Saudi Government Posts First Surplus Since 2014 In Q1

Abu Dhabi’s Taqa: Upstream Down Despite Price Recovery, Power Steady

...17bn). The collapse of oil prices in 2014 forced Taqa into a ‘transformation program’ in which it slashed capital expenditure and targeted debt reduction (MEES, 17 November 2017). The transformation appears to be working as far as monies owed is concerned, with net debts reduced from AD72.98bn ($19...

Qatar Invites EPC Bids For LNG Expansion

...ile Qatar is looking to bring IOCs in as partners – as is the case at the existing LNG facilities – QP is willing and able to proceed unilaterally if required (MEES, 19 October 2018). Since his appointment heading up QP in 2014 (MEES, 19 September 2014), Mr Kaabi has tightened commercial terms for IO...

QP Enters Argentina

...sets, this covers blocks in Mexico and Brazil. Indeed, Brazil is a rare source of international production for QP. It has had a 24% stake in Shell’s 50% operated BC-10 deepwater block since 2014 which can produce around 98,000 boe/d (mostly oil). The latest Argentina move is in keeping with QP’s ef...

Saudi Nuclear Plans Fuel Geopolitical Concerns

...yadh. The plant is being built by Argentina’s state-owned Invap, under a contract signed with Kacst in 2014. The 30kW rated unit will produce neutron beams for research, training and manufacturing medical isotopes, as opposed to heat for driving steam turbines as in a nuclear power plant. While this wi...

Egypt: Sisi For Life?

...fore being elected in 2014 and re-elected in 2018 with 97% of the vote after almost all rival candidates were effectively banned. Under the current constitution, the president may only be re-elected once. Egypt’s economy has improved during Mr Sisi’s time at the helm, with the IMF projecting GDP gr...

Exxon Eyes Israel’s Leviathan

...llow US firm Noble Energy is due for start-up in Q4 this year (MEES, 5 April). Australian LNG experts Woodside pulled out of a 2015 deal to take a 25% stake in the field with FLNG very much mooted as the preferred option at the time (MEES, 23 May 2014). Exxon’s entry would signal that Israel is on ma...

Israel Oil 2018 Data: Gasoline Imports At Record On Refinery Outage

...62mn tons (77,000 b/d) or 2017, a year that saw renovation, a strike and a fire at one of its diesel units (MEES, 1 September 2017). Paz increased its crude throughput capacity from 4.5mn tons (90,000 b/d) in late 2013 (MEES, 29 August 2014). *But overall, the gains at Paz were not enough to make up...

Iraq’s Downstream Dreams: Back To Square One?

...e long-delayed Karbala refinery is the only new refinery making any progress at present. Work on the $6bn 150,000 b/d project was awarded to Hyundai in 2014 (MEES, 10 January 2014) per an EPC contract, but payment problems saw the project – once slated for a 2019 start-up – delayed. Mr Ghadhban te...

Korea Q1 Oil Imports: Iraq Up, Saudi Down, Russia & US Records

...west quarterly share on record after the 69% figure in Q4 last year (MEES, 11 January). *Opec volumes were down even further: Q1’s 2.163mn b/d was the lowest quarterly figure since 2014, whilst Opec’s 70.5% Q1 market share was the lowest on record. Both figures would have been up, however, were it no...

Opec Crude Risks Being Squeezed From The Market

...tput could fall further still. Opec output hasn’t fallen below 30mn b/d since June 2014, but it wouldn’t take much for it to fall below this threshold for April. Should the US opt against renewing waivers that permit certain countries to import Iranian oil once they expire on 2 May then it seems in...

UAE’s Mubadala Sells Cepsa Stake To Investor Carlyle

...TER 2014 BOOST FROM SE ASIA ENTRY *WORKING INTEREST BASIS. SOURCE: CEPSA, PARTNER COMPANIES, MEES ESTIMATES AND CALCULATIONS.   3: CEPSA: REFINED PRODUCTS & PETCHEMS SALES HIT RECORD 31.4MN TONS IN 2018, CRUDE RUNS AT HIGHEST SINCE 2012 SOURCE: CEPSA, MEES CA...

MEES Interview With Iraq Oil Minister Thamir al-Ghadhban

...ere the contractor takes the full commitment for investment with a grace period to the host country and so on. They are a burden, especially when the price of oil is low, as we have faced since 2014, and for three or four years we suffered a lot. The budget was severely hit because of this commitment. Th...

Iraq Plans Major Pipeline Revamp To Enhance Export Flexibility

...ditha to Jordan’s Aqaba port, as well as a 160,000 b/d spur line to Jordan’s Zarqa refinery (MEES, 21 November 2014). The Basra-Haditha portion was to be constructed under an EPC contract, while Haditha-Aqaba would be under a build-own-operate-transfer (BOOT) deal. The government was wary of fi...

Egypt ‘Zohrs’ Past Libya As Eni’s Top Gas Producer

...ipem 10000’ drillship which remains under contract at Zohr until well into the 2020s. Eni sees Zohr as the key global example of the ‘Dual Exploration Model’ it has put at the heart of its global upstream strategy since the 2014-15 oil price (and capex) collapse. This model seeks to minimize up...

Gazprom KRG Output Boost

...,000 b/d. This brings the block up to the partners’ planned development target and it is unclear whether the partners will want to expand processing facilities to push production capacity higher (MEES, 11 March 2014). Garmian is an outlier within the Kurdistan Region’s oil producing blocks in that it is lo...

Lebanon To Award Billion-Dollar Gas Import Deals

...will help mitigate the need for individual project tenders which historically have proven the main cause of delays – as was the case both with FSRUs and building new power infrastructure. And arbitrary disputes are always a worry. The government battled Athens contractor J&P since 2014 over wh...

Egypt Gas Market Liberalization: Set For Take-Off?

...minent gas imports from Israel resting on the new framework, MEES examines the state of play. Egypt on 1 August 2017 passed legislation to enable use of the country’s 7,600km main gas grid by private sector operators. Long-mooted liberalization plans gained traction in 2014-15 as slumping domestic ou...

Algeria: Bouteflika Out, But What Next?

...the protests is Algerians’ inability to see a bright future with the current system in place. Half of the country’s 42mn population is under the age of 30 and youth unemployment is close to 30%. In the good times of high oil prices, the ruling elite was able to buy its way out of trouble, but the 2014...

Egypt Cuts Receivables Bill Amid Arbitration Threat

...diterranean blocks where the firm is planning on drilling two wells later this year and where Israeli firm Ratio Oil is in talks to take a stake (MEES, 22 March). UAE independent Dana Gas, on the other hand saw its receivables fall to $140mn at end-2018 down from $228mn a year earlier and a 2014 peak of $30...