DUBAI / WAM Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, MD and CEO of Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) received a high-level delegation from Saudi Aramco company. The meeting heightened cooperation between the two organisations, with Saudi Aramco able to review practices and expertise at DEWA, including benchmarking and key performance indicators. The delegation included Khalid Al Salouli, Aramco Director and Head ...

SINGAPORE/ Reuters Oil prices posted their strongest start to a year since 2014 on Tuesday, with crude rising to mid-2015 highs amid large anti-government rallies in Iran and ongoing supply cuts led by OPEC and Russia. US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures traded broadly flat at around $60.40 a barrel by 1425 GMT after hitting $60.74 earlier in the ...

Bloomberg Russia’s oil industry continued its long-term expansion last year, with production hitting a record even as President Vladimir Putin joined forces with OPEC to clear a global glut and lift prices. The nation’s oil output increased to an average 10.98 million barrels a day in 2017, up 0.1 percent from the previous year, according to data published on Tuesday ...

DUBAI / Reuters Oman’s state budget for 2018, approved by ruler Sultan Qaboos, boosts spending at the expense of running a large deficit, despite increasing concern among credit rating agencies about the health of the country’s finances. The budget projects spending of 12.5 billion rials ($32.5 billion) this year, up from 11.7 billion in the original budget for 2017, local ...

CHONGQING / Reuters China plans to launch a natural gas exchange in Chongqing in early 2018, aiming to create an Asian price benchmark as the nation’s use of the fuel surges amid its shift away from coal. China is the world’s third-biggest consumer of natural gas behind the United States and Russia. An exchange in its fast-growing market would be ...

Bloomberg Norway is realising it will have to do without the deep pockets of the biggest oil companies as it seeks to extend an era that has made it one of the world’s richest countries. The most recent blow came when only 11 companies applied for new blocks in the Arctic Barents Sea, touted as the country’s most promising area ...

BENGHAZI / Reuters Libya’s Arabian Gulf Oil Company (AGOCO) is hoping to resolve power problems by the end of March that are keeping production well below potential, its chairman said. In recent weeks, AGOCO’s production has been fluctuating between around 150,000 and 230,000 barrels per day (bpd), according to an oil source who asked not to be named. Production stood ...

Bloomberg An English spa town and two coastal areas saw the biggest house-price increases in the UK in 2017, outstripping gains in London’s hotspots. Cheltenham in southwest England saw a 13 percent jump in prices in 2017, almost five times the national increase of 2.7 percent, Bank of Scotland Plc’s Halifax division said. The average house in the town, famous ...

Bloomberg The dollar weakened against most of its G-10 peers, US stocks rose and Treasuries fell in the first official day of trading in 2018. European stocks started the year in the red, failing to capitalise on a positive Asian session as the strength of the region’s common currency weighed on exporters. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index opened higher ...

Reuters Stock markets in the United Arab Emirates and Qatar rose as they opened for the first day of trade in 2018, while Saudi Arabia continued to slip after a hike in domestic gasoline prices. The Dubai index had a poor 2017, falling 4.6 percent, but it rose 1.2 percent on Tuesday as stocks in the blue-chip Emaar group, which ...