Sonatrach Slashes 5-Year Spending Plan: Is It Finally Getting Real?

...ar’s $75bn for 2017-21 and little more than half the $100bn planned for 2014-18. But muddying the water is that actual spending in recent years has seriously lagged the planned figures. Each plan has presumed that ‘one more year’ of austerity will be followed by four years of higher oil prices and in...

US Seaborne Crude Exports Averaged 1.16mn Between September 2017 And January 2018, China Top Destination ('000 B/D)

Qatar Restarts Gas Expansion Plans As Iranian Output Of Shared Field Soars

...rrently planned to begin operations this year. ExxonMobil has a 7% stake and its 2016 Operational Review lists Barzan with its planned 2017-18 startups. Along with the 1.4bn cfd of natural gas, Barzan is also expected to provide Qatar with 22,000 b/d of field condensate, 6,000 b/d of plant condensate, 20...

Egypt Tenders Wind Project As Three Megaprojects Begin Supplying Grid

...NSTRUCTION Project (contractor, online): GW Fuel Beni Suef (Elsewedy, 2017-20) 4.80 Gas Bu...

Temporary Outages Help Opec Inch Closer To Target

...TPUT STILL 190,000 B/D ABOVE TARGET* (MN B/D) *TARGET OF 31.78MN B/D BASED ON DECEMBER AGREEMENT OF 32.5MN B/D MINUS INDONESIA, WHICH HAS SUSPENDED ITS MEMBERSHIP. SOURCE: MEES.   OPEC WELLHEAD PRODUCTION, MARCH  2017 (MN B/D, MEES ESTIMATES)   *INCLUDES SHARE OF NEUTRAL ZO...

Return Of Iranian Crude Makes Big Splash In Europe

...bstantially higher figure this year, although 2011’s volume looks set to elude it. 2017 has got off to a relatively strong start according to initial results. Spain was the third largest EU buyer of Iranian crude last year with 49,900 b/d (see chart 2) and in January it lifted more than twice this at 91...

Egypt Receivables: A Glass Half Full Or Half Empty?

...ll of $396mn (47%) from the end-2015 figure of €771mn ($837mn), with the total down almost $500mn over two years (see table). “The residual amount outstanding at the reporting date has been further reduced by a payment dated January 2017 amounting to $240mn (€228mn).” BP, is more coy; its latest an...

BP Egypt Output: Only Good News?

...nual report released 6 April, also flags up the Nooros field on the Abu Madi West block split with Eni (75%, BP 25%) in the shallow offshore Nile Delta as a key 2016 success. Output here hit plateau levels of 875mn cfd gas and 7,000 b/d condensate in January 2017, less than 18 months after discovery, BP...

Egypt Foreign Reserves Hit Six-Year High But Still Long Way To Go

...e country. The governor also says that the improved financial situation has helped the balance of payments as non-oil exports rose and remittances from Egyptians overseas increased.   DRAFT BUDGET APPROVED Egypt’s cabinet on 29 March approved a draft budget for the 2017-18 financial year, wh...

Kuwait Plans To Double Debt Ceiling To $66bn

...s debut Eurobond offering which was three times over-subscribed. Despite the appetite for Kuwaiti debt, the offering was less than the $10bn expected (MEES, 17 March). Mr Salih said the amount raised covered the majority of Kuwait’s financing needs from international markets for 2017. Even under the cu...

New Adnoc Supremo Commits To 3.5mn b/d Output Target Amid Leadership Shakeup

...pect to see a slow but upward improvement in the medium term. Overall we think that 2016 and 2017 will be the years during which markets will start to rebalance.” But this optimism is not universally shared, with a number of variables in play that could dampen or reverse price gains (see p11). NEW FA...

Mid-East LNG Demand‘A Driving Force’ In 2015

...lution. Whether this is realistic remains to be seen. Egypt hopes to call time on gas imports by 2020 following last year’s discovery of the 23 tcf Zohr offshore field – operator Eni plans first gas from late 2017, ramping up to 2.7bn cfd by 2019 (MEES, 25 March). But while this is substantially more th...

OPEC Output Falls Ahead Of Meeting As UAE Outage Outweighs Iran Gains

...proaching balance is the director general of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc) Sultan al-Jaber. He said this week that he expects prices to rise gradually and for the market to rebalance in 2016 and 2017 (see p2). However, there remain multiple variables that impact on this supply-demand dy...

Petroceltic: Worldview Or Bust

...rly 2019:” the 2012-approved development plan had 2017 (MEES, 13 August 2012); the firm subsequently insisted 2018 was feasible (MEES, 1 May 2015). In fact the project’s delays, so far, have been modest for Algeria. If Worldview is sensible it will seek to keep hold of Petroceltic’s project ma...

Saudi Crown Prince Plots $2,000bn Mega Wealth Fund

...uld likely happen in 2018, or even 2017, he says. The Aramco IPO and the transfer of its shares to the PIF will “technically make investments the source of Saudi government revenue not oil… within 20 years, we will be an economy or state that does not depend on oil,” he says Prince Muhammad, who al...

Chevron Looks To Farm Down KRG, Morocco Interests

...completed 2D seismic work in 2014 and plans to started 3D seismic work in 2015. Chevron is targeting a 500,000 b/d-plus rise in production to 3.1mn barrels per day of oil equivalent (boe/d) by 2017 – an ambitious target given that output has been trending downwards in recent years (see gr...

Tupras Sees $2.7Bn Izmit Upgrader Boosting Refining Margins

...2   Planned       Socar Aliaga [STAR] 200 2017 Calik Ceyhan [Adana] 30...

Can Algeria Live Up To Its Renewable Potential?

...pacity for start-up in 2017 suggest that gas availability is a key concern (MEES, 27 March). Notwithstanding the increased role of renewables, Algeria will still need to find more gas to run additional capacity. Gas fuels 77% of current electricity generation capacity. If Algeria could reduce the gas co...

Jordan Gets Russian Backing For Nuclear Plans

...r Iranian construction. UAE 5.6 4 3x1.4GW plants being built at Barakah, site preparation under way for fourth. ENEC seeking operating licenses for Barakah-1 and -2. Plants due online 2017-20. Tu...

UAE Nuclear Plans Advance

...aceful nuclear energy program,” says ENEC chief executive Muhammad al-Hammadi. “The on-time submission of this operating license application is a crucial milestone in our journey to becoming fully operational in 2017.” ENEC has contracted Korea’s Kepco to build four 1.4GW NPPs at Barakah and to bring on...