Page 9 - DMEA Week 40

DMEA inVestment DMEA
Libya’s NOC demands and receives crucial state funding
AFriCA
tHE head of Libya’s national Oil Corp. (nOC) said recently that the company needed more money to head o a steep decline in production. e north African country is currently extract- ing around 1.3mn barrels per day of crude oil.
Mustafa sanalla, the chairman of nOC, urged the tripoli-based Government of national Accord (GnA) to release LYD1.5bn ($1.06bn) in funds that have already been allocated to the company.
Without the money, he said, nOC will not be able to sustain oil output at current levels and will see yields drop precipitously over the next nine months.
“If the corporation’s allocations are not released without delay, Libyan oil production will be hundreds of thousands of barrels per day lower than it should be,” sanalla said in a statement dated October 3. “ at will have an extremely negative e ect on national income.”
e chairman did not say exactly how much production might fall, but his e orts do seem to have been successful. On October 5, GnA
representatives said tripoli had made arrange- ments to disburse all of the money to nOC.
ey shared a document with reporters stat- ing that the internationally recognised govern- ment was making LYD1.2bn ($848mn) available “for projects that contribute in maintenance of current production rates and increase the pro- ductive capacity of the oil and gas sector” and another LYD300mn ($212mn) available to cover nOC’s obligations to other rms.
According to the document, the govern- ment has instructed the Central Bank to deposit the entire sum due to nOC in an emergency account. tripoli is reportedly using state revenue – namely, fees collected from foreign exchange sales under a rule introduced in 2018 – to cover the deposit.
is was not the rst time nOC has com- plained about GnA’s handling of its budget. e company claims that authorities in tripoli have already slashed its budget, leaving less than anticipated for nOC’s own operations and for its subsidiaries, twice this year.™
reFininG
Aramco seeking to refinance SATORP debt
miDDle eAst
sAUDI Aramco has begun discussions with banks for the re nancing of $2.2bn of debt held by its joint venture (JV) with French super-major total.
A report by Bloomberg this week cited sources close to proceedings as saying that Ara- mco is keen to reduce the borrowing cost on loans that were taken out to fund the construc- tion of the saudi Aramco total Re ning and Pet- rochemical (sAtORP) facility.
e 440,000 barrel per day re nery was com- missioned in 2014.
Bloomberg reported that the debt is held by international and local lenders in dollars and saudi riyals, with Japan’s sumitomo Mit- sui Banking Corp. (sMBC) and the local Riyad Bank advising on the talks.
In October 2018, Aramco and total signed a joint development agreement to proceed with the development of a world-scale petrochemi- cals complex near sAtORP, highlighting the closeness of their downstream ties.
When announcing plans for the so-called Amiral complex, the partners also stated the intention of attracting $4 billion in investment in
additional petrochemicals and speciality chemi- cal facilities in Jubail and elsewhere.
this will feed off the estimated $5 billion main plant, which will comprise a 1.5mn tonne per year mixed-feed cracker and derivatives units, and be completed in 2024.
In January, a memorandum of understand- ing (MoU) was signed Aramco, total and south korea’s Daelim to build an 80,000 tpy polyisobu- tylene (PIB) plant that will use feedstock from Amiral.
Meanwhile, in June, the saudi-French team signed an MoU with Uk-based InEOs to build three new plants in Jubail in the kingdom’s East- ern Province.
this deal covered the construction of a 425,000 tpy acrylonitrile plant, a 400,000 tpy unit for linear alpha ole ns (LAO) and a “world- scale” PolyAlphaOle n (PAO) facility, with all scheduled to begin production in 2025.
e new units will be part of the Jubail 2 com- plex and will be located alongside sAtORP.
Aramco and total own stakes of 62.5% and 37.5% respectively in both sAtORP and Amiral.™
Week 40 10•October•2019 w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m P9