Kuwait Petroleum Company has signed a $16 billion leasing agreement with a consortium of investment firms for its crude pipelines, as the Gulf nation seeks to boost its capital sources amid strikes by Iran.
KPC's subsidiary Kuwait Oil Company is to form a joint venture with the group comprising Blackstone, Brookfield Asset Management and KKR, which will lease use rights to KOC's 13 pipelines under a joint venture to be formed between the four companies, KPC said in a statement on Saturday. In return, KOC will hold exclusive use, operational and maintenance rights in the pipelines over 20 and a half years, in exchange for a volume-based tariff, it said.
KOC will hold a majority 51 per cent stake in the joint venture, which is expected to generate upfront proceeds of $7.85 billion for the oil company as part of its strategy to diversify its sources of capital, it said. The company will use those proceeds for its capital expenditure allotments, which include achieving a crude oil production target of four million barrels per day by 2035.
The consortium's investment "reflects confidence in Kuwait's resilience, the quality of KPC's assets and our long-term vision for the country's energy sector", said Sheikh Nawaf Saud Al Sabah, deputy chairman and chief executive of KPC.
Kuwait is one of the smaller countries in the Gulf, but it is one of its biggest energy producers, ranked fifth among Opec members. Globally, it has the seventh largest oil reserves as of the end of 2025, data from Worldometers shows.
But Iranian strikes on the country's infrastructure – as with other countries in the Middle East – have threatened the energy industry. Over the past weekend, Kuwait's Electricity and Water Ministry said a power and desalination plant was struck, causing a fire and affecting electricity supplies.
Sheikh Nawaf did not mention the war, but noted that Saturday's announcement "sends a powerful signal that Kuwait continues to rise as an attractive destination for global capital, even amid a challenging regional environment".
Meanwhile, the agreement is KKR’s first direct investment in Kuwait, following a similar foray into Saudi Arabia through Acwa Power last December. This is part of the almost $5 billion of equity committed across the Middle East through the past 18 months, New York-based KKR said.
“Kuwait has established itself as one of the world's leading energy producers through decades of disciplined investment," KKR co-chief executives Joe Bae and Scott Nuttall said. "We look forward to ... identifying further opportunities to invest alongside Kuwait in the years ahead."
