1. Cyprus Hopes For Mega Exxon Elektra Find To Jolt Its Gas Sector To Life

    ...permajor’s exploration position in a region where it has no current output. Exxon was awarded blocks 10 and 5 offshore Cyprus in March 2017 and November 2021 respectively, making the Glaucus find in the former on 2019 (MEES, 1 March 2019). It has since added three large Egyptian Mediterranean blocks, with Qa...

    Volume: 67
    Issue: 50
    Published at Fri, 13 Dec 2024
  2. Oman Gas Sector Set For Leap Forward In 2024

    ...Oman’s gas renaissance continues apace, with both Shell and TotalEnergies set to advance key projects in 2024. The key near-term limiting factor is not upstream potential but outlets for new production, Shell’s country chief tells MEES. Until 2017 the outlook for Oman’s gas sector was wo...

    Volume: 66
    Issue: 51/52
    Published at Fri, 22 Dec 2023
  3. Iran Plans Major Gas Storage Expansion To Face Winter Shortages

    ...a pipeline to consumers. In addition to meeting local demand in the high season, the gas storage facilities were envisioned to reduce reliance on imports from Turkmenistan, which peaked at around 9.3bcm in 2017. GAS GIANT WITH PUNY STORAGE    Iran boasts the world’s second largest proven gas re...

    Volume: 66
    Issue: 49
    Published at Fri, 08 Dec 2023
  4. Egypt Looks To Kickstart WestMed Exploration With Seismic Surge

    ...fine their exploration strategies,” PGS says. Cairo previously commissioned PGS to shoot 2D seismic right across the Herodotus Basin in 2017-18 (MEES, 25 January 2019), before choosing to only offer up blocks comprising the nearer-shore portion of the Basin in subsequent drilling. BP DE...

    Volume: 66
    Issue: 48
    Published at Fri, 01 Dec 2023
  5. Iran’s Winter Gas Preparations Hit The Skids Amid Icy Snap

    ...ocessing plant which receives feedstock from Phases 22-24. As a result, NIGC had to shuffle around existing “Ukrainian-made turbines” for its winter preparations. Mapna was contracted to provide 16 such units – each 25MW in capacity – since at least 2017 but its line of MGT-30 turbines has suffered pr...

    Volume: 65
    Issue: 51/52
    Published at Fri, 23 Dec 2022
  6. Malaysia’s Petronas Seeks To Kickstart UAE Unconventional Oil Development

    ...ES, 12 March 2021). UNCONVENTIONAL OIL’S SLOW START           Unconventional hydrocarbon development is accelerating in the Middle East, but to-date the focus has been overwhelmingly on gas rather than oil. The catalyst was the Khazzan development in Oman’s Block 61 which started up in 2017. Bl...

    Volume: 65
    Issue: 49
    Published at Fri, 09 Dec 2022
  7. KRG Repayment Obligations Offset Oil Revenue Gains

    ...ghest since the Deloitte audits began in 2017, and was more than the KRG’s net receipts. With IOCs in Kurdistan having already reported increased Q3 revenues, payments will have risen to more than $1bn last quarter.  PIPELINE PAYMENTS MOUNT              Following a 2017 transaction, the KRG’s 95...

    Volume: 64
    Issue: 50
    Published at Fri, 17 Dec 2021
  8. Jordan Plans Nine-Well Drilling Campaign

    ...50mn cfd. He says that around 20mn cfd of current output goes to the 150MW Risha power plant (MEES, 24 March 2017) and approximately 10mn cfd to local industrial users – figures that imply a doubling of production from the 2020 average. Another area with potential is the Sirhan Development bl...

    Volume: 64
    Issue: 49
    Published at Fri, 10 Dec 2021
  9. Aramco’s Moonshot: Jafurah Development To Power Major Gas Drive

    ...oduction began in 2017 and Aramco puts current North Arabia gas processing capacity at 400mn cfd (MEES, 30 March 2020). Now, clear progress is being made on the two larger developments in Eastern Province – South Ghawar and the Jafurah Basin. At South Ghawar, Aramco reaffirmed this week that first ph...

    Volume: 64
    Issue: 48
    Published at Fri, 03 Dec 2021
  10. Iran Unveils 10 Year Upstream Investment Plan

    ...Azerbaijan. Until 2019 Iran used to regularly import gas from Turkmenistan to supply northern areas. Volumes peaked in 2017 at around 9.3bcm, before steadily dropping as South Pars output ramped up and Iran struggled to make payments (MEES, 13 January 2017). Mr Owji now says that “debt settlement wi...

