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Algeria: Sonatrach Boss Falls Victim To Politics
...months over an alleged role in a corruption scandal involving the now-dissolved Brown & Root-Condor JV (KBR and Sonatrach) which he headed (MEES, 20 August 2007). He was brought back from the dead in 2017 and took over from Amine Mazouzi as CEO of Sonatrach (MEES, 21 April 2017), with Al...
Volume: 62Issue: 17Published at Fri, 26 Apr 2019 -
Abu Dhabi’s Taqa: Upstream Down Despite Price Recovery, Power Steady
...t losses from 2013 onwards forced the company to rethink its finances. In 2018 Taqa reported a net profit of AD398mn ($108mn), an increase of 145% from the $44mn reported in 2017. This return to profit came after a four-year period of net losses which cumulated in a 2015 deficit of AD19bn ($5....
Volume: 62Issue: 17Published at Fri, 26 Apr 2019 -
Aramco Buys Shell’s Sasref Stake In Push To Increase Downstream Control
...tiva JV, following which the Saudi firm assumed complete control of the 600,000 b/d Port Arthur refinery (MEES, 10 March 2017). The bond will help fund Aramco’s $69.1bn purchase of the 70% of state-led conglomerate Sabic currently held by sovereign wealth fund PIF (MEES, 5 April). Although Ar...
Volume: 62Issue: 17Published at Fri, 26 Apr 2019 -
Sudan Secures Gulf Aid
...though the US lifted some trade and economic sanctions on Sudan in October 2017, it remained on Washington’s list of sponsors of terrorism (MEES, 13 October 2017). Mr Burhan says a Sudanese delegation could travel to the US this month to discuss the removal of Sudan from this list, although while the mi...
Volume: 62Issue: 17Published at Fri, 26 Apr 2019 -
Syria To Lease Tartous Port To Russia
...Damascus is set to lease Tartous seaport on the Mediterranean to Russia for 49 years, Russia’s deputy prime minister said following a meeting with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Russia’s TASS reported this week. The 49-year lease for “economic uses” follows a 2017 deal that saw Moscow ba...
Volume: 62Issue: 17Published at Fri, 26 Apr 2019 -
KRG: Shewashan Production Suspended
...oducing a mere 1,000 b/d last year before production was halted altogether. The main culprit was water-cut issues which also saw output phenomenally collapse at nearby Taq Taq (MEES, 31 March 2017). Despite the disappointing news, the KRG’s recovering oil sector has cause for considerably optimism: MEES fo...
Volume: 62Issue: 17Published at Fri, 26 Apr 2019 -
QP Enters Argentina
...forts to transform the company through international expansion. QP CEO Saad al-Kaabi said in 2017 that “we are seriously looking at entering Mexico, and we are looking at some of the South American countries” as well as keeping an eye on African opportunities. The firm is also eying US upstream as...
Volume: 62Issue: 16Published at Fri, 19 Apr 2019 -
Israel: Energean Bags More Reserves, But More Needed
...x additional wells. ISRAEL’S OFFSHORE GAS FIELDS & PROSPECTS MORE PROSPECTS? Energean was the key winner of Israel’s 2017 bid round, with five blocks (12, 21, 22, 23, 31: (MEES, 24 November 2017). The firm highlights a number of new prospects with the eventual goal of ra...
Volume: 62Issue: 16Published at Fri, 19 Apr 2019 -
Chevron Goes All-In On The Permian
...l sector, but it may well lower the purchase price for any asset sale. And France’s Total, which bagged 12.25% stakes in Anadarko’s two Algeria blocks (208 and 404a) via its 2017 takeover of Maersk, would be the most likely suitor. In sharp contrast to Chevron, Total bigged up the attractiveness of...
Volume: 62Issue: 16Published at Fri, 19 Apr 2019 -
RAK Bags Eni For Offshore Exploration
...January). Long a peripheral part of Eni’s portfolio with oil output of just 40,000 b/d in 2017 all from Iraq, the firm’s entry into two Abu Dhabi offshore concessions last year (MEES, 16 March 2018) bumped this up to a record 67,000 b/d for 2018. With new exploration assets in Abu Dhabi, Oman, Ba...
