1. US Shale In The Time Of Lower Prices

    ...e heir to former Saudi oil minister Ali Naimi’s 2014-16 strategy of focusing on market share at the expense of price (MEES, 19 December 2014) Having been abandoned in late 2016 (MEES, 2 December 2016) this strategy was subsequently branded a failure. But it certainly succeeded in keeping US ou...

    Volume: 63
    Issue: 11
    Published at Fri, 13 Mar 2020
  2. Oil Price Crash Puts Vulnerable Mena Economies At Even Greater Risk

    ...st – whose economies have never truly recovered from the late 2014 price-downturn – the economic and political implications of a prolonged price depression could be catastrophic. To be sure, the key Gulf monarchies of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait and Qatar are robust enough to withstand a short-te...

    Volume: 63
    Issue: 11
    Published at Fri, 13 Mar 2020
  3. Egypt Eyes Long-Awaited Oil Output Hike As Apache Plans Capex Boost

    ...en immune to the decline. The company slashed Egypt capex in the wake of the late-2014 oil price collapse: by 2016 spending of $477mn was just 35% of the 2014 figure. And the 2019 spend was lower still at $465mn, though at least lower costs mean that Apache got more wells for its buck (75 vs 60 for 20...

    Volume: 63
    Issue: 10
    Published at Fri, 06 Mar 2020
  4. Algeria’s Hassi Messaoud Gets Boost, More To Come

    ...ude output, which came in at 1.03mn b/d for 2019 and 1.01mn b/d in February (see p9). Like most projects in Algeria, the new compression and reinjection facilities have been dogged by delays. Awarded in June 2014 to Dubai-based Dodsal Engineering, the AD50bn ($635mn) project initially had a 36...

    Volume: 63
    Issue: 10
    Published at Fri, 06 Mar 2020
  5. Gas Project Set To Hike Eni’s Algeria Output

    ...mpany has a chance of topping its Algeria output record of 109,000 boe/d set in 2014. For 2018, the latest available data, Eni’s net Algeria production was 85,000 boe/d. But this still might not be enough to prevent the Italian firm from losing its No.1 foreign producer crown to Total, though this is...

    Volume: 63
    Issue: 10
    Published at Fri, 06 Mar 2020
  6. US Output:2019 Sees Slew Of Records But 2020 Forecasts Scaled Back

    ....23mn b/d for 2019, some 1mn b/d ahead of number two Russia (MEES, 3 January), with Saudi Arabia on 9.75mn b/d in distant third spot. The 1.24mn b/d (11.3%) of output gains that US producers notched up in 2019 were the third highest on record, behind 2018’s phenomenal 1.64mn b/d rise and 2014’s 1....

    Volume: 63
    Issue: 10
    Published at Fri, 06 Mar 2020
  7. Chevron Downplays PNZ Ramp-Up…

    ...vels prior to the shut in of the offshore Khafji field in 2014 and onshore Wafra in 2015. But US major Chevron, which operates the Saudi portion of the Wafra field, is much less bullish. The major, in the operations supplement to its 2019 annual report released this week, says it expects “ramp up to...

    Volume: 63
    Issue: 10
    Published at Fri, 06 Mar 2020
  8. Israeli-Arab Relations Under The Spotlight As Leviathan Start-Up Nears

    ...More than $17bn-worth of gas sales deals have been signed since 2014 to supply Israeli gas to Jordan and Egypt despite sporadic public disapproval, primarily in Jordan. Crunch time is fast approaching with the 22tcf Leviathan field due online by year’s end. Israel’s relations with Egypt ha...

    Volume: 62
    Issue: 13
    Published at Fri, 29 Mar 2019
  9. Libya’s 2019 Budget: Fact or Fiction?

    ...y new hires since 2014 – when it came into being – it also funds the Libyan National Army (LNA), which has been busy in recent months adding swathes of territory to its control (MEES, 22 March). To cover its running costs, the eastern ‘government’ has sold $23bn in bonds since 2014 (purchased by it...

    Volume: 62
    Issue: 13
    Published at Fri, 29 Mar 2019
  10. Saudi Liquids Burn Edges Up, More Rises To Come?

    ...eir lowest level since March 2014. Products imports were down across the board, with the kingdom importing no diesel for the first time since January 2011. The upshot was that net-products exports were just shy of December’s record at 1.34mn b/d. And net diesel exports were at an all time high of...

