Kuwait National Petroleum Company (KNPC) has selected Foster Wheeler and Amec companies as consultants for two mega oil projects, estimated to cost around $30 billion.

KNPC said in a statement the London-based international engineering and project management company Amec was awarded the consultancy contract for building a new 615,000 barrels per day refinery.

US Foster Wheeler company was appointed as consultant for the so-called clean fuel project under which two of Kuwait's three existing refineries at Al Ahmadi and Mina Abdullah will be upgraded. Each of the two projects is estimated to cost around $15 billion.

Spokesman for KNPC Mohammad Al Ajmi said the value of the Amec contract is $528 million and $502m for Foster Wheeler contract. Both projects are slated to be completed by 2018.

The two projects are projected to raise Kuwait's refining capacity to 1.4m bpd from the current 930,000 bpd. Once they are complete, Kuwait plans to shut the Shuaiba refinery.