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Qatar is lining up a potential bid for a stake in French nuclear world-beater Areva – which will have to confront French resistance to an Arab government buying into a ‘national champion’ but seems to have the support of President Nicolas Sarkozy and French lobbies that have long cultivated relations with Doha and Abu Dhabi

Iran is looking to return crude output to the pre-2012 sanctions level of about 3.7m b/d, compared to the current 2.8m b/d average. The Ministry of Petroleum (MoP) has claimed it could deliver an additional 500,000 b/d of exports within six months and 1m b/d within one year of sanctions relief, taking total production to 3.8m b/d. That rests on some questionable assumptions.

Emir’s health: Emir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmed Al-Jaber Al-Sabah was forced to cancel a planned meeting at the White House with United States President Donald Trump on 12 September due to health concerns. The nature of subsequent medical tests was not disclosed, but officials have continually stressed the results have been positive. The 90-year-old emir has received a string of visitors from the Gulf while in New York and fielded phone calls from regional leaders enquiring.

The Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development (KFAED) on 5 December agreed a KD29.5m ($100m) loan to Bahrain to help finance a 400kV electricity transmission network project, which forms part of the government’s fiscal balance programme. The 25-year loan includes a grace period of seven years after which it will be repaid in 36 semi-annual instalments.

Embattled national airline Kuwait Airways has had to ground several aircraft because of safety concerns, and is facing a law suit demanding suspension of all flights. Lawyer Hawra Al-Habeeb filed a suit the day after the government grounded several aircraft because of repeated malfunctions.

Yemen is trying to counter the threat of falling oil production by bringing in more IOCs – with recent changes to the hydrocarbons law intended to entice back the majors, rather than giving new incentives to the minnows who have helped build up its industry. The emergence of export LNG is an added incentive to invest, provided gas-gathering systems and other infrastructure can be efficiently developed. President Saleh is looking to old friends in Russia to help develop such projects, but all participants are welcome during a period when many western IOCs are confronted with financial pressures, and equity stakes will become available as firms seek to cash in their assets.

The Jubail export refinery is scheduled to hit the financing market in June, “but will probably come a little later,” a leading regional project finance banker, who wished not to be identified, told GSN. The Jubail facility was estimated initially to cost a massive $12bn, but Saudi Aramco is seeking a reduction to below $10bn for the proposed

The oil price remains volatile, but ministries of finance may take comfort in the views of their hydrocarbons sector counterparts – and a majority of international analysts – that crude won’t collapse once more this year. This reflects on the success of the Opec+ group – comprising the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, Russia and nine other non-Opec producers – in raising prices in the past year. Opec’s co-ordination with non-Opec partners under the so-called Declaration of Co-operation encouraged crude prices to peak at around $85 a barrel (/bbl) in October.

Jersey-registered Petrofac on 16 June announced that its Engineering and Production Services division had won another major engineering, procurement, construction and commissioning (EPCC) contract from Tatweer Petroleum, which plans to drill several new gas wells in an unnamed field.

A report by the House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Reform, released on 19 February, set out claims by a number of whistleblowers that members of United States President Donald Trump’s administration have been working with US firms on plans to transfer highly sensitive nuclear technology to Saud Arabia, in the process bypassing the usual safety conditions and the reviews by Congress required by law.

Halliburton wins Eni contract in Iraq. GDF Suez/IP create world’s largest power generator. Praxair buys into ROC

Leave aside for a moment the football politics, so often an opaque affair, and the disappointment of much larger and more established soccer-playing nations, whose hopes of hosting a World Cup were dashed by the Zurich-based Fédération Internationale de Football Association (Fifa), the sport’s governing body. What does the success of Qatar’s bid to host the 2022 Fifa World Cup say about the nature of polities and geopolitics as the world remakes itself after a decade defined by the West’s unresolved interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq, and staggers to an end with European economies and the United States struggling to recover from the credit crunch?

ExxonMobil is planning to quit West Qurna-1 in southern Iraq, selling its 60% stake in the technical service joint venture operating the field. It is also preparing to drill its first wells in two of the most prospective – but also controversial – blocks it signed up to in Iraq’s Kurdistan region.

BP Oman announced on 23 May the successful drilling and completion of the 50th well at its Khazzan gas project in Block 61. It is the final well targeted for completion, enabling first gas to be delivered later this year. The 50 wells will enable production of 1bcf of natural gas a day, rising to 1.5 bcf/d once the second phase of the project is up and running in 2020. More than 300 wells are scheduled to be drilled over the lifetime of the project.

The European Commission is tendering for its project to expand the European Union (EU)’s co-operation with the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) on developing clean energy technologies. The EU-GCC Clean Energy Network II contract envisages the successful bidder promoting exchanges of experience and know-how, and co-ordinating and promoting joint research, demonstrations and development of projects in GCC countries. The European stakeholders will include energy-related research entities, universities, administrations, utilities and industry, as well as relevant organisations and stakeholders in GCC countries, such as Abu Dhabi-based Masdar.