Regional News

Bloomberg Norway’s oil industry has been salivating for years over the Arctic Lofoten islands, which could hold billions of barrels of crude. It will likely have to keep dreaming. The general election next month is unlikely to lift a deadlock that’s keeping a ban on drilling off the environmentally sensitive archipelago as more and more Norwegians are turning their backs ...

Cairo / Emirates Business The downturn in the overall health of the non-oil private sector eased in July, with the latest deterioration in business conditions the weakest in a year. New orders stabilised during July, thereby ending a 21-month sequence of decline. Output declined at the slowest pace in 12 months, thereby leading to only a marginal fall in input ...

PARIS / Reuters Kuwait Investment Authority (KIA) will sell its nearly five percent stake in Areva to the French state as the nuclear group is delisted and will stay away from nuclear investments for now, sources familiar with the situation told Reuters. Kuwait’s sovereign wealth fund, one of the world’s biggest, paid 600 million euros ($712 million) for its 4.82 ...

ANKARA / Reuters Turkey picked Germany’s Siemens as the winning bidder for a $1 billion wind power project, a sign Ankara wants to keep business separate from the widening diplomatic row between the NATO allies. Relations have deteriorated amid the crackdown that followed the failed coup in Turkey last year. The arrest last month of 10 rights activists, including a ...

DUBAI / Reuters The government of Oman has raised $3.55 billion through a loan from a group of Chinese financial institutions, the latest fundraising by the sultanate which has borrowed over $10 billion this year to replenish coffers hit hard by lower oil prices. Oman signed the senior unsecured term loan, with a five-year maturity, on July 11, the finance ...

LONDON / Reuters Oil investors seem to buy the idea that recovery is finally underway after three years of gluts, but a price boom seems unlikely as the options market shows that at least until OPEC’s supply deal expires, producers will pounce on any rallies. The oil price has gained about 20 percent in the last two months to above ...

SINGAPORE / Reuters Freight rates for very large crude carriers (VLCCs) on Asian routes from the Middle East could fall to a new low for the year next week as too many ships chase the number of available cargoes, ship brokers said on Friday. That came as average rates from the Middle East to Asia have fallen close to last ...

SINGAPORE / Reuters China is on pace to overtake the United States as the world’s biggest oil importer this year, cementing its status as Asia’s most pivotal oil market actor that will increasingly dominate the region’s fuel trade. For the first time, China imported more crude oil in the first half of the year than the US, government statistics showed. ...

Bloomberg Egypt may exceed its $10 billion target for foreign direct investment this year as the weaker pound reduces the cost of doing business in North Africa’s largest economy and a new investment law comes into force, the investment minister said. Sahar Nasr told Bloomberg she had been approached by investors from Saudi Arabia, Singapore, China and the United Arab ...

Bloomberg Europe’s oil industry is once again generating cash even as crude languishes at half the price of three years ago. Yet companies remain vulnerable to a renewed downturn. The region’s top three — Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Total SA and BP Plc — can now cover spending from cash flow with oil at $50 a barrel. But BP predicts ...