January 1, 2020 marks the enforcement of the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) rule on limiting sulfur emissions from ships (IMO 2020). The rule mandates ships to reduce the sulfur content in their fuels to 0.5% from the current 3.5%. This suggests that ship owners and operators need to replace about 3 million barrels per day (MMb/d) of heavy fuel oil (HFO) with high sulfur content – known as high sulfur fuel oil (HSFO).
Research FellowRami Shabaneh is a fellow in the Oil and Gas program, with a focus on global gas and hydrogen markets.…Rami Shabaneh is a fellow in the Oil and Gas program, with a focus on global gas and hydrogen markets. Rami has nearly 15 years of research and industry experience analyzing energy markets and energy policy. Before joining KAPSARC, Rami worked at Cenovus Energy as a market fundamentals analyst, providing analytic support on specific issues affecting North American gas, natural gas liquids and condensate markets. His work informed the company’s hedging strategies. Before working at Cenovus Energy, Rami spent three years as a research economist at the Canadian Energy Research Institute. He holds a B.Sc. in actuarial science and an M.Sc. in sustainable energy development from the University of Calgary.
Research LeadHamid leads KAPSARC’s Oil Market Outlook (KOMO) quarterly reports. He focuses on all aspects related to short- and long-term energy…Hamid leads KAPSARC’s Oil Market Outlook (KOMO) quarterly reports. He focuses on all aspects related to short- and long-term energy forecasting, covering a wide array of topics including demand, prices, inventories, etc. Prior to joining KAPSARC, he worked for three years in corporate planning at Saudi Aramco as an analyst. Between 2012-2016, Hamid was a negotiator for the Saudi climate change team at different United Nations bodies, covering various topics under the Paris Agreement, such as adaptation, transportation, etc. He negotiatied on behalf of the Kingdom at the UNFCCC, Montreal protocol, UNEP, IPCC, ICAO, among others.
Research LeadDr. Raed is a Research Lead and an Economist in the Oil & Gas program, with a particular interest in…
Dr. Raed is a Research Lead and an Economist in the Oil & Gas program, with a particular interest in industrial development, economic diversification, and econometric modeling. He has worked with different types of econometric modeling techniques on different projects, especially in the field of economic diversification, oil prices and oil demand modeling. Prior to joining KAPSARC, he worked for Standard & Poor’s analytics and Capital IQ division in S&P’s headquarters in the financial district of New York, Wall Street, where he was involved in designing the first probability of default model tailored to the Saudi economy. He earned his Ph.D. in Economics from Southern Illinois University and was awarded a Master of Science in Economics from California State Polytechnic University. The title of his Ph.D. dissertation was “Economic Diversification: The Case of Saudi Arabia with Reference to Rich Natural Resource Countries.” He was assigned to lead KAPSARC's long-term sectoral oil demand forecast and outlook projects as a portfolio project manager. Through those projects, Dr. Raed, along with the rest of the project leads, was successful in developing forecasting models that forecast the long-term oil demand in different sectors (land transportation sector, maritime sector, aviation sector, petrochemical sector, residential/commercial building sector, agricultural sector, and power sector). Furthermore, Dr. Raed is a lead modeler of a project dedicated to forecasting the oil demand stemming from petrochemical feedstocks. He represented KAPSARC as a speaker at multiple conferences organized by the International Association for Energy Economics (IAEE) and workshops organized by the Office of the Economic and Development Affairs Commission (EDAC) of The Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf (GCC). Dr. Raed was recently appointed by the Board of Trustees of Riyadh Economic Forum as a supervising member of a study titled “Maximizing the Economic Revenue from Natural Resources to Achieve Sustainable Development.” Dr. Raed worked in KAPSARC as a T20 Events and Logistics Leader. He has made signicant contribution by being the first Saudi to teach applied econometrics at the newly eatblished KAPSARC Academy to facilatiate one of their acceleration programs in collaboration with LUISS Business School. Apart of Dr. Raed ’s academic, research, and advisory work he was a key member of an organizational restructuring team to develop KAPSARC’s training and learning & development programs (TASAMI) to build human capital capacity.
