(Reuters) - Libya's eastern oil port of Zueitina, which had been occupied by rebels as part of an eight-month oil blockade, will reopen after damage at its facilities has been assessed, the country's justice minister said on Sunday.
Salah al-Merghani also told reporters in the eastern city of Benghazi that a committee to investigate oil corruption had been formed, as agreed under a deal between the government and rebels to end a blockade of eastern oil ports.
The reopening of four oil export terminal has been delayed with the rebels accusing the government of not fulfilling all parts of the deal, such as paying financial compensation.
Under the agreement the rebels will be reintegrated in a state oil security force from which they defected last summer when they occupied ports to press for a share of oil exports.
"We are working day and night on the salary issue," Merghani said, adding that the ministry of defence was going through staff lists to make sure payments would be made according to the law.
He warned that failure of the agreement could lead to bloodshed in the North African country struggling with turmoil three years after the ouster of Muammar Gaddafi.
"A conflict over resources in the centre of Libya will lead to violence. The Libyan people need to avoid that," he said.
Diplomats expect both sides to implement the deal eventually as the country badly needs the oil revenue, but tactical manoeuvres and mutual mistrust are likely to cause delays.
The row is part of chaos in the OPEC producer where the government cannot control militias who helped oust Gaddafi but have held on to their weapons to make demands by seizing oilfields or government ministries.
So far the only port to resume work is Hariga in Tobruk, which has a daily capacity of 110,000 barrels.
Both Zueitina and Hariga had meant to reopen immediately after the signing of the deal almost three weeks ago, with the larger terminals Ras Lanuf and Es Sider restarting after more talks.
Sources close to the talks say part of the problem is that some rebels at Zueitina terminal had demanded to be put on the government payroll, a strategy used before in post-Gaddafi Libya to put pressure on a weak central government.
Protests at oilfields and pipelines have also crippled oil production in the west, reducing output to around 220,000 bpd from 1.4 million bpd last summer. (Reporting by Ayman al-Warfalli, Ulf Laessing and Feras Bosalum; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall and Stephen Powell)
(Reuters) - Output at Kazakhstan's huge Kashagan oilfield may not start until 2016, the Financial Times said on Sunday, citing Kazakhstan's minister for economy and budget planning.
Erbolat Dossayev told the FT he hoped production could be restarted late next year. "But if not, we will wait until 2016," the FT cited him as saying in an interview.
Production at the offshore deposit, the world's biggest oil find in 35 years, started in September but was halted in early October after the detection of gas leaks in the $50 billion project's pipeline network.
Earlier this month French major Total said no oil production was to be expected from Kashagan this year and it was not likely to yield much next year either.
In March, Kazakh officials slapped a $737 million ecological damage fine on the consortium running the field, which includes Eni, Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch Shell, Total, and Kazakh state-run KazMunaiGas. (Reporting by Stephen Jewkes; Editing by Sandra Maler)
Loading volumes for Republic of Congo’s two main crude oil grades — Djeno and N’Kossa — are set to fall in June to a total of 6.47 million barrels from 7.42 loading schedules seen by Platts Friday. The average b/d in May. Djeno, the flagship grade, is set to load six 920,000 barrel cargoes in June, the same as seen for May.
N’Kossa loadings are scheduled to halve with only one 950,000 barrel cargo to be exported in June compared to 1.9 million barrels in May. Djeno, a heavy medium-sweet crude grade with an API gravity of
28.1, is suitable for direct burning in power generation, according to the website of Total, which operates the Djeno terminal. N’Kossa, a light sweet grade also 39.93 API and a sulfur content of 0.06%, according to the company. The program for the country’s third main grade, Azurite, has not been released, sources said.
A China-bound Aframax tanker damaged in a collision near Singapore earlier this month has transferred its cargo to another ship and will proceed to Dalian for permanent repairs, a source involved in the developments said Friday.
The damaged vessel, the 112,719 dwt United Fortitude, has discharged its cargo via a ship-to-ship transfer to another vessel in Singapore, the source said without naming the ship
that received the cargo. The 2010-built United Fortitude collided with a car carrier, the Oceanus Leader, on April 5, sustaining damages on its port side close to the deck. At the time of the incident, the Unipec-chartered Greece-flagged tanker was carrying a 76,910 mt crude cargo from Wadi Feiran, Egypt, to Shuidong, China. The ship is managed by Greece-based Marine Management Services (MMS). Temporary repairs were completed to the satisfaction of the attending class surveyor and the ship is in anchorage near Singapore. Neither MMS not Unipec were available Friday to comment.
Japan’s largest refiner JX Nippon Oil & Energy plans to process 4.49 million kiloliters, or 911,007 b/d,of crude for the domestic market in May, unchanged from a year ago, a company official said Friday.
In May, JX will shut a combined 420,000-435,000 b/d of capacity for maintenance at its Mizushima-B plant in western Japan, Kashima refinery in the east coast and Oita refinery in the southwest, accounting for around 35% of its total refining capacity, according to Platts calculations based on company information released Friday.
JX will enter its peak spring maintenance season in May when three more crude distillation units will be shut for scheduled maintenance in addition to its ongoing turnaround at the 95,000 b/d No. 2 CDU at its 205,000 b/d Mizushima-B plant in western Japan over March 21-May 23.
JX will shut its 189,000 b/d crude distillation unit at its Kashima refinery on the east coast for a scheduled turnaround over May 13-July 1; shut the sole 136,000 b/d CUD at its Oita refinery in the southwest over May 17-June 14 and shut the 110,000 b/d No. 3 CDU at its Mizushima-B plant over May 29-August 4, the official said.
Due to its heavy maintenance programs in May, JX plans to cut its oil products exports by 39.5% year on year to 490,000 kl, or 99,419 b/d, the official said. In April, JX expects its crude throughput to be 5.11 million kl, down 3% year on year and down 1% from its initial plan of 5.16 million kl for the month, the official said.
JX exported 280,000 kl of oil products in April, down 46.2% from a year ago, the official said. Japan’s estimated gasoline demand dropped 7% year on year to 4.18 million kl in April after tax hikes in the month shifted motor fuel demand to March, the official. The year-on-year drop in the gasoline sales volume in April in was line with what JX Nippon Oil & Energy Chairman Yasushi Kimura said on April 17.
Kimura said at the time that Japan’s gasoline demand rose around 3-4% in March as consumers rushed to buy motor fuel ahead of the national tax hikes, and he expects gasoline demand to fall 4-5% in April as a result of the increased sales in March.
Enbridge’s new grouping system for crude shipped through its pipeline system has forced sweet crude benchmark Syncrude to change names, a company spokesman said Friday.
Effective May 1, Syncrude will trade as Syncrude Sweet Premium, or SSP. The change reflects Enbridge’s recent quality pooling process, which reduced the number of crude grades it manages from 43 to 23. “Many of them are different in name only and are nearly identical in chemical composition and properties,” spokesman Graham White said in an email. “It will significantly and safely simplify the requirements for blending, batching, storing and shipping crudes by allowing Enbridge to pool similar crudes together.”
While Syncrude will no longer be used as the benchmark for sweet grades, the name will still refer to 31 API, 0.1%-0.2% sulfur crude that travels through feeder pipelines into the storage hub in Edmonton, Alberta, traders said.
Once in this terminal, the crude will trade as SSP. “SSP is what Syncrude used to be,” one trader said. Spot prices have not been impacted by the change. Syncrude was assessed Thursday at WTI CMA plus $2.30/barrel, down 20 cents from Wednesday.
