Oman state energy firm OQ on 17 August returned its 197,000 b/d Sohar Refinery to normal operation after it suffered a two-week shutdown. The outage hit the “SR Block” of the refinery, according to consultancy IIR Energy. This appears to be a reference to the older CDU and secondary units that predate the plant’s expansion in 2017 (MEES, 17 February).

Due to the outage, OQ was forced to sell 1mn barrels of crude on a prompt tender to load at the end of the month, according to Reuters (MEES, 9 August). (CONTINUED - 128 WORDS)