Kuwait National Petroleum Company Selects Cisco for Unified Communications Rollout

Cisco Solutions to Provide KNPC With More Flexibility, Scalability and Security

KUWAIT CITY, Kuwait, 13 Feb. 2011 – Cisco announced today that the Kuwait National Petroleum Company (KNPC) has chosen to deploy Cisco® Unified Communications technology solutions at its headquarters, refineries and marketing offices in Kuwait, where nearly 8,500 employees are employed.

KNPC enhanced its existing data network infrastructure and migrated its voice, video and data networks to a single converged communications network based on the Cisco Unified Communications solutions. KNPC has selected Universe Computers, a Cisco Gold Certified Partner, for the project implementation.

Highlights / Key Facts

• KNPC needed a flexible, scalable and highly secure infrastructure to be able to deploy more services and applications. Ease of communication between all stakeholders (HQ, branches, refineries, staff ) was also a key requirement.
• Cisco Unified Communications solutions help to improve workforce productivity and lower the cost of operating branch offices by simplifying management and reducing needed equipment. The solutions are designed to improve communication with constituents and to meet regulatory compliance requirements.
•  KNPC wanted to address the complexities of a workplace whose employees are geographically dispersed and information overload is considered normal. The Cisco solutions will help broaden the scope of collaboration within the KNPC offices and employees to encompass document and text-based applications such as e-mail and instant messaging, as well as team workspaces and voice and video conferencing in a way that matches each individual’s needs.
• With IP telephony being the first phase of this deployment, the aim is to consolidate KNPC’s entire branch and the headquarters infrastructure in Kuwait into a unified IP telephony system to include voicemail, unified messaging, presence and the Cisco Unified Personal Communicator. This will allow future services to be rolled out more quickly to enhance communications and provide citizen services to the wider community.

Executive Quotes:

• Khaled Al-Asousi, IT manager, KNPC

“We at KNPC are keen to keep up-to-date with the latest advancements by implementing the best international practices in the field of information technology. With Cisco collaboration solutions, we will be able to achieve our goal of improving and accelerating interactions between our teams, and it will help us meet the mobility demands of the virtual office worker and realize the cost efficiencies of a converged infrastructure.”

• Hani El Kukhun, general manager, Cisco Kuwait

“The oil and gas sector is a key focus area for Cisco in Kuwait, and this deployment at the KNPC headquarters and refineries is a great achievement for us in that domain. The IP telephony deployment will help KNPC achieve its communications objectives of greater mobility, flexibility and return on investment.”

Additional Resources:

• RSS Feed for Cisco: http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/rss.html

Links /URL’s:

• Emerging Markets RSS Feed: http://newsroom.cisco.com/data/syndication/rss2/EmergingMarkets.xml
• Middle East News: http://newsroom.cisco.com/me

About Kuwait National Petroleum Company

Kuwait National Petroleum Company was established in October 1960 as a shareholder company owned by the government and the private sector.

In 1968 the company commissioned its own “Shuaiba Refinery” and in May of the same year, the first shipment of refined petroleum products was exported from Shuaiba Refinery Shuaiba Refinery is the world’s first all hydrogen refinery. It’s capacity is 195,000 Barrels per day. In 1975 the company became a fully owned state company. After the creation of Kuwait Petroleum Corporation in 1980, KNPC became fully owned by KPC which itself is owned by the State of Kuwait.

When the oil sector was restructured, KNPC was entrusted with the responsibilities of oil refining and gas liquefication as well as the distribution of petroleum products in the local market on behalf of KPC. Consequently, the company became in charge of the three oil refineries; Mina Al-Ahmadi, Mina Abdulla and Shuaiba, in addition to the LPG plant in Mina Al-Ahmadi. Today, KNPC total production capacity is 930,000 Barrels per day.

For more details visit: http://www.knpc.com./knpc/about.html

About Cisco

Cisco, (NASDAQ:CSCO, news, filings), is the worldwide leader in networking that transforms how people connect, communicate and collaborate. Information about Cisco can be found at http://www.cisco.com. For ongoing news, please go to http://newsroom.cisco.com. Cisco products in the Middle East are supplied by Cisco Systems International BV, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Cisco Systems, Inc.

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