Qatar Petroleum (QP) plans to issue between $7bn and $10bn-worth of five-, ten- and 30-year notes to fund its North Field expansion.
Not one to be forged by bad news from West Qurna, oil minister Ihsan Abdul Jabbar Ismail told a 3 May press conference that Iraq and international partners were seeking to invest some $15bn in projects to boost gas output to 4 bcf/d and produce up to 16GW of electricity.
Iraq came second and Iran third, after Russia, among the world’s largest flarers of gas from oil production in 2020, according to the World Bank Group’s new Global Gas Flaring Reduction Partnership (GGFR) annual report.
The Kuwaiti government appointed several old faces to high positions in mid-May in moves that local sources suggested showed the authority’s continued efforts to maintain the status quo and avoid substantive reforms.
Sheikh Khalid Bin Hamad Al-Khalifa was named as chairman of the newly-established General Sports Authority (GSA), in a decree issued by his father King Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa on 12 May. Sheikh Salman Bin Mohammed Bin Isa Al-Khalifa was named as vice chairman of the body, while Abdulrahman Sadiq Askar has been appointed chief executive.
Sheikh Ahmed Bin Saeed Al-Maktoum was named chairman of the Dubai World Trade Centre Authority on 18 May, in a decree issued by Dubai Ruler and federal Vice President and prime minister Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al-Maktoum (MBR).
Petroleum minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh will retire once a new president is inaugurated, the Ministry of Petroleum’s Shana news service reported on 17 May. “I am retired… but I will remain in politics”, 68 year-old Zanganeh was quoted as saying. In a career featuring decades of government service, Zanganeh has been petroleum minister since 15 August 2013, when he was appointed by President Hassan Rouhani.
Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (Dewa) is claiming considerable success for its rollout of free charging to non-commercial electric vehicles in the emirate, following the launch of its EV Green Charger initiative. It has established a network of 300 charging stations as part of the Dubai Green Mobile Strategy 2030, under which customers registered with the EV initiative can charge their vehicles by scanning a QR code or by using a card.
Sultan Haitham has adopted the same tactics as his predecessor in response to protests by unemployed locals that began in Sohar and spread nationwide. Muscat is offering short-term carrots, while security forces wield sticks, but despite Haitham’s reform commitments there is little sign of long-term answers providing an antidote to protesters’ complaints.
Saudi ambassador to Washington Princess Reema Bint Bandar Al-Saud took part in a late May webinar as part of a series of events called Women in Global Leadership.
An unidentified Saudi prince, referred to only as “a royal highness” in official reports and described as an employee of the Ministry of Municipal, Rural Affairs and Housing, has been sentenced to two years in jail and fined SR100,000 ($27,000).
An update on its investigations from Saudi Arabia’s National Anti-Corruption Commission (Nazaha) has highlighted how the organisation is now playing a far more activist role and moving away from its previous focus on rather academic analyses of the problems of corruption, the number of anonymous tips it was receiving and its attempt to engineer a better position for the kingdom on Transparency International’s corruption perceptions index.
President Vladimir Putin has denied that Russia is soon to provide an advanced satellite imagery platform to Iran. The Washington Post on 10 June reported that Moscow had already sent a team to train ground crew in handling the Kanopus-V system, near the northern city of Karaj.
German tax authorities are targeting the Dubai-based messaging app Telegram, founded by Russian-born Pavel Durov, and have purchased a stolen cache of data which includes information on German expatriates living in Dubai, in an effort to clamp down on tax avoidance by citizens operating from the emirate.
GSN Risk Grade – F6 Overview Politics: Conflict has for years exacerbated multiple humanitarian crises, pushing Yemen towards the verge of collapse and ‘failed state’ status (GSN’s political risk category F).
