Regional News

SINGAPORE / DUBAI / Reuters Iraq’s proposal to change the way it prices crude oil in Asia faces resistance from refiners who fear that longer lead times between pricing and deliveries will expose them to more risk. Iraq’s state oil marketer SOMO surprised traders this week by seeking feedback on plans to switch its Basra crude benchmark in Asia to ...

Bloomberg PetroChina Co. took a page from the playbook of global peers known for generous dividends by deciding to pay shareholders its entire half-year net income. China’s biggest oil producer passed on to investors the benefits of higher global prices with almost 12.7 billion yuan ($1.9 billion) in dividends, the Beijing-based company said as it reported earnings that beat estimates. ...

CAIRO / Reuters Egypt’s Carbon Holdings aims to finalise funding and start building its massive Tahrir petrochemicals project by June, producing raw materials desperately needed to boost the country’s industrial sector, its chief executive told Reuters. The $10.6 billion scheme in the Suez Canal Economic Zone will be the largest petrochemicals project in Egypt. Carbon Holdings CEO Basil El-Baz sees ...

Bloomberg Oil pared gains after the American Petroleum Institute unexpectedly reported higher inventories of US gasoline and diesel last week, even as crude supplies declined. The API estimated that stockpiles of gasoline rose 1.4 million barrels last week and diesel expanded 2.05 million, according to people familiar with the data, which is only disclosed to members. That would be a ...

KHOBAR / Reuters Saudi Aramco has received bids from international engineering companies to build gas booster compressor stations at Haradh and Hawiyah, industry sources said, as the country plans to diversify its energy mix. The contracts are part of a $4 billion scheme to increase gas production in the country for domestic consumption. Saudi Arabia’s domestic gas demand has been ...

BEIJING / Reuters Russia held its spot as China’s top crude oil supplier for a fifth month in a row in July, with shipments up 54 percent over a year earlier, data showed on Wednesday. Russian shipments last month came in at 4.97 million tonnes, or about 1.17 million barrels per day (bpd), the General Administration of Customs said in ...

KHOBAR / Reuters State-run Bahrain Petroleum Co (Bapco) will meet a consortium led by France’s Technip for further talks over the planned expansion of Bahrain’s only oil refinery, sources close to the matter told Reuters. Bahrain has long been planning to expand the Sitra refinery and industry sources told Reuters in April that all bidders for the work had been ...

Bloomberg Saudi Arabia’s non-oil revenue could surge by about 80 billion riyals ($21.3 billion) next year, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch, boosting the kingdom’s efforts to reduce the economy’s reliance on crude. The increase would be driven by the implementation of value-added taxation, a tax on luxury products and higher fees imposed on expatriates’ dependents, London-based economist Jean-Michel ...

Bloomberg Oil Search Ltd., the Papua New Guinea-focused energy explorer, raised its full-year production target because of record output from the country’s liquefied natural gas project. The company lifted the lower end of its 2017 production guidance to 29 million barrels of oil equivalent from the previous 28.5 million, while leaving the upper end at 30.5 million barrels, citing record ...

Bloomberg Zema, a 94 year-old retailer of toys and appliances in Brazil’s interior, has become an unlikely thorn in the side of state-controlled oil behemoth Petroleo Brasileiro SA. This year Zema, which also runs gas stations, got its first fuel import license and joined a fast-growing group of new players that managed to, at least temporarily, squeeze Petrobras out of ...