November 24, 2002	Sunday	Ramazan 18, 1423

NICOSIA, Nov 23: Saudi Arabia is unhappy with the latest responses from oil majors on three core ventures in its multi-billion-dollar gas initiative but has left the door open for further consultations, the Middle East Economic Survey (MEES) reports in its Monday edition.

ExxonMobil, as the lead company for Core Venture 1 (CV1) and Core Venture 2 (CV2), submitted a draft response early last week after Shell submitted its response the week before, but both “fell short of the requirements stipulated by the Saudi ministerial committee in it final offer of June,” MEES reports.

As a result, the ministerial committee indicated to the oil majors that individual members of the committee would be available for further consultations on outstanding issues in late November and mid-December.

The oil majors will be “required to submit their final responses by year-end,” it adds.

The Cyprus-based energy newsletter said last week that Shell had “submitted a mostly positive response to the final offer from the Saudi ministerial committee ... relating to the five-billion-dollar Saudi Gas Initiative CV3, opening the way for the project to go ahead once final modifications are agreed.”

CV3 embraces exploration of 90,000 square kilometres in the Empty Quarter desert, a development study of the Kidan gas field, treatment and transport facilities from the Shaybah field, a petrochemical plant, a power and desalination facility on the Gulf coast and a pipeline from Kidan and Shaybah.

“The focus of the final negotiations between the CV3 partners Shell (40 per cent, TotalFinaElf (30 per cent), Conoco (30 per cent) and the ministerial committee is likely to be on the scope of the work commitment for the upstream acreage and the delimitation of some of the downstream aspects,” MEES said.

It said that ExxonMobil as leader of the 15-billion-dollar CV1 had yet to submit a response to the committee and CV2 “is understood to have been sidelined for the time being.”

Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Nuaimi said at the end of October that foreign oil companies were expected to respond soon to a “final, lucrative offer”.

Riyadh signed in June last year preliminary agreements with eight international oil companies for the projects worth some 25 billion dollars in investments.

But talks with the companies to strike permanent implementation agreements stalled over profitability and commercial terms, with two deadlines last December and March passing without a deal.—AFP