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Copyright © 2014 NewBase www.hawkenergy.net Edited by Khaled Al Awadi – Energy Consultant All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, redistributed, or otherwise copied without the written permission of the authors. This includes internal distribution. All reasonable endeavours have been used to ensure the accuracy of the information contained in this publication. However, no warranty is given to the accuracy of its content . Page 1 NewBase 22 March 2015 - Issue No. 565 Khaled Al Awadi NewBase For discussion or further details on the news below you may contact us on +971504822502 , Dubai , UAE Solar Impulse Landed in Mandalay Maynmar, ready for more www.solarimpulse.com/ Before taking off for its fifth flight from Mandalay (VYMD) in the Republic of the Union of Myanmar, to Chongqing (ZUCK) in the People's Republic of China, the Solar Impulse team will stay a few days on the ground, waiting for the weather to improve over China. Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg had the honor to receive a visit from Thein Sein, President of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar on Friday March 20th. Together with host partner FMI and in partnership with Yoma, we are organizing events and school visits under the tent.
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Page 1: New base 565 special 22 march  2015

Copyright © 2014 NewBase www.hawkenergy.net Edited by Khaled Al Awadi – Energy Consultant All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

redistributed, or otherwise copied without the written permission of the authors. This includes internal distribution. All reasonable endeavours have been used to ensure the accuracy of the information contained

in this publication. However, no warranty is given to the accuracy of its content . Page 1

NewBase 22 March 2015 - Issue No. 565 Khaled Al Awadi

NewBase For discussion or further details on the news below you may contact us on +971504822502 , Dubai , UAE

Solar Impulse Landed in Mandalay Maynmar, ready for more www.solarimpulse.com/

Before taking off for its fifth flight from Mandalay (VYMD) in the Republic of the Union of Myanmar, to Chongqing (ZUCK) in the People's Republic of China, the Solar Impulse team will stay a few days on the ground, waiting for the weather to improve over China.

Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg had the honor to receive a visit from Thein Sein, President of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar on Friday March 20th. Together with host partner FMI and in partnership with Yoma, we are organizing events and school visits under the tent.

Page 2: New base 565 special 22 march  2015

Copyright © 2014 NewBase www.hawkenergy.net Edited by Khaled Al Awadi – Energy Consultant All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

redistributed, or otherwise copied without the written permission of the authors. This includes internal distribution. All reasonable endeavours have been used to ensure the accuracy of the information contained

in this publication. However, no warranty is given to the accuracy of its content . Page 2

Iraq: DNO says Kurdish Iraq production on track despite spending cuts The National + NewBase

DNO, a Norwegian exploration company, said that it expects production at the Tawke field in Kurdish Iraq to hit 200,000 barrels per day “in the first part of 2015” even as it cuts costs.

DNO reached cumulative production at Tawke of a solid 100 million barrels in February, but has struggled financially because of the Kurdistan Regional Government’s inability to keep up with payments to oil companies operating there.

DNO is 42.8 per cent owned by RAK Petroleum. Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani, DNO’s chairman, this month said the company would stay committed to the Kurdish region. “Our priority now is to work with the Kurdistan Regional Government to monetise all oil produced at Tawke according to contractual entitlements,” he said.

The company raised more than 802 million Norwegian kroner (Dh365.2m) through a sale of new shares in mid-March. The company’s chief financial officer, Haakon Sandborg, said lower oil prices meant DNO had to curb expansion plans, cutting US$20m out of costs for this year (which included an unspecified headcount reduction) and reducing capital expenditure to $100m for this year.

Capital expenditure in the previous two years was $297m and $288m, respectively.

The KRG said it expected to make inroads on the hundreds of millions of dollars of back payments it owes to companies, which include Dana Gas.

“DNO expects to realise our share of export revenues from Kurdistan consistent with our contractual terms,” Mr Sandborg said.

