Iran-Syria pipeline to export gas to Syria and Europe

Iranian National Gas Company's Export Chief, Asghar Sohaili Bour, has openly invited Syria to collaborate on installing Iranian-Syrian pipelines to export gas to Syria through Iraq, and also to extend exports to European countries through the Mediterranean Sea.

Bour has said that the collaborative pipeline, as well as gas exports to Syria and Europe, will be on the agenda when the Iranian Petroleum Ministry visits Baghdad sometime in the near future. Bour also added that it has been years since an MoU signing between Iran and Syria to buy gas, and export it to a number of EU energy markets.

In addition to Bour's invitation, Iran's Assistant First Vice President, Ali Agha Mohammadi, and Syria's Director of the Office of the Prime Minister, Tayesir al-Zuobi, said that both countries are keen to boost economic trade, and maintain high levels of political relations.

Source: Global Arab Network

For more news and expert analysis about Iran, please see Iran Strategic Focus.

For more news and expert analysis about Iraq, please see Iraq Focus.

Ghana's government to review utility tariffs downward

The government is expected to review Ghana's utility tariffs downward following the presentation of a report by a technical committee set up to consider consumer concerns.

The committee's report was presented to Vice President John Dramani Mahama at the Castle, Osu, on 13th June. According to the Daily Graphic newspaper, Mahama was due to formally announce details to the press in the week beginning 16th August.

The Public Utilities Regulatory Commission announced sharp rises in utility tariffs in May 2010, in a move strongly condemned by the Ghana Trades Union Congress and the Association of Ghana Industries. The utility increases included an 89 per cent hike for electricity tariffs and 36 per cent for water.

Cocoa purchases in Ghana are approximately six per cent down on last season, according to a Reuters report.

Cocoa purchases declared to the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCBOD) by private buyers show 611,619 tonnes purchased for the October 2009 to July 2010 season, compared with 651,974 tonnes declared during the same period a year ago.

The government blames smuggling for the deficit and COCOBOD said that at least 60,000tonnes have been taken illegally to Côte d'Ivoire and Togo, where cocoa attracts a higher price. The government aims to increase cocoa production to 1 million tonnes per year by 2012.

For more news and expert analysis about Ghana, please see Ghana Politics & Security.

© 2010 Menas Associates

South Africa Upholds Imperial's Right Over Kumba Mine

South Africa upheld its decision to award part of the prospecting rights at Kumba Iron Ore's Sishen mine to a company whose biggest shareholder has been in business with the son of the country's president.

The Department of Mineral Resources was told by its legal advisers that the decision to award 21.4 per cent of the rights to Imperial Crown Trading was lawful, Mines Minister Susan Shabangu said today in the capital, Pretoria. Kumba said it will keep fighting the ministry in court.

Kumba, controlled by London-based Anglo American Plc, and Imperial Crown both applied for the Sishen rights after previous holder ArcelorMittal South Africa Ltd. missed a deadline to renew. Kumba, as a result, canceled a nine-year-old contract to supply the steelmaker with ore at prices that are below market rates. ArcelorMittal South Africa has since agreed to buy Imperial Crown for 800 million rand ($110 million).

“This is bound to be politically sensitive and we don't expect the issue to go away quickly,” Christopher Melville, an analyst at London's Menas Associates, said in an e-mailed reply to questions today. “Some level of permanent reputational damage to the South African mining industry seems inevitable, the question is now a matter of degree.”

The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa this week asked for the cancellation of the award to Imperial, whose only asset is the prospecting right in Sishen in the Northern Cape, because it said the company has no ability to mine.

Only One

Imperial “is the only company that issued a prospecting licence application in the terms of the law,” Shabangu said. The department would consider the “implications” of the accord by ArcelorMittal South Africa to buy Imperial, she said.

It would also this month decide on an appeal by Lonmin Plc against the award of some rights for platinum byproducts near one of its mines to South Africa's HolGoun Group, Shabangu said.

South African mining companies are required by law to renew mining rights and have to show they meet targets for black ownership, employment of black managers and women and economic development of communities near their operations.

Kumba “remains of the view that its challenge against the rights granted to ICT is justified, and will continue to pursue the Court process,” it said in an e-mailed response to queries.

President's Son

Parekh is CEO of Shiva Uranium, a uranium exploration company, according to the company's website. Duduzane Zuma, son of South African President Jacob Zuma, was a shareholder in the explorer, according a spokesman at Imperial who declined to be identified because of company policy.

ArcelorMittal South Africa wasn't able to comment, spokesman Themba Hlengani said by text message.

Business Leadership South Africa, an association of chief executive officers of 80 of the largest companies in the nation, said controversies over mining rights were hurting the economy and investor security. “There is real damage being done to our economy,” Bobby Godsell, chairman of the association and former AngloGold Ashanti CEO, said in a speech in Johannesburg. South Africa is the world's largest platinum and chrome producer.

