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  • 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 […]

     
  • Graphic: The Rise of Saudi Oil Consumption
     

    Saudi Arabia uses as much oil per person as America, largely to run oil-fired power plants to run domestic air conditioners. And the more of its oil siphoned off for such uses, the less cushion there is in the worlds oil supply. Thats a big problem now but is becoming less of one. America and […]

     
  • 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 […]

     
  • Critical Commercial and Economic Ties: Interview with Jose Fernandez
     

    The 2nd US-Saudi Business Opportunities Forum in Atlanta in December brought together a high level delegation of over 200 Saudi officials and business people with over 1000 Americans to explore the $1 trillion-plus commercial openings available in the coming decade in the Kingdom. The response to the Forum – and what it means for American investment and […]

     
  • Saudi to maintain oil supply if U.S. draws stocks
     

    Saudi Arabia is likely to maintain high oil production in the event consumer countries release emergency stocks, but it will not seek to lure buyers for more oil by discounting its crude, industry sources said. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Saturday in Riyadh sought an assurance from Saudi King Abdullah that the kingdom […]

     
  • Hillary Clinton: Time running out for diplomacy with Iran
     

    U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton made clear Saturday that time is running out for diplomacy over Iran’s nuclear program and said talks aimed at preventing Tehran from acquiring a nuclear weapon would resume in mid-April. With speculation over a possible U.S. or Israel military attack adding urgency to the next round of discussions […]

     
  • Water Brings Green to Saudi Arabia
     

    Over the last two-and-a-half decades, a series of NASA’s Landsat satellites have captured these pictures of the growing agriculture industry in the northern reaches of the Syrian Desert in Saudi Arabia, not far from Jordan. Farmers use a technique called center-pivot irrigation to bring up water from below the desert floor to grow wheat and […]

     
  • U.S. Might Have More Oil Than Saudi Arabia, But…
     

    People are often confused about the overall extent of U.S. oil reserves. Some claim that the U.S. has hundreds of billions or even trillions of barrels of oil waiting to be produced if bureaucrats will simply stop blocking development. In fact, in a recent debate between Republican candidates contending for Gabrielle Giffords’ recently vacated House seat, one candidate […]

     
  • Five short stories from World Energy Outlook
     

    The IEA’s World Energy Outlook (WEO) is an annual tradition, the result of much work, data analysis and presentation. A formative volume is produced for all to read and digest, but few of us have the time to do so in the detail required.  As such we rely to some extent on IEA presentations and summary documents. […]

     

MUST-READS

  • Saudi Arabia Continues Airdrop Operations of Quality Food Aid to Gaza in Cooperation with Jordan

    The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, through the King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Centre (KSrelief), has continued airdrop operations of quality food aid for those affected in the Gaza Strip, in cooperation with the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. A food airdrop operation was conducted yesterday in the Al-Mawasi area west of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, in collaboration with the Jordan Armed Forces-Arab Army, aiming to break the blockade imposed by Israeli occupation forces on the land border crossings.

  • Nike’s first campaign in Saudi Arabia: ‘What if you can?’ video goes viral

    Sportswear giant Nike has come out with its first campaign in Saudi Arabia and the online commercial ‘What if you can?’ has created a lot of buzz on social media. The one-minute and 35-second video is aimed at inspiring young girls in conservative Saudi Arabia to back their potential and take up a sport. The online campaign has already amassed more than 37 million views on YouTube. It opens with schoolgirls playing a game of football and the ball stops at a female student sitting on the steps of a school. One of the students asks her in Arabic, ‘Want to play? Let’s go’.

  • SAMA Regulations Enhancing Saudi Islamic Banks’ Transparency, Sharia Governance

    Islamic finance-specific rules issued by the Saudi Central Bank (SAMA) over 2020–1H24 are enhancing Islamic banking regulations to some extent, says Fitch Ratings, through better transparency and reporting requirements, standardisation and sharia governance, and increased consumer confidence in the products’ sharia-compliance. While the Saudi Islamic banking market is the largest globally, and we expect the operating environment to be favourable over 2H24–2025, persisting issues include low standardisation, still-developing Islamic-finance regulations, and fragmented disclosures.

  • Opinion: Normalization with Saudi Arabia is a golden opportunity for Israel

    Normalization will lead to the establishment of a regional security alliance and the reversal of the negative strategic trends for Israel since October 7. The moderate alliance will stand up against Iran and the resistance camp and open the door to PA participation while establishing a governing alternative to Hamas in the Gaza Strip and renewing a political process in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict arena.

  • Tadawul: Net foreign buys up to SAR 11.4B in H1 2024, Saudis net buyers of SAR 11B

    Foreign investors were net buyers of about SAR 11.43 billion worth of stocks on the Saudi Exchange (Tadawul) in H1 2024, registering a hike of 50% from SAR 7.63 billion in H1 2023, according to data issued by Tadawul.

  • Saudi Arabia completes first phase of ‘Professional Verification’ program

    The Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development completed the first phase of the "Professional Verification" service as part of the "Professional Certification" program. It covers 128 countries and cooperates with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs through a unified electronic platform supervised by the ministry.

  • Saudi Arabia to lure ultra-luxury travelers with Red Palace stays

    In the south of Riyadh, nestled into downtown streets steeped in rare desert greenery, sits a 365,000 square-foot palace once lived in by King Saud bin Abdulaziz, the second ruler of modern Saudi Arabia. The Red Palace was built in the 1940s for the then-crown prince. Now, the 9-acre, art-deco manse is being transformed into an ultra-luxury hotel designed to give guests a taste of the Saudi royal life.

  • Border Traffic: How Syria Uses Captagon to Gain Leverage Over Saudi Arabia

    Since 2011, the Gulf region has seen a significant escalation in the scale and sophistication of drug trafficking. There has been a particular increase in the supply of Captagon, a codrug of amphetamine and theophylline, whose consumption threatens social peace. However, the issue extends beyond organized crime to affect politics. The Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad and its allies have leveraged Captagon trafficking as a means of exerting pressure on the Gulf states, notably Saudi Arabia, to reintegrate Syria into the Arab world and secure concessions that would allow the regime to reinforce its position after thirteen years of conflict.

  • World’s largest oil company bets on the enduring power of petrol

    The state-owned oil group, which made $500bn in revenues last year mainly from producing and selling crude, last month took a €740mn, 10 per cent stake in Horse Powertrain, a company dedicated to building fuel-based engines. The calculation by Saudi Aramco and the other shareholders in Horse, Chinese carmaker Geely and its French peer Renault, is that as the industry stops designing and developing its own combustion engines, it will start buying them from third parties.

  • E-commerce in Saudi Arabia sees 17.47 percent surge with 40,697 new records in Q2 2024

    The issuance of existing commercial records for e-commerce in Saudi Arabia recorded a growth of 17.47 percent by the end of the second quarter of 2024, new data showed. According to the Q2 2024 Business Sector Bulletin issued by the Saudi Ministry of Commerce, during this period, 40,697 e-commerce records were issued, compared to 34,645 in the same period of 2023.