Page 3: New base 565 special 22 march  2015

Copyright © 2014 NewBase www.hawkenergy.net Edited by Khaled Al Awadi – Energy Consultant All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

redistributed, or otherwise copied without the written permission of the authors. This includes internal distribution. All reasonable endeavours have been used to ensure the accuracy of the information contained

in this publication. However, no warranty is given to the accuracy of its content . Page 3

Saudi Arabia ramps up oil-gas rigs Reuters + NewBase

As the global energy industry stares transfixed at a spectacular drop in US rigs, Saudi Arabia is ramping up the number of machines drilling for oil and gas despite a sharp fall in the price of crude.

Industry sources and analysts say the OPEC giant is looking beyond the halving of global oil prices since June 2014 to a time when crude could again be in short supply. Riyadh is therefore keen to preserve what is known as “its spare capacity” — the Kingdom's unique ability to raise oil output quickly at any given moment. But to achieve that, Saudi Arabia has to drill much more than in the past, after boosting output to record levels to compensate for global supply outages in the past four years. Saudi Aramco used a record-high 210 oil and gas rigs in 2014, up from around 150 in 2013, 140 in 2012 and 100 in 2011, according to previous industry estimates. Aramco's senior vice-president for upstream operations Amin Nasser said this month his firm had yet to decide whether to increase the rig number in 2015 from the 212 currently in use. But data shows the numbers are still rising. Excluding non-US-registered rigs such as Chinese or Russian, February 2015 saw a total Saudi rig count of 155, up from 150 in January and 146 in December, according to data from OPEC and US oil services company Baker Hughes. Since 2010, the number of US-registered rigs has doubled from 67. Sadad Al Husseini, a former senior executive at Aramco and now an energy consultant, said the rise in the Saudi oil rig count had been evolving over a long period. “You need to drill more wells if you are producing 10 million barrels per day (bpd) and maintaining your spare capacity,” he said. “It is also a natural phenomenon in the oil business, that the more you produce, the more you deplete your reserves and the more rapidly your field capacity declines. You need to drill more wells more frequently, simply to maintain production capacity.”

Page 4: New base 565 special 22 march  2015

Copyright © 2014 NewBase www.hawkenergy.net Edited by Khaled Al Awadi – Energy Consultant All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

redistributed, or otherwise copied without the written permission of the authors. This includes internal distribution. All reasonable endeavours have been used to ensure the accuracy of the information contained

in this publication. However, no warranty is given to the accuracy of its content . Page 4

In 2008, Oil Minister Ali Al Naimi said production capacity would rise to 15 million bpd from 12.5 million but the plan was put on hold after the global financial meltdown of late 2008 saw oil plunge below $40 a barrel. Subsequent events such as Libya's 2011 civil war tested the Saudi ability to ramp up output to help soothe global supply outages and showed that spare capacity could not be eroded if Riyadh wanted to continue playing a key role. The OPEC heavyweight has been pumping more than 9 million bpd since mid-2011, up from 8.1-8.3 million for most of 2009-2010. To ease pressure on its ageing giant fields, Ghawar and Abqaiq, Aramco launched the Khurais and Manifa fields with total capacity of more than 2m bpd. It plans to increase output from onshore fields – Shaybah and Khurais – by 550,000 bpd by 2017. It has also been ramping up drilling in offshore fields such as Safaniyah. The projects should allow Aramco to preserve the world's largest spare-capacity cushion at more than two million bpd. Over the past two years, Saudi production has sometimes exceeded 10 million bpd in summer months as crude is burnt locally for power generation and new refineries. That forced Aramco to put more emphasis on gas exploration, as higher gas output would help preserve spare oil capacity. “Aramco's focus now is more on gas, so they have been moving some of their oil rigs to gas rather than terminating the contract and paying a penalty,” an oil industry executive in Saudi Arabia said.

Page 5: New base 565 special 22 march  2015

Copyright © 2014 NewBase www.hawkenergy.net Edited by Khaled Al Awadi – Energy Consultant All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

redistributed, or otherwise copied without the written permission of the authors. This includes internal distribution. All reasonable endeavours have been used to ensure the accuracy of the information contained

in this publication. However, no warranty is given to the accuracy of its content . Page 5

Egypt seeks to double its power generation capacity The National + NewBase

Egypt wants to double its current power generation capacity of about 30,000 megawatts by 2020 – a target that is seen as key to support ambitious economic growth plans. It may need more gas to get there.

