The Middle East Energy

Demand for energy is growing, suggesting the economy is gaining momentum and prompting the Kingdom to boost local production while putting in place plans to secure imported supplies to meet any shortfall. Analysts forecast the Bahraini economy will pick up in 2012 and beyond, with ratings agency Standard & Poor’s predicting in January that GDP will expand by 3.5% this year.

2012 began with a particularly hefty reckoning for Jordan when the government received the largest energy bill in the Kingdom’s history: JD2.75bn ($3.87bn). Jordan relies heavily on imports for its energy needs – some 98% – and in 2011, energy amounted to 26% of total Jordanian imports. Yet cooperation with other regional states may hold the answer to the Kingdom’s current energy supply challenge.

Oil production in Kuwait continues to increase, having reached 3m barrels per day (bpd) as of early December. Output could expand further in the longer run, according to officials from the Kuwait Oil Company (KOC), which recently said that it would be necessary to tap into the country’s heavy oil reserves to reach its 4m bpd capacity goal by 2020. At the same time, the country is also looking abroad for additional energy sources.

Abu Dhabi is putting the final touches on an oil pipeline that will allow the emirate to bypass the congested Strait of Hormuz, through which about 40% of all sea-borne crude is currently shipped. Completion of the project is viewed as increasingly timely, not only in reducing congestion in the Straits but also as geopolitical tensions with Iran have escalated in recent months.

Undertaking a large-scale expansion of its chemicals industry, Qatar is aiming to increase the value of hydrocarbons-related exports. Production of chemicals and petrochemicals will more than double by 2020, reaching 23m tonnes per year (tpy), up from 9.3m tonnes at present, the nation’s minister of energy and industry, Mohamed bin Saleh Al Sada, announced in mid-January.

The announcement of a major downstream project has been the highlight of a busy period for Qatar’s hydrocarbons sector. An agreement, signed on December 4 between Saleh Al Sada, the minister of energy and industry, and Shell’s CEO, Peter Voser, lays out the commercial principles and scope of a proposed petrochemicals complex in Ras Laffan Industrial City in northeast Qatar.