Volume: 62Issue: 16Published at Fri, 19 Apr 2019 -
Saudi Nuclear Plans Fuel Geopolitical Concerns
...SSIA Certainly Russia’s Rosatom has had the most success in nuclear power awards in the Mena region. It has built the region’s first and only operational plant, at Bushehr on Iran’s Gulf coast, and is building two more (MEES, 31 March 2017). Rosatom is also slated to build Egypt’s nuclear project on th...
Volume: 62Issue: 16Published at Fri, 19 Apr 2019 -
Saudi Goes West With Gas-To-Power Expansion
...15’s 62.26 GW. But while peak load fell sharply to 60.83GW in 2016, it rose back to 62.12GW in 2017, highlighting the government’s struggles to curb power demand amid a rapidly growing population. Increased gas volumes, in particular of non-associated gas, have done the heavy lifting in re...
Volume: 62Issue: 16Published at Fri, 19 Apr 2019 -
Saudi Maxes Out Refineries Despite Crude Output Cuts
...Saudi crude exports as a percentage of overall production fell to the lowest level since late-2017 in February. Crude exports fell below 7mn b/d for the first time since May 2018, and as a proportion of production fell below 69% for the first time since October 2017 according to the latest Jo...
Volume: 62Issue: 16Published at Fri, 19 Apr 2019 -
Aramco Asian Downstream Splurge Ties Up Captive Crude Markets
...nual report shows output including intermediate products of 30.8mn tons in financial year 2017-18. Its 4Q 2018 results show quarterly petchems output of 9.7mn tons, equivalent to 38.8mn tons on an annualized basis, after the cracker and downstream units reached full output in 2018. Saudi Arabia is al...
Volume: 62Issue: 16Published at Fri, 19 Apr 2019 -
Suez Canal Boosted By Saudi, US Oil Trade Transformations
...ade – has continued to edge higher in recent years, hitting a record 491mn tons in 2018, up 4% on 2017’s previous record. *As for LNG, 5.16mn tons went northbound through the canal in Q1 this year, the highest since 3Q 2015. Weaker than usual Asian buying has seen Asian spot prices fall below those in...
Volume: 62Issue: 16Published at Fri, 19 Apr 2019 -
Israel Contracts Ge For Power Plant Upgrade
...ectricity in 2018 compared with 54% in 2017. US independent Noble Energy is expected to bring the Leviathan field online in the fourth quarter this year, while Greece’s Energean is due to start up output from the Karish field in Q1 2021 (see p3): both are keen to ink more sales deals....
Volume: 62Issue: 16Published at Fri, 19 Apr 2019 -
Tunisia Clinches Imf Loan Deal
...shington DC where the government and IMF staff agreed on steps to ensure that the “budget deficit target of 3.9% of GDP (before grants) for 2019 can be met to contain the high debt and elevated financing needs.” In 2018 the fiscal-deficit-to-GDP came in at an estimated 4.6%, down from 5.9% in 2017. Facing su...
Volume: 62Issue: 16Published at Fri, 19 Apr 2019 -
More Debt For Jordan’s Nepco
...e country’s practice of heavily subsidizing electricity, most of which is generated through gas imports. MEES estimates Jordan’s total spending on energy in 2018 exceeded $5bn, up from $3.42bn in 2017 (MEES, 30 November 2018). In December Nepco signed a $265mn concessionary loan with the EBRD to re...
Volume: 62Issue: 16Published at Fri, 19 Apr 2019 -
Genel Modest Taq Taq Rewards
...Anglo-Turkish firm Genel announced this week that output from its Taq Taq field in Iraqi Kurdistan had risen to 15,500 b/d. The firm has completed the TT-20z well on the license’s north-western flank which is producing at 2,000 b/d, boosting the field’s output to its highest level since June 2017...
Volume: 62Issue: 15Published at Fri, 12 Apr 2019 -
Exxon Eyes Israel’s Leviathan
...velopment Eni-operated 3.4mn t/y Coral FLNG project where it took 25% in December 2017. Although it is not operator the firm assumed responsibility for all midstream operations in the project. Exxon has been rapidly expanding its interests in the East Mediterranean. It announced the Glaucus discovery of...
Volume: 62Issue: 15Published at Fri, 12 Apr 2019