Page 8 - MEOG Week 45

MEOG FinanCe & inVestment MEOG
Refiner Tupras falls to Q3 net loss
turkey
LARGESt turkish refiner tupras has reported a net loss of turkish lira (tRY) 156mn for the third quarter versus a net profit of tRY542mn for the same period of last year.
Revenues declined nearly 23% on an annual basis to tRY23.3bn in the quarter.
The company’s operating profit dropped 24% y/y to tRY608mn. Financial expenses increased to tRY817mn from tRY171mn
“The decline in Q3 profit was driven by nar- row differentials and natural gas price hikes,” tupras said in a presentation on its website.
The company sold a total of 7.8mn tonnes of products (including exports) in Q3, down from 8.7m tonnes a year earlies. Its sales on the domes- tic market declined to 6.4mn tonnes from 7.7mn
tonnes while shipments to foreign markets inched up to 1.4mn tonnes from 1mn tonnes.
The company also reported that its 9-month net income plunged to tRY340mn from tRY1.95bn in the same period of 2018 despite the 7% y/y increase in revenues to tRY68bn.
Data also showed that tupras’ operating expenses soared 43% y/y in the first nine months of the year to hit tRY1.24bn.
tupras is targeting the sale of around 30mn tonnes of products this year while its output target for 2019 is around 28mn tonnes. It has forecast that its capacity utilisation rate will be between 95% and 100% this year. the com- pany is investing some $150mn in refining operations.™
Eyes on East Med as Cyprus awards first production licence
east med
CYPRUS has granted its first oil and gas produc- tion licence to a Shell-led international consor- tium, as it aspires to establish itself as one of the Mediterranean’s key gas exporters.
A 25-year licence for the Aphrodite field, Cyprus’ largest offshore discovery with an esti- mated 4.1 trillion cubic feet (116bn cubic metres) of gas, was awarded to Shell, texas-based Noble Energy and Israel’s Delek Group, the govern- ment said in a statement.
Development plans call for the construction of a subsea pipeline that will carry the field’s gas to Shell’s 7.2 bcm per year LNG terminal in Idku, Egypt, with Cypriot Energy Minister Yiorgos Lakkotrypis predicting production to start in 2025.
“Cyprus will thus become a producer and alternative source of EU gas supplies, while at the same time making yet another decisive step towards realising the common vision of the countries of our region for the creation of the Eastern Mediterranean Gas Corridor to Europe,” Lakkotrypis said.
Cypriot authorities expected the project to generate €9.3bn ($10.3bn) in earnings over an 18-year period.
Aphrodite was discovered in 2011, leading to a flurry of exploration activity in Cyprus’
exclusive economic zone. these efforts have yielded results, with Italy’s Eni and France’s total discovering the Calypso discovery last year, esti- mated to hold up to 227 bcm of gas. This was fol- lowed by the similarly sized Glaucus-1 find by ExxonMobil and Qatar Petroleum in February.
But development has been stymied by a mar- itime dispute between Cyprus and turkey, with the government in Ankara conducting its own exploration in what are internationally recog- nised as Cypriot waters.
Cyprus has recently hired a Chinese-led con- sortium to supply a floating storage and regasifi- cation unit to import LNG itself, as part of plans to cut back on the use of heavy fuel oil and diesel supplies for its energy. There is also a plan afoot to build a 10 bcm per year pipeline that would supply Cyprus, Greece, Italy and other European markets with gas from offshore Israeli fields.
Israel Natural Gas Lines (INGL) reported this month signing a memorandum with IGI Posei- don to study the EastMed pipeline project, as it is known.
the pipeline could in the future pump Cypriot gas to Europe gas well, depending on whether the developers of the country’s other gas finds decide to export gas in the form of LNG instead.™
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w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m Week 45 13•November•2019