To meet it, the government is seeking to draw on the expertise of global and regional players from Siemens and General Electric, to the UAE’s Taqa and Saudi Arabia’s Acwa Power. The country’s power generation sector relies on natural gas for 68.7 per cent of its electricity production, according to the Egyptian state-owned Information and Decision Support Centre (IDSC).

From conventional power generation using natural gas and coal, to renewable energy schemes using wind and solar, some of the industry’s biggest names have pledged to invest more than US$20 billion.

According to consultancy Frost & Sullivan, the majority of new power projects will use natural gas as a feedstock. Frost & Sullivan power analyst Anup Barapatre said that natural gas and coal would total 84 per cent of the new capacity. That poses another dilemma for the country’s already strained economy.

“Egypt will have to import more gas,” said Mr Barapatre, who estimates current gas production to be 4.7 billion cubic feet per day. However, the country will require an estimated 700 million cubic feet of additional gas per day to cater to the electricity needs in peak seasons,” he said.

Egypt sits on an estimated 77 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of proven natural gas reserves, up from 2010 estimates of almost 59 Tcf. However, much of the potentially large gas discoveries in deep offshore areas such as the Mediterranean are undeveloped.

Because the drilling is more complex and therefore, more expensive in such blocs, exploration companies are reluctant to commit investment. Egypt pays foreign companies US$2.65 per million British thermal units, which can make drilling these costly deepwater assets uneconomical.

The government has said it would consider paying more to help with the development, but to date there has not been a change in the price. Last year Egypt produced 56.1 billion cubic metres of natural gas, a 7.7 per cent decrease from the previous year, according to the BP 2014 Statistical Review.

Page 6: New base 565 special 22 march  2015

Copyright © 2014 NewBase www.hawkenergy.net Edited by Khaled Al Awadi – Energy Consultant All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

redistributed, or otherwise copied without the written permission of the authors. This includes internal distribution. All reasonable endeavours have been used to ensure the accuracy of the information contained

in this publication. However, no warranty is given to the accuracy of its content . Page 6

BP renegotiated its 2010 agreement for the $12bn West Nile Delta project, which includes its latest Atoll discovery. A company spokesman said that this discovery, in addition to the Salamat find in 2013, would form a good starting point for another development. However, more appraisal and development planning is needed and “this will take some years”.

The spokesman said: “Any eventual agreement with the government will take account of the commercial challenges.” Frost & Sullivan said that the country was in discussions with some key players to get more financial help. Egypt is talking with the International Monetary Fund, and countries such as the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Jordan are keen to support the [natural gas] feedstock,” Mr Barapatre said. Sharjah-based Dana Gas revised its contract with Egypt to offer an alternative payment method that the company said would ultimately increase its investment in Egypt. The firm signed an agreement with the Egyptian government that allows Egypt to barter its portion of the natural gas profit, putting it toward monies owed.

“The fact that we signed the agreement means we’re now accelerating investment into the country,” said Robinder Singh, investor relations director at Dana Gas. “The import replacement has an economic value of at least a couple of billion dollars – it’s a sizeable boost,” said Mr Singh.

Although official import figures have not been released, Egypt expects to increase natural gas imports this year – a necessity in providing the feedstock needed by planned additional power plants.

Acwa views Egypt as a very important market, but it also hopes to help diversify the country’s energy mix to generate a more sustainable and reliable power solution. “It’s a key driver in looking into efficient energy solutions,” said chief executive Paddy Padmanathan.

Page 7: New base 565 special 22 march  2015

Copyright © 2014 NewBase www.hawkenergy.net Edited by Khaled Al Awadi – Energy Consultant All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

redistributed, or otherwise copied without the written permission of the authors. This includes internal distribution. All reasonable endeavours have been used to ensure the accuracy of the information contained

in this publication. However, no warranty is given to the accuracy of its content . Page 7

UK: New decom site at Tees Valley could create 1000 jobs Offshore Energy Today

The UK Government has outlined plans to launch two new Enterprise Zones while extending several more of the thriving business hubs, promising businesses across the country a major boost.

