Opec oil-exporter Kuwait expects its first liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminal to begin commercial operations by August, a Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) official said.

Output from Kuwait’s northern Jurassic gas field would reach around 600 million cubic feet per day (cfpd) by 2012, Mohammad Hussain, deputy chairman and deputy managing director of planning and gas at the state-owned KOC, said at an industry conference.

Kuwait hopes output by the field to eventually reach more than 1 billion cfpd, he said. In February, a KOC executive said the gas field was producing around 175 million cfpd.

Kuwait is the world’s fourth-largest oil exporter.

(Gulf News & Reuters)