Author: Rigs & Barge World

U.S. President Donald Trump announced on Wednesday Ukraine-related sanctions for the first time in his second term, blacklisting Russian oil major companies Lukoil and Rosneft amid growing frustration with President Vladimir Putin over the war, Reuters reported. The measures follow the European Union’s (EU) approval of its 19th sanctions package against Moscow, which includes a ban on Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports, and similar action by the U.K. last week. The U.S. Treasury said it was ready to tighten restrictions further and urged Russia to agree to an immediate ceasefire on Ukraine, to end the war that started in…

The Suez Canal Authority (SCA) has signed an agreement with Anchorage Investments to establish a major petrochemical complex with investments of over $6 billion in Ain Sokhna.  The complex will be built in two phases. The first, worth over $2 billion in investments, will produce polypropylene as a main product and hydrogen as a byproduct. The second phase, with investments of $4.5 billion, will produce other petrochemical products and complementary industrial units focused on exports and sustainability. The project is expected to create over 2,500 direct and indirect job opportunities once construction and operations are complete and maximize the utilization…

Egypt’s fuel prices are not solely determined by Brent crude benchmarks, but rather by a complex set of factors—including local production costs and arrears owed to and paid by the government to International Oil Companies (IOCs), according to Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly. Speaking in a press Conference, Madbouly explained that during both the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia–Ukraine crisis, the government deliberately refrained from raising fuel prices to avoid placing additional pressure on citizens. To do this, the state shouldered huge financial burdens in the form of heavy subsidies, which it paid for through borrowing in the hope that the…

Kuwait is “batting 1,000” in its offshore drilling campaign, as KPC CEO Sheikh Nawaf Al Sabah likes to say. Results are in for the campaign’s third well, with Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) reporting another sizeable commercial discovery. Following on from the Nokhetha-1 and Julaiah-2 discoveries, the Jazah-1 well has yielded initial reserves of 350mn barrels of oil equivalent – 1tcf of natural gas and 120mn barrels of condensate. The six-well offshore campaign has now discovered 4.5bn boe (3.02bn barrels oil, 6.7tcf gas) through the first three wells. KOC has leased two drill ships for the campaign, and drilling is now…

Karim Badawi, the Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources, stated that Egypt’s natural gas sector has returned to achieving positive results after years of challenges, at the 27th Ministerial Meeting of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF), held on Monday in Doha under Libya’s presidency. Leading the Egyptian delegation at the forum, the minister added that domestic gas production recorded its first increase in three years last August, driven by a new operational strategy, structural reforms, and incentive measures that restored investor confidence. Badawi also stated that several major international energy companies, including Eni, Shell, bp, and TotalEnergies, have announced…

The financial results of Saipem, the global leader engineering and construction company, showed an increase in revenues by 1.6% in Q3 2025, reaching €3.8 billion compared to €3.71 billion in Q3 2024. Furthermore, revenues of the first nine months in 2025 increased 8.4% to €10.98 billion compared to €10.13 billion during the same period in 2024. Saipem has played a central role in the development of Egypt’s Zohr gas field, one of the largest discoveries in the Mediterranean. The company was awarded multiple engineering, procurement, construction, and installation (EPCI) contracts by Eni for both the offshore and onshore phases of…

Saudi Aramco is preparing to bring online two major offshore oil increments that will maintain its 12mn b/d Maximum Sustainable Capacity (MSC). The Marjan and Berri increments are due to be completed this year, and CEO Amin Nasser told the Energy Intelligence Forum in London this week that both remain on track, without providing further information. The Middle East, with Saudi Arabia at the forefront, benefits from some of the world’s lowest natural decline rates. The IEA recently estimated them at just 1.8% (MEES, 19 September), but even at such low rates, maintaining capacity of 12mn b/d means replacing 216,000…

Egypt witnessed a series of new oil and natural gas discoveries in the Nile Delta, Western Desert, and Eastern Desert, adding over 5,000 barrels of oil and 42 million standard cubic feet of gas per day (mmscf/d). In the onshore Nile Delta region, two natural gas discoveries were made,  the first in two years. The first was made by Harbour Energy through Disouq Petroleum Company (DISOUCO) after drilling the  North Sidi Ghazy 1-9 exploration well. The second was made by the UAE’s Dana Gas through El Wastani Petroleum Company (WASCO) in the West Qantara area from the Salma Delta-6 well.…

Egypt has exported 150,000 cubic meters of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) from Idku liquefication plant to Turkey, on board the LNG ENDURANCE tanker operated by France’s TotalEnergies, according to a statement by the Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources (MoPMR). The shipment follows another carrying of 155,000 cubic meters of LNG that left the Idku plant for Italy last week. That gas was transported onboard the New NATURE tanker, which is operated by Shell International. The Idku liquefaction plant, located on Egypt’s Mediterranean coast near Alexandria, has a combined annual capacity of 7.2 million tons (m/t) of LNG. The facility…

Khor Mor is the largest producing non-associated gas field in all of Iraq, providing sales gas to power plants across the Kurdistan Region. Its status was further cemented this week with the 15 October completion of the KM250 expansion project boosting capacity by 50% to 750mn cfd. The gas field is operated by the UAE-based Crescent Petroleum and Dana Gas on behalf of the Pearl Petroleum consortium. The expansion project was first agreed on in 2019 as the first part of a $700mn two-phase project, with a target completion date of 2021. Development was then held up by the unforeseeable…