HAS SAUDI TURNED OFF THE OIL SPIGOT? Saudi Aramco hasn’t shipped petroleum cargoes due to Egypt since 1 October under a five-year, USD 23 bn oil supply agreement, Reuters reports, forcing Egypt to scramble to line up international shipments using hard currency the nation can ill-afford to spend. The Oil Ministry said it was not officially notified by Aramco of a halt in shipments, but it was “too early” to claim they were not coming at all, Al Mal reported. Egypt had signed an agreement with Saudi Arabia to provide 700k tonnes monthly of petroleum products on a credit line with 2% interest rate to be repaid over 15 years. EGPC has since announced the largest set of purchase tenders in months, including calls for around 560k tonnes of gasoil for October delivery, a steep rise from the roughly 200k tonnes sought in September, traders told Reuters.

EGPC gets USD 100 mn facility from APICORP: Meanwhile, the Saudi-based Arab Petroleum Investments Corp (APICORP) announced it is extending a USD 100 mn three-year murabaha financing facility to EGPC. APICORP says EGPC will use the funding to buy liquefied petroleum gas from the Arab Maritime Petroleum Transport Company.