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Petroleum / Mining in North Africa

  • Egyptian investment firm Qalaa Holdings is confident its new refinery

    EGYPT, 2016/05/27 Egyptian investment firm Qalaa Holdings is confident its new refinery will cut the country's dependence on crucial oil product imports, particularly as a weaker currency and rising crude prices force the government to reduce its energy bills. The $3.7 billion Egyptian Refining Co (ERC) will have the capacity to produce 4.2 million tonnes of refined products annually, which ERC will sell to national-controlled Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC) at international prices under a 25-year agreement.
  • Beyond Commodities: How African Multinationals Are Transforming

    BOTSWANA, 2016/05/11 Oil, gold, diamonds, palm oil, cocoa, timber: raw materials have long been linked to Africa in a lot of businesspeople’s minds. And in fact the continent is highly dependent on commodities: they constitute as much as 95% of some nations’ export revenues, according to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. But propping a country’s entire economy on commodities is risky business, like building a mountainside home on stilts. You can’t be sure about the weather, or in this case the commodities market. The current free-fall of oil prices to less than $40 a barrel is a glaring example. “The commodities cycle has tanked out,” says Austin Okere, founder of Computer Warehouse Group (CWG), a Nigerian emerging multinational financial services company. “And this time it looks additional structural than cyclical, so it’s not a matter of waiting it out. Something has to give.”
  • Africa’s Resource Economy: Same Old Boom and Bust

    AFRICA, 2016/03/14 There are winners and losers whenever markets move significantly, whether they are currency markets, metal markets or other commodities such as oil or agriculture. The last two years have seen a massive shift between winners and losers across the globe depending on whether nations are net importers or exporters of a range of commodities, most of which have plunged in price.Some regions, though, have suffered additional than others and while one can say the OPEC leaders — such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and other Persian Gulf states — are feeling self-inflicted wounds, other producer-states at no time supported the idea of taking on US shale drillers in the initial place, from presently on they have been hit harder than the Gulf states by the plunging oil price.
  • EGPC denies report it is negotiating to delay dollar repayments

    EGYPT, 2015/12/09 Egyptian General Petroleum Corp (EGPC) denied on Tuesday that it was negotiating with banks to delay dollar payments owed to them next failing to receive its full dollar needs from the central bank in November. Egypt is facing a dollar shortage and mounting pressure to devalue the pound. Foreign reserves have tumbled from $36 billion in 2011 to $16.42 billion in November and the country has focused on directing its dollars to strategic commodities. An EGPC official who asked not to be named told Reuters before on Tuesday the company was in negotiations to postpone dollar instalments owed to banks next not being supplied its total dollar requirements by the central bank last month.
  • Gold exports reach $3 billion per year

    SUDAN, 2015/11/11 Sudan is one of Africa’s major gold producers; and a vast resevoir of untapped resources provide further golden opportunities for investors in mining The secession of South Sudan has proven to be the catalyst Sudan needed to revitalize its economy, the country’s National Minister for Investment Osama Faisal Elsayed Ali states. Since 2011, the country has embarked on a bold strategy of diversification away from oil, and towards industries such as mining and agriculture. The gold industry, in particular, has boomed in recent years. It plays a very vital role in the country’s economy, generating additional than $3 billion in sales each year. “It was a good opportunity for investors because everybody was relying on the oil and all of a sudden the deficit was created because of the secession,” says Mr. Ali. “For additional than 50 years nobody was thinking of doing mining – people were always concentrating on oil, oil, oil. But instantly next the secession we started to produce gold and other minerals as well.”
  • Occidental Petroleum To Sell 40% Of Middle East Unity

    IRAQ, 2015/07/01 Occidental Petroleum oil is looking to sell 40 % of its operations in the Middle East for eight billion Dollars, while the company seeks to invest in the Middle East unity within the framework of a broader plan to split the company. Chief Executive Officer, Steve Chazen has been speaking publicly since April about a possible transaction related to its origins in the Middle East and North Africa and in different nations from Libya to Iraq and Yemen.
  • Oil explorers hang onto Morocco energy potential

    CASABLANCA, 2015/04/05 Morocco has seen an uptick in both onshore and offshore drilling activity in 2014 as international oil firms, inclunding majors Chevron and BP, work to assess Morocco’s potential for oil and gas production – with some encouraging results. While explorers have from presently on to announce major, commercially-viable offshore discoveries, improved technologies are helping to identify resources in before overlooked areas along the Atlantic margin, a zone that has produced promising finds in Ghana and Brazil in recent years. Initial drilling in 2014 has turned up a handful of interesting prospects, and additional exploration plans in 2015-2016 are expected to clarify the resource picture.
  • Cyprus signed an energy deal with Egypt

    CYPRUS, 2015/04/01 Cyprus signed an energy transaction with Egypt on Monday that could see the island supplying its Mediterranean neighbour with gas. Cyprus is keen to exploit the Aphrodite field off its southeastern coast but the reserves proven so far are not considered sufficient to make it viable for the island to develop onshore export infrastructure of its own. Monday's transaction authorises the "Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company and the Cyprus Hydrocarbons Company to examine technical solutions for transporting natural gas, through a direct marine pipeline, from the Aphrodite field to Egypt."
  • Libya forces ‘withdraw’ from frontline bases near oil ports

    LIBYA, 2015/03/30 Forces loyal to a rival Libyan government controlling the capital Tripoli have withdrawn from frontline bases near the country's biggest oil ports, a spokesman said on Friday, raising hopes the ports may any minute at this time be reopened. A Tripoli official said the internationally recognised government and the rival government, which have fought since December over the two biggest oil ports in eastern Libya, had reached an agreement to withdraw. He did not say whether troops had been moved from presently on. The move, if confirmed, may pave the way to restart the Es Sider and Ras Lanuf ports which shut down in December due to fighting. Libya is divided with factions allied to two governments -- the internationally recognised one in the east and the rival government in Tripoli - vying for control of territory and oil facilities.
  • A look at Egypt’s failure to exploit gas in the Mediterranean

    EGYPT, 2014/12/17 The oil and gas resources that Egypt could benefit from are just talk and cannot even be exploited as Israel manipulates these resources and seeks to maintain its control over them by all means possible. Cairo – At the same time as Israel undertook security measures to protect gas fields in the Mediterranean Sea, inclunding renting a military unit in Cyprus until 2016, it ignited a crisis regarding the right to exploit the oil and gas fields in the Mediterranean. Due to the fact that Israel established the Iron Dome missile defense system to intercept missiles along its coast and off its territorial waters, in addition to its intelligence activities, it was able to monitor the work being done in these economically viable waters. In addition, Israel has a confidential strategic security considerate with the United States in coordination with Turkey to preempt any international operations aimed at gas exploration and to strike them through the military unit established in Cyprus or the US Sixth Fleet present in the Mediterranean. All these Israeli actions deprive the Egyptian treasury of nearly a billion US dollars yearly for failing to exploit the discovered gas fields in territorial waters in the Mediterranean Sea.