Since its mid-2023 startup, Oman’s 255,000 b/d Duqm refinery has taken a different path from the country’s other plants. Operated by OQ8 – a joint venture between Kuwait Petroleum International (KPI) and Oman’s OQ – it has adopted a more commercially driven approach.
“We hope to be a trading-led merchant refinery, capitalizing on opportunities as they present themselves,” OQ8 CEO David Bird told MEES in July last year (MEES, 5 July 2024). As a fully export-focused refinery, Duqm would benefit from flexibility in marketing its middle distillates-heavy output, including diesel and jet fuel – a strategy that has paid dividends in recent months with rising exports to eastern and southern Africa (MEES, 11 April). (CONTINUED - 875 WORDS)