When it comes to oil & gas, the initiative will bring a new site at the Tees Enterprise Zone that will focus on the decommissioning of offshore oil and gas – a new sector for the UK.

According to the UK Government, Tees is strategically placed to develop the fledgling sector due to its close proximity to the oil fields of the North Sea. The move will deliver more than 120,000 square metres of floor space and provide space for nearly 1,000 jobs;

Overall, the Government will be extending seven of the 24 existing Enterprise Zones.

Blackpool and Plymouth will become new Enterprise Zones, set to benefit from the business incentives and world-class infrastructure that Enterprise Zones bring to their local economies and communities.

The Government is also looking to add two new sites to the Discovery Park Enterprise Zone in Kent, while extensions have been rubberstamped for Motor Industry Research Association Technology Park in the Midlands, Humber, Leeds, Mersey Waters, Manchester and Oxford and the above mentioned Tess.

Local Growth Minister Penny Mordaunt said: “Enterprise Zones are driving forward our economy, creating thousands of jobs and attracting billions of pounds in private investment. Extending the programme as part of our long-term economic plan means we can build on that success, allowing hundreds more companies to benefit from the top-class business incentives and world-class infrastructure that these thriving business hubs offer. It will mean thousands more jobs for hard-working people and a real boost to local business.”

The changes are expected to start from April 2016.

Page 8: New base 565 special 22 march  2015

Copyright © 2014 NewBase www.hawkenergy.net Edited by Khaled Al Awadi – Energy Consultant All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

redistributed, or otherwise copied without the written permission of the authors. This includes internal distribution. All reasonable endeavours have been used to ensure the accuracy of the information contained

in this publication. However, no warranty is given to the accuracy of its content . Page 8

Solar Eclipse Tests European Power Grid Flooded by Solar Farms Bloomberg + NewBase

The eclipse due to bring most of Europe into deep shadows on Friday morning will put an unprecedented strain on the electricity grid, which takes power from the world’s biggest concentration of solar panels.

The moon will cross in front of the sun, blocking about 80 percent of its light across Europe from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. London time. In Germany, the eclipse will briefly turn off thousands of panels, which provide about 40 percent of the nation’s power on the most sunny days.

A drop of that magnitude will test the ability of utilities to keep the lights on as grid operators switch to usually idle natural-gas and coal plants to make up for the lost solar power. Success would inform nations from the U.S. to China working to integrate more renewables into their supplies, while failure would add to pressure for higher investment in grid-control technology -- and boost power prices in the process.

“Managing this event on the world’s largest interconnected grid is an unprecedented challenge,” said Konstantin Staschus, secretary-general of the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity, or ENTSOE.

The darkest part of the eclipse will tear across the north Atlantic Ocean past southern Iceland, the Faroe Islands and reach Norway’s Savalbard archipelago in the Arctic. Mainland Europe will see the sun partly obscured, with 87 percent cover in London, 83 percent in Denmark and about 25 percent in Turkey.

Plunging Production

Previous eclipses such as one in 1999 passed without affecting power markets because photovoltaics only took off around 2004. Germany, which has about 38 gigawatts of Europe’s 81 gigawatts of solar capacity, will see a 70 percent slump in PV generation at about 10:40 a.m., according to the Meteo Group forecaster. A gigawatt is about equal to the capacity of a nuclear reactor.

There’ll be “good expected sunshine across the southern half of Germany,” Stephen Davenport, MeteoGroup’s senior energy meteorologist, said Tuesday by e-mail. “Assuming cloud does not increase too quickly, then there will be a surge of about 14 to 15 gigawatts to a peak of about 19 to 20 gigawatts once the event is over.”

