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BLLOMBERG Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said he’s optimistic that OPEC members will agree to proposed production cuts at a meeting in Vienna later this month. Zanganeh met the group’s secretary-general, Mohammed Barkindo, in Tehran on Saturday to discuss an accord that seeks to reduce output by as much as 1.3 million barrels a day. He described as “promising” ...

  LONDON/BAGHDAD / Reuters Iraq would have to compensate international oil companies for limits placed on their production, according to industry sources and documents seen by Reuters, further reducing the prospect it will join any OPEC deal to curb the group’s output. The compensation – stipulated in contracts – would compound the financial hit of losing much-needed revenue from crude ...

  MADRID / Reuters A Spanish consortium which is building a high-speed rail link between Mecca and Medina has reached a preliminary deal with Saudi Arabia to finalise the works after a series of delays and setbacks, Spain’s public works ministry said. The Al Shoula consortium comprising 12 Spanish companies including OHL and Indra as well as two Saudi firms ...

  KIRKUK / Reuters Iraq’s exports from the Kirkuk oil field through an export pipeline to Turkey have dropped because of power outages, an official at state-run North Oil Co. said. Export are currently running at 100,000 barrels per day (bpd), compared with 133,000 bpd in October, the official said. The pipeline delivers crude to Turkish terminal of Ceyhan, on ...

  Bloomberg The Obama administration’s decision to forgo auctions of new oil and gas drilling rights in U.S. Arctic waters deals a blow to energy companies seeking to lock up new territory beyond the long-explored Gulf of Mexico. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said the move, announced on Friday, strikes the right balance, by sustaining oil and gas development in the ...

  Alan Greenspan, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, weighed in last week on one of the pressing issues facing the Trump administration and the country — slow economic growth. Greenspan’s explanation is novel and is bound to be controversial. To preview: He blames the welfare state and overall uncertainty for the slowdown. Why should we listen to ...

  The U.S. immigration system needs reform, and President-elect Donald Trump might be just the man to do it. Although research shows that low-skilled immigration — agricultural laborers, janitors, construction workers and the like — isn’t that bad for working-class Americans, it’s now clear that very few Americans are going to listen to what the research says. Working-class people want ...

  When President-elect Donald Trump visited the White House last week, he was reportedly surprised to learn that he’ll need to replace nearly the entire staff. While Trump is said to have promised jobs to his small campaign team, research suggests that he should try a revolutionary approach to staffing his administration: replacing political appointees with civil servants. Today, an ...

  The UN meeting in Marrakesh boiled down to finance to combat climate change. Even as the conference addressed many crucial issues, the one to top it all was how to fund adaptation and mitigation against environmental dangers and meet costs of clean technologies. The developing countries insisted that the rich nations should keep their commitments to provide money to ...

  The Bank of England is advertising for a new deputy governor to start next year. As you’d expect, the job posting lists several desired features aspiring candidates should have. But let’s hope the winning applicant possesses some attributes not listed in the official job description; ones that would make the central bank’s monetary policy committee more representative of the ...