Canada's Fraser Institute, a research agency, ranks South Africa before only the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zimbabwe in terms of the ease of investment in mine exploration on the continent. South Africa's mining industry employs 491,000 people and makes up 5.2 percent of gross domestic product, according to the country's statistics bureau.

Moratorium

A six-month moratorium has been declared on awards of prospecting rights to audit the system and ensure it's “clean,” Shabangu said. Three ministry officials have been suspended for maladministration, she said.

The department is also undertaking an audit of all licenses, and will announce the outcomes by the beginning of next year, she added.

“It may serve to settle the nerves,” said Garth Mackenzie, a trader at Imara S.P. Reid in Johannesburg. “People are worried about what's going on there, about how rights are being awarded.”

Kumba fell 110 cents, or 0.3 per cent, to 341 rand by the close of trading in Johannesburg, while ArcelorMittal South Africa rose 0.6 per cent to 86.5 rand.

Source: Bloomberg Business Week

For more news about South Africa, please visit the Menas Associates Newsroom.

Iraq, Shell and Petronas award a 15 well contract to Halliburton

Iraq, Shell and Petronas has awarded Halliburton a contract to drill 15 oil wells in Iraq's Majnoon oil field, while Petrofac secured a contract to develop two new crude processing plants with a capacity of 50,000 b/d each and to rehabilitate the existing crude oil plant.

"These contracts are part of implementing the preliminary plan to develop Majnoon oilfield for the next two years," said an Iraq oil industry official.

Shell and Petronas, who signed a contract to develop Majnoon oil field earlier this year, hope that their current output of 45,000 b/d will eventually increase to 1.8 million b/d.

Petrofac was awarded a two-year contract to build and develop Iraq's oil and gas infrastructure, as well as build new storage and export turbines for the oil field.

The contracts awarded to a number of international oil companies are expected to boost Majnoon's output capacity to 12 million b/d within seven years.

Source: Reuters

For more news and expert analysis about Iraq, please see Iraq Focus.

OGX's Parnaíba blocks could hold up to 15 trillion cubic metres of natural gas

OGX has discovered natural gas in the OGX-16 well, in the NP-T block 68, located in the Parnaíba basin in northern Brazil. OGX owns seven exploration blocks in the Parnaiba basin, with 20 other prospects for further natural gas discoveries which could hold as much as 15 trillion m3 of gas.

The company plans to drill eight more wells in the region, with the overall number of wells totalling at 15. The investments in the exploration blocks are expected to cost between R$600 million and R$700 million.

To find out more about OXG please visit OXG's web site, which you can find here.

For more news and expert analysis about Brazil, please see Brazil Focus.

© 2010 Menas Associates

Eni acquires 55 per cent of Ndunda block, in the DRC

Eni has entered the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) by signing an agreement with Surestream Petroleum to acquire part operatorship of the Ndunda block, in the Bassin Côtier, located in the onshore Lower Congo Basin.

The partnership is divided between Eni (55 per cent), Surestream (30 per cent), State-owned company COHYDRO (8 per cent) and Ibos (7 per cent). The agreement, sanctioned by DRS authorities, follows the Strategic Cooperation Agreement, signed August 2009, between Eni and the DRC to develop the country's hydrocarbon sector.

Through this acquisition, Eni further strengthens its presence in the Sub-Saharan region where it currently operates in Nigeria, Gabon, Congo Brazzaville, Angola, Ghana and Mozambique with overall production in excess of 450,000 b/d.

To find out more about Eni please visit Eni's web site, which you can find here.

For more news and expert analysis about the Sahara region, please see Sahara Focus.

© 2010 Menas Associates

North Oil Company displaces villagers causing further antagonism between Arabs and Kurds

North Oil Company is stirring up antagonism between Arabs and Kurds in the already tense governorate of Kirkuk. The company issued an official demand on 24th July asking that the local authorities evacuate four Kurdish villages in the area to enable it to start drilling there. A source in North Oil Company told the Kurdish media that the firm had issued a letter to the local police asking them to vacate the villages as it had made an oil discovery in the area. The villages are all in the area known in Kurdish as Dobes and in Arabic as Debes.

The demand has caused uproar in the area because the company has only requested that Kurdish villages be evacuated. As Hadi Hama Mustafa, the first deputy of Debes, declared, “What is strange for me is that the request does not ask for evacuation of any Arab-populated villages.” Similarly, the head of the Kirkuk governorate council, Raskar Ali Hama Jan, expressed his view that the company's demands were “astonishing” because, given that there is a huge expanse of land where oil and natural gas are present, the oil must also exist in the Arab and Turkmen villages that are in the area.

The company's demand is being considered as a political move. For the Kurds this issue is particularly poignant because it is reminiscent of the days of Saddam Hussein who repeatedly uprooted Kurdish citizens and forced them to relocate for political reasons.

For more news and expert analysis about Iraq, please see Iraq Focus.

© 2010 Menas Associates