Page 16 - DMEA Week 44 2020

DMEA REFINING DMEA

Libya’s Zawiya refinery

back on stream

LIBYA LIBYA’S 120,000 barrel per day (bpd) Zawiya oil deposit, restarted production in October after
oil refinery resumed operations on October 20, months offline, causing national production to
The field that supplies state-owned National Oil Corp. has reported. surge to almost 900,000 bpd. El Feel is yet to
the refinery resumed The refinery, Libya’s largest, was forced come back on stream, however.
production last month. to close earlier this year after nearby clashes Both of Zawiya’s two 60,000 bpd processing
between rebel and government forces. The trains are operational, according to NOC.
Tripoli-based Government of National Accord Eastern Libya has been gripped for months
(GNA) and the Libyan National Army (LNA) of by shortages of diesel and gasoline as a result of
Khalifa Haftar reached a UN-brokered ceasefire the refinery’s downtime. Diesel is used in gener-
agreement in October. ators to produce electricity, and so the problem
Two smaller refineries in Libya’s east – the has therefore led to power cuts. ™
20,000 bpd Tobruk and 10,000 bpd Sarir plants
– also restarted production recently, sources told
Platts. The 220,000 bpd Ras Lanuf plant remains
offline, though, and there is no schedule for its
restart. The refinery was shut in 2013 owing to
an arbitration dispute.
The Zawiya refinery 40 km west of Tripoli
depends mainly on oil supplies from the El Sha-
rara and El Feel oilfields, situated in areas con-
trolled by LNA’s forces. Sharara, Libya’s largest

PETROCHEMICALS

Aramco announces Q3 results

SAUDI ARABIA SAUDI Aramco this week announced its Q3 12.4mn boepd, a reduction of 800,000 boepd
results and said that it would follow through compared to the full year average for 2019.
The company will with its $75bn full-year dividend commitment Much of this reduction can be attributed to the
follow through with despite pre-tax income falling by nearly 44%. nine-month crude output average falling from
its $75bn dividend While net income registered a marked 9.5mn bpd during the first half to 9.2mn bpd by
commitment. improvement – $11.8bn against $6.57bn in Q2, the end of September. This compares with the
the year-on-year comparison shows a drop of company’s full year 2020 plan average of 10mn
nearly $10bn. bpd and implies that Q3 production was around
Despite president and CEO Amin Nas- 8.9mn bpd, another significant dip following
ser saying that the company had seen “early the Q2 drop to 7.5-8mn bpd, when the company
signs of a recovery in the third quarter due to sought to stem its financial bleeding and comply
improved economic activity”, the Q3 report with OPEC+ cuts.
was notable because of the near omission of The company did not, however, progress on
operations. Instead, much of the attention increasing gas production, noting that it had
focused on the company keeping its promise achieved a single-day natural gas output record
to pay out its $18.75bn dividend for the quarter of 10.7bn cubic feet ($303mn cubic metres) on
during Q4, while the integration of SABIC was August 6 from “conventional and unconven-
also noted in a manner that adds substance to tional fields”. Though there was no clarification,
rumours that the downstream and corporate this presumably relates to sales gas production,
business units will be spun off to protect the which the company had intended to reach an
upstream cash cow. average of 9.6 bcf per day (272 mcm) by the end
Rather than providing a quarterly produc- of the year, though despite the peak, this target
tion update, Aramco noted that the nine-month remains unlikely given the reduction in capital
total hydrocarbon production average had fallen spending in the fall-out from the coronavirus
from 12.7mn barrels of oil equivalent per day to (COVID-19) pandemic. ™

P16 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 44 05•November•2020