1. Yemen’s Finances Set For Rude Awakening In 2015

    ...sarray, with little hope of a turnaround. With the current crisis threatening to spread to the central oil heartlands of Marib, east of San’a, prospects for the coming six to 12 months do not look bright. Oil and gas export revenues have historically made up 70% of the Yemeni budget. In 2014 al...

    Volume: 57
    Issue: 51/52
    Published at Fri, 19 Dec 2014
  2. Deficit Surges To $15bn

    ...LIBYA Deficit Surges To $15bn Libya’s budget revenue from January to November 2014 has fallen to LD19.2bn ($15bn) from LD58bn ($45bn) in the corresponding period of 2013, the Central Bank of Libya (CBL) said in a statement on its website on 9 December.  The CBL attributes this decline to...

    Volume: 57
    Issue: 50
    Published at Fri, 12 Dec 2014
  3. Iran Oil Exports To Rise In 2015 Despite Nuclear ‘No-Deal’

    ...wn, averaging less than 1.3mn b/d for the first ten months of 2014 (including condensate), versus 2.53mn b/d in 2011 (see graphs). Condensate Boost Speaking in Vienna this week, Iran’s Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh said that despite the sanctions, Iran is still targeting an increase in exports ov...

    Volume: 57
    Issue: 48
    Published at Fri, 28 Nov 2014
  4. Iraq Faces Up To Export Undershoot

    ...IRAQ Iraq Faces Up To Export Undershoot Iraq’s cabinet is struggling to finalize a 2014 budget, a task complicated by an ever widening gap between revenue and expenditure. Spending has overshot draft estimates because of the current crisis, while oil exports and revenues have fa...

    Volume: 57
    Issue: 44
    Published at Fri, 31 Oct 2014
  5. Tunisia: Election Time In The Arab Spring’s Sole Survivor

    ...their lot since the end of the Ben Ali regime. Unemployment has even increased since the revolution, standing at 15.2% in the first quarter of 2014, up from 13% at the time of Mr Bouazizi’s self-immolation. “Without social development, I don’t think the democracy could survive,” said Mr Fe...

    Volume: 57
    Issue: 43
    Published at Fri, 24 Oct 2014
  6. Airstrikes Hit Syria’s Murky Wartime Oil And Gas Sector

    ...oduction levels are difficult to verify as they are based on hearsay and speculation, extrapolation of limited data and best-guesses. Mr Asad’s government most recently said that regime-controlled areas produced 17,000 b/d in the first half of 2014, just 4.4% of 385,000 b/d prewar output. Meanwhile, IS re...

    Volume: 57
    Issue: 40
    Published at Fri, 03 Oct 2014
  7. GCC ‘Spat’ Takes On New Dimension

    ...ar from September 2014. Egypt will reimburse the UAE over four years at an interest rate of 2-3% with a year-long grace period, according to the daily. This will follow the expiration of Saudi oil product aid in August. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the UAE rushed to provide $12bn in grants and loans to...

    Volume: 57
    Issue: 35
    Published at Fri, 29 Aug 2014
  8. Pressure Eases As Yemen Secures Long-Awaited Loan

    ...s budget), falling export volumes have pushed the government to rely on domestic borrowing, swelling the state’s debt. According to latest World Bank estimates, Yemen’s domestic debt increased to 33% of GDP in 2013 from 30% of GDP in 2012, with a further hike to 34.5% on the cards for 2014, while to...

    Volume: 57
    Issue: 33
    Published at Fri, 15 Aug 2014
  9. Confusion Reigns As Iran Denies Russia Oil Deal Reports

    ...ssian state companies Gazprom and Zarubezhneft have also been keeping a close eye on proceedings, with the latter having a significant presence at Iran’s 2014 Oil and Gas Show in Tehran in May. Zarubezhneft became the first Russian oil company to be awarded a permit to operate in Iran in September last ye...

    Volume: 56
    Issue: 32
    Published at Fri, 08 Aug 2014
  10. Jazan Development: Saudi Aramco Sprints To The Rescue

    ...0 Satorp 62.5 Total 400 Total Current Domestic     2,505 Yasref (2014) 62.5 Si...

