Sinai Insecurity: Sisi’s Achilles’ Heel

...cade intended to flush out Sinai-based militants. ‘Operation Eagle’ was launched in August 2011 and ‘Operation Sinai’ a year later but neither have effectively rid the region of militants. The main focus of COS has been around the towns of Arish, Sheikh Zuweid and Rafah, the region in the northeast of...

Oman’s Duqm Development: Dustbowl Or ‘Dubai’?

...ptember opening of a new passenger terminal: it remains to be seen if more flights will materialize.  DUQM SPECIAL ECONOMIC ZONE (PLANNED)   ALL ABOUT THE REFINERY    The Special Economic Zone of Duqm (SEZAD) was established in 2011 to “diversify the national economy.” But recent mo...

Egypt’s Gas Surge Enables Planning Beyond Powergen Needs

...June, demand was a relatively comfortable 69% of output, versus a summer peak of 90% two years earlier. With the summer demand peak now over, no shortages have been reported. With production falling from a record 6.22bn cfd in December 2011 to just 3.89bn cfd in May 2016, Cairo was forced to be...

Algeria Halves Trade Deficit, Thanks To Higher Oil Prices

...200,000t set in 2011 (2017, with 190,000t, was just shy of the record) Elsewhere in Asia, Korea has yet to fall for Algerian LNG with just two cargoes imported for 2017 and none so far in 2018. But the country’s import stats for the first seven months of 2018 showed that it took 40,600 b/d of Al...

Iran: Rohani Under Fire As Economic Pressure Mounts

...esidents are no stranger to second term woes and Mr Rohani will have to strive to eclipse the drama of his predecessor’s efforts. Mr Ahmadinejad’s relationship with Supreme Leader Khamenei collapsed in 2011 after the latter re-installed a sacked intelligence minister against his will, prompting the pr...

Key Syria Oil Field Restarts

...tput at 5,000 b/d, but without extensive investment substantial production gains are unlikely. The Al Furat fields, which produce Syrian Light crude hit 400,000 b/d in the late 1990s due to water injection but had already fallen to 91,600 b/d by the outbreak of war in 2011 (MEES, 16 May 2011) – and Ta...

UK Gas Imports From Qatar Fell To 0.79bcm For 2q18, Lowest Since 1q 2009 And A Far Cry From 2011 When The Uk Was #1 Customer

Saudi Oil Inventories (Mn Barrels): Crude Stocks At Lowest Level Since 2011; Total Oil Stocks Down 100mn Bls (24%) From 2015 Peak

Record Products Sales And VAT Bolster Saudi Economy

...18. B =BUDGET (JADWA EST. FOR BUDGET OIL PRICE, OUTPUT). SOURCE: FINANCE MINISTRY, SAMA, JADWA, OPEC, IMF, MEES.   SAUDI ARABIA JUNE 2018 OIL DATA (‘000 B/D): OIL STOCKS HIT LOWEST SINCE NOVEMBER 2011,  JUNE SUPPLY TO MARKET HIGHEST SINCE DECEMBER 2016 CHANGES EXPRESSED IN PE...

Taiwan LNG Imports: Volumes Up But Qatar Losing Out To Rival Suppliers

...TAIWAN IMPORTED 4.4MN TONS IN Q2, A SEASONAL RECORD BUT QATARI VOLUMES FELL TO 7-YEAR LOW (TOP 6 SUPPLIERS, MN TONS)   QATAR’S MARKET SHARE, AT 30% FOR 1H18, IS ALSO THE LOWEST SINCE 2011 AS RUSSIA  AND AUSTRALIA SAW BOTH RECORD 1H VOLUMES AND MARKET SHARE (%)...

Egypt Gas Exploration Focus Shifts East As Output Record Nears

...UCHES 6BN CFD IN JUNE, JUST SHY OF DECEMBER 2011’S RECORD 6.22BN CFD SOURCE: JODI, EGYPT OIL & GAS, MEES.   JORDAN: THE COMEBACK?   Egypt last week signed a deal to resume gas exports to Jordan, ostensibly from early next year. A 9 August statement from Jordan’s energy ministry sa...

Libya Power Expansion Going Nowhere, Blackouts Continue

...e 2011 revolution, capacity was 7.1GW, according to IEA estimates. Things have also been far from plain sailing at Libya’s key ongoing power project, the 640MW Ubari plant in Libya’s remote southwest. As with a planned plant in Tobruk (awarded to Greek firm Mytilineos), this is designed to use ga...

Oman: Oil Prices Bolster Economy, For Now

...nual statbook does not provide unemployment figures, nor use the term ‘unemployment’ once. Sultan Qaboos managed to quell considerable upheaval in 2011-12 during the Arab Spring; conditions have since grown worse. And with oil prices a far cry from the $105/B days of 2011-2013, throwing money at th...

Spain 2Q18 Crude Imports (‘000 B/D): Highest Volumes, Share From Middle East Since Q4 2011; Iran June Volumes Highest Since 2011

Lebanon Bid Round: Second Time A Charm?

...d not scare off the consortium, but adjacent Blocks 8 and 10 went bid-less. Five blocks were not tendered in the first round, so Lebanon has a total of eight it can offer up. The political situation is still more stable than 2011-16 when spillover from Syria was a critical concern, so if in...

Turkey Plans East Med Drilling: Politics Over Geology?

...unters with either military muscle or by stepping up its own ‘plans’ for hydrocarbon exploration. This was the case back in 2011 when US firm Noble began drilling Block 12 off southeast Cyprus (MEES, 26 September 2011), and Turkey further ramped up the rhetoric after Noble’s drilling resulted in the 5tcf Ap...

Iraq Takes On Mansuriya

...-year development service contract signed in 2011. Nonetheless, Oil Minister Jabbar al-Luaibi calls their efforts a “failure” and maintains “great confidence” in the national oil companies’ capabilities to do a superior job. "The ministry will not hesitate to transfer unfulfilled contracts held by fo...

Egypt Goes West And Digs Deep In Quest For Oil Output Boost

...nger term it hopes a recently-launched bid round will provide a boost (MEES, 25 May). The key blocks on offer are in the Western Desert. Since 2011 the Gulf of Suez has seen its importance wane. It has been overtaken by the Western Desert, the country’s key oil province, where May output of 36...

Libya: Companies Crave Elusive Stability

...0,000 b/d on a gross basis. Capacity was considered to be 340,000 b/d prior to Libya’s 2011 revolution (see chart). “A ramp up in production in Libya,” as well as the end-2017 start-up of the Reggane North gas project in Algeria (MEES, 22 December) were the key reasons that Repsol was able to post a 45...

Cash-Rich Gulf State Refiners Seek Overseas Capacity, Integration

...0 106 106 Overseas (OOC):        Bina (2011)                                                     50 120 60 *CLEAN FUELS PROJECT WILL CHANGE COMBINED CAPACITY TO 800,000 B/D BY END-2019. SO...