1. Qatar Awards $6bn Contracts In Bid To Restore Al Shaheen Oil Capacity

    ...e  blockade instituted against it in 2017 (MEES, 7 December 2018). Since then, Qatar has pursued an independent crude output policy. Back in 2020 when Opec+ producers made deep cuts Qatar continued supplying the market with its medium-sour crude, capitalizing on the price boost of Opec+ cuts wi...

    Volume: 67
    Issue: 04
    Published at Fri, 02 Feb 2024
  2. QatarEnergy Signs Long-Term LNG Deal With Price-Sensitive Bangladesh

    ...ne 2017). Then in 2021, Qatar signed a deal with trading firm Vitol to supply 1.25mn t/y of LNG to Bangladesh until 2028. This was followed in June 2023 with another QatarEnergy-Petrobangla deal, this time for 1.8mn t/y for 15 years from 2026 (MEES, 2 June 2023). With the new deal’s full 1mn t/y ki...

    Volume: 67
    Issue: 05
    Published at Fri, 02 Feb 2024
  3. Egypt’s Upstream Independents Feel The Pinch Of Local Dollar Shortages

    ...aros saw its receivables position rise 54% to end 2023 at $37.3mn. Pharos’ Egypt output comes from 45% stakes in the El Fayum and North Beni Suef (NBS) concessions south of Cairo operated by privately-held Texas-based IPR. Here output fell 21% to 3,070 b/d for 2023, less than half of 2017’s 7,...

    Volume: 67
    Issue: 05
    Published at Fri, 02 Feb 2024
  4. Deadly Militia Attack On US Outpost In Jordan Underlines Iraqi Government’s Weakness

    ...litias could destabilize a fragile reconciliation between Iraq and its Arab neighbors, and possibly threaten the economic and trade gains that Baghdad hopes will bring much-needed investment from GCC countries (MEES, 8 December 2017).            SOPHISTICATED AND STRATEGIC ATTACK       The line be...

    Volume: 67
    Issue: 05
    Published at Fri, 02 Feb 2024
  5. Saudi Arabia’s Luberef Secures Samref VGO

    ...ceives up to 50,000 b/d of RCO through pipeline connections to Yanbu’s refineries, while the Jeddah plant has had to receive its 24,500 b/d via tanker since the Jeddah refinery shut in 2017 (MEES, 24 November 2017). Yanbu RCO supplies were increased by 5,000 b/d in June 2023 under a new 12-month su...

    Volume: 67
    Issue: 05
    Published at Fri, 02 Feb 2024
  6. Oman Hits Record Gas And Condensate Output For 2023

    ...tput increases (see chart 1). The biggest gains came with the 2017 start-up and subsequent expansion of the huge Khazzan tight gas field on Block 61 (BP 40%op, OOC 30%, PTTEP 20%, Petronas 10%: MEES, 7 July 2023). Gas sector momentum shows signs of continuing into 2024, with international companies pu...

    Volume: 67
    Issue: 04
    Published at Fri, 26 Jan 2024
  7. Saudi Investment Primes DME For Regional Expansion

    ...ainst the DME Oman contract, but DME has long targeted Iraq’s Somo (MEES, 15 September 2017) and Saudi Arabia’s financial backing may tempt it to make the switch from Platts Oman. The partners have sought to emphasize that “ensuring the integrity of the DME Oman contract” is of the utmost priority an...

    Volume: 67
    Issue: 04
    Published at Fri, 26 Jan 2024
  8. South Korea 2023 Crude Imports: Saudi Dominant, UAE Biggest Gainer

    ...*South Korea, the world’s number four crude importer after China, the US and India, imported 2.73mn b/d for 2023, down 3% year on year and 300,000 b/d below the record 3.03mn b/d set in 2017.   *Saudi Arabia remained clear number one supplier with 955,000 b/d for a 35% market share de...

    Volume: 67
    Issue: 03
    Published at Fri, 19 Jan 2024
  9. Iran Faces Blowback After Rocket Attacks Hit Iraq, Pakistan & Syria

    ...nior Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Studies. “Iran is pressuring the KDP to align with its agenda for Iraq. Iran has not forgiven the KDP for spearheading the 2017 [Kurdistan independence] referendum and siding with Sadr and Halbousi against the PMUs after the 2021 elections,” he ex...

    Volume: 67
    Issue: 03
    Published at Fri, 19 Jan 2024
  10. Iran’s High Winter Gas Demand Dampens Transit Hub Ambitions

    ...llowing a five-year hiatus after Turkmengaz in 2017 halted flows over claims that NIGC owed it $1.8bn for previous deliveries (MEES, 13 January 2017). This was officially resolved last June according to NIGC after Baghdad paid some $2.76bn from Iran’s frozen energy dues in Iraq. The nature of the Tu...

