Egypt Drilling: Shell Kicks Off 9-Well Campaign As BP Readies Plans

...ell is setting its sights beyond Egypt for WDDM backfill options. Shell (35%) and partners Chevron (35%op) and Israel’s NewMed (30%) in May filed a development plan for Cyprus’ 2011 Aphrodite discovery which could see 650mn cfd production tied back to the WDDM offshore facilities (MEES, 2 June). Mi...

Eni In Libya: Bumper Oil Output As Exports Head Far & Wide, But Gas At 10-Year Lows

...PORTS TO ITALY HAVE BEEN RUNNING AT THEIR LOWEST CONSISTENT LEVELS SINCE THE REVOLUTIONARY YEAR OF 2011 (MN CFD) *TO 19 AUGUST. SOURCE: SNAM, ENI, MEES. GAS HIT BY POWER OUTAGE               Mellitah’s offshore Bahr Essalam gas fields have produced almost continuously through the last 10...

Spain Crude Imports: Saudi & Mideast Share At Record Low As Libya Volumes Soar

...*Spain’s crude imports remain depressed by Covid. Average 1H 2021 imports of 1.074mn b/d were level with 2H 2020 as the lowest half year figure since 2011. Imports have edged up in recent months with the Q2 2021 average of 1.083mn b/d the highest ‘post-Covid’ quarterly figure. But this is st...

Tunisia’s Oil Industry Faces Existential Crisis

...nce the 2011 Tunisian Revolution.  If there is a potential upside it is that two smaller firms, Mazarine Energy and Panoro Energy, have both shown to be willing underdogs. Led by former Shell engineer Edward van Kersbergen, Mazarine came from nothing to produce upwards of 2,000 boe/d and ev...

Washington’s Obsession With Syrian Oil: What’s It All About?

...Donald Trump is fixated on oil fields in Kurdish-controlled areas of Syria, and has finally found a US firm to ‘develop’ them. But is it anything more than a political play? Since the beginning of Syria’s civil war in 2011, supporters of President Bashar al-Assad’s government have often po...

Libya Plans Petchems Restart

...airman Mustafa Sanalla told MEES in June that its subsidiary Rasco also plans to restart the naphtha cracker at the petrochemical complex which would produce feedstock for the polyethylene plant (MEES, 5 July). Before the 2011 Libyan Revolution and the ensuing chaos knocked the complex out of op...

Spain: Record Crude Imports, Record Opec, Record Libya

...0 B/D) *LIBYA, SAUDI, NIGERIA & MEXICO WERE THE TOP FOUR COUNTRIES FOR 2017, 2018 AND 1H 2019. RUSSIA AND IRAN ARE THE ONLY TWO OTHER COUNTRIES TO HAVE BEEN TOP ON A QUARTERLY BASIS SINCE 2011. SOURCE: CORES, MEES.   SPAIN CRUDE IMPORTS (‘000 B/D): SIX-YEAR HIGH SAUDI VOLUMES & RECORD LIBYA FILL VO...

Egypt Gas Exploration Focus Shifts East As Output Record Nears

...UCHES 6BN CFD IN JUNE, JUST SHY OF DECEMBER 2011’S RECORD 6.22BN CFD SOURCE: JODI, EGYPT OIL & GAS, MEES.   JORDAN: THE COMEBACK?   Egypt last week signed a deal to resume gas exports to Jordan, ostensibly from early next year. A 9 August statement from Jordan’s energy ministry sa...

Libya Power Expansion Going Nowhere, Blackouts Continue

...e 2011 revolution, capacity was 7.1GW, according to IEA estimates. Things have also been far from plain sailing at Libya’s key ongoing power project, the 640MW Ubari plant in Libya’s remote southwest. As with a planned plant in Tobruk (awarded to Greek firm Mytilineos), this is designed to use ga...

Oman: Oil Prices Bolster Economy, For Now

...nual statbook does not provide unemployment figures, nor use the term ‘unemployment’ once. Sultan Qaboos managed to quell considerable upheaval in 2011-12 during the Arab Spring; conditions have since grown worse. And with oil prices a far cry from the $105/B days of 2011-2013, throwing money at th...

Spain 2Q18 Crude Imports (‘000 B/D): Highest Volumes, Share From Middle East Since Q4 2011; Iran June Volumes Highest Since 2011

Dana Gas: Profits Up, Litigation Up, Zora Write-Down Looms

...arl Consortium’s (Dana 35%) Khor Mor concession fell to just 295mn cfd in Q2, the lowest level since 2011 (see charts). With “a planned shutdown for maintenance work due to take place in the second half of 2017,” output can be expected to dip further. In some good news, Dana saw its trade re...

Politics And Prices Stifling East Mediterranean Gas Hopes

...rdan to a lesser extent), but history shows that any deal to send Israeli gas to Egypt or vice versa is at best risky. Egypt’s former oil minister Sameh Fahmi was sentenced to 15 years in jail in 2012 for his role in the 2005 deal to send Egyptian gas to Israel, which was terminated following the 2011 ou...

IMF Loan To Egypt Will Need To Be Supplemented With Serious Reforms

...ciety.” After the 2011 revolution, the government bowed to popular pressure and hired some 900,000 people in civil servant jobs, which were not needed, raising the wage bill by an annual E£150bn ($16mn at current rates). There is therefore a need to reduce this “over employment” in the civil service to cu...

Japan’s Inpex Eyes Iran Return Post-Sanctions

...pan’s biggest supplier in the first six months of 2015 has been Saudi Arabia, followed by the UAE and Russia. These volumes from Iran are well down on pre-sanctions levels however. In 2011, before sanctions on the purchase of Iranian crude oil were introduced, Japanese imports from Iran averaged 31...

LNG Demand Outlook Looks Bearish As Japan Restarts Nuclear Plant

...t to come under further pressure. The restart of a first reactor at Japan’s Sendai nuclear plant this week marks a key step in the country’s drawn-out efforts to bring back its nuclear fleet, following the March 2011 tsunami and ensuing nuclear crisis. The news is bearish for LNG prices, es...

JAPANESE LNG IMPORTS 2005-2015

...VOLUME (mn tons) 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 20...

Iraq: Key 2Q15 Oil Data (‘000 B/D)

...1H14 1H14 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 CRUDE OUTPUT: Federal^   3,591 3,288 3,...

Kurdistan Grapples With ISIS Threat; Oil Output Steady For Now

...reign oil companies, including ExxonMobil, whose entry into Iraqi Kurdistan in 2011 gave the KRG a claim of legitimacy that the smaller independents could not provide. Evacuations Continue But with evacuations of foreign staff underway by several of the more than 50 operators in the Kurdish oil se...

Israel Upgrading Power Plants To Exploit Natural Gas Reserves

...wnward trend (see graph). Israel has been slowly phasing out the use of both in power plants since 2008 when it began importing Egyptian gas. The sharp downward trend – gasoil consumption alone halved in 2009 – was temporarily sent into reverse in 2011 and 2012, when Egypt first reduced shipments and th...