Indian construction and engineering conglomerate Larsen and Toubro (L&T) has secured a major contract worth KD303.5 million ($992 million) from Kuwait Oil Company for the construction of export crude storage facilities as well as providing key upgrades to its energy infrastructure.

This comes following the approval from Kuwait’s Central Agency for Public Tenders (CAPT) for the contract award, reported local newspaper Al Rai.

The KOC project covers the development of storage facilities for Kuwait export crude and Jurassic crude and enhancements to existing oil export infrastructure, it added.

Mina Al Ahmadi is the country’s main port for the export of crude oil with operational oil export terminals at Mina Abdullah, Mina Shuaiba, and Mina Saud, according to market reports.

Leading industry experts said this deal is strategically layered. Kuwait needs resilient export infrastructure regardless of the Hormuz situation, the downstream logistics of moving Kuwaiti crude must be bulletproof, they stated.

L&T’s win also signals deepening India-Gulf economic ties at the corporate level, said the experts. 

Beyond government MoUs, Indian engineering and construction firms are increasingly winning contracts that were once typically awarded to Western or Chinese companies.

Early this year, L&T’s power transmission and distribution (PT&D) vertical secured a batch of EPC orders for electricity grid system elements in the Middle East region. 

The scope of work includes turnkey construction of five substations and laying of over 250 km transmission lines in three different countries in the region.