Page 15 - AsianOil Week 31

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In other news, Mele Kyari, the group managing measures. The chairman warned that operating
director of Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. rates were not expected to return to pre-pan-
(NNPC), remains concerned about the high cost demic levels in the near future.
of producing oil in his country. He urged domes- The Indian government is struggling to get
tic operators to invest in the capacities of the local the economy back up and running after failing to
workforce, saying they would not have to pay such control a second wake of infections. Oxford Eco-
high rates to expatriates if they could hire well- nomics warned last week that economic growth
trained Nigerian nationals instead. could stall towards the end of the financial year,
after New Delhi’s bid to reopen the economy in
If you’d like to read more about the key events shaping June floundered. While the economy may enjoy
Africa’s oil and gas sector then please click here for a bump from the central government’s relaxation
NewsBase’s AfrOil Monitor. of quarantine, the global forecasting firm warned
that short-term outlook had “turned more wor-
Asia: IOC profits halved after oil collapse risome” and that growth was projected to lose
State-run Indian Oil Corp. (IOC) has announced momentum by the end of the year.
an almost 50% drop in its net profit for the first
quarter of financial year 2020-2021. DMEA: OMV’s petchem push
The company said on July 31 that its net Austrian oil firm OMV plans to raise €1.5bn
profit for the April-June period slid 47% year ($1.8bn) from a bond sale sometime within the
on year to INR19.11bn ($254.1bn), compared next year to fund the purchase of an extra 39%
to INR35.96bn ($478.1mn) a year earlier. The stake in plastics maker Borealis. It already has a
company attributed the weaker performance 36% position at the company, which controls a
to inventory losses relating to March’s oil price key petrochemicals complex in the UAE.
collapse. Meanwhile, IOC’s revenue amounted Borealis, through its Borouge joint venture
to INR889.37bn ($11.82bn) in the quarter, down with the Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. (ADNOC),
from the INR1.5 trillion ($19.95bn) reported in operates the Ruwais complex in the UAE.
the same three months of 2019-2020. ADNOC wants to develop the complex into the
The company’s gross refining margin (GRM) largest integrated refining and petrochemicals
also shrank from $4.69 per barrel in the first hub in the world, and OMV is eager to consol-
quarter of 2019-2020 to just $1.98 per bar- idate its control over this strategic investment.
rel between April and June of this year. IOC Meanwhile, Nigeria is banking on the launch
trimmed operating rates at its refineries follow- of its 650,000 barrel per day (bpd) Dangote oil
ing the reintroduction of lockdowns in states refinery early next year to end its reliance on
across the country, owing to a fresh surge of cases costly fuel imports and have some supplies spare
in June. (India reported nearly 55,000 new cases for shipment overseas. But as DMEA reports
of coronavirus (COVID-19) on August 2, bring- this week, the plant’s completion is more likely
ing the country’s total to 1.75mn. Of that figure, in either late 2021 or early 2022, given the string
1.1mn new cases were identified in July.) of delays it has already faced.
IOC chairman S M Vaidya said last week There are also concerns that state-owned
that capacity utilisation had averaged 69% in NNPC has given up on its existing three refin-
the quarter. He noted that while capacity rates eries and that its talk of finally modernising the
had picked up at the start of the July, climbing to outdated facilities is mere lip service.
around 93%, they had retreated to 75% as state Nigeria has had much more success in develop-
governments reintroduced social quarantine ing small-scale modular refineries, which avoid

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