Riyadh, Saudi Arabia -- Saudi Arabia’s real GDP grew by 1.2 percent in the second quarter of 2023, compared to Q2 of 2022, according to Kingdom's General Authority for Statistics (GASTAT). A GASTAT report showed a 6.1 percent increase in non-oil activities over 2022, a 2.3 percent increase in government...

Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi, UAE’s Minister of State for Foreign Trade, led the UAE delegation to Jakarta, Indonesia, the host of ASEAN Business and Investment Summit.

The Saudi production cut of one million barrels per day which first took effect in July will continue "for another three months until the end of December 2023", the kingdom's energy ministry said in a statement. Russia's export cut of 300,000 bpd will continue for the same period, Deputy Prime...

Tehran, UAE -- Iran’s oil production capacity has increased 40 percent in two years with the rise in investment in semi-finished oil projects, the country's Minister of Oil Javad Owji said Sunday. He said since the beginning of the administration of President Ebrahim Raisi, in August 2021, increasing investment opportunities...

Dubai, UAE--Oil prices rose to their highest in over half a year and snapped a two-week losing streak, buoyed by expectations of tightening supplies. A Middle Eastern country is widely expected to extend a voluntary 1 million barrels per day oil production cut into October, prolonging supply curbs engineered by...

Dubai, UAE - An airport terminal able to handle up to 45 million passengers a year will open in Abu Dhabi in November, state media said Thursday, accelerating competition in the crowded Gulf market. Terminal A in the oil-rich United Arab Emirates capital, touted as one of the world's biggest, will...

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia -- Saudi Arabia's oil exports fell by 33.4 percent to SAR 227.7 billion ($60.70 billion), from SAR 341.6 billion, in the second quarter of 2023, contributing mainly to the decline of 31.8 percent in overall merchandise exports, compared to Q2 2022. The value of exports amounted to...

Combining elements of everything from boxing to judo and Muay Thai, mixed martial arts (MMA) had a limited following in Saudi Arabia just a decade ago, but that started to change when the kingdom hosted the popular regional Desert Force competition in 2014.

Strong capital inflows, a young and growing population and growing awareness about asset management will drive the sector's growth in future.

Dubai, UAE--Oil prices extended gains on Wednesday after industry data showed a large draw in crude inventories in the U.S., the world's biggest fuel consumer, and as concerns about a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico kept investors on edge. Brent crude futures for October climbed 31 cents, or 0.36%,...

Online celebrities best known for posting about video games are also dropping in unexpected plugs for gasoline stations, fuel rewards and club cards. In India, Mexico, South Africa and the United States many spots were found that promoted major oil firms such as BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell and TotalEnergies on...

Cairo, Egypt--The Egyptian government plans to drill 45 natural exploratory gas wells in the Mediterranean and the Nile Delta with $1.9 billion in investments until mid-2025, according to a Cabinet statement on Tuesday. The drilling of 10 wells between July 2022 and June 2023 resulted in the huge discovery in...

Doha, Qatar -- Qatar's foreign merchandise trade balance, which represents the difference between total exports and imports, showed a surplus of QR 19.6 billion ($5.38 billion) in July 2023, a decrease of about QR 15.1 billion or 43.5 percent compared to July 2022, and an increase of nearly QR 2.2...

Despite a decline in FDI inflows in the past few years, GCC countries remain optimistic as they expect strong economic growth in 2023 and beyond.

The South Pars gas field is one of the world's largest natural gas condensate fields. Iran shares the gas field with energy giant Qatar and there are 24 platforms on the side of the Islamic republic which has been developing it in the Gulf since the 1990s.

Wells were drilled in onshore, offshore operations.

Manama, Bahrain--Bahrain has indicated its keenness to encourage investments in the kingdom's oil and environmental projects through partnerships with the private sector, especially banks, to achieve sustainable development goals. Dr. Mohammed bin Mubarak bin Daina, Oil and Environment Minister, Special Envoy for Climate Affairs, has affirmed the government’s keenness to...

