TotalEnergies said on Friday that one of two processing trains at the 460,000 b/d Satorp refinery in Saudi Arabia was damaged in an "overnight incident" on April 7-8, prompting a precautionary shutdown of units at the site.
TotalEnergies, which operates Satorp in a 37.5-62.5 venture with Saudi state-controlled Aramco, disclosed the damage a day after Riyadh said Iranian attacks had hit key energy facilities in the country including the refinery. The Saudi statement did not specify when the incident at Satorp occurred or how extensive the damage was.
The details have emerged after a ceasefire between the US and Iran that should end nearly six weeks of attacks on energy facilities across the Mideast Gulf region.
Elsewhere in the region, TotalEnergies said its production in Qatar, Iraq and offshore UAE had been shut or was in the process of being shut down, representing around 15pc of the company's total output. Those disrupted volumes are tied to some of the company's key partnerships in the region, including LNG and upstream ventures with state-owned QatarEnergy, Iraq's Basra Oil (BOC) and oil concessions with state-owned Adnoc in the UAE. TotalEnergies' onshore UAE production, equivalent to about 210,000 b/d net to the company, is unaffected, it said.
The company said the disrupted Middle East output accounts for around 10pc of its global upstream cash flow, but said higher prices would cushion the effects of the disruptions. TotalEnergies said an $8/bl rise in Brent from its base-case assumption of $60/bl would be enough to offset the expected 2026 cash-flow loss from its Iraq, offshore UAE and Qatar assets. It also said the effect of LNG production shutdowns in Qatar on its trading business would be limited to around 2mn t in 2026, because most Qatari LNG is marketed by QatarEnergy.
