Regional News

  Reuters Iraq plans to double the volume of crude it pumps via a pipeline to Turkey to its normal rate of 150,000 barrels per day (bpd) next week, an official at state-run North Oil Company said . The company, which reports to the oil ministry in Baghdad, on Thursday resumed pumping oil from fields it operates in Kirkuk via …

  Reuters Saudi Arabia will permit foreign institutional investors to buy shares directly in initial public offers, a move that could help the government sell billions of dollars’ worth of stakes in state companies including oil giant Saudi Aramco. New rules published by the Capital Market Authority on Thursday, taking effect at the start of next year, list qualified foreign …

  Riyadh / Emirates Business The organizing committee of the coffee and chocolates exhibition, which is being held for the third year in a row at the Riyadh International Convention and Exhibition Centre from December 20-23, revealed that the size of exhibition area has increased to 7781 sq m display area. The total number of participants reached over 100 because …

  Bloomberg Mad Dog, BP Plc’s drilling project deep in the Gulf of Mexico, could be Exhibit A in the oil industry’s war on cost. When the British oil giant announced the project’s second phase in 2011, it put the price at $20 billion. Last month, after simplifying plans and benefiting from a sharp drop in everything from steel to …

  Reuters An offer of 3 billion riyals ($825 million) of Qatar government bonds, the first domestic government bond offer this year, was successful and showed liquidity in the Qatari banking system is healthy, a central bank official told Reuters on Tuesday. “It was a very successful auction with big demand. It shows liquidity is fine. The demand was fine …

  Reuters Telecommunications operator Zain Saudi Arabia said on Tuesday it would save 175 million riyals ($46.7 million) by using a Chinese bank to refinance a 2.25 billion riyal loan that it had secured just two months ago. The new, $600 million loan was signed with Industrial and Commercial Bank of China; it has a two-year maturity with an option …

  Bloomberg Libya’s government appointed a steering committee to head the country’s $60 billion sovereign wealth fund, where rifts have hindered efforts to unite financial institutions in the fractured North African oil exporter. The Libyan Investment Authority’s temporary five-member committee will be headed by one of the fund’s former directors, Ali Mohamed Hassan, according to a statement issued by the …

  Bloomberg Israel’s faltering industry of tech startups is facing another hurdle amid mounting questions regarding government commitments to funding young companies. A senior official in the technology industry said the chief scientist’s office didn’t receive a 240-million-shekel ($63.5 million) round of additional funding to finish the year as had occurred in the past. Without this sum, which is 15 …

  Bloomberg The rally in Qatar’s stock market may have been too strong for its own good. The QE Index’s world-beating 2.2 percent advance left it about 7 percent above the average of analysts’ price targets, the most among more than 70 gauges tracked by Bloomberg. The measure’s 14-day relative strength index was at 79 points, above the level of …

  Bloomberg India’s preparing to tender 10 gigawatts of wind power by 2019 in auctions intended to help meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ambitious clean-energy targets. The first 1-gigawatt tender is planned for October, Varsha Joshi said in an interview with Bloomberg News. She’s joint secretary at India’s Ministry of New and Renewable Power, the agency tasked with realizing Modi’s …