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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: 62Issue: 19Published at Fri, 10 May 2019 -
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: 62Issue: 18Published at Fri, 03 May 2019 -
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: 62Issue: 17Published at Fri, 26 Apr 2019 -
Aramco Asian Downstream Splurge Ties Up Captive Crude Markets
...nual report shows output including intermediate products of 30.8mn tons in financial year 2017-18. Its 4Q 2018 results show quarterly petchems output of 9.7mn tons, equivalent to 38.8mn tons on an annualized basis, after the cracker and downstream units reached full output in 2018. Saudi Arabia is al...
Volume: 62Issue: 16Published at Fri, 19 Apr 2019 -
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...
Volume: 62Issue: 15Published at Fri, 12 Apr 2019 -
Iraq’s Downstream Dreams: Back To Square One?
...llowing the Islamic State insurgency in 2014 (MEES, 28 September 2018). Current output stands around 30,000 b/d, with trucked export volumes hitting 23,000 b/d in March. Despite suffering reservoir damage during the Islamic State’s retreat in 2017, the ministry says production could reach 60,000 b/d; So...
Volume: 62Issue: 15Published at Fri, 12 Apr 2019 -
Aramco Bond Prospectus Sheds Light On Downstream Operations
...en lower than prices at which the company would otherwise have sold such refined products.” Because of subsidies, Aramco’s downstream business made a loss before 2017. But from 1 January 2017 Riyadh “implemented an equalization mechanism” to compensate Aramco for losses on sales of crude, ke...
Volume: 62Issue: 14Published at Fri, 05 Apr 2019 -
GCC Downstream Giants Eye Revolutionary Plastics Technology
...mmercialize one of them. Sabic had patented a process to produce chemicals directly from crude using existing downstream units in a new configuration (MEES, 1 December 2017). However, Aramco took a more revolutionary route by developing new technologies. Besides squeezing more out of its resources, Aramco ch...
Volume: 62Issue: 13Published at Fri, 29 Mar 2019 -
Sabic Reorganization Continues Ahead Of Planned Aramco Takeover
...rformance for 2018 was the best since oil prices crashed in 2014. Sabic made a profit of $5.73bn in 2018 on revenues of $45.1bn, figures which were respectively 17.0% and 12.8% up on 2017, though prices for Saudi Arabia’s key Arab Light crude were up even more at 33.5% (MEES, 1 February). SABIC OUTPUT TO...
Volume: 62Issue: 12Published at Fri, 22 Mar 2019 -
Crackers In The Gulf: GCC Refiners Advance Mixed-Feed Projects
...August 2017). Petro Rabigh’s delayed Rabigh-2 expansion, currently being commissioned, will expand petchems output capacity from 2.6mn t/y to almost 5mn t/y. Its key aromatics unit will consume 3mn t/y (67,000 b/d) of naphtha from the refinery to produce 1.34mn t/y paraxylene and 424,000 t/y of...
Volume: 62Issue: 11Published at Fri, 15 Mar 2019 -
Kuwait Eyes Revenue Boost From Clean Fuels Upgrade
...dullah, are expected to be fully online by the end of 2019. In the meantime, work at the refineries has contributed to reducing Kuwait’s throughput to its lowest level in more than 20 years. The CFP was originally intended for start-up in late 2017. The first unit testing was eventually carried out la...
Volume: 62Issue: 10Published at Fri, 08 Mar 2019 -
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...
Volume: 62Issue: 09Published at Fri, 01 Mar 2019 -
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...
Volume: 62Issue: 09Published at Fri, 01 Mar 2019 -
Saudi Reaps Rewards Of Downstream Investment
...cord and just 1mn barrels shy of the monthly record set in February 2017. Even while being helped by drawdowns, the production surge will have placed a toll on infrastructure and may have contributed to recent, partial outages at the 1.5mn b/d offshore Safaniyah field reported by Reuters. The up...
Volume: 62Issue: 08Published at Fri, 22 Feb 2019 -
IMO Bunkering: Regional Refiners, Ports Prepare Amid Industry Uncertainty
...8 ships in 2017 to 143 in 2018, with 135 more on order. World-leading LNG producer Qatar sees big potential for LNG bunkering, with energy minister and Qatar Petroleum chief executive Saad Sherida al-Kaabi saying that “there is real potential for demand to reach 50mn t/y by 2030” (MEES, 26 Ja...
Volume: 62Issue: 07Published at Fri, 15 Feb 2019 -
IMF: Praise, $2bn For Egypt
...rong remittances, while unemployment has declined to its lowest level since 2011.” A combination of “the authorities’ fiscal consolidation efforts and high nominal GDP growth” means Egypt’s public-debt-to-GDP ratio “declined markedly” from 103.2% for 2016-17 to 92.6% for 2017-18 and a forecast 86...
Volume: 62Issue: 06Published at Fri, 08 Feb 2019 -
Sabic Reports Higher Profits As It Prepares For Aramco Buy-In
...3mn). Part of Sabic’s internal transformation includes bundling together assets in some of its less strategic businesses. Q4 2018 saw Sabic’s fertilizers businesses transferred to the standalone Sabic Agri-Nutrients Investments subsidiary. The unit, which in 2017 accounted for around 10.5% of total Sa...
Volume: 62Issue: 05Published at Fri, 01 Feb 2019 -
Oman Smashes Records In 2018 With Refining and Gas Push
...om 171,000 b/d in 2017 to 220,000 b/d in the last nine months of 2018 and increasing crude refining capacity from 116,000 b/d to 198,000 b/d. State refiner Orpic announced technical completion in 2017 after years of delay (MEES, 17 February 2017) with a 1Q 2018 ramp up (see chart 1). The upgrade at So...
Volume: 62Issue: 04Published at Fri, 25 Jan 2019 -
Aramco’s Sabic Takeover: Are Assets Compatible?
...pacity of 10.2mn t/y of end products. While Sabic’s 66.9mn tons of chemicals output in 2017 included intermediate products (see chart), even assuming two thirds of this total was intermediates suggests its end-products capacity is more than double Aramco’s. Sabic is one of the world’s largest pe...
Volume: 62Issue: 03Published at Fri, 18 Jan 2019 -
Qatar Petchems To Benefit From QP’s Upstream Ambition
...pco 20%) at Ras Laffan was canned in September 2014, while the $6.5bn 1.5mn t/y Al-Karaana facility (QP 80%, Shell 20%) was shelved in January 2015 (MEES, 16 January 2015). When Mr Kaabi told MEES in December 2017 that QP was launching a new “world scale” 1.6mn t/y ethane cracker it therefore ma...
Volume: 62Issue: 02Published at Fri, 11 Jan 2019