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RIYADH / Reuters Russia is seeking to finalise multi-million-dollar investment deals with Saudi Arabia in the next three months including partnerships with state oil giant Aramco, Russia’s top state investment officer said on Wednesday. Russian banks and a Russian-Chinese investment fund are also keen to take part in Aramco’s initial public offering (IPO), the head of the Russian Direct Investment ...

LONDON / Reuters As OPEC watches a near 15 percent drop in the oil price in three weeks, important indicators in the physical crude market are flashing signals that the decline might be far from over. The warnings come not from the heavily traded futures market, but from less transparent trading activity in crude oil and products markets, where key ...

ZURICH / Reuters Clariant Chief Executive Hariolf Kottmann told investors he would update them on the Swiss speciality chemicals maker’s tie-up with new shareholder Saudi Basic Industries Corp (SABIC) by July as he seeks a recovery from a turbulent 2017. Full-year net profit in 2017 rose 9.5 percent, short of analyst estimates, as the group was hit by one-time costs ...

RIYADH / Reuters Saudi Arabia will restrain its oil exports in March despite lower domestic need for crude as OPEC’s leader is pushing to eliminate fully the global oil glut and combat worries about a new cycle of oil price weakness. The kingdom will keep its crude exports below 7 million barrels per day (bpd) in March, despite a maintenance ...

LONDON / Reuters The rise in global oil production, led by the United States, is likely to outpace growth in demand this year, the International Energy Agency said on Tuesday. The Paris-based IEA raised its forecast for oil demand growth in 2018 to 1.4 million barrels per day, from a previous projection of 1.3 million bpd, after the International Monetary ...

Bloomberg Oil demand in India rose 10.3 percent in the first month of 2018, the fourth straight monthly gain. Total oil consumption expanded at the fastest pace in 14 months to 16.9 million tons from 15.3 million a year ago, according to the oil ministry’s Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell. Improvement in road freight transport following the stabilization of the ...

CAIRO / Reuters BP is looking to invest over $1 billion in Egypt this year, making the country once again a top destination for investment, its CEO said. Speaking at an industry event in Egypt, Bob Dudley said the company was no longer owed any money by the Egyptian government. “The government owes us no money,” he said on the ...

Bloomberg UK utilities may have to delay or give up on building power stations as new generators won only a fraction of the capacity offered in a tender to provide backup electricity. The auction process, set up to encourage new installations, only saw 1.5 percent of the total going to proposed plants. The lack of new projects could put pressure ...

LONDON / Reuters OPEC said on Monday world oil demand would grow faster than expected in 2018 because of a healthy world economy, adding a tailwind to the producer group’s effort to remove a supply glut by cutting output. But the global market will return to balance only towards the end of 2018, no earlier than previously thought, as higher ...

Bloomberg Surging output of US shale oil won’t be a “huge distorter” of efforts by global crude producers to clear a glut, according to OPEC’s president. The market should re-balance this year, given robust demand and producers’ compliance with their pledges to curtail supply, United Arab Emirates Energy Minister Suhail Al Mazrouei, currently the president of OPEC, said on Monday ...