Chevron becomes the fourth of five 2025 bid-round winners to sign a production-sharing agreement with Libya’s NOC

Chevron is the latest awardee from Libya’s 2025 oil and gas bid round to sign a production-sharing agreement, signing the agreement earlier this week for offshore area 106 in Libya’s Sirte Basin, NOC Chairman Masoud Suleiman said yesterday. The Sirte S4 block was the most competitive award of the 2025 round, which ended a 17-year freeze on exploration licenses in the country.

Three consortiums from the 2025 round that were awarded last February reached PSAs last June: Spain’s Repsol with Türkiye Petrolleri; Italy’s Eni with QatarEnergy; and Hungary’s MOL alongside Türkiye Petrolleri and Repsol. That leaves Nigeria’s Aiteo, whose winning bid would mark its first project in Libya if it advances to a PSA.

What does this mean? The PSA means Chevron can now start moving on the ground on the greenfield block. Chevron VP of Exploration Kevin McLachlan described the acreage as a fit for the company's exploration strategy — meaning seismic work, prospect identification, and eventually exploratory wells before anyone knows whether Contract Area 106 holds a commercial resource. Analysts expect any production contribution from the 2025-round blocks to arrive no earlier than the early-to-mid 2030s.

ICYMI- Industry sources we spoke to have flagged to us that international oil companies holding Libya concessions are adopting a wait-and-see approach before committing capital to exploration, citing security and governance concerns.

Bypass partner

French energy giant TotalEnergies is set to invest in expanding Abu Dhabi’s export pipeline capacity through Fujairah, as the UAE works to roughly double the amount of crude it can move to the Gulf of Oman without crossing Hormuz, Reuters quotes TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyanne as saying.

What we know: The existing Habshan-Fujairah pipeline can currently carry up to 1.8 mn bbl / d. Adnoc is currently accelerating work on a second pipeline to Fujairah that it says was already 50% complete in May, targeting its delivery in 2027. The additional line would add around 1.5 mn bbl / d, lifting the UAE’s bypass capacity to roughly 3.3 mn bbl / d. It’s not clear if TotalEnergies would invest in the new pipeline or a different expansion.

More urea and ammonia

The Algerian Omani Fertilizer Company will expand production by 50%, with the expansion earmarked to come from an additional production line at the company’s plant in the port city of Arzew in Oran Province, Algeria’s Ministry of Energy and Mines announced Sunday. The company, a JV between Oman’s Suhail Bahwan Holding Group (51%) and Algerian state giant Sonatrach (49%), first began operations in 2017 and produces 4k tonnes of ammonia and 7,000k tonnes of granular urea per day.

Empty gates

Finnair is the latest airline to cancel flights to Dubai for the year. The company suspended its Helsinki-Dubai flights for the 2026-2027 winter season, running from 25 October 2026 through 27 March 2027, citing the unstable situation in the Middle East, according to an update on its website. Finnair joins the likes of Air Canada and Virgin Atlantic, which also won’t return to Dubai until 2027, and Dubai Airports CEO Paul Griffiths has said many foreign-based airlines have struggled to secure ins. allowing them to return to the region.