Search results

There are credible indications that the new oil terminal at Kooh Mobarak, 53km north-west of Jask, is unoperational, more than two months after the first cargo was reportedly loaded onto a tanker there.

Sharjah-based Dana Gas said it had been awarded $607.5m in an arbitration case against National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC)), which ccentres around a 25-year contract under which the Iranian state company was due to deliver natural gas from December 2005.

King Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa abolished the National Oil and Gas Authority (Noga) and replaced it with a Ministry of Oil, according to a royal decree dated 27 September. The ministry will take on all of Noga’s functions; all staff will be moved across. It is not clear if the changes will be accompanied by a reshuffle of senior personnel.

Omani oil trader Mahmood Rashid Amur Al-Habsi has been sanctioned by the US Treasury Department for his links to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Qods Force and a smuggling network Washington claimed transported “oil shipments worth tens of millions of dollars”.

While other majors have been pulling back, TotalEnergies chief Patrick Pouyanné has stuck with his commitment to invest big in Iraq and other troublesome ‘frontier’ areas, as the French giant signed a series of deals with the oil and electricity ministries and the National Investment Commission on 5 September to supply more natural gas to power plants and develop a solar photovoltaic power plant in the Basra region.

Petrochemicals sector officials and executives have been given jail terms of between five and 20 years for their role in a $7.9bn embezzlement case. Six former officials at Petrochemical Commercial Company – named in media reports as chief executive Reza Hamzeh-Lou, assistant chief executive Abbas Samimi Naeb, commercial director Mohsen Ahmadian, board members Alireza Alaei Rahmani and Mostafa Tehrani, and Marjan Shaykh-ol-Eslami – were sentenced to 20 years and 74 lashes and will have to repay the money they received.

The Pearl Petroleum consortium co-led by the UAE’s Crescent Petroleum and Dana Gas, has secured $250m from the US’ International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) to fund an expansion of gas production at the Khor Mor plant in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.

Genel Energy has countered the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG)’s notice of its intention to terminate production-sharing contracts (PSCs) to develop the Bina Bawi and Miran natural gas fields with action to resolve a move for which Genel on 20 August said there were “no grounds”.

On 22 July, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani inaugurated a new oil pipeline running from Goreh in Bushehr province to a terminal at Jask in Hormozgan province, on the Gulf of Oman. The 1,000km, 42-inch link provides a strategically important new export outlet for Iranian crude.

There were three surprises from the 18 July Opec+ meeting: one, that it happened so soon after the most recent ministerial meetings; two, that it extended the 23 countries’ co-operation agreement to December 2022; and three, that it solved a quota dispute between the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Russia, which had fed into Abu Dhabi’s deteriorating relationship with Riyadh.

Officials are adamant the sale and leasing of assets, and a steady flow of huge bond issues, are not being done to maintain Aramco’s $75bn annual dividend – and major new investments are planned that will need funding – but the oil giant is clearly under pressure to maintain its position as the state’s cash-cow.

GSN Risk Grade – D↓4 Overview Politics: Disagreements between the autonomous Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) and the federal Iraqi government in Baghdad have been a source of major tensions. The 2005 constitution gave the KRI an identity distinct from Iraq, as a federal entity recognised by Iraq and the United Nations; the 2010 Erbil agreement outlined how power would be shared. 

GSN Risk Grade – C↑3↓ Overview Oil exploration: Italian major Eni has begun drilling on the first exploratory well in offshore Block 1, an area of over 2,800km2 in the northern territorial waters of Bahrain where water depths range from 10 to 70 metres. In May 2019, Eni signed an exploration and production-sharing agreement with National Oil and Gas Authority (Noga) for the block.

Qatar Petroleum (QP) and its partner France’s TotalEnergies have been awarded two offshore blocks in Suriname. TotalEnergies will take a 40% operating interest in Blocks 6 and 8, with QP having 20% and the final 40% held by national oil company Staatsolie.

Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc) has signed an agreement with India’s Reliance Industries to develop a world-scale chloralkali (used in water treatment and the manufacture of textiles and metals), ethylene dichloride and PVC production facility at Ruwais.