Page 10 - DMEA Week 45

DMEA FinanCe & inVestment DMEA
Iran looks to $1bn bilateral trade with Syria
middle east
thE chairman of the Iran-Syria Joint Chamber of Commerce, Keyvan Kashefi said that the two allies will increase their bilateral trade to $1bn over the next two years, Mehr News reported on November 13.
Iranian companies, along with Russian and Chinese competitors have leaped on the barely functioning Syrian state offering a string of deals from reconstruction, telecoms and automotive.
Kashefi said both countries have high poten- tial for increasing bilateral trade from a current $500mn to $1bn over the next two years.
he said this at a conference on trade oppor- tunities in Syria, held at the directorate of the Iran trade Facilitation Organization (tPOI) adding, “over the past year, more than 10 eco- nomic delegations were exchanged between Iran and Syria”
“today, competent Iranian companies play a key role in rebuilding Syria in the field of infra- structure and energy,” the Iranian official added.
Kashefi stressed that the conclusion of a trade
and business agreement between Iran and Syria could accelerate trade and economic relations between the two countries.
he estimated the trade balance between the two countries in the previous Persian calendar year stood at $152mn in favour of Iranian trade.
he added that in the first half of the current Persian year was recorded at $69mn.™
Leviathan coming on- stream ahead of schedule
middle east
US operator Noble Energy announced last week that the Leviathan gas field offshore Israel was on track to achieve production in December, below budget and ahead of schedule.
Noble said in its Q3 report that production decks had been installed on the jacket during the quarter and that the project was now 96% complete. Work remains ongoing to install the living quarters on the platform as well as rig commissioning.
Noble and local partner Delek Drilling announced in September that the platforms that would be utilised to develop Leviathan had set sail for the Israeli offshore from texas, US.
Leviathan is due to commence with output of 12bn cubic metres per year. This should increase to 21 bcm, from a resource calculated at around 606 bcm.
Noble said that project spend had come in $30mn under guidance, with total gross capital expenditure on Leviathan having been reduced by $150nm to $3.6bn.
It said that runtime at its nearby tamar gas
field had been 99%-plus since it had come on stream, noting that the asset had produced a cumulative 56.6 bcm.
From Leviathan, Noble anticipates selling an average of 22.66mn cubic metres per day of gas in 2020, with output being piped by two 120-km lines to the mainland. At that point, it will join the Israel Natural Gas Lines (INGL) network.
Also last week, Noble completed a deal to acquire the a 39% stake in East Mediterranean Gas (EMG), the owner of the EMG pipeline, for $185mn.
the 90-km conduit connects the gas net- works of Israel and Egypt, and had been used in a controversial and opaque three-way deal that saw Egyptian gas supplied to Israel, but the facility suffered repeated attacks in the wake of the 2011 revolution and the deal was unilater- ally terminated by Cairo the following year as a domestic shortage loomed.
Noble said it intended to use the line to fulfil existing gas contracts with flows from Leviathan and tamar to Egypt.™
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w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m Week 45 14•November•2019