Egypt Nuclear Award

...th Rosatom in late 2017 to go ahead with the project. The first reactor is scheduled for start-up in 2026 and all four are expected to be fully operational in 2029. Construction of the first reactor is expected to begin in 2020. Dabaa will mainly be funded by a $25bn loan from Moscow covering 85% of th...

Algeria To Italy Gas: 2019 Slump, December Leap

...LUMES WERE STILL LITTLE MORE THAN HALF 2016 & 2017 LEVELS (BCM) SOURCE: SNAM RETE GAS, MEES.      ...

East Med Gas Developments Gather Pace In 2019

...16 bid round, with a consortium of ExxonMobil and Qatar’s state oil firm QP winning the auction over Norway’s Statoil (now Equinor) and a joint Total/Eni bid (MEES, 29 July 2016). Eventually Total did end up drilling offshore Cyprus in Block 11 in July 2017, but failed to discover commercial qu...

Iraq: Record December Exports Fail To Mask Bleak 2019 Revenue Outlook

...Iraq’s December exports of 3.73mn b/d smashed the previous high. Key expansions mean Baghdad will break this mark in 2019 despite Opec output commitments.   Iraqi oil export revenues came in at $83.7bn for 2018, up a massive 41% versus 2017’s $59.5bn.  This four-year high was ac...

Saudi Asian Supplies Surged To Record High In November Amid Bumper Exports

...is means that 2018 as a whole will surely see the four countries combined Saudi takings top 2017’s previous record of 3.919mn b/d. For the first 11 months of 2018 – ie without the bumper December volumes – supplies were 3.924mn b/d, already fractionally up on the 2017 figure (see chart). Saudi Ar...

Syria Eyes Post-Conflict Gas Gains, But Bottlenecks Loom Large

...SHREEN IN EXCHANGE FOR ELECTRICITY AND WATER. CURRENT POWERGEN IS UNCLEAR. *EXPANSION OF EXISTING PLANT. SOURCE: MOE, SYRIA REPORT, MEES. SYRIA ELECTRICTY OUTPUT (TWH): TENTATIVE 2017 REBOUND AFTER 2013-16 COLLAPSE DUE TO DAMAGED POWERPLANTS AND FUEL SHORTAGES SOURCE: MOE, SYRIA RE...

Assad In From The Cold As GCC Countries Hit The Road To Damascus

...construction (MEES, 22 December 2017), any participation would prove crucial – especially considering that Russia and Iran lack the cash Mr Assad needs (see p8). The future of Syria’s relations with the Gulf kingdoms also has interesting implications for the evolution of Riyadh’s foreign policy. Under the Cr...

King Salman Asserts Authority In Saudi Reshuffle

...e turnaround for Mr Assaf who was sacked as finance minister in October 2016. He was subsequently caught up in the infamous anti-corruption purge instigated by the Crown Prince in 2017 and detained at the Riyadh Ritz-Carlton. The new foreign minister’s key task will be to burnish the kingdom’s re...

Aramco Looks To Crack Texas With $6.6bn Shale-Fuelled Petchems Plans

...panding Motiva’s Port Arthur facilities and to capitalize on cheap US ‘shale’ feedstock (MEES, 26 May 2017). Other Aramco pronouncements also suggest that the latest plans may be only the first stage of investment. Aramco in 2017 flagged up a potential $30bn in ultimate investment in Motiva’s US op...

Aramco Adds Retail Expansion To Downstream Ambitions

...ES, 12 October 2018). Most of Aramco’s current retail sites are operated by its Motiva subsidiary, which transferred the 635,000 b/d Port Arthur refinery in Texas as well as 5,000 Shell-branded retail stations to Aramco’s ownership when Shell exited the former 50:50 joint venture (MEES, 10 March 2017...

Saudi Power Project Schedules Slide,But Outlook Stable

...ES, 5 October 2018). Saudi Arabia’s third largest power plant under development, oil-fired 3.1GW Yanbu 3, is undergoing tests, despite state-owned power and desalination plant operator SWCC in January 2017 canceling the $1.5bn EPC contract that was awarded to Korea’s Samsung and partners China’s Se...

Saudi Awards Key Desalination Plant

...wa had equity in assets with a combined capacity to generate 22.6GW of electricity and desalinate 2.7mn m³/d of water as of the end of 2017, mainly in Saudi Arabia but also in Oman, UAE, Jordan and Morocco as well as outside the Mena region (MEES, 21 September 2018)....

Egypt: ‘Imminent’ Start Up At Key Downstream Project

...untry’s products deficit (MEES, 15 June 2018). Net products imports were 220,000 b/d for the first eight months of 2018 including 132,000 b/d of diesel and 56,000 b/d of gasoline, although all three figures were down on 2017....

Red Sea Bidding Delayed

...urce. The bid round falls under the jurisdiction of the oil ministry’s southern Egypt focused arm Ganope, which signed a $750mn deal in December 2017 with Norway’s TGS and House-based oilfield services firm Schlumberger to compile geophysical data covering 60,000km² in the Red Sea (MEES, 26 October 20...

Brazil: 2018 Output Flatters To Deceive

...*At the start of 2018 Brazil was tipped to provide a key boost to global oil supplies as deepwater ‘pre-salt’ output continued to ramp up on the back of 2017’s record 2.62mn b/d. *Things haven’t exactly gone to plan. Not only has output not risen, at 2.57mn b/d for January-November it is ac...

Iraq: Record Exports, But Contract Reform Hangs In The Balance

...2017 was a year of consolidation for Baghdad; federal exports averaged 3.31mn b/d, and revenues rose $15.7bn. But longer term, the oil ministry must address perennial contract issues to steer the industry in the right direction. Iraq exited 2017 on a high note with record federal crude ex...

Egypt: Focus On Red Sea

...fset broadband multiclient seismic” being shot by Schlumberger and Norwegian seismic experts TGS under a $750mn deal inked in July last year (MEES, 4 August 2017). As part of the agreement signed with state oil firm EGPC’s Upper (southern) Egypt focused arm Ganope, Schlumberger and TGS will have ex...

China LNG Buying At Record Levels, Prices At 3-Year High

...rld’s number two LNG importer over the course of 2017. China imported 33.3mn tons for January-November, up 48% year-on-year. Korea’s imports, at 33.5mn tons for the same period, were slightly higher. •  Although Korean imports are up by a not-inconsiderable 14% year-on-year, this pales alongside the gr...

Libya’s 2017 Energy Fortunes: Good-Ish News On Oil, Less So On Gas As Instability Continues

Saudi Hikes Gasoline Prices, Hard On Heels Of Electricity Tariffs Rise

...nuary 2016). This has led diesel demand to fall considerably in the kingdom. After averaging a record 779,000 b/d in 2015 it fell 10% to 701,000 b/d in 2016. It’s on course to have fallen to 600,000 b/d or even less over 2017, averaging 120,000 b/d less than 2016 over the first 10 months. Any in...