    Volume: 64
    Issue: 48
    Published at Fri, 03 Dec 2021
  11. Libya’s Monthly Output Tops 1mn B/D

    ...tural decline is certainly one factor, the main reason for the slump was due to Istiklal’s second production unit being shut down since 2017. Having now restarted on 28 November, this should provide a healthy boost – eventually, at least. Sirte Oil says the restart of the second unit will allow its en...

    Volume: 63
    Issue: 50
    Published at Fri, 11 Dec 2020
  12. Kuwait Scraps 2020 Target But Minister Reappointment Offers Rare Continuity

    ...thin the next five years,” so 3.10mn b/d is at least a more concrete target (MEES, 30 August). Underlining the scale of the reduced ambition, this new 2020 target is less than KOC’s capacity in 2017-18 (to end-March), of 3.15mn b/d. Former KOC CEO Jamal Jaafar put capacity even higher at 3....

    Volume: 62
    Issue: 51-52
    Published at Fri, 20 Dec 2019
  13. Egypt Oil Output Continues Slump

    ...While Egypt is being forced to limit its gas output (see above), it is a completely different story for oil , with production falling to 615,000 b/d for October, the sixth consecutive monthly decline to the lowest level since March 2017. Egypt’s official target of reaching 690,000 b/d by June ne...

    Volume: 62
    Issue: 51-52
    Published at Fri, 20 Dec 2019
  14. Libya’s NOC Clears House With Key End-Year Deals

    ...tput falls meant its pre-2010 contract remained valid. NOC didn’t. In 2016 it went as far as stopping Wintershall crude exports from Zueitina port (MEES, 3 November). In 2017 NOC chief Mustafa Sanalla said Wintershall was “free to leave” Libya if it didn’t want to sign new terms. And much more re...

    Volume: 62
    Issue: 50
    Published at Fri, 13 Dec 2019
  15. Russia’s Tatneft Back In Libya For Seismic

    ...ab Geophysical Exploration Services Company (AGESCO) to complete 200 km² of seismic in Area 82’s Block 4 which was suspended in 2014. Tatneft was awarded eight exploration blocks (Areas 69, 82 & 98) in Libya in 2005 and 2007 (MEES, 28 July 2017, see map, p2). It struck oil several times, but was fo...

    Volume: 62
    Issue: 50
    Published at Fri, 13 Dec 2019
  16. Leviathan: The Giant Stirs

    ...ypt. For years Noble struggled to get development off the ground. Only in February 2017, more than six years after discovery, did the operator finally go ahead with long-stalled development. The Texas-based firm not surprisingly presented this as a victory. But, in reality, go-ahead only came as a re...

    Volume: 62
    Issue: 50
    Published at Fri, 13 Dec 2019
  17. Oman Gets Opec+ Condensate Boost

    ...opping 157,000 b/d is condensate – 16.2% (see chart). Oman was only producing 80,000 b/d of the higher-value condensate in late 2017 before the startup of BP’s 1bn cfd Khazzan gas project added some 30,000 b/d (MEES, 27 September 2017). The startup of PDO’s $3.7bn Rabab Harweel Integrated Project (RH...

    Volume: 62
    Issue: 49
    Published at Fri, 06 Dec 2019
  18. Oman Oil Eyes 2020 IPO

    ...cidental’s 120,000 b/d Muzkhaizna heavy oil field (20% OOC), and several other projects. “Going forward, you will see more of this trend in Oman – where we take a minority share in upstream projects and partner with foreign operators,” OOC chief Isam Saud al-Zadjali said in 2017, highlighting OOC’s role fu...

    Volume: 62
    Issue: 49
    Published at Fri, 06 Dec 2019
  19. Qatar Petroleum Eyes Big Results Overseas In 2019

    ...s overseas activity since late 2017, securing a swathe of assets. The latest move was announced on 16 December, with a 35% farm-in to Eni’s 2.1bn barrel “Area 1” offshore Mexico which contains three fields. The move was especially notable as the partners (Eni 65%, QP 35%) say that initial output fr...

    Volume: 61
    Issue: 51-52
    Published at Fri, 21 Dec 2018
  20. Kuwait Oil: Change At the Top As 2020 Target Dropped

    ...nth. Mr Rashidi was only appointed in December 2017, but if he lasts into January then his tenure will have already exceeded that of his immediate two predecessors in the post (MEES, 15 December 2017). This revolving door at the oil ministry exemplifies the political disruption hampering Kuwait’s oil se...

    Volume: 61
    Issue: 50
    Published at Fri, 14 Dec 2018