DMEA: Pipeline preparations and fuel prices

This week’s DMEA includes an update on laying the groundwork on a pipeline running from the Gulf to the Red Sea, while the Liberian government said it would not increase fuel prices.

Jordan’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Ayman Safadi said this week that preparations for the development of an oil export pipeline connecting Iraq’s Basra Governorate to the Red Sea port of Aqaba have reached 80%.

Speaking during a tripartite meeting in Baghdad with his Iraqi and Egyptian counterparts – Fuad Hussein and Sameh Shoukry – Safadi said: “This project has a positive impact on Iraq, Jordan and also on Egypt, because the vision is to complete the pipeline towards Egypt.”

He added: “This is a huge project and needs a lot of studies. According to our joint evaluation, 80 percent of the required preparations to launch this project have completed, and we are now waiting for the last steps.”

Talks around the Basra-Aqaba pipeline connecting the oil-rich south-east of Iraq with Jordan and its Red Sea Coast have been intermittent since the line was first proposed in 1982.

Tangible progress appeared to be nearing when in January Jordan’s Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources, Saleh Kharabsheh, said that a framework agreement had been approved by the Iraqi cabinet for a 1mn barrel per day (bpd) conduit running from Basra to Aqaba via Haditha in Iraq’s Anbar Governorate. However, in April, Iraqi authorities suggested that progress should not be anticipated until a new government is in place.

Meanwhile, Liberia’s Ministry of Commerce and Industry said in a statement on June 3 that it did not intend to make any drastic changes in the domestic fuel pricing regime before the end of this month.

In the statement, the ministry explained that it would keep gasoline and jet fuel prices at their current levels until the end of June and would make a slight reduction in the price of diesel fuel. It did not say exactly how large this price cut might be.