Tunisia Awaits $2.5bn In Fresh Aid As Economy Undershoots, Energy Bill Soars

...tes, Tunisia’s economy faces major challenges, as “fiscal and external deficits reached record levels, the wage bill as a percentage of GDP has climbed to one of the highest in the world, and public debt further increased to 63% of GDP at the end of 2016.” He went on to say that growth in 2017 is ex...

Return Of Iranian Crude Makes Big Splash In Europe

...bstantially higher figure this year, although 2011’s volume looks set to elude it. 2017 has got off to a relatively strong start according to initial results. Spain was the third largest EU buyer of Iranian crude last year with 49,900 b/d (see chart 2) and in January it lifted more than twice this at 91...

Libyan Oil Output Gains Go Into Reverse Amid Growing Instability

...the field were ongoing. Third Force members wrote to NOC warning them that uncontrolled militia would threaten the Sharara pipeline, Libya Herald reported. LIBYAN GAS EXPORTS (MN CFD)*... VOLUMES STARTED 2017 STRONGLY, FELL IN LATE JANUARY, AND COLLAPSED TO JUST 110MN CFD ON 28 MARCH *AL...

Libya Output Gets Waha Boost; Targets Bu Attifel, Sharara Next

...ARARA FIELDS HAS RAMPED UP SINCE 20 DEC RESTART, BUT STILL HAS A LONG WAY TO GO (‘000 B/D) *LATE/END MONTH IN EACH INSTANCE. ^AS GIVEN BY OPERATOR REPSOL FEB 2017. 2018 TARGET IS TO HIT 340,000 B/D CAPACITY DURING THE YEAR, NOT AS AN ANNUAL AVERAGE. SOURCE: REPSOL, STATOIL, OMV, MEES ES...

Rosneft: Russia Mixes Business With Politics In Mena Expansion

...erators that will make the project successful.” Eni, in its 2016 annual report, released this week, says it expects Rosneft’s Zohr purchase “will be finalized in the first half of 2017.” Rosneft also seemingly sees itself as a key LNG player, despite having no LNG production of its own either now or...

Lebanon’s Political And Economic Struggles Continue

...s attempt to cobble together a budget for 2017 after failing to do so for the past 12 years is unsurprisingly proving to be an uphill struggle. The disruptive headwinds from the ongoing conflict in Syria, which brought into Lebanon more than 1.5 million refugees, also led to a deterioration in ec...

Baghdad-Erbil Refining Deal Signals Pragmatism Winning Out

...eventing the onset of exports (MEES, 13 January 2017). While the current gas standoff highlights the potential obstacles to the Basra-Abadan pipeline, the second planned pipeline is far more ambitious. This would link the NOC fields in Kirkuk with Iran, most likely to the 110,000 b/d Tabriz re...

Tunisia: Oil & Gas Slump, Tourism Collapse – Bonds To The Rescue?

...Tunisia has launched an €850mn international bond to help cover its projected $2.3bn 2017 budget deficit. The central bank says the seven-year bond priced at 5.625% was twice oversubscribed. Finance Minister Lamia Zribi says Tunisia will return to the market later this year with the aim of...

Iran’s Post Sanctions Success Threatened By Trump Storm Clouds

...y 2017 has long been flagged up as of crucial importance as it is the date Iranians go to the polls to decide whether President Hassan Rohani will serve a second term. Hardliners opposed to Mr Rohani’s efforts to open up will be looking to unseat him. But one development that was certainly not given mu...

Iraq: Mosul Offensive Gains Momentum Amid Lingering Failures

...latively modest progress so far, restarting production any time in 2017 may prove too ambitious a goal.  ...

Politics Prioritized As Lebanon Advances Bidding Plans

...e end of 2017. The timeline is ambitious, especially given that three of the five blocks – numbers 8, 9 and 10 – contain a 854km² wedge also claimed by Israel (see map), with whom Lebanon has no diplomatic relations. The other two, 1 and 4, are in the north of Lebanon’s offshore – further from ex...

Total: Cyprus “Thrilling”

...Total says Cyprus is a “thrilling prospect” for 2017 with the firm set to drill its Block 11 in April. Eni’s 30 tcf 2015 Zohr discovery was in Egyptian waters just 6km to the south. Total eyes similar geology. The French firm refutes reports of delayed drilling due to uncertainty over its lo...

The Iraqi State Faces A Perilous 2017

...Iraq is exiting 2016 buoyed by high oil prices, but faces a tumultuous 2017. The current administration is unlikely to be toppled, but as for the viability of the state? That’s a different question. Iraq ends 2016 with its leaders publicly praising the country’s security improvements, ye...

Qatar Wealth Fund QIA And Glencore In $11.3bn Rosneft Deal

...0,000 b/d in the Middle East, from fields in the UAE, Qatar, Oman, Iraq and Yemen. Next year Total will take over as operator of Qatar’s most important oilfield, 300,000 b/d al-Shaheen, when Danish operator Maersk’s license expires in July 2017. QIA was also a shareholder in Shell – itself a major in...

World Bank 2017 ‘Ease Of Doing Business’: UAE Climbs 5 To Cement Top Mena Ranking; Saudi Down Again

Lebanon: Can New President Get The Country Moving?

...is week. Mr Gobril says parliament’s first priority is to approve a budget for 2017 after failing to do so for almost a decade. He stresses the need to reduce the squandering of fiscal resources and to cut the budget deficit, which is expected in 2016 to reach 8.6% of GDP, with public debt at 144% of GD...

Kuwait Dissolves Parliament Amidst Subsidy Reform Uproar

...sing oil prices. For the current financial year, which ends in March 2017, oil revenues are on course to total $43bn, $10bn above budget. Kuwait Export Blend crude averaged just $34.35/B in the first half of the year but rose to $41.49/B in Q3, just $6/B below the previous year. With Kuwaiti ex...

IS, Syria, Yemen – World Leaders Face ‘Crisis-Control’ On Multiple Fronts, IISS Says

...ipman. “Multiple strategic earthquakes” have left “world leaders in a constant state of crisis control.” As a result, said Mr Chipman, “foreign policy has become and will continue to be in 2017 a branch of psychology. Managing competing interests or settling neat balances of power…will be superseded by th...

Kurdish Political Unity Fragments As Barzani Reaches Out To Baghdad

...litics is becoming increasingly fractious and there is a growing geographical split between the KDP-dominated Erbil and the PUK/Goran-stronghold of Sulaymaniyah. With parliamentary elections due by September 2017, the region’s political stability could deteriorate further. Its demise was the cu...

Iraqi Finance Minister Sacked, Deepening Political, Financial Crisis

...th Iraq on drafting the 2017 budget. MP Najibah Najib, a member of the parliamentary economic committee, said on 18 September that the IMF had told Iraq to increase the oil price assumption in the first draft from a pessimistic $35/B to $43/B for 2017, with crude oil exports projected at 3....