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  • Petchem projects lead Saudi industrialization drive
     

    The Saudi project market continues to thrive. Latest data from Meed put the value of projects “planned or underway” at $745 billion in mid-April, around 13 percent higher than a year earlier. These figures need to be treated with some caution: The topline number is some 30 percent larger than the nominal size of the […]

     
  • Journey of a lifetime
     

    To say that I was excited to be in the presence of such history would be an understatement. I had been looking forward to this trip for months and was absolutely beside myself. My purpose was to travel with my mother to Saudi Arabia to perform the Umrah, a mini version of the annual Hajj […]

     
  • Al-Qaida’s wretched utopia and the battle for hearts and minds
     

    Driving east out of Aden, we were just a few hundred metres past the last army checkpoint when we saw the black al-Qaida flag. It flew from the top of a concrete building that had been part-demolished by shelling. From here into the interior, all signs of control by the government of Yemen disappeared. This […]

     
  • Positive Steps: Interview with Saudi Minister of Finance Al Assaf
     

    The industrial sector is the real excitement for us, which is growing at a rate of 15 per­cent, which is not a joke. The other one is service sector, like the financial services or the restaurant and hotels or other services in the economy. A particular sector that we are excited about is the mineral […]

     
  • “Milestone” oil manipulation case unsettles traders
     

    U.S. regulators’ $14 million settlement with high-frequency trading firm Optiver over oil price manipulation in 2007 is a “milestone” victory in their toughening stance on market malfeasance which is being closely watched by traders. In its first major case against an algorithmic trader, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission said late on Thursday that a court […]

     
  • Home boom aids Saudi Telecom profit surge
     

    Soaring demand for broadband helped Saudi Telecom Co (STC) post a 60 percent increase in first-quarter profit on Wednesday, with the former monopoly reporting rising revenues in its mobile, fixed line, corporate and wholesale units. The former monopoly, which will pay a quarterly dividend of 0.5 riyals per share, made a profit of 2.52 billion […]

     
  • Saudi tops in job creation in GCC
     

    The Gulf region continued to create jobs despite the impact of Arab Spring in 2011 with the regional powerhouse Saudi Arabia topping the list followed by Qatar and Oman, according to a new survey. The oil and gas industry, healthcare and retail sectors enjoyed the largest headcount expansion in 2011, while banking and construction fared the […]

     
  • Chart of the Day: A Short History of 200 Years of Global Energy Use
     

    If you want to tell the story of worldwide energy consumption over the past 200 years, you need three chapters. Chapter 1: The Coal Age. Chapter 2: The Oil Age. Chapter 3: The China Age. In the early days of industrialization, the use of biofuels such as wood declined as the West learned to live […]

     
  • Saudis Increasing Riyadh Water Supply
     

    With the bulk of Saudi Arabia’s drinking water coming from desalination plants, the country’s sky-rocketing population growth puts enormous demand on water supply. Arab News reports that a new desalination plant in the Eastern Province is gearing up to go online. When it is producing, it will nearly double the amount of water flowing into […]

     
  • Internet in the Middle East Still Short of Its Potential
     

    Last week’s third ArabNet conference for digital entrepreneurs in the MENA region was, by the standard of these things, a modest affair. But nonetheless it showed how the regional digital economy has grown, and how it is poised to take off. As one commentator said: “Jordan for the talent, Lebanon for the creativity, Egypt for […]

     

MUST-READS

  • Watch Oil Analyst Sankey Says Saudi May Try to ‘Dump the Market’

    Paul Sankey, founder and lead analyst at Sankey Research, says Saudi Arabia may “dump the market and try to make everyone honest again” in the second quarter of next year out of frustration with production from Iran and the US.

  • U.S. still wants to see Saudi-Israel normalisation, energy envoy says

    "I think that not every road is a straight road and sometimes it goes in different directions first. But the goal is still the same," Hochstein said speaking on the sidelines of an industry event in the United Arab Emirates. "And we remain as committed to that goal of regional integration, and it's not just about Saudi Arabia and Israel, it has to be much broader than that."

