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The company said in its stock exchange filing that diversifying the country’s economy away from
it would consider establishing and/or extending crude oil sales. Bahri had sought to make a foray
a European Medium Term Note (EMTN) pro- into LNG shipping by chartering vessels to carry
gramme up to INR350bn ($4.71bn). The board US LNG, but this plan was shelved after the oil
will also decide on an additional loan of up to price collapse.
INR100bn ($1.35bn) leveraged against its bank In neighbouring Kuwait, state-owned KNPC
term deposits. has reached a milestone at its Clean Fuels Project
ONGC has reportedly been considering (CFP), which involves upgrading its refineries to
expanding its debt pile following the collapse in produce Euro-5 standard fuels.
international oil prices and the government’s cap Texas-based Fluor said its joint venture with
on pricing of domestic natural gas production. South Korean firms Daewoo Engineering &
Across the border in neighbouring Pakistan, Construction and Hyundai Heavy Industries,
meanwhile, state-owned Oil and Gas Develop- FDH JV, had completed the provisional hando-
ment Company Ltd (OGDCL) has plugged and ver of installations at the Mina Abdullah refinery Saudi Aramco’s
abandoned a dry hole on its Guddu block. to KNPC.
The Umair NW-1 exploration well, which The 270,000 barrel per day Mina Abdullah shipping unit
was drilled to a total depth of 804 metres, failed and 466,000 bpd Mina Al-Ahmadi refineries are Bahr has ordered
to produce commercial quantities of oil or gas, both undergoing modernisation and expansion.
junior partner Jura Energy said on August 20. Once the work is completed, their combined 10 chemical
The Canadian independent said: “Based throughput capacity will reach 800,000 bpd.
on the hydrocarbon shows during drilling, log KNPC is also building a 615,000 bpd grassroots tankers from
results and interpretations, it was concluded that plant, Al-Zour, as part of the CFP. But after a
gas accumulations existed in the targeted Pirkoh series of delays, the company is yet to provide a Hyundai
and Habib Rahi Limestone formations of Eocene definitive timeframe for the project’s completion
age. Testing did not, however, yield commercial and commissioning.
quantities of gas from both formations.”
OGDCL owns 70% of the block, while Jura If you’d like to read more about the key events shaping
holds 13.5%, IPR Transoil has 11.5% and Gov- the downstream sector of Africa and the Middle East,
ernment Holdings Private owns 5%. then please click here for NewsBase’s DMEA Monitor.

If you’d like to read more about the key events shaping Europe: UK offshore decarbonisation
Asia’s oil and gas sector then please click here for The US has moved closer to imposing tougher
NewsBase’s AsianOil Monitor. sanctions on Russia’s embattled Nord Stream 2
project.
DMEA: Aramco bulk-buys chem tankers US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
Saudi Aramco’s shipping unit Bahri has ordered announced last week that his department would
10 chemical tankers from South Korea’s Hyun- remove an exemption protecting the pipeline
dai Mipo Dockyard (HMD) in a deal worth from a US sanctions package introduced in 2017.
$410mn. The first of the 50,000 DWT, medi- At the same time, another sanctions bill is mak-
um-range tankers will be delivered in the first ing its way through US Congress.
quarter of 2022. Their addition will bring Bahri’s Europe’s gas storage facilities were almost
total vessel count to 101. 90% full on August 18, data published by Gas
The expansion of Aramco’s fleet is part of the Infrastructure Europe (GIE) shows, marking an
Saudi Vision 2030 national strategy, aimed at unusual high for the time of year.

Week 34 26•August•2020 www. NEWSBASE .com P7