“The global upstream industry is projected to generate its highest-ever free cash flows of $1.4 trillion in 2022, yet 40% of survey respondents favor capital discipline to strengthen their balance sheets through debt repayments and distributing cash back to shareholders as their top cash deployment strategies.”
Top 5 oil and gas trends to watch for in 2023 [Oil & Gas]
“This is more than history in the making. This is a signing that will not only inspire our club to achieve even greater success but inspire our league, our nation and future generations, boys and girls to be the best version of themselves. He is a special footballer and a special person whose impact is felt far beyond football. Cristiano is joining a club with big ambitions, a competitive club amongst the very best in Asia and will be welcomed to a country that is making massive progress on and off the pitch with opportunities for all.”
Al Nassr Football Club President, Musalli Almuammar. [Al-Arabiya]
“Saudi Arabia is home to 224,000 millionaires, the most of any Middle Eastern country. Kuwait, with a population of less than 5 million compared to Saudi Arabia’s 35 million, comes in second with 217,000!”
Family Offices in the Middle East – Outlook and Services 2023 [Empaxis]
“Saudi Arabia was the fastest-growing of any major oil supplier to the EU in the third quarter, with a 9.1% market share of imports of the commodity, compared with 5.1% on average last year, according to Eurostat. Saudi shipments to Egypt, most of which are re-exported to Europe through the Suez Canal, neared 1 million barrels a day in November, up from 600,000 barrels a day in October and 866,000 barrels a day a year earlier.”
Russia’s Oil Ban Accelerates Shift in Global Energy Flows [Wall Street Journal]
“Unless you grew up here, you wouldn’t understand the magnitude of what we’re doing.”
-Ahmad Ammary, 44, the DJ and music producer who developed Soundstorm. [LA Times]
“PIF is making bold investments. We have four relatively new sectors: entertainment, sports, tourism and culture. These sectors did not materially exist before seven years, and PIF is making investments in these seven sectors.”
Faisal Al-Ibrahim, Saudi Minister of Economy and Planning, How Saudi Arabia’s sovereign fund created a nation of opportunities [Arab News]
“The one area that is likely to continue to be a growth constraint for financial services in the region is the regulatory structure around cloud services. Current regulations require cloud service providers to be based in the country where it plans to offer its services. Authorities in the region are aware of this issue and are moving ahead on this front. Once this constraint on cloud services is resolved, it has the potential to tremendously expand the scope of financial services in the region.”
PwC Middle East identifies top trends driving the region’s banking ecosystem [Zawya]
“It may not have sunk in yet, but the Qatar World Cup was the kickoff rather than the finale. Qatar and Saudi Arabia will be this decade’s focal points of Asian Sports. By 2030, Egypt and Turkey could become part of the global sports-hosting mix. That doesn’t mean that Arab and Berber North Africa will be sidelined. On the contrary, barely two months after emerging as a World Cup superstar, Morocco will host the FIFA Club World Cup in February.”
James Dorsey, Qatar Was Just The Beginning As Middle East Eyes Asian Sports [Eurasia Review]
“The Saudi Arabian domestic league was not created overnight. Women rallied for it and built foundations for generations to come. I spoke with Bireen Sadagah, who plays in the Saudi Women’s Premier League Arabia, which was established in 2022, and before that played in the Jeddah Women’s League. The 35-year-old has played football for decades and told me that she has seen a tremendous increase in support for women’s football in Saudi Arabia.”
Shireen Ahmed, Beyond the World Cup: Women’s Football Is Growing Throughout the Middle East and North Africa [Global Sports Matters]
“I think it’s incredibly important (to hear from people who live here). Local voices need to be emphasised and we need a truer picture of the reality on the ground. I think it’s a great opportunity that we have for the world to see what Qatar is really about. It’s crucial to amplify women’s voices and to have women’s perspectives on sport and other issues to help change the narrative or show that women play a vital role.”
Mehreen Fazal, a British Muslim woman who moved to Qatar with her husband and children two years ago, What it was like to be a woman at the Qatar World Cup [The Athletic]
