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  • Saudi Arabia’s non-oil exports increase by 0.8 percent in January

    Saudi Arabia’s non-oil exports, including re-exports, recorded a 0.8 percent increase in January 2024 compared to the same period in 2023, reported the General Authority for Statistics. Excluding re-exports, non-oil exports saw an 11.5 percent decline as re-exports rose by 42.6 percent in the same period. The authority also reported a decline in overall merchandise exports mainly due to the decline in oil exports following Saudi Arabia’s pledge of an additional oil output cut of 1 million barrels per day in July 2023.

  • Russia struggles to collect oil payments as China, UAE, Turkey raise bank scrutiny

    Russian oil firms face delays of up to several months to be paid for crude and fuel as banks in China, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) become more wary of U.S. secondary sanctions, eight sources familiar with the matter said.
    Payment delays reduce revenue to the Kremlin and make them erratic, allowing Washington to achieve its dual policy sanction goals - to disrupt money going to the Kremlin to punish it for the war in Ukraine while not interrupting global energy flows.

  • Saudi Ministers Visit Central Asia: “Unprecedented” Collaboration Moves Beyond Oil

    A new era of engagement between the Persian Gulf and Central Asian states was launched this month, surprisingly promoting investments that diversify both regions away from oil and gas. High-level Saudi ministers touched down in Bishkek and Astana, bringing with them the promise of large-scale infrastructure investments to be funded by the Saudi Fund for Development (SFD), which is actively seeking to expand its more than $20 billion portfolio across Central Asia.

  • Houthis threaten Saudi Arabia’s oil installations for ‘supporting US aggression’

    Yemen's Houthi rebels have threatened to target Saudi Arabia's oil installations should the country allow a US-led coalition to use its airspace to counter the group's attacks, a Houthi spokesperson said in an interview with al-Masirah TV on March 25.

  • Saudi Arabia’s Revealed Comparative Advantage in Non-Oil Exports

    The revealed comparative advantage (RCA) is based on Ricardian trade theory, which postulates that trade flows between countries are determined by their relative productivity differences. The RCA index provides a general indication and a first approximation of a country’s competitive strength in exports. This study examines Saudi Arabia’s global and regional export competitiveness for selected nonoil export products from 2010 to 2020 via/ RCA indices.

  • The Middle East’s Oil Giants Have Entered the Critical Minerals Race

    “This is not about replacing the bedrock of their economic engine away from oil to minerals,” said Ahmed Mehdi, managing director at Renaissance Energy and a visiting fellow at the Columbia University Center on Global Energy Policy. “This is more about making sure that they have a seat at the table in the energy transition, especially given how geopolitically charged this industry is.”

  • Saudi Arabia’s $2 trillion gamble: Can Oil wealth fund tech revolution?

    It was just a few months ago that Saudi Sovereign Wealth Fund, PIF, had $676 billion in assets under management. As of the month of March, Saudi Arabia transferred a $164 billion stake in Aramco to PIF, propelling it to the second-biggest fund in the Middle East for an astonishing $925 billion. This is up from $595.6 billion in 2022 and is now resulting in PIF 16 percent ownership of Aramco.

  • Decarbonisation set to boost Middle East oil producers and VLCCs

    Gulf crude has the advantage of being less carbon-intensive than other oil, both in carbon content and ease of extraction. The report highlights the UAE where ADNOC has committed $23bn to decarbonisation projects, including $4bn for shipping onshore carbon-free electricity to provide power for offshore operations.

  • Saudi Aramco CEO says no peak in oil demand for some time to come

    Oil demand will reach a new record of 104 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2024, Nasser said. Despite growing investment, alternative energy has yet to displace hydrocarbons at scale, Nasser said. “All this strengthens the view that peak oil and gas is unlikely for some time to come, let alone 2030,” he said. Rising demand from developing economies could feed oil demand growth through 2045, he said.

  • Oil Markets Steady Despite Growing Insecurity in the Middle East

    The oil market has been relatively stable despite the geopolitical storm in the Middle East engendered by the war in Gaza and the disruption of maritime traffic in the Red Sea by the Houthis in Yemen. Oil prices have traded either side of $80 per barrel even since a number of OPEC+ plus producers, led by Saudi Arabia, said in early March that they would extend oil production cuts totaling 2.2 million barrels per day until midyear.