    Volume: 62
    Issue: 12
    Published at Fri, 22 Mar 2019
  11. Sabic Reorganization Continues Ahead Of Planned Aramco Takeover

    ...rformance for 2018 was the best since oil prices crashed in 2014. Sabic made a profit of $5.73bn in 2018 on revenues of $45.1bn, figures which were respectively 17.0% and 12.8% up on 2017, though prices for Saudi Arabia’s key Arab Light crude were up even more at 33.5% (MEES, 1 February). SABIC OUTPUT TO...

    Volume: 62
    Issue: 12
    Published at Fri, 22 Mar 2019
  12. Algeria’s Economic Sclerosis: Political Change Is Not Enough

    ...pendent on oil and gas for a whopping 60% of budget revenue and over 93% of 2018 export earnings, shares that have barely shifted in recent decades. As long as oil prices were over $100/B, as was the case from late 2010 until 3Q 2014, Algiers managed to paper over the cracks. But, as Warren Buffet sa...

    Volume: 62
    Issue: 12
    Published at Fri, 22 Mar 2019
  13. Shell Boosts Egypt Gas Output, Retains LNG Force Majeure

    ...llapse (see chart). Shell long stalled on new investment in Egypt due to a dispute over monies owed by state firm EGPC and the diversion of its gas output from LNG exports to the domestic market (MEES, 31 January 2014). But early last year it reversed course and sanctioned the 10-well Phase 9B de...

    Volume: 62
    Issue: 11
    Published at Fri, 15 Mar 2019
  14. Kuwait: IEA Pessimistic

    ...2024 at least. Stagnation is at least still better than the IEA’s pre-2016 projections when it routinely expected Kuwaiti capacity to trend downwards. In 2014, the organization said that due to political opposition to IOCs operating in the upstream sector, “capacity looks set to decline by 41...

    Volume: 62
    Issue: 11
    Published at Fri, 15 Mar 2019
  15. US Shale: Major Growth Planned, Indies Crimp Spending

    ...ird fewer rigs (six versus nine) in the oil-focused Midland and Delaware basins. Already for Q4 2018, Apache, with 98,600 b/d oil output, topped 2014’s previous high but with just a fifth of the 42 rigs the company was running in late-2014 (see chart). But whilst output per rig is up massively, th...

    Volume: 62
    Issue: 11
    Published at Fri, 15 Mar 2019
  16. OPEC Faces Prospect Of Declining Global Clout

    ...e market to cut prices following the November 2014 meeting (MEES, 5 December 2014), Opec changed tack in November 2016 and agreed to cut output (MEES, 2 December 2016). The move initially paid dividends for Opec, which saw demand for its crude rise from 31.9mn b/d in 2016 to 32.6mn b/d in 2017 ac...

    Volume: 62
    Issue: 11
    Published at Fri, 15 Mar 2019
  17. Saudi Arabia’s Oil-Fired Power Conundrum

    ...d jumped from 56.6GW in 2014 to 62.0GW in 2015, but has since fallen thanks to the kingdom’s efforts. As well as electricity consumption declining, increased gas supplies have helped displace liquids from power plants. The Wasit gas plant started up in 2016 and processes 2.5bn cfd raw gas into 1....

    Volume: 62
    Issue: 11
    Published at Fri, 15 Mar 2019
  18. Lebanon Power Overhaul Gathers Pace

    ...e map) was supposed to be the main driver. Work on ‘Deir Ammar-2’ restarted last year after the energy ministry and contracting firm J&P Avax renegotiated a previous $435mn EPC deal into a 20-year BOT agreement, thus settling a scandalous multi-million-dollar arbitration dispute dating back to 2014. Bu...

    Volume: 62
    Issue: 11
    Published at Fri, 15 Mar 2019
  19. Tunisia’s Nawara Gas Project: Too Little Too Late?

    ...wara is set to add will only boost Tunisia’s overall output to around 250mn cfd – lower than it was in 2014 when FID was taken on Nawara (see chart 1). But make no mistake, the added volumes will provide much needed relief to Tunisia which in 2018 was reliant on 371mn cfd of imports from Algeria to me...

    Volume: 62
    Issue: 10
    Published at Fri, 08 Mar 2019
  20. Iran’s South Pars Gas Development Edges Forward

    ...nganeh visited China for talks in late February, but doesn’t appear to have achieved any notable success. Deja vu given that Iran axed CNPC’s contract for South Azadegan in 2014 due to the firm’s slow progress during the previous round of US sanctions (MEES, 9 May 2014). When Total and CNPC signed up to...

    Volume: 62
    Issue: 10
    Published at Fri, 08 Mar 2019