capacity of the State of Kuwait to provide 15 million cylinders annually which equals to 160% of the production capacity of the old Plant located in the Industrial Shuaiba.
The Plant comes in line with the implementation of the strategic plans of the Company and Kuwait Petroleum Corporation, as in late 2010 the Company signed a contract to design and build the Plant in Umm Al-Aish, with a view to providing a strategic alternative to the current plant and increase the production and storage capacity of liquefied petroleum gas to meet the needs of the local market resulting from the steady increase in population of the State of Kuwait.
Since that time, a Kuwaiti team of qualified engineers from the company staff proceeded to directly supervise the design and building of the project, by selecting the latest and best of the LPG technology, in order to achieve the highest engineering specifications and adopt international requirements and standards to establish an integrated Plant. The total production capacity of the two Plants has been become sufficient to meet the needs of the local market until 2030, as the strategic reserve of LPG of the country doubled, to meet the needs of consumers by more than 300%.
The new Plant at Umm Al-Aish covers the needs of the northern region of the State of Kuwait and new cities within the framework of urban expansion in the northern regions of Kuwait in line with the residential plan of the Public Authority for Housing Welfare. The project also includes the latest technology in the filling of LPG cylinders, where (Flexspeed) technology is used in filling branches so that their production capacity can be controlled by increasing or decreasing the speed of the production center in proportion to the demand for LPG in the local market.
The project includes six underground tanks with high levels of efficiency, as it provides the highest international safety and quality standards. It also includes workshops for maintenance work, administrative buildings and a gas transportation fleet.
