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TransGlobe Egypt Deal: The Key To Reversing Oil Decline?
...covery techniques to eke out maximum production from mature fields. Investment (and output) collapsed along with oil prices from late 2014, but 2018 and early 2019 had been seeing something of a rebound. The turbulence of the past year has unsurprisingly caused a renewed slump. Glance at company fi...
Volume: 63Issue: 50Published at Fri, 11 Dec 2020 -
Chevron’s Emerging Mena Portfolio
...tions.” While Chevron’s presence in Mena does indeed go back decades, recent years haven’t been bountiful. In 2014 the firm looked to the Middle East to play a pivotal role in planned upstream expansion, with a $3.2bn exploration and appraisal plan focusing on Iraqi Kurdistan, Morocco and Australia (MEES, 18...
Volume: 63Issue: 49Published at Fri, 04 Dec 2020 -
Gulf Offshore Drilling At 10-Year Low As Saudi, Abu Dhabi Stall On Contracts
...abia, also the lowest figure in almost 10 years (see chart). The UAE also had 10 rigs for October, the lowest since August 2014, whilst Qatar accounted for the remaining five. Recent earnings calls of offshore drilling firms add some color to the factors behind this slump in activity. They also su...
Volume: 63Issue: 47Published at Fri, 20 Nov 2020 -
Petrofac Seeks $530mn From Bp/Equinor Algeria Gas Project As Finances Stretches By Continued Saudi Boycott
...four southern fields to “maintain production at 9 bcm/year [870mn cfd] … for years to come” (MEES, 19 February 2016). Recent output has been just a third of this level (see box). Petrofac fully remobilised in early 2014, but the firm has since issued “multiple Variation Order Requests (VoRs) re...
Volume: 63Issue: 45Published at Fri, 06 Nov 2020 -
Morocco Gas Development: Don’t Hold Your Breath
...rgets. Repsol relinquished the acreage in early 2014 with ‘Anchois-1’ the only one of four wells drilled to find gas. Of course the global market for virgin offshore development projects is considerably more bearish now than in 2013, when oil prices were $100/B-plus. But that isn’t stopping Chariot, wh...
Volume: 63Issue: 37Published at Fri, 11 Sep 2020 -
Conoco Enters Morocco
...fshore ‘Atlantic margin’, the hotspot for exploration earlier this decade, Repsol also has the deepwater Gharb Offshore South block, which lies further offshore from the Tangier Larache permit (now Chariot’s Lixus), which Repsol relinquished in 2014. Italy’s Eni previously partnered Chariot at the Ra...
Volume: 63Issue: 37Published at Fri, 11 Sep 2020 -
Neutral Zone’s Wafra: Exports Restart
...spended since 2014 (MEES, 29 May 2015). Saudi Arabia and Kuwait have long had disagreements over PNZ-management, with Kuwait especially disgruntled that Chevron represents Saudi Arabia at Wafra. Despite their disagreements, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait reached an agreement to restart PNZ output in December 20...
Volume: 63Issue: 31Published at Fri, 31 Jul 2020 -
Israel’s Delek Drilling Eyes $2.5bn Leviathan RBL Facility
...th which to meet fixed debt repayments. Exactly this pattern bankrupted Mena-focused Irish independents Circle Oil and Petroceltic in the wake of the halving of crude prices from $100/B-plus in the second half of 2014 (MEES, 19 June 2015). And it has near-bankrupted the Delek Group, which has be...
Volume: 63Issue: 29Published at Fri, 17 Jul 2020 -
Syria’s Block 26 Continues To Pump As UK’s Gulfsands Waits On Standby
...lfsands’ Block 26 was one of Syria’s most promising oil assets when the war erupted in 2011, forcing the UK minnow (and every other western firm) to declare force majeure and halt operations. The firm still retains 50% of the block, with Chinese state firm Sinochem holding the other half. But since 2014 wh...
Volume: 63Issue: 24Published at Fri, 12 Jun 2020 -
Cepsa’s Upstream Shift Hampered By Algeria Output Slump
...e Adoc concession which it entered in 2014 (MEES, 14 November 2014) as well as the Sarb/Umm Lulu stake. But though Sarb/Umm Lulu did provide a boost to Cepsa’s net output for 2019, underlying decline in the rest of its upstream portfolio – southeast Asia, Latin America, and above all Algeria – me...
Volume: 63Issue: 20Published at Fri, 15 May 2020 -
Services Firms Eye Mena Resilience Amid US Shale Collapse: Is This Realistic?
...venue resilience? They are evidently hoping for a repeat of the previous 2015-16 capex downturn (after oil prices collapsed in late 2014) when Mideast NOCs kept spending counter-cyclically whilst IOCs, in particular those focused on US shale, slashed their outlay (MEES, 29 April 2016). Indeed, lower co...
Volume: 63Issue: 17Published at Fri, 24 Apr 2020 -
Israel Orders Noble & Delek To Play Fair
...osshairs. In 2014 Noble and Delek were ruled to be operating as a cartel in Israel. An eventual compromise deal saw them forced to sell Karish and Tanin to Energean (MEES, 19 August 2018), whilst Delek must quit Tamar by the end of next year. It has a direct 22% and also a 23% stake in Tamar Petroleum, a sp...
Volume: 63Issue: 17Published at Fri, 24 Apr 2020 -
Low-Cost Middle East Reserves Aid IOCs In Price Slump
...wn since the previous oil price slump began in 2014. Production costs for all six peaked in 2014, with the exception of BP, where the peak was slightly earlier in 2013. BP and Total have had the most success in bringing down per barrel costs, which last year were nearly 50% lower than their peak. Ch...
Volume: 63Issue: 16Published at Fri, 17 Apr 2020 -
Firms In The KRG: How Low Can They Go?
...cluding Total, Exxon and Chevron, as well as Rosneft and Gazprom – work in Iraqi Kurdistan, the biggest producers (Kurdish firm Kar aside) are a collection of small-to-medium sized foreign independents whose fates are largely tied to revenues derived from Kurdish oil. And for that reason, the 2014-17 in...
Volume: 63Issue: 14Published at Fri, 03 Apr 2020 -
Repsol Mena Pullback
...rector Didier Lluch said in 2014 (MEES, 20 March 2015). Development of Algeria’s supposed 800tcf of shale gas reserves has again moved up the agenda in the country’s latest ‘Energy Action Plan’ (MEES, 14 February). Debating plans for years on end without actually doing much is an Algerian specialty: the ge...
Volume: 63Issue: 09Published at Fri, 28 Feb 2020 -
KRG: Repsol Exits Kurdamir
...maining 20%. Repsol inherited the Kurdamir license in 2014 when it bought out Canadian shale-focused firm Talisman Energy for some $13bn, along with the neighboring Topkhana (Repsol 80%, KRG 20%; MEES, 19 December 2014). Initially bullish development plans faded away and the firm has rarely mentioned th...
Volume: 63Issue: 09Published at Fri, 28 Feb 2020 -
Oilfield Services Firms Boosted By Rising Middle East Revenues
...Oil services firms continue to feel the squeeze from low oil prices. Despite concerns over regional upheaval, they are looking to Middle East gas as a key source of revenue going forwards. Industry investment has remained at a low ebb ever since oil prices collapsed in the second half of 2014...
Volume: 63Issue: 04Published at Fri, 24 Jan 2020