Electricity markets will ripple from the effects of the eclipse all morning. Danske Commodities A/S, a power broker, is increasing staff because consumption is hard to predict and may shift

Page 9: New base 565 special 22 march  2015

Copyright © 2014 NewBase www.hawkenergy.net Edited by Khaled Al Awadi – Energy Consultant All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

redistributed, or otherwise copied without the written permission of the authors. This includes internal distribution. All reasonable endeavours have been used to ensure the accuracy of the information contained

in this publication. However, no warranty is given to the accuracy of its content . Page 9

depending on “how many people go outside to look at it,” said Bo Palmgren, the company’s head of intraday trading.

Blackout Risk

“When you have plants ramping up and down, there is the potential for outages,” Palmgren said Monday by phone from Aarhus, Denmark. “The hours before and after the eclipse will be interesting.”

Swedish utility Vattenfall AB will seek to profit by selling output from power plants that normally aren’t competitive, including gas- and oil-fired generators that “cost several hundred euros per megawatt-hour to operate,” Hartmuth Fenn, head of intraday market access and dispatch, said by phone from Amsterdam on March 12.

Italy has the region’s second-biggest solar market and will also be affected, although more of the sun will be visible at that latitude. Terna Rete Elettrica Nazionale SpA, the nation’s grid operator, expects to lose about 7 gigawatts of the 19 gigawatts of available PV supplies.

Linked Grids

Failures in one region would have an impact everywhere else because of interconnections between 34 national grids in Europe, according to RTE, the French network operator.

“If the loss of production is not immediately replaced by other forms of generation, it could pose a risk to the network and lead to power cuts,” RTE said on its website on Monday.

European grid companies will organize for their control rooms to be in constant communication during the eclipse. They will use power reserves to balance their system and help others in the region. For this, they can rely on additional close to real-time data provided by the coordination initiatives like TSC in Munich and Coreso in Brussels, ENTSO-E said.

“Not all incidents can be ruled out even in normal operational times,” ENTSOE’s Staschus said. Transmission system operators are “taking the event seriously but are confident that they will be able to manage it.”

Germany’s four main grid companies have added staff and will stay in touch by live telephone conferences throughout the eclipse. They’ve also bought reserve power to prepare.

“It’s not going to be a normal day,” said Regina Koenig, a spokeswoman for Transnet BW, the German company operating the network in Baden-Wuerttemberg, the state where Daimler AG and Volkswagen AG’s Porsche SE run their factories.

Page 10: New base 565 special 22 march  2015

Copyright © 2014 NewBase www.hawkenergy.net Edited by Khaled Al Awadi – Energy Consultant All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

redistributed, or otherwise copied without the written permission of the authors. This includes internal distribution. All reasonable endeavours have been used to ensure the accuracy of the information contained

in this publication. However, no warranty is given to the accuracy of its content . Page 10

Italian Plan

Terna in Italy “has already been working for more than a year on the safe management of this natural phenomenon and on ensuring the same level of supply as on any other working day,” said Antonio Carrano, head of the national control center.

The actual impact of the eclipse is hard to predict as it would decrease with greater cloud coverage, said Eleanor O’Neil, a meteorologist at WSI Corp.

“It can be tricky to calculate cloud amounts, even closer to the event,” O’Neil said by e-mail on March 13. Weather forecasts for Friday show mostly sunny skies in Berlin, Rome and Paris on the meteorological website Wetter.de.

The eclipse will help Germany test its ability to absorb variable power supplies from renewable generators, which in the case of solar switch off at night and with wind don’t operate on calm days. By 2030, about half of Germany’s power will come from renewables, said Agora Energiewende, a research group. Grid operators have yet to make their biggest planned investments to cope with unsteady supplies.

Challenge Ahead

“If today’s inflexible power system succeeds in managing the solar eclipse, then the power system of 2030 will easily manage comparable situations,” Patrick Graichen, head of Agora, said by e-mail.

Utilities could prepare for that future by investing in energy storage, by encouraging customers to vary usage, and by offering pricing that better reflects actual supply and consumption, said Barry Fischer, a researcher and writer at Arlington, Virginia-based software company Opower Inc., which is helping utilities manage demand.

