Regional News

TOKYO / Reuters Japan’s Osaka Gas plans to raise its resales of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to third parties to 3 million tonnes a year by 2020, a top executive said on Wednesday, a move that would create more liquidity to Asia’s emerging natural gas markets. Most Asian LNG is supplied under fixed term contracts that include destination clauses that …

Bloomberg Saudi Arabia, OPEC’s biggest oil producer, is also a leader when it comes to slashing the crude price the country needs to balance its budget. The kingdom will need oil to trade at $70 a barrel next year to break even, the Washington-based International Monetary Fund said in its Regional Economic Outlook for the Middle East and Central Asia. …

Bloomberg Exxon Mobil Corp. agreed to pay more than $300 million to resolve air pollution violations tied to eight chemical plants in Texas and Louisiana, one of a pair of environmental settlements with oil companies announced by the Trump administration. Separately, Denver-based PDC Energy Inc. agreed to pay $22.2 million after storage tanks were found to be leaking smog-forming compounds. …

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 …