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...

Algeria: Sonatrach Re-Engages With IOCs In Race Against Upstream Decline

...llapse, production problems and multi-year project delays. But new Sonatrach CEO Amine Mazouzi and his team have injected something of a sense of urgency with a more pragmatic approach. Algeria’s most recent bidround in late 2014 flopped with only four of 31 blocks awarded amid unattractive fiscal and in...

What Does 2016 Hold For The Eastern Mediterranean?

...ich all parties hope will see the Leviathan field receive the go-ahead (MEES, 18 December).  Israel’s gas sector was mired in stasis after the country’s antitrust chief in December 2014 labeled Noble and Delek a monopoly, essentially freezing both firms’ plans to develop Leviathan and further develop th...

Petchems To Dominate MENA 2016 Downstream After 2013-14 CDU Boost

...0,000 b/d Satorp and Yasref joint venture refineries started up in 2013 and 2014, respectively, with both now at full capacity. Abu Dhabi’s Takreer has also reached full capacity at its 417,000 b/d Ruwais Expansion refinery. Much of their output is destined for export – and greater income than for heavily su...

OPEC Taps To Stay Open In 2016

...tput in 2016, but there is considerably greater uncertainty over whether it can achieve this. The biggest loser over the past 12 months, the north African country has lost 340,000 b/d of output since November 2014, plummeting to 370,000 b/d as a result of conflict between two rival governments, co...

Iraq’s Domestic, Regional Challenges Increase for 2016

...aq’s Sunni Arab region. Turkey’s most important proxy was the Nineveh-based faction led by Usama al-Nujaifi (parliamentary speaker 2010-2014 and vice-president 2014- August 2015) and his brother Uthil al-Nujaifi (Ninawa governor 2009-May 2015). Despite the former governor’s removal by parliament – in...

The MENA Region’s Vulnerability: A Geo-Economic Outlook

...jority of countries worldwide continue to struggle with the consequences of 2008. Concurrently, the interaction of global oil supply and demand produced a continuous rise in the price of oil from less than $40/B in 2009 to a peak of $112/B in June 2014, before falling by the end of 2014 to $60/B. Co...

Libya: No More Than A Glimmer Of Hope

...rward in the post-Qadhafi era. In all other respects, though, the situation in the country has either deteriorated, or at best failed to improve. In December 2014, force majeure was declared at two of the country’s main oil export terminals – Es Sider and Ras Lanuf. Both remain shut-in. In the first qu...

NOCs To Drive Gulf 2016 Output Gains Despite Further Belt Tightening

...aching its target of 980,000 b/d average liquids production in 2015: January-November output averaged 978,000 b/d. Output averaged 943,000 b/d for 2014. With state-led Petroleum Development Oman (PDO) announcing plans in April to reach a sustainable production plateau of 600,000 b/d by 2019, up from 2014...

Crunch Time For GCC Fiscal Reforms

...e fiscal balance swung into deficit of 2.3% of GDP in 2014 and is expected to worsen to an estimated 22.9% of GDP in 2015, piling extra pressure on the monetary authorities to curb future increases. KUWAIT The pressure on Kuwait’s fiscal and external positions remains contained and ma...

Qatar 2016 Budget: $13bn Deficit, The First In 15 Years

...dget law on 16 December. It projects total revenue at QR156bn in 2016, compared to QR226bn in the previous budget, which was based on $65/B (the previous budget, which originally ran from 1 April 2014 to March 2015, was extended pro-rata to end-2015 as Qatar switched to using calendar years in bu...

Can The KRG Keep Up Its Monthly Oil Payments?

...leased by the MNR on 1 December highlights the financial challenges facing the KRG. Oil export revenues averaged just $574mn/month for July-September, far below the $1bn monthly payments the KRG had been expecting to receive from the Iraqi federal government under a lapsed December 2014 agreement. Th...

Aramco Management Revamp

...ggaf is now Senior Vice President, Operations & Business Services. He had been acting service line head of operations and business services since 2014....

Leviathan: Stranded Between Low Prices And Anti-Netanyahu Backlash?

...te 2017,” Mr Davidson said (MEES, 2 May 2014). Mr Fisher now says the “timeframe from sanction to production” will be “anywhere from three to four years” – that is to say early next decade at best. Currently Tamar is Israel’s only producer with first phase capacity of 1.2bn cfd – production hit a re...