1. Korea: April Iran Imports At 18-Month High

    ...Korea’s crude sourcing in recent times has been the sliding share from the Middle East: from 86.4% of 2016 imports to 82.3% for 2017, 74.4% for 2018 and 74.0% for the first four months of 2019. And this has been the result of a deliberate policy with the government offering the country’s im...

    Volume: 62
    Issue: 20
    Published at Fri, 17 May 2019
  2. LNG Markets Under Pressure From Soaring Us Exports

    ...nce the 10% tariff was introduced last year trade has slowed to a trickle, with just three US cargoes sailing for China in the first three months of 2019, versus a quarterly record of 20 for Q4 2017. *In the absence of former top buyer China, US cargoes have headed far and wide. India took a re...

    Volume: 62
    Issue: 20
    Published at Fri, 17 May 2019
  3. Rosneft Begins Pilot Production in Iraqi Kurdistan

    ...Russia’s Rosneft announced in its Q1 results this week that “experimental production started at the Bijeel field at Block 11.” This is one of the five blocks that the state-led firm signed up to  in Iraqi Kurdistan in 2017 (MEES, 16 June 2017). Bijeel has production facilities with capacity of...

    Volume: 62
    Issue: 20
    Published at Fri, 17 May 2019
  4. Total To Become Top Algeria Producer In $9bn Oxy Side Deal

    ...lling. The company’s only stake was 35% of the aging Tin Fouye Tabankort (TFT) wet gas field where output has fallen from a peak of 680mn cfd in 2011 to just 400mn cfd for 2017 – netting Total a measly 15,000 boe/d, three-quarters gas (MEES, 23 March 2018). But from that trough, the company’s Algeria ou...

    Volume: 62
    Issue: 19
    Published at Fri, 10 May 2019
  5. IOCs Face Mixed Picture In The Mena Upstream

    ...ll. In the Middle East and North Africa (Mena) region, these contrasting strategies have had a profound impact on respective oil output for IOCs. Total overtook ExxonMobil to seize the crown as the region’s largest oil producer in 2017, and last year opened up a gap of nearly 150,000 b/d on its US ri...

    Volume: 62
    Issue: 19
    Published at Fri, 10 May 2019
  6. Qatar Rolls Out Plans To Expand LNG Storage, Export Capacity

    ...nkers. Qatar has previously posited installing new LNG export berths beyond the LNG No.6 berth, and this remains the likeliest location for such facilities. With QP preparing to ramp up LNG exports from 2024 the firm is also greatly expanding its tanker fleet. CEO Saad al-Kaabi told MEES in 2017 that th...

    Volume: 62
    Issue: 19
    Published at Fri, 10 May 2019
  7. Tamar Shutdown Highlights Israel Upstream Risk

    ...e online in Q4 this year (see box and MEES, 12 April). Israel has struggled to attract big names to its upstream. The country’s previous bid round in 2017 flopped with Greek minnow Energean the key winner (MEES, 15 December 2017) – Indian state firms also took one block but they have yet to co...

    Volume: 62
    Issue: 19
    Published at Fri, 10 May 2019
  8. Tensions Flare As Turkey Drills Off Cyprus

    ...ach any sort of compromise, with the most recent summit in Switzerland in 2017, the last concerted efforts, failing to reach any sort of deal. Turkey has warned Cyprus about its own drilling activities to the south of the island and has been threatening since 2011, when Noble Energy discovered the 4....

    Volume: 62
    Issue: 19
    Published at Fri, 10 May 2019
  9. Gulf Petchems Attract Major Interest

    ...w is a partner in Kuwait’s Equate (MEES, 8 December 2017). The majors’ Gulf petchems interests are low-key in comparison with the upstream. But Total and refinery JV partner Aramco recently created headlines with a plan to integrate a 1.5mn t/y mixed-feed cracker and 800,000 t/y polyethylene un...

    Volume: 62
    Issue: 19
    Published at Fri, 10 May 2019
  10. Kuwait Powers Ahead With CCGT Plans After Projects Hiatus

    ...nder was issued in September, will help increase Kuwait’s installed capacity by 32% from 18.74GW to 24.79GW, while the two new IWPPs will raise desalination capacity by 48% to 4.07mn m3/d (see table). Meanwhile, peak load rose from 13.80 GW in 2017 to 14.07GW last year, so there was plenty of slack in th...

