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KRG: Foreign Firms Press On Amidst Uncertainty
...rlier (the vast bulk is from the KRG which accounted for 96% of 2017 output, MEES, 23 February). “We have the wind on our back…With higher oil prices [and] timely export payments in Kurdistan,” DNO Executive Chairman Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani says. DNO plans to hike KRG spending by 50% to $250mn for 20...
Volume: 61Issue: 17Published at Fri, 04 May 2018 -
Lebanon's Gas Hype: Is It All Hot Air?
...e Lebanese Petroleum Administration (LPA) toward tendering a second bidding round. Lebanon’s first ever round ultimately offered only five of the total ten blocks delineated in 2013 (MEES, 20 October 2017). There was just one bidder, albeit a consortium consisting of three heavyweights (Total 40...
Volume: 61Issue: 17Published at Fri, 27 Apr 2018 -
Suez Canal Shipments, Revenue Up But Trade War Threatens
...container traffic the last four quarters are the four highest on record: 2017’s 471mn tons of container traffic was up 28% on 2010. • Though Egypt’s economic fortunes are generally on the up (see p12), US President Trump’s seeming desire to kick off a trade war means that it would be foolish to...
Volume: 61Issue: 16Published at Fri, 20 Apr 2018 -
Yemen: IOCs Eye Re-Entry Amidst Battlefield Stalemate
...Upstream return looks optimistic given lack of access to export outlets. With the third anniversary of the Saudi campaign against Iran-affiliated Houthi militants in Yemen the conflict looks ever more like a gory stalemate (MEES, 27 October 2017). With violence now largely confined to the Ho...
Volume: 61Issue: 14Published at Fri, 06 Apr 2018 -
Iran Looks To Europe As Trump Fears Threaten Embattled Economy
...eks, have exacerbated concerns over Iran’s economic outlook. The economy was already struggling, with latest figures from the CBI for the first 10 months of the 2017-18 Iranian year (ie March 2017-January 2018) implying that Iran was on course to run a $12.2bn deficit. This is up a huge 27% on the pr...
Volume: 61Issue: 13Published at Fri, 30 Mar 2018 -
US Imposes Oil Restrictions On South Sudan
...geria’s Oranto Petroleum. Oranto signed a concession agreement for Block B3 in March 2017 in which it pledged to invest $500mn in exploration work (MEES, 5 May 2017). Also placed under licensing restrictions is Russia’s downstream oil contractor Safinat, contracted prior to the onset of war to build a 7,...
Volume: 61Issue: 13Published at Fri, 30 Mar 2018 -
Qatar & Sudan Deepen Ties
...lationship following Qatar’s mediation role in the Darfur conflict, which resulted in the 2011 Doha Document for Peace in Darfur. And Qatar is in need of friends having faced a regional embargo since June 2017. The main players in the Qatar dispute are Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt. Khartoum ha...
Volume: 61Issue: 13Published at Fri, 30 Mar 2018 -
IOCs Advance In KRG, Cautiously
...tentially paves the way for expedited stand-alone development of the field’s 37mn barrels (2C) oil reserves. Oil reserves are modest, but additional production would be warmly welcomed by the KRG in the wake of last October’s loss of 280,000 b/d Kirkuk output (MEES, 20 October 2017). Especially given th...
Volume: 61Issue: 12Published at Fri, 23 Mar 2018 -
Dana Egypt: No Cash, No Work
...$228mn from $265mn a year earlier. But all of this fall, and then some, was achieved in the first half of 2017 – the figure stood at $189mn as of June 2017, a seven-year low. For the second half of the year “payments from Egypt were sporadic and disappointing,” Dana CEO Patrick Allman-Ward sa...
Volume: 61Issue: 12Published at Fri, 23 Mar 2018 -
Sudan’s Upstream Oil & Energy Sector: Investors Sought But IOCs Remain Cautious
...ump lifted key sanctions in October (MEES, 13 October 2017). Speaking at Abu Dhabi’s Adipec conference in November, he said the ministry is keen to collaborate with international firms to develop the country’s energy resources. “Sudan has energy requirements,” said Mr Osman. “We are looking at able pa...
