Regional News

  REUTERS Oil settled up nearly 3 percent after a weak U.S. jobs report hurt the dollar and boosted commodities, but crude prices still ended the week sharply lower on concerns about oversupply. U.S. employment growth eased more than expected in August after two straight months of robust gains, the report showed. That initially led to doubts that the Federal ...

  REUTERS EgyptAir says a passenger has been detained after storming the pilot’s cockpit on a flight carrying 150 passengers. The Friday incident took place aboard charter airline CairoAir 462, which took off from the Saudi capital, Riyadh, to Alexandria’s Borg el-Arab airport, EgyptAir said. The passenger was not armed. “The crew checked if the passenger was not carrying whatever ...

  Bloomberg OPEC’s crude production climbed to a record last month as increased output from Gulf members made up for persisting losses in Nigeria and Libya, according to a Bloomberg survey. Supplies from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries rose by 120,000 barrels a day to average 33.69 million a day in August amid increases by Iran, Iraq and Kuwait, ...

  Bloomberg Telecom Egypt is set to become the country’s fourth mobile carrier after acquiring a 4G license Wednesday as the state-controlled landline monopoly seeks to keep up with rivals. The carrier, 80 percent owned by the government, bought the license for 7.08 billion Egyptian pounds ($806 million), Chief Executive Officer Tamer Gad Allah said at a news conference in ...

  Reuters Saudi Aramco and the Japanese government are set to agree on a roughly 2 million barrel expansion of crude storage capacity in Okinawa, used by the state-run firm to store oil, Saudi Aramco CEO Amin Nasser said on Thursday. Under an agreement with Tokyo, Saudi Aramco and Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) each store up to 1 ...

Bloomberg Iraq would support a proposal for OPEC and other major oil producers to freeze output at talks in Algeria next month, Prime Minister Haidar Al-Abadi said in Baghdad. The endorsement marks a slight shift by Al-Abadi, who was quoted by Reuters on Aug. 23 saying that Iraq still hadn’t raised production sufficiently. The country’s deputy oil minister, Fayyad Al-Nima, ...

  Reuters Egypt’s state grains buyer GASC received only one offer on Wednesday at its first wheat purchase since reinstating a zero-tolerance policy on ergot fungus, a near complete boycott that underscores the difficulty of sourcing grains under the rule. A ban on the common grain fungus caused huge disruption to Egypt’s massive wheat imports earlier this year, with global ...

  Reuters Iraqi state oil firm SOMO has blacklisted three tankers involved in shipping crude from Kurdistan, stepping up pressure on the semi-autonomous region amid tense talks on sharing oil revenue. Kurdistan has been exporting crude independently via Turkey since mid-2015 after saying Baghdad had failed to respect an oil revenue-sharing deal and transfer enough money to Erbil. Baghdad, which ...

  Bloomberg Saudi Arabia’s National Industrialization Co., known as Tasnee, agreed terms with lenders to refinance around 6 billion riyals ($1.6 billion) of debt at its titanium unit after a slump in commodity prices, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The new debt will have a duration of three years — with the option to extend to five ...

  Reuters Qatar’s government will levy a new airport tax on passengers from Tuesday as the country seeks new revenue streams amid falling oil prices. Every passenger leaving Qatar from Doha’s Hamad International Airport, including transit passengers, will be charged 35 riyals ($9.61) for using airport facilities, according to a statement by the airport. The charge will apply to tickets ...