Regional News

Bloomberg Congressional Republicans counting on a $1 billion windfall from selling oil-drilling rights in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to help pay for tax cuts may be in for a disappointment. Data from previous Arctic oil lease sales suggest the US is likely to collect less than a fifth of that billion-dollar goal over the next decade— about $145.5 million ...

Dubai / Reuters All six countries in the Gulf Cooperation Council remain committed to introducing value-added tax, though they will do so at different speeds, a senior International Monetary Fund official said. “My feeling, through my interaction with the authorities, is that they are still committed and they are still preparing implementation,” Jihad Azour, head of the IMF’s Middle East ...

Dubai / Reuters Middle East fund managers have become more cautious about investing in regional bonds while ambitious economic development plans in Saudi Arabia have increased interest in equities there, a monthly Reuters poll shows. Twenty-three percent of regional funds expect to reduce their allocations to fixed income in the next three months while 8 percent expect to increase them, ...

Reuters Oil will likely rally into 2018 with periods of volatility as an anticipated extension of OPEC-led output restrictions offsets higher US production, a Reuters poll showed on Tuesday. Analysts raised their crude price projections, the survey showed, as expectations of an output cut extension were buoyed by comments from officials in Saudi Arabia, the de facto leader of the ...

Reuters Exxon Mobil has pulled out of a major project in Pakistan, in a potential blow to plans to boost imports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) after years of winter shortages. Differences among the six-member group behind the project in Port Qasim in Karachi mean French oil major Total and Japan’s Mitsubishi may also quit and join a rival scheme, ...

Riyadh / Emirates Business With retail sales continuing to increase, this could be the first sector to recover in Riyadh real estate market, highlights JLL’s Q3 market overview report. As the government launched the $2.6 billion entertainment company in September, Shoppertainment remains a key concept in the retail industry among entertainment, leisure and F&B tenants. The growing participation by women ...

Bloomberg Oil extended a two-year high above $60 a barrel in London amid growing signs that OPEC and Russia will press on with supply curbs, and as pipeline flows from Iraq were disrupted. Brent crude futures added 0.3 percent. Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman last week backed extending production cuts by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and ...

Bloomberg Saudi authorities plan to keep selling local bonds every month as they seek to finance the bud- get deficit and deepen a nascent debt market, according to the official overseeing the kingdom’s borrowing strategy. Fahad Al-Saif, head of the debt management office at the Ministry of Finance, said local issuance makes up about 65 percent of the kingdom’s sales ...

Bloomberg Ghana is extending the issuance of non-sovereign bonds that the country needs for settling the legacy debts of state-owned energy utilities after demand for the securities fell short of the 6 billion cedi ($1.4 billion) target. While the West African nation allocated 2.4 billion cedis in seven-year bonds at 19 percent after receiving 2.5 billion cedis in bids, it ...

RIYADH / Reuters Saudi petrochemicals firms should merge to boost their competitiveness and look to expand abroad, the head of major industry player SABIC told Reuters on Monday. The firms have enjoyed decades of cheap feedstock prices. But Saudi authorities began slashing subsidies in 2016, as a collapse in oil prices cut into state finances, prompting a search for efficiencies ...