    Volume: 62
    Issue: 19
    Published at Fri, 10 May 2019
  11. Iran Threat To Nuke Deal As Exports, Revenues Face Collapse

    ...15, amid overall record 617,000 b/d imports. Turkey imported 91,000 b/d from Iran in February, up slightly on January’s 90,000 b/d but less than half average volumes of 210,000 b/d for 2017 and 1H 2018 when the Islamic Republic was Turkey’s top crude supplier. Certainly Turkey, as with India and Ch...

    Volume: 62
    Issue: 19
    Published at Fri, 10 May 2019
  12. Eni: $7bn For Iraq’s Zubair

    ...ly 270,000 b/d when Eni managed to renegotiate the field’s production plateau target (PPT) from 1.2mn b/d to 850,000 b/d in 2013 (MEES, 31 May 2013). Output hit 400,000 b/d in September 2016 fol­lowing a production capacity increase to 660,000 b/d, encouraging Eni in early 2017 to set production ta...

    Volume: 62
    Issue: 18
    Published at Fri, 03 May 2019
  13. Drilling Firms Boost Mideast Operations

    ...ertook that of number two, Halliburton, but a 10% decline, “driven primarily by seasonality across most businesses”, saw it fall to $5.62bn and back into third place.  SERVICES FIRMS 1Q19 REVENUE ($BN): REVENUES DIP QUARTER-ON-QUARTER BUT REMAIN FLAT YEAR-ON-YEAR *GE SUBSIDIARY SINCE JULY 2017...

    Volume: 62
    Issue: 18
    Published at Fri, 03 May 2019
  14. Sabic Boosts Transparency Ahead Of Aramco Takeover

    ...grow its petrochemicals footprint. As well as enabling the kingdom to squeeze additional revenue from its oil and gas output, Riyadh sees petrochemicals as driving future hydrocarbons demand growth. Meanwhile, Sabic’s agri-nutrients output has been up and down and metals output has rallied from a 2017...

    Volume: 62
    Issue: 18
    Published at Fri, 03 May 2019
  15. GCC Gas Burn Increasing To Power Aluminium Smelting

    ...en, which takes electricity from the second largest Saudi generator, SWCC with 7.81GW generating capacity, and the national grid. GCC aluminium production amounted to 4.8mn tons in 2017, equivalent to 7.9% of global output of 60.8mn tons. To power that output the GCC’s six aluminium complexes ge...

    Volume: 62
    Issue: 18
    Published at Fri, 03 May 2019
  16. Saudi Government Posts First Surplus Since 2014 In Q1

    ...rplus being unique for 2019. Indeed, Saudi Arabia does not plan on running a balanced budget until 2023, having decided in 2017 to abandon initial plans to balance the budget in 2020 at the behest of the IMF, which was concerned that the impact that such belt tightening would constrain economic gr...

    Volume: 62
    Issue: 18
    Published at Fri, 03 May 2019
  17. US Sanctions Hit Iran Hard

    ...eir return, as the mass protests in late 2017 and early 2018 highlighted (MEES, 19 January 2018). While the political leadership in the country is aware of the deficiencies in the economy, it has proven incapable of implementing suitable policies.     ...

    Volume: 62
    Issue: 18
    Published at Fri, 03 May 2019
  18. Algeria: Sonatrach Boss Falls Victim To Politics

    ...months over an alleged role in a corruption scandal involving the now-dissolved Brown & Root-Condor JV (KBR and Sonatrach) which he headed (MEES, 20 August 2007). He was brought back from the dead in 2017 and took over from Amine Mazouzi as CEO of Sonatrach (MEES, 21 April 2017), with Al...

    Volume: 62
    Issue: 17
    Published at Fri, 26 Apr 2019
  19. Abu Dhabi’s Taqa: Upstream Down Despite Price Recovery, Power Steady

    ...t losses from 2013 onwards forced the company to rethink its finances. In 2018 Taqa reported a net profit of AD398mn ($108mn), an increase of 145% from the $44mn reported in 2017. This return to profit came after a four-year period of net losses which cumulated in a 2015 deficit of AD19bn ($5....

    Volume: 62
    Issue: 17
    Published at Fri, 26 Apr 2019
  20. Aramco Buys Shell’s Sasref Stake In Push To Increase Downstream Control

    ...tiva JV, following which the Saudi firm assumed complete control of the 600,000 b/d Port Arthur refinery (MEES, 10 March 2017). The bond will help fund Aramco’s $69.1bn purchase of the 70% of state-led conglomerate Sabic currently held by sovereign wealth fund PIF (MEES, 5 April). Although Ar...

    Volume: 62
    Issue: 17
    Published at Fri, 26 Apr 2019