Egypt Launches ‘Wealth Fund’, Awaits Wealth

...untry’s oil output is more likely to fall than rise over the coming years (see p5). Egypt posted a deficit of E£186.7bn ($10.4bn) for the first six months of the 2018-19 financial year (July-December 2018), more or less unchanged from the E£187.3bn ($10.6bn) for the first half of the previous 2017-18 fi...

Oman: Junk Rating

...an a sub-investment rating in late 2017 (MEES, 24 November 2017); Fitch followed suit at the end of 2018 (MEES, 21 December 2018). Moody’s says the “key driver” of its downgrade is the “expectation that the scope for fiscal consolidation will remain more significantly constrained by the go...

Lebanon Nears Gas Exploration Kickoff

...ta and are on track to spud Lebanon’s first offshore exploration well in Block 4 in November or December, MEES learns. The consortium, awarded exploration Blocks 4 and 9 in late 2017 as part of Lebanon’s first bid-round (MEES, 15 December 2017),  will then head directly to southern Block 9 to drill a se...

Mauritania: Bullish Kosmos Eyes Second Major Entry; Is It Downplaying The Risks?

...elude off northern Australia is currently more than two years behind schedule with no sign of imminent start up (MEES, 22 February). This leaves only two 1.2mn t/y FLNG vessels currently-operational. The first, in Malaysia, started up in 2017. The second, Cameroon LNG, operated by Golar LNG, started up...

Oman: Oxy Inks Block 72 Deal

...able data by 2Q 2020, after which it will embark on a drilling campaign. The signing is but another move as Oxy rapidly acquires Omani acreage: it was also recently awarded two other blocks - 51 and 65 - as part of Oman’s 2017 licensing round taking its total Omani assets to eight. Oman will prove a vi...

Adnoc Advances Infrastructure Revamp With Storage, Pipeline Deals

...ores up to 6.29mn barrels at Kiire (MEES, 27 January 2017). UAE OIL & GAS INFRASTRUCTURE   PIPELINE INVESTMENT PROJECT      Shortly before the storage announcement, Adnoc confirmed that a deal had been reached to lease 18 crude oil and condensate pipelines to US investors Bl...

Saudi Arabia Russia In Battle For Supremacy In China

...Saudi Arabia and Russia are increasingly cooperating in the energy sphere, having come together through the onset of Opec/Non-Opec production cuts since January 2017. But when it comes to the lucrative Chinese oil market, the two are engaged in a fierce battle for market share. China looks se...

Algeria Completes Refinery Expansion, Looks Overseas For Further Gains

...halt “a litigation that was detrimental to both parties” (MEES, 9 June 2017). The work was re-awarded to Chinese state firm CPECC for AD45bn ($408mn at the time) in late 2016 (MEES, 11 November 2016). Completion of the project takes Algeria’s crude processing capacity to 559,000 b/d, or 72...

Egypt Set To Miss 2022 Transport Fuel Self-Sufficiency Target

...ypt’s reliance on products imports. The focus of upgrades is on increasing output of the two key transport fuels, diesel and gasoline. For both, Egypt was reliant on imports to meet 46% of 2018 demand. This figure is actually an improvement on record levels of over 50% seen in 2016 and 2017. Ho...

Masdar: Abu Dhabi’s Flagship Renewables Firm With A Global Footprint

...heduled for start-up in April 2020 (MEES, 24 March 2017). Among Masdar’s international projects are two of the world’s largest offshore wind farms, the UK’s London Array and Dudgeon. In the Hywind wind farm offshore Scotland, Norway’s Equinor and Masdar have installed the world’s first battery storage fa...

Aramco 100k B/D Upgrading Feed

...pacity Rabigh refinery on the Saudi Red Sea coast produced just over 100,000 b/d of fuel oil in 2016 and 2017. In a filing to the Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul) on 27 February, Petro Rabigh – which is owned 37.5% each by Aramco and Sumitomo with the remaining 25% of shares traded on Tadawul – in...

Kuwait Set For First LNG Imports Of The Year

...Sahla LNG tanker docked alongside it on 26 February, carrying Kuwait’s first LNG supplies of the year. Al Sahla had not unloaded by the time MEES went to press, so no imports will be registered for February. Final figures are not yet out, but imports last year will have exceeded 2017’s record 3....

Mubadala Ties Up Thailand Contract

...und. It also operates the adjacent Andaman I, and has a non-operating stake at Andaman II. Mubadala reports current net output of 360,000 boe/d from its portfolio, up from 320,000 boe/d in 2017. The boost was largely due to its acquisition of 10% at Egypt’s Zohr in March 2018 (MEES, 20 April 2018).    ...

China LNG: Record January Imports; Record Qatar, Oman Volumes

...an, having only ever supplied six cargoes to China to Q3 2017, has now supplied 11 in the last three months: four in November, three in December and four (188,000 tons) in January. Korea is Oman’s top customer taking 360,000 tons (six cargoes) for January, in line with average 2018 deliveries (MEES, 18...

Chevron, Genel 2020 KRG Vision

....9%, Shamaran 20.1%, Marathon 15%, KRG 25%) in July 2017 (MEES, 14 July 2017). Momentum is again building in Kurdistan’s oil sector, and Chevron is not the only US Major eying production startup. ExxonMobil is developing the Baeshiqa license (DNO 32%op, ExxonMobil 32%, Turkish Energy Company 16%, KR...

Turkey 2018 Crude Imports (‘000 B/D): Iran Volumes Fall Almost 40% From Record 2017

Iraq’s Costly Liquids Habit

...Iraq’s gas shortages mean the country is dependent on burning liquids for electricity generation. Total liquids burn edged up in 2018 to 328,000 b/d from 318,000 b/d in 2017 as post-war reconstruction drove increased demand. The increase would have been considerably greater had it not been fo...

Tunisia’s Oil Woes Here To Stay

...terested in heading for the door than splashing the cash. Tunisia’s glory days of being a net oil exporter are long gone. Crude output has nosedived in recent years and in 2018 it only managed 38,400 b/d. That this fall is of a relatively-modest 1% from 2017’s previous 50-year low is only due to the fa...

Oman Looks To Bag More IOCs In Latest Licensing Round

...d round saw the likes of Occidental (Oxy) expand its portfolio in the sultanate (MEES, 9 November 2018) whilst the 2017 bid round brought Italy’s Eni and Qatar Petroleum into the fold (MEES, 15 September 2017). Oman’s Oil Minister Muhammad al-Rumhy told MEES last year that bringing bigger, more pr...

India Crude Imports: Iraq, Saudi Dominant Despite Looming Long-Haul Challenge

...*India imported a record 4.51mn b/d of crude in 2018, up 4.5% on 2017. At 2.94mn b/d, volumes from the Middle East for 2018 were also a record, though the Gulf’s market share, at around 64% has remained static for the past three years (see Chart 1 and table, p20).   *The second half of...