Kuwait's state-run Petrochemical Industries Co (PIC) plans to build an olefins complex at a cost of about $3 billion, the firm's managing director said in an oil ministry publication.

'PIC plans to build a third olefins complex...The enterprise is still in the initial study phase and we expect to complete it by February 2010,' managing director of PIC Maha Mulla Hussain was quoted as saying in the January 2010 issue of the oil ministry's quarterly bulletin.

Earlier this month, PIC declared force majeure to customers of its aromatics plant after an outage, affecting all exports from the plant.

The plant, which uses at least 1.5 million tonnes of full-range naphtha as feedstock, was commissioned around November last year. – Reuters