TUNIS / Reuters Oil and gas industry contractor Petrofac is halting gas production in Tunisia after two weeks of renewed protests on the southern Kerkennah islands, officials said on Wednesday. The announcement comes just three months after Petrofac restarted operations at Kerkennah’s Chergui gas field, following nine months of disruptions due to protests. Petrofac had threatened in September to …

  CAIRO / Reuters Edita Food Industries, one of Egypt’s largest snack food producers, said on Wednesday it was raising prices by between 20 and 50 percent amid higher input costs due to the drop in the value of the Egyptian pound last month. Inflation surged to an eight-year high of 19.4 percent in November, propelled by a steep depreciation …

  Bloomberg Oil retreated from the highest close since July 2015 as focus shifted to expanding US crude stockpiles after OPEC and other producing nations agreed to cut output to stabilize the market. Futures slid as much as 1.7 percent in New York after climbing 6.5 percent over the previous four sessions. US inventories rose by 4.68 million barrels last …