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Sonatrach Buys Italian Refinery In Bid To Plug Products Shortfall
...feat, an acceptance that highly-ambitious plans to expand Algeria’s domestic refining capacity have gone nowhere. On the other hand it can be seen as a further indication that Abdelmoumen Ould Kaddour, one year in to his tenure as head of Sonatrach (MEES, 21 April 2017), has managed to inject a much-ne...
Volume: 61Issue: 19Published at Fri, 11 May 2018 -
Kuwaiti Oil Minister Under Fire As KPI Eyes Indian Refinery
...ly appointed minister in December, having previously been chief executive of KPI (MEES, 15 December 2017). Among accusations against Mr Rashidi are claims he caused losses of hundreds of millions of dollars through delays in starting up the Vietnamese refinery. State news agency Kuna said this we...
Volume: 61Issue: 18Published at Fri, 04 May 2018 -
Sabic and Exxon Kick Off US Petchems JV
...rm Kiewit, the other Taiwan’s CTCI and US firm McDermott. Sabic costs the project at $7.3bn, of which its 50% share will be financed through both internal and via external funding. The firm’s 2017 earnings were $4.9bn (MEES, 27 April). Initial engineering and construction work is scheduled to be...
Volume: 61Issue: 18Published at Fri, 04 May 2018 -
Sabic Seeks Big Projects As Reorganization Continues
...With petchems competition up, Sabic targets a US shale and oil-to-chemicals boost. Saudi Basic Industries (Sabic), one of the world’s largest petrochemicals producers, says total production fell by 1.8% to 71.2mn tons in 2017 from its 2016 output record of 72.5mn tons. While 2017 was it...
Volume: 61Issue: 17Published at Fri, 27 Apr 2018 -
Aramco Strides Towards Global Downstream Transformation
...els and petchems markets. “Investing in India is a key part of our company’s global downstream strategy,” says Aramco chief executive Amin Nasser. The project will enable Aramco to expand beyond its roles as a key crude supplier to India - Saudi Arabia exported 717,000 b/d of crude to India in 2017, al...
Volume: 61Issue: 15Published at Fri, 13 Apr 2018 -
Iraq Eyes 70,000 B/D Refinery Boost By End-2018
...wnstream rehabilitation has included launching multiple greenfield refinery plans, but foreign investors have largely stayed away. As such, Iraq’s greatest prospects for boosting output in the near-term come from rehabilitating and expanding brownfield facilities such as Basra. In 2017 it brought back on...
Volume: 61Issue: 14Published at Fri, 06 Apr 2018 -
Israel’s Gasoline Thirst Pushes Oil Products Consumption To 5-Year High
...• Israel fell into a gasoline deficit for the first time in at least 10 years in 2017 as consumption rose to a record 75,300 b/d whilst domestic output from the country’s two refineries fell by 11% to 73,900 b/d. • Bazan, which operates the 197,000 b/d Haifa refinery, says that it expects th...
Volume: 61Issue: 13Published at Fri, 30 Mar 2018 -
Egypt Privatization: 23 Firms On the Block; Oil Firms Feature Heavily
...rlier plan included Amoc and Sidpec among the first group of firms to be offered (MEES, 14 July 2017). UPGRADING PLANS Amoc is raising $500mn to fund the construction of a 20,000 b/d hydrocracker alongside its 35,000 b/d vacuum distillation plant (MEES, 23 March). Also at Alexandria, Midor is ex...
Volume: 61Issue: 12Published at Fri, 23 Mar 2018 -
Saudi Firms Advance Direct Oil-To-Chemicals Technology
...reement. But the IEA reckons that Saudi maintains over 2mn b/d of spare capacity: it estimates 2017 capacity at 12.16mn b/d, rising to 12.30mn b/d by 2023. In theory this would enable the kingdom to easily cover the feedstock requirements for the two new plants without denting crude exports. Crude oil is al...
Volume: 61Issue: 11Published at Fri, 16 Mar 2018 -
Kuwait’s Overseas Downstream Expansion Stutters On Vietnam Refinery Delays
...nounced readiness for start-up operations, seven months after Kuwait despatched a 2mn-barrel crude cargo for the plant’s commissioning (MEES, 4 August 2017). No reason has been given for the further schedule slippage. Refinery manager Junzo Yamamoto announced on 28 February that “the project is now re...
