Libya Exploration Picks Up Steam As NOC Reiterates Ambitions

...13). Only two wells, of what had originally been planned as an 11-well campaign, were ultimately drilled. But though both saw “gas discoveries … in Devonian horizons,” the firm pulled out its staff and wrote off its entire to-date Libya exploration spend of $137mn as security deteriorated in early 2014...

Yemen’s Breakthrough Truce Threatened By Houthi Military Attacks

...mbined cycle power plant. Yemen’s oil and gas sector had been declining since long before the onset of civil war. Production peaked in 2002 at 457,000 b/d with exports remaining above 100,000 b/d until 2014 (MEES, 15 September 2017). However, since the start of the conflict and the Saudi-led in...

Algeria-Turkey LNG Deal

...-year extension inked in 2014. With output from the country’s own Sarkaya field in the Black Sea ramping up and Russia offering Ankara cut-price supplies for want of alternate markets, Turkey is evidently reluctant to commit to a longer-term contract for potentially more expensive oil-price-linked Al...

Chevron Eying Egypt Collaborations, Exxon Expands In Cyprus

...rth Africa. Woodside previously had Libya and Mauritania assets, and back in 2014 was in talks to take a 25% stake in Israel’s Leviathan (MEES, 23 May 2014). Egypt last year listed Woodside as being among international firms to have expressed an interest in West Med acreage (MEES, 17 January 2020), so it...

Iraq’s 2030 ‘Sustainable Transition’ Plan: Gas & Renewables To The Fore

...ld up by the Islamic State’s 2014-2015 rise, and in 2018 Iraq took the field away from a consortium led by Turkey’s TPAO. Even now, MEES understands that the Sinopec deal “has yet to be finalized.” As for Akkas, talks with the Saudis led by oil minister Ihsan Ismaael seem to have gone nowhere, an...

Iraq: Contract Revamp To Be Revealed This Month

...the Opec meeting in Vienna this week. Iraq has been looking to move away from its rigid techinal service contracts (TSCs) since oil prices crashed in late 2014. Under these, per-barrel remuneration to IOCs stays fixed irrespective of price, placing a high burden on the government in a low oil pr...

Egypt: Gulf Of Suez Oil Output At 40-Year Low On Back Of Lower Prices, Capex

...sues related to defective pumps.) Fellow Canadian firm SDX Energy (formerly known as Sea Dragon) has meanwhile cut capex from $18.0mn in 2014 (when it only had Egyptian assets) to just $5.7mn for the first nine months of this year – and the latter includes Morocco where it acquired the assets of ba...

Payment Problems

...early 2012 and remained at $6.3bn as recently as September 2014. Though EGPC made substantial inroads after this, by then collapsing oil prices had come in as a sucker punch. Though payment delays also affected larger firms such as Eni, BP and Shell, smaller Egyptian-focused firms were much le...

Aramco & Sabic Think Big With $20bn Oil-To-Chemicals Plans

...an Exxon’s 1mn t/y crude-to-olefins unit at its 592,000 b/d Singapore refinery. Started in 2014, this uses a proprietary design which “can crack anything from light gases to heavy liquids, including crude oil,” the firm says. Aramco and Sabic are eyeing the Red Sea Port of Yanbu as a site, al...

Libya’s Waha Ramps Up Output To 260,000 b/d But Challenges Lie Ahead

...6,000 b/d of crude. At the time this was the highest level since late 2014, when it was sustained only briefly. Marathon (16.33%) is one of three US firms in the WOC venture alongside ConocoPhillips (16.33%) and Hess (8.16%). State-owned National Oil Corporation (NOC) has the largest share in the company (59...

North Africa Focus For German $15bn Upstream Tie-Up

...mes from the 110mn cfd Disouq field in the Nile Delta (DEA 100%). Output here was supposed to reach 200mn cfd but lack of investment has meant the German firm has been unable to arrest the field’s decline from 2014’s peak of 140mn cfd. The next regional addition for either company will likely come fr...

Iraq’s Unattractive Contracts Claim Fresh Victim As Shell Eyes The Exit

...newing its stake in Abu Dhabi’s onshore Adco concession following its 2014 expiry, this would leave it with just Oman, where it has a 34% ‘leading’ stake in dominant 600,000 b/d producer PDO, a source of currently producing Mena oil. On the gas front, Shell’s Mena gas exposure is also evolving. In Ja...

Leviathan Partners Line Up Funding But Still Short On Sales

...o most likely options – before sanctioning the project. This is clearly not now going to happen. The partners signed a letter of intent with BG (subsequently taken over by Shell) in June 2014 for the supply of 105bcm of gas over 15 years, an implied 685mn cfd, to the firm’s Egypt LNG liquefaction pl...

Traders Clean Up In Egypt LNG Import Tender

...lk of those with 25 (see table). Netherlands based Trafigura will supply 18 cargoes while BB Energy, Gunvor and Vitol will supply the rest. Egypt’s first LNG supply deal was signed with Algeria’s state gas firm Sonatrach in December 2014 (MEES, 27 February 2015) for the supply of six cargoes wh...

Oil-Poor Arab States Get Multilateral Finance Boost For Renewables

...ectricity from renewables. EBRD and IFC began investing in energy projects in Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Tunisia as part of the IMF’s ‘Arab Countries in Transition Program’ which followed the 2011 ‘Arab Spring.’ This targeted these four countries plus Yemen and Libya (MEES, 24 October 2014). At the re...

Opec Agrees To Cut, But Questions Remain Over Implementation

...at Opec revenues are set to fall below $430bn this year, less than half of 2014 levels (see table). Oil prices reacted positively to the agreement and have risen around $7/B since the day before the meeting. As MEES went to press, Brent was just over $54/B, its highest level this year. Of course, fa...

The World’s Top Oil* Producer (Mn B/D): Saudi Output Recently Edged Past The US For The First Time Since Early 2014. But The US Is Set To Regain Top Spot Next Year And Keep It Until Shale Output Declines In The 2030s

Kuwaiti Opposition Gains Further Threaten Government Energy Policy

...afji field in the Saudi-Kuwait Partitioned Neutral Zone (PNZ) is being readied for restart. It has been offline since October 2014 as part of a dispute between the two over management of the PNZ, and the 200,000 b/d Wafra field since March 2015. With output split 50:50, this has denied Kuwait around 25...

The Political Implications Of Iraq’s Mosul Offensive

...sentment toward the KDP for abandoning them during the Islamic State’s 2014 offensive remains strong, and that when it comes to ethnic identity, views are diverse, heightening the complexity of this tinderbox of a region. Some Yazidis emphasize their Kurdish identity, others think of themselves as Ya...

Condensate’s Growing Impact On Petrochemical And Transport Fuel Markets

...oduction will remain range-bound at 105,000-115,000 b/d, until 2014-16. It is unclear whether Malaysia’s policy of limiting exports will remain unchanged when faced with another surge in new condensate output likely post-2016. Singapore’s use of condensate has steadily risen since the mid-1990s, on in...