AME Info, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, energy, oil and gas briefs

Source: AME Info, Abu Dhabi, United Arab EmiratesAug.文件倉 28--IRAQ LOST $4.6BN DUE TO SHELL'S PRODUCTION DELAYS: Iraq's oil ministry has blamed Royal Dutch Shell over $4.6bn in lost revenue due to production delays, AFP has reported. In a letter dated July 21, 2013, seen by the news service, the ministry sharply criticises the foreign energy firm for shortfalls in oil extraction at the giant Majnoon field in south Iraq. The letter, which was addressed to Shell's Iraq vice president Hans Nijkamp, said that "production from Majnoon Oilfield ... has been stopped for an unacceptably long time" and added that "aggregated losses of production" at Majnoon amounted to 44 million barrels of oil. "As a result, Iraq has suffered heavy direct losses, which we have determined conservatively at more than [4.6] billion US dollars," the letter said.TOTAL AGREES TO BUY CHEVRON'S RETAIL NETWORK IN EGYPT: French oil major Total has agreed to buy the Egyptian retail network of US energy company Chevron, in a move it said would create its biggest marketing and services subsidiary outside Europe, Reuters has reported. The network has annual sales of more than 1.4 million tonnes and includes 66 service stations, two oil depots and the aviation fuel operations at Cairo and Marsa Alam airports, said Total. The purchase is subject to approval by the relevant authorities, the firm said, without giving a value for the deal.IRAQ IMPROVES TERMS FOR NASIRIYA FIELD: Iraq has offered investors more lucrative terms to tap the Nasiriya oilfield and build a refinery, Reuters has reported, citing an Iraqi oil industry source. The project involves developing the southern field and building a 300,000 barrel-per-day refinery. A slowdown in Iraq's output has made companies complain about their slim margins on existing service contracts. "The oil ministry was keen to draft a contract which includes more lucrative and sweetened terms compared to the previous service contracts," the source said. "In this contract, operators will have no state partner and no signature bonus should be paid. That definitely will bring more profit for the project's operator."OMAN TO IMPORT IRANIAN GAS: Oman has signed a memorandum of understanding with Iran to import gas from 2015, in a 25-year deal valued at around $60bn, Reuters has reported. The MoU also includes an agreement to start laying a gas pipeline to Oman as soon as possible, according to the Iranian oil ministry. Analysts said Oman's enthusiasm for building the pipeline with Iran may depend on whether it can agree terms for BP to develop the Kazzan tight gas project, which could supply around one billion cubic feet per day by 2018.KUWAIT TO SPEND $5.28BN ON WATER PROJECTS UNTIL 2014: Kuwait Financial Centre (Markaz) has said the total investment in Kuwait's water sector between 2005 and 2014 stands at $5.28bn, Arab News has reported. Of all water sector investments, water treatment plants saw highest investment at $3.4bn. The electricity & water ministry owns and operates all existing power and water production facilities, transmission networks and distribution systems in Kuwait and sells electricity and water.BP INTERESTED IN REDEVELOPING KIRKUK OILFIELD: Iraqi oil minister Abdul Kareem Luaibi has confirmed that British Petroleum has expressed interest in getting involved in the redevelopment of the country's giant Kirkuk oilfield, which is suffering from falling output, Dow Jones has reported. Discovered in 1927, production at Kirkuk has declined to 260,000 bpd from 900,000 bpd in the early 2000s, after years of injecting water and the dumping of unwanted crude and other oil products into the field's reservoir. Baghdad has signed a series of contracts with international oil majors to boost Iraq's output to 12m bpd by 2017, enough to make it the largest-producing country in the world.KACST SAYS SOLAR-POWERED DESAL PLANT TO BE OPERATIONAL BY 2013-END: The Energy Research Institute at Saudi Arabia's King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) has announced the first phase of the King Abdullah Initiative for Solar Water Desalination will be operational by the end of this year, Saudi Gazette has reported. The first phase of the project was launched in 2010 and involved the production of 10 megawatts of solar energy and reverse-osmosis membranes over a period of three years. As part of the project, two solar energy plants were constructed in Al-Khafji and in the solar village at Al-Oyainah, located 35 km from Riyadh. The plant would have a capacity of 30,000 cubic metres of drinking water a day to meet the needs of 100,000 people living in the town of Al-Khafji, near the Kuwaiti border.TAQA POSTPONES CONSTRUCTION OF $12BN COAL POWER PLANT IN TURKEY: Abu Dhabi National Energy Co (Taqa) has said commencement of construction of coal-fired power plants in Turkey has been postponed until 2014, citing other spending priorities, Reuters has reported. The state-owned oil explorer and power supplier greed in January with Turkey's state-owned Electricity Generation Co on a project worth up to $12bn to build several power plants using the lignite coal reserves of Turkey's Afsin-Elbistan region. "Due to other spending priorities, Taqa has decided to defer the investment decision in Afsin-Elbistan until 2014," a Taqa spokesman said. The project was initially planned to kick off in mid-2013, he said.IRAQI CRUDE OIL EXPORTS THROUGH TURKEY PIPELINE RESUME: Iraq's North Oil Co has said crude oil flows have resumed through a pipeline running from Iraq's Kirkuk oil fields to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, Reuters has reported. Exports had been halted last Wednesday after three bombs were planted close to the pipeline. It was at least the sixth attack this month.IRAN SAYS HIGH OIL PRICES HURTING EXPORTS: Iran's new oil minister has said the country's crude exports are being hurt by current high prices that make it more economical for rivals like the US to produce more costly oil, Reuters has