MUST-READS

• Can Saudi Arabia’s Oil Sustain Its Dominance Amid Global Push for Renewables?

  Saudi Arabia aims to solidify its position as the world’s top oil supplier, with Aramco planning to boost production. The state-owned giant will increase output to 13 million barrels daily by 2030 to meet rising global demand. On March 18, 2025, Aramco outlined its production target as part of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030, a strategy to diversify the economy and reduce dependence on oil revenues. Analysts highlight how Aramco’s move aligns with growing global tensions and demand, which push oil prices higher. Alongside Aramco, other major Saudi companies like Sabic, Rabigh Refining, and Petrochemicals advance projects that align with the country’s energy goals. These companies focus on developing technologies to boost efficiency and sustainability.

• GCC economic growth to rise to 4 percent in 2025 despite trade headwinds: ICAEW

  In an environment of rising protectionism and persistent geopolitical tensions, the GCC region will remain resilient and is expected to register a GDP growth of 4 percent this year, broadly in line with the consensus and up from an estimated 1.8 percent in 2024. The strong growth in 2025 will be supported by an increase in oil production starting in April, which was confirmed by OPEC+ members recently. However, the global economy’s outlook remains uncertain. The ICAEW recently cut its 2025 world GDP growth forecast by 0.2ppts to 2.6 percent. In the Middle East, GDP is expected to grow slower at 3.3 percent in 2025 amid uncertainty over external demand despite the region being out of President Trump’s direct tariff firing line.

• Will Gulf States Invest in Lebanon Again Amid Hezbollah’s Decline?

  Lebanon and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states have a rich history of mutually beneficial ties. Since the 1950s, highly skilled and educated Lebanese professionals migrated to the Persian Gulf, working in sectors such as business, health, hospitality, media, construction, and tourism. By sending back remittances to Lebanon, these Lebanese expatriates significantly contributed to the Gulf’s development. Before the Lebanese civil war erupted in 1975, Lebanon was also a regional banking center where Gulf Arabs kept their money. Many bought vacation homes in Lebanon and spent summers there. Once a beacon of free speech in the Arab world, Lebanon was home to popular newspapers that gave platforms to influential Arab journalists and intellectuals who did not have the same opportunities in their own countries. The Gulf states, along with Libya and Iraq, invested in Beirut-based publishing houses and print media.

• Gulf LNG faces a bearish headwind from US energy dominance

  Since 2016 the US has transformed into the world’s largest LNG exporter, eclipsing Australia and Qatar. Donald Trump is now determined to achieve global energy dominance as he exploits the geopolitical leverage conferred by those exports in his relations with Europe, Asia and the GCC. At a time when the US is already the world’s largest oil producer, pumping 13.5 million barrels a day (mbd) against Saudi Arabia’s 9 mbd, Trump’s ambition to increase natural gas production by 60 percent will have a significant impact on the trade flows and geopolitics of the global LNG market over the next five years. The sheer scale of US natural gas production in the past two decades, from reservoirs in North Dakota to Texas’s Permian Basin, has meant that US prices averaged $3.50 per million BTU (British thermal unit), 70 percent below the spot LNG prices prevailing in Europe and Asia.

• SMEs struggle as skills shortages drive up Saudi salaries

  Saudi Arabia‘s non-oil economy is expanding at more than four times the rate of the oil sector, with the capital enjoying the lion’s share of that growth.  What this means for Elaify is that his 12-person team does not have the manpower to manage all the requests from would-be clients for auditing, certification and bookkeeping. Ideally, the company would bring in new workers to meet this rising demand, but a growing skills shortage, made worse by strict policies about employing more Saudi nationals, makes that easier said than done.  “There is so much work with everything that’s happening,” Elaify says. “Finding people to do it – experienced people – that’s the hard bit.”

• Trump sees the ‘Big Three’ as the coming force in global oil markets

  At last week’s CERAWeek conference of energy leaders in Houston, he caused a stir at one panel session by suggesting that Saudi Arabia, the US and Russia, which between them hold a commanding 40 per cent of world crude markets, may be privately thinking of an alliance that would rip up conventional thinking on oil. Burkhard’s comments were a distillation of a presentation he made recently to S&P clients. “In a potentially paradigm-shattering move”, he wrote, “the Big Three are pursuing shared interests in oil and geopolitical matters.” Houston oil people familiar with Washington thinking confirmed that the US administration is indeed contemplating an initiative along those lines, even if its deliberations have not yet crystallised into hard policy proposals.

• ‘Bad Boys 3’ Directors Shooting Saudi Blockbuster ‘The Seven Dogs,’ First-Look Image Revealed

  “Bad Boys 3” directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah are shooting Saudi blockbuster “The Seven Dogs,” featuring Egyptian stars Karim Abdel-Aziz and Ahmed Ezz and involving the fight against a dangerous new drug called Pink Lady that is flooding the Middle East. Turki Al-Sheikh, the chairman of Saudi Arabia‘s General Entertainment Authority, conceived the story of the $40 million action movie, the screenplay for which is written by Mohamed El Dabbah. Sheikh has previously dabbled as a screenwriter, having penned Saudi TV series “The Eight” and supernatural thriller “Cello,” directed by “Saw” helmer Darren Lynn Bousman and starring Jeremy Irons.

• S&P upgrades Saudi Arabia’s credit rating after two years on economic diversification efforts

  S&P Global Ratings has raised Saudi Arabia’s credit rating for the first time in two years, citing the country’s economic diversification efforts and growth of its non-oil economy. The agency upgraded the kingdom’s rating to ‘A+’ from ‘A’ with a stable outlook on strengthened institutional settings amid Vision 2030 reforms, aligning Saudi Arabia with most ‘A’-rated peers, S&P said in a statement on Friday. “The upgrade reflects our view that the continuing social and economic transformation in Saudi Arabia is underpinned by improving governance effectiveness and institutional settings, including deepening domestic capital markets,” S&P said. “We believe that institutional checks and balances have become more visible as Vision 2030 progresses, as reflected by the recalibration of project priorities and timelines,” the agency added.

• Trade wars and oil woes fuel market uncertainty

  Between 10am and 4:30pm on March 11 the tariff rate on Canadian aluminium and steel imports to the US was hiked to 50 percent, then dropped back to the original 25 percent. Pity the unlucky trucker who crossed the border a few minutes late. With such turbulent policy it’s no wonder that stock markets and oil prices are nosediving. Brent crude has slid almost continuously since a peak at $82.03 per barrel on  January 15, just before Donald Trump’s inauguration. It slid below $70 on March 10. With the exception of a blip in September, it has not been so low since late 2021. Two years of unusual stability, post-Covid and post-first phase of Russia’s war on Ukraine have come to an end.

• CERAWeek 2025: triumphalism, agnosticism, and a touch of fear

  CERAWeek, the annual gathering of the energy elite in Houston, Texas, is an intense crash course in the state of world oil and gas markets, geopolitics and all the technological paraphernalia that keeps the global economy turning. There is an unspoken rivalry between CERAWeek and Adipec – the autumn gathering in the UAE which also draws a global energy audience – but in the era of President Trump and American “energy dominance”, Houston is the place to be in 2025. It’s difficult to distil the sheer weight of information that’s been laid out before me over the past week of dawn-to-early-hours days and many conversations with energy leaders.

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