“The challenge posed by the eclipse resembles what is likely to be a more daily phenomenon, as Europe and other regions further expand their installed renewable capacity,” Fischer said in a phone interview. The eclipse, he said, is “a window into the future of power systems.”

Page 11: New base 565 special 22 march  2015

Copyright © 2014 NewBase www.hawkenergy.net Edited by Khaled Al Awadi – Energy Consultant All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

redistributed, or otherwise copied without the written permission of the authors. This includes internal distribution. All reasonable endeavours have been used to ensure the accuracy of the information contained

in this publication. However, no warranty is given to the accuracy of its content . Page 11

Oil Price Drop Special Coverage

Oil Prices in One Week ( Ups & Downs ) – No comments

Page 12: New base 565 special 22 march  2015

Copyright © 2014 NewBase www.hawkenergy.net Edited by Khaled Al Awadi – Energy Consultant All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

redistributed, or otherwise copied without the written permission of the authors. This includes internal distribution. All reasonable endeavours have been used to ensure the accuracy of the information contained

in this publication. However, no warranty is given to the accuracy of its content . Page 12

Oil Glut continues to haunt the markets Syed Rashid Husain + NewBase

Despite some rally registered late on Friday, crude markets appear tumbling again, rattling an already-shaken oil industry. Prices fell 10 percent last week, approaching the lowest in six years. With supplies continuing to rise and the summer driving season still months away, the downward slide is expected to continue - for some more time. Already the markets are flirting with the possibility of dipping even below the $40 mark. A number of factors seem to be impacting. The possibility of a deal between Iran and the West on the nuclear issue is lurking on the horizon. Many now feel that the deal is imminent, making the markets somewhat nervy and itchy. “We are going to have a deal,” Prince Turki Al-Faisal, was quoted as saying in London last week. “How good or how bad it is I don’t know because we haven’t seen the details.” Any such deal carries ominous bearings on crude markets. It could unleash an additional one million bpd of Iranian crude, on an already oversupplied markets. Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said March 16 that with the deal, Tehran would be able to raise production by a million bpd, bringing it to 3.8 million, “within a few months.” And most agree - this could push crude prices even lower. With the economic slowdown in China and Europe, supply is already exceeding demand by about two million bpd. In case Iran could add another one million bpd on top, it definitely has the capacity to soften the markets further, most seem convinced. And that’s just the beginning, says Fadel Gheit, an energy analyst with Oppenheimer & Co. “Oh absolutely. The one million barrels, that is the appetizer,” Gheit says. “That is not the main meal

yet.” Oil companies from around the world would like to get into Iran and develop its reserves to bring much more oil online down the road, he argues. Markets are definitely keeping a close track of this interesting development on the geopolitical energy chessboard. However, as markets remain oversupplied, with little prospects of any tightening in short term, dollar’s surge to a 12-year high has also wreaked havoc in the markets. In fact crude markets renewed their downward slide, amid

speculation that a slowdown in drilling isn’t enough to shrink a global oversupply. US production and stockpiles have continued to expand from 30-year highs even as companies have pulled a record number of rigs from the country’s oil fields. All these are bad news for crude markets.

Page 13: New base 565 special 22 march  2015

Copyright © 2014 NewBase www.hawkenergy.net Edited by Khaled Al Awadi – Energy Consultant All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

redistributed, or otherwise copied without the written permission of the authors. This includes internal distribution. All reasonable endeavours have been used to ensure the accuracy of the information contained

in this publication. However, no warranty is given to the accuracy of its content . Page 13

US crude stockpiles rose 9.62 million barrels to 458.5 million in the seven days ended March 13, according to the EIA. That’s the highest level in weekly records from the Energy Department’s statistical arm dating back to August 1982. US crude output too accelerated by 53,000 barrels a day to 9.42 million a day, the fastest pace since at least January 1983.