re存倉orted. Bijan Zanganeh, who previously filled the post under the president Mohammad Khatami, told oil ministry news service Shana that current prices of over $106 a barrel were a worry. "The crude price increase to this level represents both opportunity and threat... It is an opportunity for us to increase our revenues (but) high oil prices also represent a threat for our country, because our rivals can produce oil at high price and supply it on the market," Zanganeh said.BP TO BUILD NATURAL GAS PROCESSING PLANT IN OMAN: British Petroleum (BP) is planning to build a large natural gas processing plant to process gas to be produced from its block 61 tight gas fields in north-central Oman, Times of Oman has reported. The plant will have a capacity to process one billion cubic feet of natural gas per day, which is the anticipated production from gas-rich Khazzan and Makarem fields in the first phase.YEMEN SEEKING HIGHER LNG SALES PRICE FROM S. KOREA: The Yemeni government has demanded that South Korea pay global market prices for its liquefied natural gas (LNG) before the end of this year, Reuters has reported. Yemeni Prime Minister Mohamed Salem Basindwa told South Korea's new ambassador the impoverished gas producer had lost hundreds of millions of dollars of potential earnings over recent years, because of the low price that state-run Korea Gas Corp (Kogas) secured in a long-term deal with Yemen's only gas export plant. Kogas holds a 6 percent stake in the Yemen LNG facility, which is the country's largest-ever industrial project, led by France's Total.SEC TO SPEND SR464M ON RIYADH POWER PLANTS EXPANSION: The Saudi Electric Co (SEC) has awarded a local firm two contracts, worth a total of SR464m, for the establishment and expansion of two electricity conversion plants in Riyadh, Arab News has reported. The two deals are aimed at meeting "alarming power demand in the kingdom, especially in Riyadh" as reported recently by the Saudi Energy Efficiency Centre (SEEC), an unnamed source was quoted as saying by the daily.IRANIAN OIL EXPORTS TO INDIA'S DOWN 75 percent IN JULY: According to tanker arrival data, Iranian crude exports to India fell by three quarters in July from June, Reuters has reported. Indian imports of Iranian crude are expected to rise from August, however, with refiner Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals (MRPL) resuming shipments after a gap of four months because of a separate insurance issue. MRPL's return as a buyer could give some relief to Iran, which has seen its exports more than halved by sanctions imposed in 2012 by the US and the European Union, costing Tehran billions of dollars a month in lost oil revenue.EXXON TO SELLS PART OF WEST QURNA STAKE TO CHINA, INDONESIA: Iraqi oil minister Abdul Kareem Luaibi has said Exxon Mobil is selling over half of its 60 percent stake in the West Qurna-1 oilfield project to China's biggest energy firm, PetroChina, and Indonesia's Pertamina, Reuters has reported. "25 percent (stake) to PetroChina and 10 percent to Pertamina," Luaibi said, adding that the deal would be done "maybe after two to three weeks."EGYPT TO RECEIVE QATAR'S THIRD, FOURTH LNG SHIPMENTS: Qatar has announced on Thursday it has sent its third shipment of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Egypt, Ahram has reported. The Gulf country already sent two LNG tankers earlier in August, under an agreement signed with ousted President Mohamed Morsi's government in June to send five fuel shipments Egypt.ABAN 7 PTE CLINCHES DRILLING CONTRACT IN OMAN FROM LIME PETROLEUM: Malaysian oil and gas firm, Hibiscus Petroleum has said its jointly-controlled entity, Lime Petroleum, through its subsidiary Masirah Oil in Oman, has awarded a drilling rig contract to Aban 7 Pte Ltd for the execution of its drilling programme in the company's Block 50 Oman concession, Muscat Daily has reported. The 50-day contract is expected to commence between mid-October and mid-November this year. Under the deal, Masirah Oil will procure the services of the Aban VII drilling rig, an independent leg cantilever jack-up rig to spud and drill a minimum of two exploration wells.QATAR SENDS EGYPT SECOND LNG SHIPMENT: Qatar has dispatched its second tanker this month of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Egypt, struggling to cover its energy needs even before the removal of president Mohamed Mursi unleashed deadly violence, Reuters has reported. Last June, Doha agreed to supply Egypt with five shipments to cover some of its needs, which increase during the hot summer. The total amount agreed has not been revealed, but traders say the shipments will only cover some of the gap in supply to Egypt, which has borrowed billions of dollars from abroad and delayed payments to oil companies and other suppliers.OMAN TO RECOVER, USE GAS FROM OIL WELLS: Oman's oil ministry and Oman Trading International have announced the registration of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) project in 'Block 9' of the Safah oil field, under the United Nations' Kyoto Protocol, Times of Oman has reported. The project, which is the first of its kind in the country, will recover and utilise gas from oil wells that would otherwise be flared or vented. It has adopted the CDM methodology 'AM0009' of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Oman Trading International is majority-owned by Oman Oil Co.KSA AWARDS SR394M IN CONTRACTS FOR WATER AND SANITATION PROJECTS: Saudi water and electricity ministry has awarded 22 contracts for the implementation of water and sanitation projects in different parts of the country at an overall cost of SR394m, Arab News has reported. The projects include sewer projects in Dawadmi district in Riyadh, at an estimated cost of SR109. 6m and another contract for the establishment of a water tank in Hail, signed at a value of SR64.3m.Copyright: ___ (c)2013 AME Info (Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates) Visit AME Info (Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates) at .ameinfo.com Distributed by MCT Information Services迷你倉