Volume: 61Issue: 11Published at Fri, 16 Mar 2018 -
Syria’s Eastern Oil Fields: The Post-War End-Game
...In the second half of 2017, the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) stormed down the east bank of the Euphrates taking village after village from the Islamic State (IS) while the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and its allies liberated besieged Deir Ez-Zor and the river’s western bank. IS now ho...
Volume: 61Issue: 10Published at Fri, 09 Mar 2018 -
Iraq’s Politicized 2018 Budget Aims To Slash Deficit
...om the revised 2017 budget. While current spending is set to decline only marginally in real terms (see table), parliament opted for a substantial 15.3% cut from $24.1bn in 2017 to $20.8bn in capital expenditures real terms a surprising decrease given the emphasis Baghdad is rightly placing on th...
Volume: 61Issue: 10Published at Fri, 09 Mar 2018 -
Middle East Adjusts To Trump’s Foreign Aid Game
...nual hike to the already sizable assistance the US provides to Amman. Jordan is the most aid-dependent country in the Middle East, with foreign grants comprising about 10% of budgeted revenues this year (MEES, 1 December 2017), and the US is Jordan’s single biggest donor. Israel, the region’s se...
Volume: 61Issue: 09Published at Fri, 02 Mar 2018 -
Libya Warns Of Potential Major Output Fall Amid Strained Economy
...sponsibility for the firm’s funding problems lies, claims Mr Sanalla. “The entire sector is suffering from these problems because of delays in the finance ministry disbursing budgets to the corporation for this year,” he said. NOC received only 50% of its capital budget in 2017, said Mr Sanalla in late Ja...
Volume: 61Issue: 08Published at Fri, 23 Feb 2018 -
Mauritania: Tortue Deal
...come from just two wells and one 2.3mn t/y FPSO. Ongoing cashflow will then pay for subsequent development – a second 2.3mn t/y FPSO is slated to be added in 2023 (MEES, 10 November 2017), with the potential for additional identikit expansion. The good news on Tortue development comes after an an...
Volume: 61Issue: 07Published at Fri, 16 Feb 2018 -
Saudi War Aims Stumble (Again) In Fragmented Yemen
...With Salih dead and UAE-backed forces attacking Aden, Yemen is ungovernable. The harder Saudi Arabia pushes for military victory, the more it jeopardizes a settlement. On 2 December 2017, long-time strongman and former president Ali Abd Allah Salih abandoned his Houthi allies and called fo...
Volume: 61Issue: 06Published at Fri, 09 Feb 2018 -
Corruption Destroying Libya’s Future, Says Oil Chief
...rvival of the country, said the oil chief, arguing that the fair distribution of oil revenue is Libya’s best guarantee of security. OIL MONEY SQUANDERED Libya’s crude output rebounded to an average of 824,000 b/d in 2017 from 380,000 b/d the previous year (MEES, 5 January). The value of each ba...
Volume: 61Issue: 05Published at Fri, 02 Feb 2018 -
KRG’s Creaking Political Edifices Struggling To Cope With Referendum Fallout
...Iraqi Kurdistan’s political scene has been dominated by two parties for more than 40 years, but the fallout from September’s pyrrhic victory threatens each entity. September 2017’s referendum on Kurdistan’s independence provoked a fierce response from Baghdad which has decimated the re...
Volume: 61Issue: 04Published at Fri, 26 Jan 2018 -
‘The New Tunisia’: A Work In Progress
...the country going to the wall. By 2016 crude output had slid to just 46,000 b/d, a mere 50% of demand. Things could only get better, right? Wrong. 2017 saw a further slump in output to just 38,000 b/d, the lowest figure since 1966, Tunisia’s virgin year of production (MEES, 8 December 2017...
Volume: 61Issue: 03Published at Fri, 19 Jan 2018 -
Tunisia’s Loss, Algeria’s Gain
...A key boost to Algeria’s 2017 finances came from sales of gas and oil products to Tunisia, where crude output fell 16%. Tunisia largely imports oil from seaborne markets, with net imports hitting a record 81,000 b/d in August. But for gas the only choice is to buy from Algeria, via of...
Volume: 61Issue: 03Published at Fri, 19 Jan 2018