29/03/2010 round-up

This weekend, the Middle East oil and gas sector has seen contracts signed, financing and loan deals agreed, the announcement of how much oil the Manjoon oilfield is going to produce, and finally, Saudi Arabia reveals its energy plans.

Qatar Petroleum awards Petrofac a contract

Qatar Petroleum has awarded Petrofac a contract worth more than US$600 million for a gas sweetening facilities project in Qatar's Messaieed and Dukhan industrial districts.

The work includes the engineering, procurement, installation and commissioning of gas sweetening facilities in both locations. This includes a sulphur recovery upgrade at NGL-3 in Messaieed and an acid gas recovery plant at Arab-D in Dukhan.

"We are delighted to be part of the continuing investment in oil & gas infrastructure by Governments in the region. The award of this contract serves to further reinforce Petrofac's commitment to the Qatari market, and again highlights our continued competitiveness in the Middle East," Petrofac's group chief operating officer, Maroun Semaan said to Arabian oil and gas.

Financing deal for Kharafi National

Dubai Islamic Bank has agreed a financing deal worth US$215 million for Kharafi National, a Kuwait-based construction group with operations across the Middle East and Africa. The project, with a value of US$728 million, aims to increase Abu Dhabi's offshore gas production capacity by one billion cubic feet per day.

Under the agreement, DIB will cover the financing requirements for Kharafi National's sub-contract with a JGC-Tecnimont joint venture to construct the Habshan 5 Process Plant for Gasco in Abu Dhabi.

Loan agreed for Saudi Aramco

On Saturday, Saudi based Islamic Development Bank (IDB) said it had agreed to grant State oil giant Saudi Aramco a US$120 million loan to build a US$12.8 billion refinery in Jubail with France Total.

The project is being financed by all Saudi commercial banks, the Saudi Industrial Development Fund, Public Investment Fund, Barclays, JP Morgan, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, BNP Paribas and Citigroup, IDB said in a statement.

The 400,000 barrels per day (bdp) crude refinery would start production in mid-2013. Aramco currently owns 62.5 percent of the plant, while Total holds the rest. But an initial public offering scheduled to take place in two to three years will leave Aramco with an equal stake as Total, Arabian Business reports.

Manjoon oilfield aim

Iraq's Manjoon oilfield is expected to produce 175,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day when commercial production begins in 2012, Reuters has reported.

Shell and Petronas won the rights to the Manjoon field, which is one of the world's biggest, last year and the final contract was signed by the two companies earlier this year.

The development contract runs for 20 years and is one of a number Iraq is expected to complete in the coming weeks. The oilfield, based in southern Iraq is said to have a capacity of 12.6 billion barrels of oil.

Saudi's five year energy plan

Over the next five years, Saudi Arabia is planning on spending US$170 billion on energy and oil refinery projects. US$90 billion of this money will come directly from Saudi Aramco, while current and future capital investment will add the remaining US$80 billion of joint refining and marketing projects to the total. These investments are in line with the Kingdom's plans to increase production capacity as well as refining and marketing, in addition to directing an increased proportion of these investments to gas projects, AMEinfo.com reports.

Saudi Aramco has spent over US$62 billion over the past five years on increasing production capacity to reach 12 million barrels per day.

Such investments reflect the belief that oil will remain a key player on the global energy stage for the foreseeable future.

Also, the kingdom is working to expand investment in natural gas, it ranks fourth in the world in terms volume of natural gas reserves, through intensive exploration with the aim of raising reserves by 40 percent by the end of 2018.

 

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