Volume: 61Issue: 10Published at Fri, 09 Mar 2018 -
Iran: Gulf Star Ramp-Up Hikes Gasoline Output In Face Of Rising Consumption
...oject at Bandar Abbas. PGS-1, where construction began in 2007, was slowed by a lack of funds during sanctions. Despite this, PGS was touted as a strategic project, vital to ending Iran’s reliance on gasoline imports. When PGS-1 started up in April 2017, its naphtha reformer was not operating, so na...
Volume: 61Issue: 09Published at Fri, 02 Mar 2018 -
Oman Gets Long Awaited Output Boost From Sohar Refinery
...SI). Output of diesel, gasoline, jet-kerosene and LPG amounted to 204,000 b/d, compared with 177,000 b/d in Q4 2017 and 171,000 b/d for 2017 (see chart). State refiner Orpic announced mechanical completion of the Sohar Refinery Improvement Project (SRIP) in early 2017. SRIP raises crude di...
Volume: 61Issue: 08Published at Fri, 23 Feb 2018 -
Iraq Reboots Downstream Development Drive
...e Korean contractors led by Hyundai E&C working at Karbala under the $6bn EPC contract awarded in 2014. CUTTING IMPORTS ESSENTIAL Iraq’s modest progress in rehabilitating refineries enabled it to boost refining runs to around 535,000 b/d in 2017 – the highest since 2013 when Baiji was still op...
Volume: 61Issue: 07Published at Fri, 16 Feb 2018 -
Egypt: Increased Gas Availability Boosts Petchems Producers
...d, with Eni’s giant 24tcf Zohr field the most recent addition (MEES, 15 December 2017). Canada’s Methanex, operator (50%) of the 1.26mn t/y EMethanex methanol plant at Damietta on the Mediterranean, has received full gas allocations since late-2016. A lack of gas forced it to shut down for se...
Volume: 61Issue: 06Published at Fri, 09 Feb 2018 -
Iraq Hypes Over-Ambitious Refining, Export Capacity Targets
...aibi, with the unit due online by end-2018. The minister previously used this phrase in September regarding Salahuddin-1, but work on this appears to have been shelved in favor of Salahuddin-2 (MEES, 29 September 2017). Salahuddin-1 work will now take place “once the necessary funds have been al...
Volume: 61Issue: 05Published at Fri, 02 Feb 2018 -
Egypt Refining Sector Start-Ups Will Reduce Imports, But Bill Will Keep Rising
...tput steady EGPC has only made sporadic upgrades to its refineries, which have been unable to keep up with demand. Demand hit a record 852,000 b/d in 2016. It has since dipped to 815,000 b/d in 2017 but that is in part due to Egypt’s attempts to phase out subsidies. Cairo benefitted in the wake of th...
Volume: 61Issue: 04Published at Fri, 26 Jan 2018 -
Libya Refinery ‘Resolution’ Fails To Hide Need For Multi-$bn Investment
...t infrequent shut-ins (MEES, 10 November 2017), crude has been shipped to the plant by sea from export terminals in eastern Libya. NOC chairman Mustafa Sanalla says that now the dispute is ‘resolved’ it hopes Lerco will “restart operations at Ras Lanuf Oil as soon as possible. Trasta and Lerco ar...
Volume: 61Issue: 03Published at Fri, 19 Jan 2018 -
Aramco Ramps Up Domestic Petchems Supply Slate, Boosts Saudi Manufacturing
...ansformational’ JVs, notably with Sabic for a crude oil to chemicals plant in Saudi Arabia and with ExxonMobil for an ethane cracker and polyolefins plants in Texas (MEES, 1 December 2017). ...
Volume: 61Issue: 02Published at Fri, 12 Jan 2018 -
Saudi Hikes Gasoline Prices, Hard On Heels Of Electricity Tariffs Rise
...nuary 2016). This has led diesel demand to fall considerably in the kingdom. After averaging a record 779,000 b/d in 2015 it fell 10% to 701,000 b/d in 2016. It’s on course to have fallen to 600,000 b/d or even less over 2017, averaging 120,000 b/d less than 2016 over the first 10 months. Any in...
Volume: 61Issue: 01Published at Fri, 05 Jan 2018 -
Saudi: More Delays For Key Petchems JV
...ecialty chemicals. Some units are complete: the partners tested a 15,000 t/y thermoplastic olefins (TPO) unit in May 2017 and a 75,000 t/y Nylon 6 plant in June 2017. A cumene unit, to provide feedstock for making phenol as a route to other final products, is also complete. Petro Rabigh blames de...
Volume: 61Issue: 01Published at Fri, 05 Jan 2018