Sonatrach Names New VPs

...stream and downstream projects. Changes at the management level of Alnaft, the regulatory body responsible for overseeing tender procedures, are also under way, MEES understands. Only four blocks out of 31 were awarded in Algeria’s latest round in late 2014, with sources citing the usual lack of fi...

EBRD New Energy Funds

...s first proposed last year, at a time when the World Bank had announced backing for Morocco’s 350MW Noor 2 and 3 concentrated solar projects ($519mn) and 100MW Tafilalt solar PV plant ($26mn), and Jordan’s 117MW Tafila wind farm ($221mn – MEES, 24 October 2014). The Khalladi wind farm is to be bu...

Jordan Budgets For Ambitious 2016 Spending, Revenue Hike

...nefited from project aid from the $5bn GCC development fund set up in December 2011 by Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE following the eruption of the Arab Spring, with each country pledging $1.25bn for the kingdom (MEES, 10 May 2013). He notes that this fund has already disbursed JD456mn in 2014...

Benchmark Crude Prices ($/B)

...15 2014 2013 2012 WTI 41.75 45.97 45.13 46.32 45.44 46.62 58...

Egypt Tourism Receipts (% Of Current Account )*

...Egypt Tourism Receipts (% Of Current Account )* *ANNUAL NUMBERS ARE FOR FINANCIAL YEARS FROM 1 APRIL. SOURCE EGYPT FINANCE MINISTRY, MEES. >  Tourism’s share of Egypt’s current account receipts had rebounded to just shy of 12% during the 2014/15 financial year, after dropping to ju...

Iraq Oil Revenue Collapses Amid ‘Perfect Storm’

...IRAQ Baghdad is on track to pocket just $49bn in crude export revenue this year, down by 42% from 2014’s $84bn and by almost half from 2012’s record $94bn. This is despite crude export volumes having risen from 2.4mn b/d to 2.8mn b/d over the same period (see graph 1). These numbers ex...

Iraqi Provinces Push Local Oil Agenda

...e same pressures that led to the collapse of the December 2014 agreement. ‘Ammar al-Hakim, head of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI), to which Mr ‘Abd al-Mahdi also belongs, visited Erbil on 3 November, for talks with the KRG. However, this was arguably about portraying ISCI as a party th...

DNO: KRG Payments Not Enough

...so prompted protests over the summer in KRG’s second city of Sulaimaniyah, which is controlled by the rival PUK. Moreover, the December 2014 revenue sharing agreement with Baghdad under which the KRG received 17% of the budget in return for exporting 555,000 b/d through the federal export system (25...

Netanyahu Bends The Law In Bid To Advance Leviathan

...viathan gas field. Mr Netanyahu stepped in, in seeming exasperation after former Economy Minister Aryeh Deri’s proved unwilling to reverse former Antitrust Commissioner David Gilo’s December 2014 ruling that US firm Noble and its partner offshore Israel, Tel-Aviv based Delek Group, formed a monopoly wh...

Saudi Talks Up Ccs Ahead Of Paris Meet, Other Opec Members Lag

...O Carbon Tracker notes. Three other Opec members – Algeria, Ecuador and the UAE – have also submitted INDCs. The UAE committed to “limit” emissions and increase the share of “clean energy” in its primary energy mix to 24% by 2021, from just 0.2% in 2014. Saudi Arabia is likely to come up with eq...

Total Eyes Return To Iran’s Pars LNG, Hopeful On Yemen

...ss than three weeks to restart operation and load tankers.” However, with the war in Yemen showing little sign of abating, a rapid restart appears highly unlikely. Yemen LNG shipped 6.78mn tons of LNG in 2014, but no cargoes since April (see chart). YEMEN LNG* OUTPUT/EXPORTS (MN TONS/YE...

Italy’s Gas Imports From Algeria: Up On Late 2014 But Less Than Half Pre-2013 Volumes (Mn Cfd)

South Korean 3Q15 LNG Imports

...-Jun 15-May 15-Apr 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 Qatar 2.93 0....

Algeria’s Peak Power Demand Soars, New Capacity Starting Up

...ALGERIA Algeria’s 2015 peak power demand was almost 1.5GW up on 2014. Algiers has an ambitious program to expand capacity. But, amid growing fuel shortages and a cash crunch, curbing subsidies is a better bet. Algeria’s Electricity Ministry says that the country’s electricity demand re...

OPEC Production Falls Ahead Of December Meeting

...OPEC Opec crude oil production fell to 31.40mn b/d in October, down by 450,000 b/d from 31.86mn b/d in September according to MEES estimates. The fall, the largest since October 2014, was largely driven by Saudi Arabia and Iraq, with production in the latter dropping by 390,000 b/d. Al...

Militia Shuts Key Libyan Terminal, Deepening Rift Between Rival Regimes

...0,000 b/d. Output is well down on early 2015 when it reached about 550,000 b/d (MEES, 3 April), and is significantly less than in October 2014, when production was 860,000 b/d. ZUEITINA SHUT DOWN            Local forces around the Zueitina terminal forced Tripoli-based NOC to declare force majeure at...

Chevron Optimistic On Neutral Zone, But Not Till 2017

...oduction elsewhere to fully makeup for the PNZ outages (see graphs). As well as the Wafra shut-in, offshore production in the PNZ was halted in October 2014, denying the neighbouring states a combined production capacity of 500,000 b/d. Combined with the fall in oil prices since the second half of mi...

BG’s Egypt Decline Expected To Continue As Shell Takeover Nears

...6 barrels of oil equivalent (boe) per day. This came despite a fall to 43,000 boe/d in Egyptian output. Although the firm does not give a quarterly gas/oil breakdown, for 2014 its Egyptian output was 95% gas from the West Delta Deep Marine (WDDM) and Rosetta fields. This split implies Egyptian gas ou...

Libya: Little Sign Of Optimism In Operators’ Q3 Results

...October). The company reported overall Q3 losses of $2.6bn, compared to profits of $1.2bn for the equivalent period of 2014, while revenues dropped from $3.6bn to $2.1bn. The US firm has 25% of the 60,000 b/d capacity Zueitina fields, as well as sizeable Libyan exploration acreage (see map, ME...

S&P Downgrades Saudi, Riyadh Rejects Assessment

...SAUDI ARABIA Ratings agency S&P on 30 October lowered its foreign and local currency sovereign credit ratings on Saudi Arabia one notch to A+/A-1 from AA-/A-1 and kept the outlook negative. S&P says it expects Riyadh’s fiscal deficit to soar from 1.5% of GDP in 2014 to 16% in 2015, “pr...