Inventories at Cushing, Oklahoma, the delivery point for WTI contracts, climbed by 2.87 million barrels to 54.4 million, the highest level since April 2004, the report showed. Stockpiles at the nation’s biggest oil-storage hub have surged by almost 70% this year. If crude continues to go into storage at its current pace, Cushing’s tanks will be full within a couple of months. That would push more oil to the spot market, sending prices to slide once again. Goldman Sachs President Gary Cohn said recently that prices could fall to as lows as $30 a barrel if the US runs out of storage space. Ed Morse, the global head of commodities research at Citibank, predicted oil could go as low as $20. The failure of high cost North American producers to cut production in an oversupplied world oil market is thus setting the stage for another leg down in oil prices. And it was perhaps in this background, the OECD energy watch dog, the IEA, too warned that oil markets drop is still to run its full course. Underlining that the United States may soon run out of spare capacity to store crude, it emphasized it would put additional downward pressure on prices. “US stocks may soon test storage capacity limits. That would inevitably lead to renewed price weakness, which in turn could trigger the supply cuts that have so far remained elusive,” the IEA said. The process however, would last at least until the second half of 2015, when growth in US oil production could begin start abating. In February, non-OPEC production is estimated to have risen by about 270,000 barrels per day (bpd) on a month-on-month basis to 57.3 million bpd, led by higher output in North America.

Page 14: New base 565 special 22 march  2015

Copyright © 2014 NewBase www.hawkenergy.net Edited by Khaled Al Awadi – Energy Consultant All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

redistributed, or otherwise copied without the written permission of the authors. This includes internal distribution. All reasonable endeavours have been used to ensure the accuracy of the information contained

in this publication. However, no warranty is given to the accuracy of its content . Page 14

Global supply rose by 1.3 million bpd year-on-year to an estimated 94 million bpd in February, led by a 1.4-million-bpd gain for non-OPEC producers. “While the US supply response to lower prices might take longer to kick in than expected, it might also prove more abrupt,” the IEA said, adding that (the output) growth would abate in the second

half of 2015. Mexican Finance Minister Luis Videgaray too said underlined week that he does not expect the plunge in oil prices to be over any time soon. “Our opinion is that there’s a low probability that we’ll see a quick recovery in the export oil price, not in the next few weeks, nor even years,” Videgaray said at a recent event in Mexico City. In its latest report, the OPEC too has slashed the call on its oil and expects a cut in US tight oil production earliest by late 2015. This was in line with the IEA projections too. US oil output could start to take a hit by late 2015 due to low prices,

OPEC said in its latest Oil Report. “As drilling subsides due to high costs and a potentially sustained low oil price, a drop in production can be expected to follow, possibly by late 2015.” For now, OPEC forecast no further rise in demand for its crude in 2015, trimming its projection slightly to 29.19 million bpd, and left unchanged its estimate of global growth in oil demand this year. Despite issues in Libya and Iraq and indeed a blip here and there, glut continues to haunt the crude markets. And this is not going to change any time soon. Soft markets are here to stay for some more time, one could now say with some conviction.

Page 15: New base 565 special 22 march  2015

Copyright © 2014 NewBase www.hawkenergy.net Edited by Khaled Al Awadi – Energy Consultant All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

redistributed, or otherwise copied without the written permission of the authors. This includes internal distribution. All reasonable endeavours have been used to ensure the accuracy of the information contained

in this publication. However, no warranty is given to the accuracy of its content . Page 15

In a world awash with crude oil, storage companies are Kings Bloomberg + NewBase In a world awash with cheap oil and plunging profits, one obscure corner of the energy business is shining brightly: the owners of storage tanks.

While not nearly as famous as giant oil producers like Exxon Mobil Corp. and Royal Dutch Shell Plc, storage companies including Vopak NV, Kinder Morgan Inc., Oiltanking GmbH and Magellan Midstream Partners LP are among those benefiting from rising demand for onshore tanks -- and higher prices to rent limited space.

“Storage is king,” said Jean Francois Lambert, global head of commodity finance at HSBC Holdings Ltd. in London. “Good tanking at the right location could make money.”

Driven by record production from shale fields, the oil glut is bigger in the U.S. than any other region, and particularly large around the hub of Cushing, the Oklahoma town that calls itself the “pipeline crossroad of the world.” The International Energy Agency anticipates that total U.S. stocks levels, already at a 80-year high of 459 million barrels, may soon test the limits of the country’s tank capacity.