A court in Tehran has ordered the US government to pay $330 million in damages for "planning a coup" against the newly established Islamic republic in 1980, the judiciary said. A year after the 1979 Islamic revolution that toppled the US-backed Shah, a group of mostly army officers tried to...

AMMAN, JORDAN  - The value of the Kingdom's oil bill decreased during the first half of 2023 by 15.6 percent, Jordan’s Department of Statistics (DoS) announced. According to the DoS foreign trade report, value of the Kingdom's imports of crude oil, its derivatives and mineral oils went down in the...

Tehran, Iran -- The trade exchanges between Iran and China in the first seven months of the current year reached $8.540 billion, with China’s export of products to Iran accounting for $6 billion of it. The trade declined by 11 percent compared to the same period last year, China’s Customs...

The foreign minister's visit is also intended to pave way for Turkish President's trip to Baghdad for which a date is yet to be finalized. The issue of water and dams on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, both of which have their sources in Turkey before entering Iraq, is a...

Libya's central bank announced that its two rival branches in the west and east are reuniting after nearly a decade apart. The North African country is currently split between Abdelhamid Dbeibah's UN-backed government in the west and another in the east backed by military strongman Khalifa Haftar.

Tehran, Iran -- Trade between Iran and the European Union member states reached 2.3 billion euros ($2.5 billion) in the first half of 2023, according to Statistical Office of the European Union (Eurostat). Trade between Iran and Germany accounted for half the value, Tasnim News Agency reported, adding the Iran-EU...

Tokyo, Japan -- Japan is preparing to hold a foreign ministers' meeting with the six member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council in Saudi Arabia in early September, a report said. Japan's Kyodo News said the meeting comes as Japan aims to strengthen relations with oil-producing countries in the Middle...

Dubai, UAE--Oil prices jumped about 1% on Friday on signs of slowing U.S. output, but both crude benchmarks also ended their longest weekly rally of 2023 on mounting concerns about global demand growth. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures gained 86 cents, or 1.1%, to settle at $81.25 a barrel,...

Abu Dhabi, UAE-- As the UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed visits Ethiopia to strengthen relations with the African country, the non-oil trade between the two nations has expanded to US$1.4 billion in 2022. According to Dr. Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi, Minister of State for Foreign Trade, the UAE’s...

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia--Neymar was greeted with much fanfare Friday as he arrived in Saudi Arabia where he joins a growing list of big names lured to the oil-rich kingdom. The 31-year-old Brazil forward who will be unveiled as an Al-Hilal player on Saturday after six seasons with French champions Paris Saint-Germain...

From Cristiano Ronaldo to Neymar, the kingdom is offering eye-watering salaries to international football stars to bring them over from clubs across Europe.

Paris, France - Brazil forward Neymar has signed for Saudi Arabia's Al-Hilal from Paris Saint-Germain, the clubs announced on Tuesday, joining Cristiano Ronaldo and Karim Benzema as the latest big name lured to the Kingdom. "I am here in Saudi Arabia, I am Hilali," Neymar said in a video posted to...

Dubai, UAE--Oil prices declined more than 1% on Monday as concerns about China's faltering economic recovery and a stronger dollar weighed against seven weeks of gains on tightening supply from OPEC+ output cuts. Brent crude futures fell $1.07, or 1.2%, to $85.74 a barrel by 0631 GMT while U.S. West...

Abu Dhabi, UAE--The UAE has applauded the UN for the successful unloading of oil from the deteriorating tanker, FSO Safer, situated off Yemen's coast in the Red Sea. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) lauded the collective efforts of the United Nations, its Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, the Coalition to Restore...

Hodeida, Yemen -- The United Nations said Friday it had successfully transferred more than one million barrels of oil from a dilapidated Yemeni tanker, removing the imminent risk of a spill. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres "welcomes the news that the ship-to-ship transfer of oil from the FSO Safer to the...

PARIS, FRANCE - The International Energy Agency said Friday it had revised upwards its forecast for global oil demand growth in 2023 as demand is "scaling record highs". World oil demand already hit a record 103 million barrels per day in June and August and "could see yet another peak", the...