    Volume: 67
    Issue: 03
    Published at Fri, 19 Jan 2024
  11. Egypt’s Nuclear Megaproject Faces Uncertainty As Russian Funding Squeezed

    ...the Mediterranean coast 170km west of Alexandria. This was followed by a 2017 agreement greenlighting several contracts for construction (MEES, 15 December 2017), which effectively began in 2022 (MEES, 8 July 2022). Under the agreements, Russian state nuclear energy firm Rosatom will build the fo...

    Volume: 67
    Issue: 03
    Published at Fri, 19 Jan 2024
  12. Kufpec Eyes Portfolio Optimization After Exiting Norway & China

    ...cord 107,000 boe/d set in 2019 (see chart). Kufpec had previously aimed to reach 200,000 boe/d by 2020, but ultimately fell well short of this goal (MEES, 8 September 2017). NORWAY CLOSURE               Kufpec’s foray into Norway began in 2013 with the purchase of Norske AEDC, the Norwegian su...

    Volume: 67
    Issue: 02
    Published at Fri, 12 Jan 2024
  13. Iraq’s Oil Revenues Down 15% From 2022’s Record

    ...e country dropping by 105,000 b/d to 911,000 b/d according to data intelligence firm Kpler (see chart 2). This is the lowest annual figure since 2017’s 845,000 b/d. Exports to India dipped to 741,000 b/d in June 2023, some 530,000 b/d below their March 2022 peak of 1.27mn b/d. Volumes however re...

    Volume: 67
    Issue: 02
    Published at Fri, 12 Jan 2024
  14. Egypt Gas Output & LNG Exports Slump To Multi-Year Lows For 2023

    ...Egypt’s gas output slumped to a six-year low 5.82bn cfd for 2023 with LNG ex-ports halving to 3.32mn tons despite record 835mn cfd imports from Israel. Egypt gas output fell for the second consecutive year, slumping 11% to 5.82bn cfd for 2023, the lowest level since 2017. While Egypt’s ma...

    Volume: 67
    Issue: 01
    Published at Fri, 05 Jan 2024
  15. Kuwait Seeks To Reboot Stalled Power Projects

    ...at instance bidders were assessed throughout late-2016 and early 2017, only for the whole process to fall apart in mid-2017 after PPP laws were amended. By mid-2019, KAPP and the Ministry had re-configured the main planned feedstock for Khairan from very low sulfur fuel oil (VLSFO) to natural ga...

    Volume: 67
    Issue: 01
    Published at Fri, 05 Jan 2024
  16. 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
  17. Angola Quits Opec Over Quota Reform Process

    ...ll. Angola signed up to a 1.673mn b/d Opec+ allocation from January 2017, but even when production restrictions eased, it was unable to bring output back to anything approaching pre-2017 levels (see chart). Luanda will be hoping that free from the prospect of Opec+ production limitations, the country wi...

    Volume: 66
    Issue: 51/52
    Published at Fri, 22 Dec 2023
  18. Kuwait’s New Emir Criticizes Political Divisions

    ...tober 2022 did KPC finally began operations at its long-awaited 120,000 b/d GC-32 project which was due online in 2020 after a $1.3bn 2017 award to the UK’s Petrofac (MEES, 31 March 2017).  …WITH DELAYED PROJECT AWARDS                                   The minister’s claims are backed up by a 30 Oc...

    Volume: 66
    Issue: 51/52
    Published at Fri, 22 Dec 2023
  19. Harbour Expands With Wintershall Takeover

    ...ich in turn was formed in a 2017 merger (MEES, 1 December 2017). That deal left Wintershall Dea with substantial Russian assets, which, in a further complicating factor will be excluded from the Harbour transaction. As will one of Wintershall Dea’s key Mena assets, the ‘Wintershall’ fields in Li...

    Volume: 66
    Issue: 51/52
    Published at Fri, 22 Dec 2023
  20. Kuwait’s Cabinet Looks Ahead To A Troublesome 2024

    ...rrorism related charges. As well as the political figures, those pardoned included Shafi al-Ajimi who was jailed in 2021 for financing Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Nusra Front in Syria, and Hassan Abdul Hadi Hajeyah who was sentenced in 2017 to life in prison for heading the infamous ‘Abdali Cell’. The group ha...

    Volume: 66
    Issue: 50
    Published at Fri, 15 Dec 2023