In the U.S. and beyond, traders are filling tanks to take advantage of contango -- a relatively rare situation where forward prices are higher than current prices, allowing people to buy oil cheap, store the commodity in tanks and sell later, all the while locking in their income through the use of derivatives. The price difference between a West Texas Intermediate oil contract for immediate delivery, the benchmark for U.S. prices, and the one-year forward -- a measure of the contango -- stood at minus $12.86 a barrel on Wednesday, the highest since crude prices started falling last year.

Page 16: New base 565 special 22 march  2015

Copyright © 2014 NewBase www.hawkenergy.net Edited by Khaled Al Awadi – Energy Consultant All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

redistributed, or otherwise copied without the written permission of the authors. This includes internal distribution. All reasonable endeavours have been used to ensure the accuracy of the information contained

in this publication. However, no warranty is given to the accuracy of its content . Page 16

Tank Farms

Oil traders believe that tank farms at Cushing will fill up as soon as late April, triggering a race to secure the last remaining tanks in the city.

“Demand for our storage services in Cushing has been robust,” said Robb Barnes, senior vice president for commercial crude oil at Magellan, a company with 12 million barrels of tanking capacity in the Oklahoman town. The company said all its tanks were already leased.

Mark Hurley, chief executive officer of Blueknight Energy Partners, a company with 6.6 million barrels of tank capacity at Cushing, told investors increased demand for his tanks meant fees had “been changing fairly rapidly over the last six months. Obviously, on the rise.”

Storage Fees

Storage companies keep the exact level of their fees confidential but oil traders said they charge around 20 U.S. cents to 50 U.S. cents a barrel a month, depending on the length of the contract. The dearth of storage capacity is such that traders said short-term lease rates for the most sought after locations, such as Cushing, have gone up to as much as 80 U.S. cents a barrel.

In 2008 and 2009, the last time the oil market was as oversupplied as today, the storage companies were slow to increase rates, allowing the traders who used their tanks to take an unusually large slice of the contango profit. This time, the split between tank owners and traders is more even, according to Mike Conway, head of trading at Shell in London. “It looks like the owners of the storage facilities have extracted a bit more value for themselves,” he said in an interview.

Share Price

Investors are taking notice. In dollar terms, the share price of Vopak, the world’s largest independent oil storage company, has risen 4.4 percent since the beginning of the year. Vopak owns onshore tanks capable of storing roughly 210 million barrels of crude oil and petroleum refined products -- enough to supply Germany for almost three months.

In the same period, the MSCI World Energy index has dropped more than 7 percent weighed by lower oil prices. Across the board, oil storage companies have told investors to expect stronger income in 2015 than in 2014.

On top of a dozen of publicly listed oil storage groups, the increase in demand would be a boon for privately owned companies such as Oiltanking, a unit of German-based Marquard & Bahls AG, and VTTI BV -- a venture including Vitol Group, the largest independent oil trader.

“You’ll find all the locations around the world that can store crude now, like Saldanha Bay or the Caribbean, are going to be full,” Jared Pearl, VTTI’s commercial director, said in an interview this week. “It would be crazy if they weren’t.” The higher demand and fees are not the only factor boosting incomes. Some storage companies also take advantage of the contango by buying themselves crude oil for storage.

“We have five percent of our tankage in Cushing that is really for own account,” Greg Armstrong, CEO of Plains American Pipeline LP, told investors last month. The company “There are areas where we have strategically pilled off opportunities or massive tankage for our own account.”

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Khaled Al Awadi is a UAE National with a total of 25 years of experience in the Oil & Gas sector. Currently working as Technical Affairs Specialist for Emirates General Petroleum Corp. “Emarat“ with external voluntary Energy consultation for the GCC area via Hawk Energy Service as a UAE operations base , Most of the experience were spent as the Gas Operations Manager in Emarat , responsible for Emarat Gas Pipeline Network Facility & gas compressor stations . Through the years , he has developed great

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