Production limitations set by the OPEC + exporters "are continuing to offset concerns over demand," said Fawad Razaqzada, market analyst at Forex.com. Analysts have also cited the retreat in the dollar as a supporting factor for oil prices. Crude is denominated in the US currency.

Tokyo, Japan - Iran's foreign minister visited Japan on Monday for the first time since 2019, in a rare trip to a G7 member country by the Islamic republic's top diplomat. The purpose of the visit by Hossein Amir-Abdollahian to the current chair of the G7 was not announced, but reports...

The oil company's profits fell sharply to US$30.08 billion.

Tokyo, Japan--Japan's crude oil imports from the United Arab Emirates amounted to 25.63 million barrels in June 2023, or 37.4 percent of total imports, the Natural Resources and Energy Agency of Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said. During June, Japan's total crude oil imports were 68.5 million barrels,...

BEIRUT, LEBANON - A Lebanese minister on Saturday sought to clarify comments condemned by Kuwait over aid money to rebuild Beirut's grain silos that were destroyed in a devastating port blast three years ago. The oil-rich Gulf state in 2020 said it was ready to rebuild the storehouses, which Lebanon had...

Dubai, UAE--Oil prices soared more than a dollar a barrel on Friday to record a sixth consecutive week of gains, after top producers Saudi Arabia and Russia extended supply cuts through September, adding to undersupply concerns. Brent crude futures rose $1.10, or 1.3%, to settle at $86.24 a barrel, while...

The dispute over the field -- known as Arash in Iran and Dorra in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia -- dates back to the 1960s when Iran and Kuwait awarded overlapping offshore concessions. Last year Kuwait and Saudi Arabia signed an agreement to develop the field, despite objections from Iran which...

Crude oil is the main revenue source for Libya, which has been torn by more than a decade of stop-start conflict, involving foreign powers and a myriad of militias, since a NATO-backed revolt toppled strongman Moamer Kadhafi in 2011. Over the past decade, Libya has been regularly plagued by clashes...

RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA - Saudi Arabia posted a budget deficit of SAR5.3 billion ($1.41 billion) in the second quarter of 2023, the finance ministry said on Thursday. Saudi Arabia, the world's top oil exporter, recorded a budget surplus of almost $30 billion in 2022 as the high prices of the...

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia -- Saudi Arabia will extend the voluntary 1 million barrels per day cut, announced in July, to the month of September, with the possibility of further extension. Saudi Press Agency, quoting an official source from the Kingdom's Ministry of Energy, said the country's production for the month...

The mechanism, a price ceiling of $60 per barrel on Russian oil, was agreed and introduced by the European Union, G7 and Australia, in early December. Companies based in EU and G7 member states and Australia are banned from providing services enabling maritime transport, such as insurance, of oil above...

Both Saudi Arabia and Kuwait renewed "their previous and repeated calls to the Islamic Republic of Iran to negotiate" the demarcation of their maritime borders to settle the issue, according to the statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA). Recent attempts to revive negotiations have failed.

The Safer, a floating storage and offloading facility, has been moored around 50 kilometres (30 miles) from the port of Hodeida since the 1980s. It has not been serviced since war broke out eight years ago between rebels, who control the capital Sanaa and the waters where the Safer is...

On July 11, Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani announced that Iraq would start paying for Iranian gas with oil, as a way of circumventing the complicated mechanism. "Work is continuing with the American side concerning unpaid bills, which have fallen to 9.2 billion" euros ($10 billion), Sudani told reporters at...

From BP to ExxonMobil to TotalEnergies, none of the oil and gas majors have repeated the exceptional profits posted in 2022 when prices surged in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, but they nevertheless remain comfortably profitable this year. BP was the last to report earnings, reporting Tuesday a...

The announcement has angered environmental groups and comes amid an internal debate within the ruling Conservative party on green policies. (AFP) The main opposition Labour party has said it will not issue any new North Sea drilling licenses if it regains power in a general election due next year.

The oil firm and its subsidiaries posted a net profit of US$8.4bn.