    Volume: 57
    Issue: 30
    Published at Fri, 25 Jul 2014
  11. Iraq Deploys Drones To Protect Southern Fields

    ...panded to 3mn b/d, he adds. “All foreign investors operating Iraqi oil fields in the south are operating as normal and have not withdrawn staff,” he adds. Iraqi Crude Exports 2014* (Mn B/D) Clear Skies Mr Laibi says he has met foreign oil companies operating in southern Iraq and assured th...

    Volume: 57
    Issue: 29
    Published at Fri, 18 Jul 2014
  12. US And Saudi Arabia Back Egypt’s New President

    ...cond half of 2013. And in the first four months of 2014 Saudi Arabia and the UAE granted Egypt $2.6bn in shipments of fuel oil, diesel, and LPG, according to the chairman of the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC) Tarek El Molla. Gulf shipments of much-needed LNG will not be forthcoming, as Eg...

    Volume: 57
    Issue: 26
    Published at Fri, 27 Jun 2014
  13. Petroleum Ministry Owed $22bn

    ...move them gradually over a five-year period. According to the budget for the 2014-15 financial year (beginning 1 July), energy subsidies are projected to fall by 22% to E£104.5bn or $14.6bn (MEES, 6 June). The draft budget, which was prepared by the interim government installed after Mr Mursi ou...

    Volume: 57
    Issue: 26
    Published at Fri, 27 Jun 2014
  14. Yemen Oil Minister Replaced As Fuel Crisis Deepens

    ...mage. Latest figures from the Ministry of Oil and Minerals suggest attacks on the pipeline have cost the country in the region of $400mn in lost oil export revenues in the first quarter of 2014. The situation is expected to improve in the immediate term at least with Yemen’s National Oil Company th...

    Volume: 57
    Issue: 25
    Published at Fri, 20 Jun 2014
  15. Syrian President Asad Shows Staying Power

    ...rdish forces aren’t strictly pro- or anti-regime. Recently, Kurdish militias have engaged radical jihadist groups in eastern Syria. Additionally, rebel groups have been busy fighting each other since the start of 2014 when the Islamic State of Iraq and greater Syria (ISIS), fixed on gaining and co...

    Volume: 57
    Issue: 23
    Published at Fri, 06 Jun 2014
  16. Cost Of Conflict Rises To $144bn

    ...producing fields and facilities by rebel groups, especially in the Deir Ez-Zor areas, in eastern Syria. Oil production in the regime-controlled areas in the first quarter of 2014 had fallen to around 13,000 b/d, or 3.4% of 385,000 b/d production at the beginning of the upheaval (MEES, 9 May). Al...

    Volume: 57
    Issue: 23
    Published at Fri, 06 Jun 2014
  17. Yemen Mired In Fuel Subsidy Dilemma

    ...eds to cover the subsidies for the first quarter of 2014, and has also fallen behind on payments from the fourth quarter of last year, Ms Tairy said, amounting to around YR7bn ($40mn). The Ministry of Finance is also behind on payments to Yemen’s Ministry of Electricity to the tune of YR6-7bn ($34...

    Volume: 57
    Issue: 21
    Published at Fri, 23 May 2014
  18. Iraqi Elections: Months Of Haggling Beckon As Maliki Looks To Cling On

    ...tablished the Governing Council in July 2003 on a sectarian basis. The 2014 election, however, has revealed a new phenomenon in current Iraqi politics: The country is not only divided along sectarian and ethnic identities, but is concurrently undergoing splits within each community. Exit polls indicate th...

    Volume: 57
    Issue: 20
    Published at Fri, 16 May 2014
  19. Libya’s New PM Faces Old Problems

    ...y from the roughly 1.5mn b/d pumped prior to the outbreaks of strikes last July, and puts Tripoli under severe budgetary pressures. The government lost billions in forgone oil revenues last year, and has failed to sign a budget for 2014. Without the funds to invest in the country’s dilapidated in...

    Volume: 57
    Issue: 19
    Published at Fri, 09 May 2014
  20. MENA Countries Hike Defense Spending For 2013

    ...gional power status, the powerful role of the military, the threat of terrorism and the ready availability of oil funds, SIPRI says. Algeria’s 2014 budget envisages defense spending of $12bn, up 10% on 2013 (MEES, 28 March). This follows the January 2013 terrorist attack on Algeria’s In Amenas gas pl...

    Volume: 57
    Issue: 16
    Published at Fri, 18 Apr 2014