A new museum exhibiting the story of oil is to open in Al Ahmadi, Kuwait, in mid-2011.

The New KOC Oil & Gas Exhibition will enable people to live the history and culture of Kuwait’s oil sector through a series of exhibitions.

Kuwait Oil company, which will own and operate the attraction, has appointed exhibition design firm Event Communications to masterplan the museum, which conveys the meaning of oil and gas through key players from the sector.

An ‘Interactive Spine’ will enable visitors to meet experts from the industry and learn what it is to be like them through use of multi-media interfaces. Visitors will receive an RFID tag which personalises the experience to them – giving the impression of communicating with a real-life geoscientist, health & safety manager, control centre engineer, tanker pilot and firefighter in real-time.

The museum will have four floors holding selected artefacts which tell different stories about the history of oil. Galleries include the Heroes of Fire multimedia theatre, housing a 180-degree film projection and four metre-high spouts of real flame and smoke to convey the devastation caused by the 1991 oil fires.

Nawale Lacroix, project manager at Event, explains: “Oil is so fundamental to the history and culture of the Kuwaiti people that we needed to design an exhibition that would truly convey that.

"We have used a thematic and chronological approach which puts the visitor at the centre of the experience – asking them to live it with us so that they can absorb the enormity of what they see."

When complete, the museum will replace the existing, smaller KOC Display Centre currently based in Al Ahmadi.