Regional News

DUBAI / Reuters Major oil exporter Kuwait is dealing with another crude oil spill off its southern coast, state news agency KUNA said, the latest in a series of unexplained leaks in the Gulf Arab state in recent months. KUNA said the latest spill has been detected in the Ras al-Zour area, where Kuwait National Petroleum Company (KNPC) is building ...

RHOURDE EL BAGUEL / Reuters Algeria’s state-run energy firm Sonatrach will boost gas output by 10 million cubic metres per day at its giant Hassi Messaoud field and will then increase output by 6 mcm a day at nearby Rhourde el Baguel oil field, its chief executive said. Sonatrach CEO Abdelmoumen Ould Kaddour, on a visit to the field, said ...

Bloomberg Saudi Arabia plans to seek bidders for the construction of a 1,000-mile (1,600-kilometer) railroad linking the Red Sea with the Persian Gulf as early as the end of this year, signaling the go ahead for a long-delayed project seen as vital to reducing the economy’s dependence on oil. The so-called Land Bridge line will shave around three days off ...

Bloomberg Oil traded near $50 a barrel in New York, close to a three-month high, as a further reduction in US drilling added to signs the global crude surplus is abating. West Texas Intermediate futures were little changed after advancing 5.1 percent last week. Rigs targeting crude fell by seven to 749, according to data from Baker Hughes. Drillers haven’t ...

Bloomberg Bahrain refused to process bids by Qatari investors for its largest-ever bond offering after cutting ties with the gas-rich Gulf state in June, according to two people familiar with the matter. Doha-based companies that submitted bids for Bahrain’s $3 billion debt sale last week weren’t given allocations because the island state, along with other Gulf economies, are cutting their ...

Bloomberg Algeria’s prime minister laid out a sweeping plan to plug the budget deficit that would include direct borrowing from the central bank, as the OPEC member looks to compensate for lower oil revenue without tapping international debt markets. The five-year plan presented by Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia aims to balance the budget by 2022, and reverse a deficit that ...

Bloomberg It’s no secret that oil majors are among the biggest corporate emitters of pollution. What may be surprising is that they’re reducing their greenhouse-gas footprints every year, actively participating in a trend that’s swept up most corporate behemoths. Sixty-two of the world’s 100 largest companies consistently cut their emissions on an annual basis between 2010 and 2015, with an ...

Bloomberg Egyptian cheese-maker Arabian Food Industries is expecting third-quarter revenues to jump by about 50 percent and sales volumes to be better than the first two quarters of the year as Egyptian consumers adapt to price hikes that followed last year’s currency float. The Cairo-based company, also known as Domty, sees revenues of 700 million Egyptian pounds ($39.7 million) this ...

KHOBAR / Reuters Saudi Arabia is expected to launch a tender process for its first nuclear reactors as early as next month and will reach out to potential vendors from countries including South Korea, France and China, industry sources said. The world’s top oil exporter wants to start construction next year on two plants with a total capacity of up ...

Bloomberg A dearth of new investment in oil production is stoking a risk of tighter crude supply and unstable prices, even as demand growth is expected to slow over the next five years, a senior International Energy Agency (IEA) official. The worldwide cushion of spare production capacity will shrink without further investment in exploration and output, Neil Atkinson, the head ...