MEES - Weekly Oil & Gas News Analysis

6 days ago | mees.com | James Cockayne

18 Apr 2025 Issue: 68 / 16 By: James Cockayne China imported 12.15mn b/d of crude oil in March, the highest monthly figure since August 2023, and a sharp rebound from an average of just 10.4mn b/d for January and February (MEES, 21 March). Refinery runs of 14.89mn b/d were the highest in a year and the fourth highest on record, with Q1 average runs of 14.82mn b/d second only to the all-time high of 14.95mn b/d hit in Q3 last year.

6 days ago | mees.com | James Cockayne |Nada A. Ahmed

Eni CEO Claudio Descalzi last week pledged that his company will invest “more than €8bn [$9.1bn]” in each of its three key North Africa areas of operations over the next four years. A pledge that means that the region, which provided 35% of the Italian firm’s global output for 2024 (598,000 boe/d of 1.71mn boe/d), is likely to strengthen its position further.

1 week ago | mees.com | James Cockayne

Mauritania has joined the ranks of the world’s LNG exporters with operator BP on 17 April announcing the completion of loading of the first export cargo from the 2.45mn t/y Tortue project on the Mauritania/Senegal maritime border. As of MEES press time the destination for the 174,000m3 (78,000 ton) cargo remained unclear with BP’s British Sponsor LNG carrier remaining in the vicinity of the project’s 2.7mn t/y capacity Gimi FLNG.

1 week ago | mees.com | Peter Stevenson

As Egypt’s gas output continues to dwindle, the country is becoming increasingly dependent on gas imports to ensure continued supplies to power plants and petrochemicals facilities, with the era of net-LNG exports firmly ending. Already reliant on around 1bn cfd of pipeline gas imports from Israel, Egypt imported 1.1mn tons of LNG in the low-demand Q1 period according to Kpler, putting it well on course to smash last year’s seven-year high 2.5mn tons.

1 week ago | mees.com | Peter Stevenson

*Egypt has been left comparatively unscathed by US President Donald Trump’s new tariffs, for now. A 10% tariff on imports from Egypt is relatively mild compared to many fellow Mena countries with Syria facing a 41% tariff, Iraq a 39% tariff and Libya a 31% tariff.