State-owned Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC) intends to borrow nearly 2 billion Kuwaiti dinars ($6.6 billion) from local banks to fund its hydrocarbon projects, a newspaper in the OPEC member reported on Monday.

KPC, which manages Kuwait's massive hydrocarbon sector, has asked the Kuwaiti Central Bank to give local banks the "green light" to provide the loan, the Arabic language daily Alanba said, citing KPC sources.

The loan is part of a "borrowing programme" approved by the cabinet early this year for KPC to fund upstream and downstream projects for its affiliated companies, it said.

KPC is pushing for this loan to take advantage of a sharp decline in interest rates to around 1.5 percent due to dim growth prospects in Kuwait as a result of the spread of Corona virus, the report added.

(Writing by Nadim Kawach; Editing by Anoop Menon)

(anoop.menon@refinitiv.com)

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