An oversight report related to the main technology agreements (MTA) concluded by the Kuwait Oil Company with contractors of foreign consulting companies said contracts worth 10.75 million dinars were not contracted with the main offices of the consulting companies.
The report, according to a local Arabic daily, pointed out that the subcontracted companies are of different nationalities of remote islands such as Bermuda, Cayman, and the British Virgin Islands in the Caribbean and have unknown years of experiences in the various fields of oil. This is in addition to various trade names.
The report stressed the need for the company to take all measures against the person responsible for contracting with such companies that have no experience to carry out such work, especially since this matter resulted in a government signing an unconventional contract to avoid any suspicions of financial transactions.
Meanwhile, the KOC stated that the contracted companies are international companies specialized in the oil and gas industry and have previous experience and have met the contractual requirements that allow them to participate in the aforementioned contracts, and those international companies have head offices and several branches spread around the world.
The report indicated that it is not worth concluding technological contracts with such companies due to the existence of billion-dollar advisory contracts that contain clauses for the provision of unspecified technology and on the widest scale as required by the company but it is common knowledge that the company did not benefit from those clauses related to technology and that resulted in the company concluding parallel contracts with companies located in the Caribbean, pointing out that these contracts are not subject to the Central Agency for Public Tenders.
The company indicated its entitlement to conclude contracts for the provision of technology, and the aim of these contracts is to accelerate the applications of new technology in the company to increase the production of oil and gas reserves, improve operations in the company’s fields, and ensure their technical and economic feasibility before generalizing their application more widely.
The sources explained that the technical and contractual MTA contracts differ in different ways; a radical departure from the agreement contracts developed for technical services, as it provides experimental technology applications owned by the contracting companies through business orders that cannot be procured by the ETSA.
The report touched on the inclusion of subcontractors to carry out consulting contract work for 3 out of 4 consulting contracts concluded, bearing in mind that those companies that have been approved for subcontracting are considered unqualified companies and have no previous experience in the field of these contracts as well, related to providing technology required for troubleshooting.
The report indicated that the company priced work order No. 1 after examining the contractor’s bid that was awarded and it was found that there were differences.
The team supervising the implementation of the contract was unable to justify the differences regarding the number of wells to be executed, as it was found from the review of the contractor’s bid that the bid amount was 896 thousand dinars for 8 wells, but the pricing of the company, represented by the team supervising the implementation of the contract, was 896 thousand dinars for one well, which is equivalent to the contractor’s bid for 8 wells.
As a result of that difference the company lost amount of 6.27 million without justification. At the same time the company should have taken all measures against the one who caused this mess.
The company stated that the price of the aforementioned bid submitted by a foreign company was the lowest, as the price of the aforementioned company was for one well, noting that the contractors’ bids that were provided to the Audit Bureau categorically show that the contractor’s price is for one well and not for 8 wells, and therefore the award of the bid was based on the lowest price and technically identical to the contractual terms and in accordance with the company’s procedures for business orders, which negates any waste of public money.