Bahrain Raises $600mn Despite Downgrade, Oman Plans Issue

...rch and May to help finance the budget deficit, according to a Reuters report on 19 February. Tunisia, a country in political transition after pioneering the 2011 Arab Spring revolts, is currently engaged in talks with the IMF to negotiate a new credit program worth around $1.7bn (MEES, 19 Fe...

Algeria: 3 Bcm Gas Boost From In Salah Expansion

...s fallen to less than two-thirds of this figure – just 5.9 bcm for 2015.   The fact that a project intended to maintain gas output will in fact provide a sizeable boost is indicative of the delays plaguing the Algerian upstream. In Salah output averaged 8.2 bcm in 2011, the year Southern Fi...

Adnoc Head Replaced As Abu Dhabi Eyes Output Rise

...s and oil production capacity and the renewal of a key offshore oil concession.   Mr Suwaidi had headed up Adnoc since 2011, during which time he oversaw the renewal of the Abu Dhabi Company for Onshore Petroleum Operations (Adco). Of the 40% of the Adco concession open to foreign pa...

Libyan Unity Still Distant As Oil Trading Disputes Fester And IS Power Grows

...ng.” As has been the case since the ousting of former leader Mu’ammar al-Qadhafi in 2011, one of the biggest barriers to the agreement has been control over the country’s oil resources. The country’s crude oil output dropped to just 317,000 b/d in late January compared to some 1.6mn b/d prior to the fa...

Tunisia Bags EU, IMF Cash But Oil & Gas Output At Record Lows

...ansition process has been facing so many economic challenges since 2011;” recent terrorist attacks “have exacerbated an already vulnerable balance of payments and fiscal position, creating important financing needs,” he says. Tunisia, the pioneer of the 2011 Arab Spring revolts, suffered several deadly at...

Dana Looks To Egypt Uptick In 2016

...this output is gas: some 163mn cfd for 2015, around 50mn cfd down on record 2011 output of 213mn cfd. But countering the 2015 fall in output is the potential long term gains from the hike to the company’s Egyptian reserves following “successful Balsam-2 and 3 wells [which] added 165 billion cu...

S&P Downgrades GCC Ratings On Back Of Tumbling Oil Prices

...hrain’s public finances. S&P highlights that public spending has remained elevated since the outbreak of mass civil unrest in 2011, with wages, salaries and subsidies accounting for 72% of spending. Despite Bahrain’s financial woes, however, the agency believes that economic support from neighboring Saudi Ar...

Iran Sets Out FDI Strategy As Foreign Cash Starts To Trickle In

...lay is that Mr Rohani waited for the lifting of international sanctions against Iran on 16 January to unveil the 2016-17 budget the next day (MEES, 22 January).   The budget projects oil revenue at $22bn, based on an oil price assumption of $35-40/B; oil revenue hit a record $119bn in 2011 wh...

Iran Eyes Growing Gas Shipments To Armenia, Turkey

...at Armenia would be able to transfer 0.5 bcm/year of Iranian gas to Georgia. BREAKTHROUGH ON TURKISH PRICING? Iranian and Turkish officials said on 2 February that the International Court of Arbitration had ruled that Iran should cut the cost of gas exports to Turkey backdated to 2011. Turkey ha...

Algeria Reaches Critical Crossroads

...e Arab Spring that started in 2011. The government responded to local protests through more spending via food and fuel subsidies, salaries increases for public jobs and housing and health assistance, at a time when oil prices were comfortably sitting above $100/B. But it is now paying dear for a fa...

The $100bn-Plus Cost Of Syria’s Civil War

...bn. This is almost as large as Syria’s pre-war GDP, the Bank notes in its latest Mena Quarterly Economic Brief. In addition, damage caused by the war to the “capital stock” in Syria between 2011 and 2014 was estimated at $72bn, the World Bank said, quoting a report by the local Syria Center for Po...

Ministry Claims $60bn Oil Sector Losses

...Syrian oil minister Sulaiman al-Abbas says that the country’s oil and gas sector has suffered “direct and indirect” losses of $60.4bn between 2011 and end-2015. The minister said that oil production from government-controlled areas averaged 9,500 b/d in 2015, just 2.5% of the pre-civil wa...

Iran’s Oil* Exports By Destination (‘000 B/D): Volumes Edge Up In January But Still 1.3mn B/D Down On 2011 Levels

East Asian Importers Take Less LNG In 2015; Little Sign Of An Upturn In 2016

...pply coming onstream, from Australia and the US in particular, means that for Middle East producers, starting with Qatar, the competition is becoming increasingly palpable. JAPAN: NUCLEAR RESTARTS Japan notched up three straight years of record 87mn tons-plus LNG imports following 2011’s Fu...

Dubai Plans $27bn Green Power Fund, But Considering Expanded Coal Program

...bsidized. The UAE has recently hiked the costs of transport fuels, by linking gasoline and diesel prices to international prices (see p13). However, DEWA has operated a fuel surcharge for electricity and water customers since January 2011, which is adjusted on a monthly basis. DEWA charges consumers a mi...

Post-Sanctions Iran Courts Admirers

...OC) and that supply of crude oil would start immediately. No figures were provided, but prior to sanctions, Hellenic imported approximately 30% of its 310,000 b/d crude oil supply from Iran (approximately 93,000 b/d). In 2011, the last year before the EU embargo on oil purchases, Iran supplied Gr...

Suez Canal Oil Transit Hits 2015 Peak But Revenues Fall

...s demand across Europe as a whole has fallen significantly in recent years, so that northward LNG transit was far short of the 37.98mn tons record of 2011. LPG transit northwards continued to decline, falling over 42% to 299,000 tons. One factor is Gulf LPG producers increasingly directing their ou...

OPEC Risks Becoming An Irrelevance As Revenue Again Tanks

...gularly called $100/B-plus a ‘fair price.’ Even this week the same senior figure declined to resile from this. As Chatham House’s Glada Lahn notes, only 10 years ago Opec considered $30/B a fair price. But as prices rose, Opec members’ spending rose; and it ballooned in early 2011 amid the threat of co...

OPEC Revenue Lowest For 11 Years; Markets Indicate Further Slide In 2016

...y from Egypt’s 2011 uprising, the economic factors that fed into Arab spring have mostly only got worse,” Ms Kinninmont says. This particularly applies to poorer oil-dependent economies such as Algeria. In Algeria and elsewhere the 2011 spending boost to provide insulation against Arab Spring co...

Oman’s Record Annual Output Can’t Mask Revenue Declines

...ereas in 2011 46.1% of Omani oil exports went to China, this had surged to 72.1% in 2014, before hitting 77.1% in 2015. And this is not just a percentage increase, volumes soared in the same period, nearly doubling from 336,000 b/d in 2011 to 651,000 last year. Being so reliant on a single customer is...