Page 8 - MEOG Week 38

MEOG PiPeLines & trAnsPort MEOG
AB pipeline shut following Saudi attacks
bAhrAin/sAudi
BODy Bahrain Petroleum Co. (BAPCO) was searching for maritime shipments of saudi Ara- bian crude last week after its neighbour closed the saudi-Bahrain A-B oil pipeline following attacks at Abqaiq and Khurais.
Reuters quoted sources as saying that BAPCO had been seeking around 2mn barrels of saudi crude to replace pipeline flows to its refinery at sitrah, south of manama. meanwhile, a 22,000 barrel per day crude distillation unit (CDU) at the facility was closed completely, and another CDU, a 10,200 bpd vacuum distillation unit and a 24,000 bpd visbreaker unit cut utilisation rates to 45%, according to the Reuters sources.
the flagship refinery runs primarily on around 225,000 bpd of Arabian Light crude, which is piped from the processing facilities at Abqaiq, which clean and remove sand and sul- phur from the crude. BAPCO and saudi Ara- mco have commissioned phase four of the A-B oil pipeline, taking total capacity to 350,000 bpd.
The long-planned link comprises a 112-km,
762-mm pipeline that replaces the ageing exist- ing link.
The main engineering, procurement and con- struction (EPC) contracts were apportioned in 2015 on the $350mn scheme. The completion of the new conduit was a prerequisite for progress on a similarly long-planned expansion of the refinery. The $6bn refinery upgrade programme kicked off earlier this year.
the main EPC contract on the so-called BAPCO modernisation Project was awarded for $4.2bn to a consortium of London-listed tech- nipFmC, south Korea’s samsung Engineering and spain’s tecnicas Reunidas. This calls for an increase in capacity from 267,000 bpd to 360,000 bpd and the installation of new units for the pro- duction of cleaner, higher-value fuels.
In July, BAPCO CEO Pete Bartlett said that $1bn of the anticipated total outlay of $6bn had been spent as the firm seeks to upgrade and expand the facility. The modernised refinery is scheduled to be commissioned by early 2023.™
SOMO denies having received Saudi request for crude
irAQ/sAudi
AN official from Iraq’s state Organization for the marketing of Oil (sOmO) denied that it had received a request from saudi Arabia for crude for the latter’s refineries.
Iraqi state media this week quoted sOmO’s head of public relations, Haidar al-Kaabi, as say- ing that sOmO “categorically denies any request from the Kingdom of saudi Arabia to supply it with crude”.
The comment follows reports last week from the Wall street Journal and s&P Global Platts, which quoted sources as saying that Riyadh had asked Iraq for up to 20mn barrels of crude to fill the gap cause by last weekend’s drone and mis- sile attack on the Khurais oilfield and processing facilities at Abqaiq.
saudi officials were quoted during the week as saying that saudi Aramco would restore the 5.7mn barrels per day (bpd) of lost crude pro- duction by the end of september, without having to cancel any shipments to customers.
Iraq moves the vast majority of its crude exports through the Al Başrah Oil terminal
(ABOt) and the Khor al-Amaya Oil terminal (KAAOt) in the south, though loading at the lat- ter has been shut in since a pipe rupture caused leaks in 2017.
Iraq’s 2019 state budget, passed by the National Assembly in January, calls for the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to allow 250,000 bpd of the territory’s crude to be sold by sOmO at the turkish port of Ceyhan, with a chunk of the authority’s allocation of federal funds being contingent on this.
Iraq has held lofty ambitions of ramping up oil output to a level that would challenge saudi Arabia, but these have been hampered by two significant obstacles: a lack of export infrastruc- ture and a lack of water for injection.
Baghdad’s recent statement of intent to proceed with the long-awaited crude conduit through Jordan to the Red sea, the seawater line deal with Hyundai in June and these reports of progress on a deal to improve facilities to ABOt and KAAOt demonstrate that Iraq is trying to remove the most significant barriers.™
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w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m Week 38 24•September•2019