Regional News

Bloomberg The Trump administration is preparing to unveil as soon as this week an expansive offshore oil plan that would open the door to selling new drilling rights in Atlantic waters, according to people familiar with the plan. President Donald Trump ordered his Interior Department to write the new blueprint with the aim of auctioning oil and gas drilling rights ...

LONDON / Reuters Less than two weeks after OPEC’s decision to extend oil production cuts, Libya and Nigeria — the only two exempt members of the group — are signalling their intent to raise output next year. While several ministers at the November 30 meeting of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries suggested the two nations had joined the ...

Bloomberg The effects of a hairline crack in one of the world’s most important oil conduits is rippling through crude markets from Europe to the US and Asia. The Forties Pipeline System is being shut after the fault was discovered near Aberdeen, Scotland. That pushed global benchmark Brent futures over $65 a barrel for the first time since June 2015, ...

Bloomberg Egypt and Russia signed a $30 billion deal to build North Africa’s first nuclear power plant as the Kremlin moves to expand its influence in the region. Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Egyptian counterpart Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi witnessed the signing ceremony in Cairo on Monday. The project increases Russia’s economic presence and political influence in the Middle East, already ...

Bloomberg Saudi Arabia plans to raise domestic gasoline and jet fuel prices in January, part of a program to gradually eliminate energy subsidies as the kingdom seeks to overhaul its economy and balance the budget, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. Gasoline prices are set to increase by about 80 percent, while jet fuel prices will be ...

BAGHDAD / Reuters Iraq has agreed to swap up to 60,000 barrels per day of crude produced from the northern Iraqi Kirkuk oilfield for Iranian oil, Iraqi Oil Minister Jabar al-Luaibi said. The agreement signed by the two countries provides for Iran to deliver to Iraq’s southern ports, on the Gulf, “oil of the same characteristics and in the same ...

Bloomberg Oil slipped to near $57 a barrel as US drilling expanded and OPEC nations Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates signalled they can phase out production cuts if the market improves. Futures fell 0.4% in New York after climbing 2.5 percent in the previous two sessions. Drillers boosted the rig count by two to 751, a three-month high, according ...

Bloomberg Pilot production at Egypt’s Eni SpA-operated Zohr natural gas field will begin “in the coming few days,” the oil ministry said, as the country nears its goal of commercial output from the biggest gas discovery in the Mediterranean Sea by the end of this year. Gas is being pumped from the national distribution system to test pipelines in preparation ...

Bloomberg China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC) is restricting natural-gas sales to industries across the country to divert more of the fuel to heat homes in the northern part of the country. The move is a response to instructions from the Nati- onal Development & Reform Commission, which called on local governments and gas suppliers to combat gas shortages in the ...

KUWAIT / Reuters Kuwait’s oil minister Essam al-Marzouq said on Sunday that OPEC and other oil producers will study before June the possibility of an exit strategy from the global oil supply-cut agreement. “There are still meetings every couple of months for the ministerial monitoring committee, and there will be a study formed for the possibility of an exit strategy… ...