  • Future for elite golf ‘murky’ with PGA Tour-Saudi alliance in limbo

    "There's a lot of moving parts on how we're going to play. Whether it's here on the PGA Tour or it's merging, or team golf. There's a lot of different aspects that are being thrown out there all at once." After a year of acrimony, the two parties and Europe-based DP World Tour announced in June a bombshell framework agreement to house their commercial operations in a new entity. PIF, the main financial backer of LIV Golf, would serve as the exclusive investor.

  • Saudi Arabia Says for First Time Some 2030 Projects Get Delayed

    Saudi Arabia has delayed past 2030 some of the projects launched as part of its economic transformation plan, in the first admission that the kingdom is having to shift the timeline for meeting the goals of the multi-trillion dollar program. The government, which is forecasting budget deficits every year out to 2026, has decided on the extension to build capacity and avert huge inflationary pressures and supply bottlenecks, Finance Minister Mohammed Al Jadaan said Thursday. He didn’t specify which projects would be affected.

  • Saudi Fighter Jet Training Crash Kills 2 Crew, Says Ministry

    A Saudi air force jet crashed on Thursday during a training exercise in the east of the country, killing its two crew members, the defence ministry said in a statement. The aircraft, part of the kingdom's fleet of F-15SAs, crashed "while it was carrying out a routine training mission at King Abdulaziz Air Base in Dhahran", said the statement attributed to defence ministry spokesman Brigadier General Turki al-Maliki, published by the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA). It comes five months after another F-15SA, a US-built multirole fighter aircraft, crashed in the training area of an air base in Khamis Mushait city in the south of the Gulf kingdom, an incident that also left two dead.

  • China deepens ties with Saudi Arabia at Hong Kong gathering

    China’s vice-premier He Lifeng told Hong Kong’s elite last month that he had “some suggestions” for the territory — a list that included building closer ties with the Middle East. Hong Kong should “further expand its circle of friends” by developing relationships in the region, he said. This week, it is taking an important step in its effort to do so. Saudi Arabia’s Future Investment Initiative Institute, which hosts the Gulf state’s so-called Davos in the Desert conference in Riyadh, opened its first Asia gathering in Hong Kong on Thursday.

  • Jon Rahm Is Set to Join Saudi-Backed LIV Golf

    Reigning Masters champion Jon Rahm is set to leave the PGA Tour for the Saudi-backed LIV Golf in an industry-rattling deal that stands to inject fresh uncertainty into the future of an already topsy-turvy sport. A deal for Rahm is expected to be announced this week, people familiar with the matter said, assuming talks don’t fall apart. The prospect of landing Rahm, a 29-year-old who’s ranked No. 3 in the world, is a stunning coup for LIV that comes at a jarring moment: the PGA Tour and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund are on the precipice of a Dec. 31 deadline to finalize a deal to join forces, an agreement between once-enemies that shocked the golf world but remains far from settled.

  • Why Hong Kong wants more business with Saudi Arabia

    In opening remarks on Thursday, Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee called the gathering “yet another significant step forward, in the deepening [of] ties between Hong Kong and the Middle East, particularly the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.” The two-day event was organized by the Hong Kong government, its stock exchange and the Future Investment Initiative (FII) Institute — a nonprofit founded by the Public Investment Fund (PIF), Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund. The institute hosts an annual event in Riyadh dubbed “Davos in the Desert.” ADVERTISING

  • Wind and solar pose climate threat too, oil giant Saudi Arabia argues

    The pitch from the world’s biggest oil player includes a Saudi government document, obtained by POLITICO’s E&E News, expressing concern about the “lifecycle” greenhouse gas emissions of wind, solar and other renewable energy sources, whose popularity has grown as countries look for alternatives to planet-heating fossil fuels.

  • Russia and Saudi Arabia urge all OPEC+ powers to join oil cuts

    Saudi Arabia and Russia, the world's two biggest oil exporters, on Thursday called for all OPEC+ members to join an agreement on output cuts for the good of the global economy only days after a fractious meeting of the producers' club. Hours after Russian President Vladimir Putin went to Riyadh in a hastily arranged visit to meet Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the Kremlin released a joint Russian-Saudi statement about the conclusion of their discussions.