Sudan, South Sudan Claim Oil Production Boon, But How Much?
South Sudan’s oil output is up 40% in the past year to 165,000 b/d as a cooperation agreement with Sudan comes to fruition, Juba claims. The figures may be inflated, but any increase in revenue is a welcome boost to two struggling economies. MEES, 8 February 2019 A resumption of production from fields in former [...]
Sonatrach: Can Shake-Up Haul Lumbering Behemoth Into The 21st Century?
MEES, 24 August 2018 Sonatrach president Abdelmoumen Ould Kaddour has been quietly carrying out a major restructuring of the firm’s management, including the creation of several new divisions and a change of personnel in other key posts. The changes include the creation of three new vice-president positions: VP finance, to which executive finance director Mohamed [...]
Libya: Fractured Institutions Fail To Distribute Oil Revenue Gains
MEES, 24 August 2018 Libya’s oil production recovered to more than 1mn b/d in mid-August following a collapse to just 400,000 b/d early in July. The reopening of key export terminals in the east of the country has enabled a resumption of production from oil fields in the Sirte basin ( MEES, 13 July ). [...]
Libya’s Financial Black Hole
MEES, 17 August 2018 Libya near-balanced its budget in 1H 2018. But this was ‘thanks’ to chronic state weakness that left spending 21% under budget. Revenues were up with higher oil prices, but non-oil revenue remains abysmal. The UN plans an audit of Libya’s finances in a bid to help tackle corruption. But, if the [...]
South Sudan: China Oil displaces Unipec in Dar Blend marketing
African Energy, 26 July 2018 China Oil has displaced Unipec as the dominant marketer of South Sudan’s Dar Blend crude, lifting cargoes in all but two months of 2018. China Oil has been contracted to lift 9.2m bbls of crude so far this year, almost a third of the country’s 29.6m-bbl production, and 43% of [...]
South Sudan signals end to crude cargoes
African Energy, 26 July 2018 In lifting contracts agreed by Juba in early July for crude shipments in August, there is no cargo for Sudan Petroleum Corporation, signalling an end to the diversion of oil cargoes to Khartoum to pay South Sudan’s oil debts. Energy minister Ezekiel Lol Gatkuoth said in February that the transfers [...]
South Sudan Coffers Empty Amid Crippling Crude ‘Diversions’ To Khartoum
South Sudan has diverted crude worth $1.6bn to Sudan in the past three years to pay off arrears in transit and compensation levies. Despite claims to the contrary there appears to be no end in sight to such transfers. MEES, 11 May 2018 More than four years into a civil war that seems as impervious [...]
Algeria Gas Set For Record 2018 With Start-Up Of Key Southwest Fields
MEES, 2 March 2018 Algeria’s 2017 gas output was only just shy of record levels set the previous year. With the second of two key ‘Southwest Gas Project’ components starting up this week, the country can expect new records in 2018. The 24 February start-up of output at the Timimoun gas field makes it the [...]
Delayed Projects To Shave Cumulative 80bcm From Algeria’s Gas Output By 2020
MEES, 14 July 2017 If the Timimoun and Touat projects had come on stream in early 2014, Ahnet at the beginning of 2015 and Reggane North at the beginning of 2016 – targets that back in 2010 looked conservative – and assuming they maintained plateau rates until the end of June this year, they would [...]
Cereal price rises threaten civil unrest
The Middle East must ensure food supply amid spiking global prices or risk potential civil unrest The current drought-induced surge in global food prices is causing disquiet in the Middle East and North Africa. Memories do not need to be very long to recall that when protesters took to the streets of cities across the [...]
Suez Canal delivers in tough year
The Canal has emerged as one of the few bright spots in an otherwise flailing Egyptian economy, with revenues touching a record high in 2010/11 It has been a testing few years for the Suez Canal. First, a rapid rise in pirate attacks in the Gulf of Aden between Yemen and Somalia in 2008 threatened [...]
Middle East awaits steel demand recovery
As the region’s governments invest in downstream iron and steel projects, expectations are high that the commissioning of these new plants will coincide with a rebound in prices A strong outlook for global steel demand is encouraging Middle East countries to develop a processing industry that they hope will make the region a major hub [...]
High gold prices bode well for Middle East
The positive outlook for bullion is good news for Dubai as a niche gold trading centre, and for Saudi Arabia, which is pushing ahead with the exploitation of its gold reserves The inexorable rise of gold prices since hitting a brief low of just over $700 an ounce in late 2008 is showing little sign [...]
Algeria’s lush hills a new home for zinc mines?
MEED – 18th January 2008 Nestled among the rolling hills that straddle the Soummam River in the Berber region of Kabylie, two small teams of men work 12-hour shifts searching for underground deposits of zinc. Around them, the hills are so lush, green and thick with woodland that it is difficult to believe this is [...]