Egypt Boosts Offshore Gas In Bid To Turn Around Output Slump

...ok to expedite development. Start-up by end 2017 is targeted, ramping up to 2.7bn cfd by end-2019. This is highly ambitious: the IEA considers first output “by the end of the decade” more realistic (MEES, 17 June). Nonetheless, Eni is pressing ahead. On 20 June it awarded Schlumberger subsidiary On...

Oman’s PDO Bags $4bn Loan To Facilitate Bumper $20bn Upstream Plans

...bt service will rise from 30% of revenue last year, to 41% this year and 55% in 2017.  MOODY'S GCC SOVEREIGN CREDIT RATINGS - 14 MAY DOWNGRADES     Rating (outlook) was chg notes Saudi Arabia A1 (stable) Aa3 (st...

Qalaa Looks To Trim Debts

...Cairo-based energy-focussed investment firm Qalaa Holdings – formerly Citadel Capital – plans to reduce its debt to E£4bn by the end of 2017, having already reduced its money owed from E£10bn in 2014 to E£6.5bn ($735mn) at present, according to MD Hisham al-Khazindar. Qalaa needs to slash it...

Egypt To Start Up Key Ethylene Plant, If It Can Find The Gas

...April. MEES expects Egyptian supply will bottom out at 3.6bn cfd in 2017. Egypt is looking to new field developments and LNG imports to boost Egypt’s gas availability in the medium term, but the shortfall is likely to persist until the end of the decade at least (MEES, 17 June). Egas estimates th...

Kuwait To Hike Gas-Fired Capacity After Bagging More LNG

...finery (MEES, 16 October 2015).  KUWAIT'S POWER & WATER PROJECTS Plant Fuel GW '000 m/d Al-Zour North 1 (2016) Gas 1.5 486 Al-Shegaya (2017) Solar 0.05 - Al-Zour No...

Will Venezuela Join Libya & Nigeria In OPEC's ‘Long-Term Outage’ Club?

...rk “would probably need [prices] to be about $10/B higher for some period of time.” “Our view, at this point in time, is that this probably is a 2017 event,” he adds. A major boost to US crude output is not only dependent on oil prices reaching and possibly surpassing $60/B. Activity could be co...

Mideast Sovereign Wealth Funds Learn To Adapt To Low Oil Price World

...nth with global supply and demand seemingly moving more or less into balance in the second half of this year. However some analysts caution that this balancing is more apparent than real, and that once unplanned outages fall from record levels the market will again move into surplus until well into 2017...

Saudi Post: 2017 Sell-Off

Qatar Downgrades Growth Forecast, But LNG Revenue Projection Looks Bullish

...ril (MEES, 3 June). Qatar’s gas output is set to rise: QEO projections assume the 1.4bn cfd Barzan project comes onstream in the second half of the year and reaches full capacity in 2017. “Manufacturing will also grow, as the additional gas output will provide a step increase for the year,” the re...

Algeria: New Energy Minister Faces Revenue Meltdown, Political Uncertainty

...NA economies. The IMF has the Algerian economy contracting by 3.9% in 2015, 3.4% in 2016 and 2.9% in 2017 – a cumulative contraction of almost 10%. Financial reserves remain high, at $143bn, though they fell at rapid pace from their 2013 peak of $192bn. They will likely deplete further this year. AL...

Bahrain Eyes Sitra Bids

...early October with a view to awarding the engineering, procurement and construction contract in the first half of 2017, according to Reuters. The news agency cited industry sources as estimating the cost of the project at about $5bn. The report lists consortia planning to submit bids as: Ja...

Iran: Gas Plans Progress But Exports A Distant Prospect

...rector of Pars Oil and Gas Company (POGC) Ali Akbar Shabanpour said Phases 17 & 18 will come online in the second half of 2016. They are slated to produce 1.8bn cfd (18 bcm/year).  State news agency Shana reported on 11 June that drilling at Phases 20 & 21 is complete and will be online by March 2017, br...

LNG Supply Glut To Depress Prices For Years To Come

...kely price recovery. The IEA forecasts the US gas production will “remain relatively flat across 2015 and 2017,” with the fact “that it did not decline meaningfully in 2015 despite low oil and gas prices evidence of the remarkable technology and financial resilience of the US gas industry.” Po...

Iran Sets Out Plans For 75% Refining Capacity Hike

...86mn b/d, according to Abbas Kazemi, managing director of state-owned refiner NIORDC. NIORDC will complete the first of three 120,000 b/d condensate splitters comprising Persian Gulf Star at Bandar Abbas by the end of March 2017, Mr Kazemi says. The five projects being prioritized are expected to cost al...

Oman Targets Up To 2GW Of New Post-2020 Capacity

...rayyat IWP   200 2017 Salalah 2 IPP 445   2018 Barka 3 IWP   280 2018 Sohar 2 IWP   250 2018 Dhofar IWP   80 20...

IEA: Oil Market To Rebalance In Second Half Of 2016, But Only Temporarily

...ain in the first half of 2017. Its latest monthly Oil Market Report, released 14 June, the IEA raises its 2016 global demand growth estimate from 1.22mn b/d to 1.33mn b/d largely due to a 172,000 b/d upward revision to demand in the first half of the year. Opec’s decision (or non-decision) earlier th...

Egypt Gas: ‘Remarkable Turnaround,’But Not Quite Yet

...rst four months of this year. MEES also expects output to bottom out in 2017, but at just 37 bcm (3.6bn cfd), way below the IEA’s 48bcm figure (see chart, p16 and MEES, 3 June). The expected “rapid turnaround in the country’s production performance” is thanks to improved terms that have in...

Bonds Away: GCC Countries Tap Markets For $3.5bn As Saudi Waits In Wings

...nd the same Baa1 rating as Oman, “supported by high levels of wealth, fiscal space offered by relatively low levels of general government debt and still sizable government financial assets, and comparatively low risk.”  Moody’s expects government debt to rise to 33% of GDP by 2017 from less than 5% at...

KRG Struggles To Cope With Soaring Debt Payments

...tuation, whereby it has $575mn of bonds maturing in 2017. An 18 April coupon payment of $26.4mn was missed, despite the company having $69.5mn cash reserves on 12 April, the last date on which it reported the balance (MEES, 15 April). The company is in ongoing talks with stakeholders over restructuring its ba...

Iran Taps Koreans For Tabriz Refinery, Eyes $3.3bn Siraf Funding

...though the splitter was originally scheduled to begin production in early 2016, petroleum minister Bijan Zanganeh told reporters this week that start-up is now not expected before the end of September, although a  further slip to 2017 looks likely. POST-SANCTIONS DEALS Asian investors in pa...