Bloomberg OPEC said its agreement to cut production, while speeding up the re-balancing of the global oil market, won’t result in demand exceeding supply until the second half of next year. The Dec. 10 agreement between the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and non-members such as Russia and Kazakhstan “will accelerate the reduction of global inventories and bring forward …

  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 …