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Oman Power and Water Procurement Company (OPWPC) plans to raise its mainly gas-fired electricity generation capacity to 11.7GW in 2023, up from 7.77GW at end-2016, according to the state utility’s seven-year plan, published in late May. While generation is slated to rise by 51%,peak power demand is forecast to increase by 53% to 9.96GW in 2023, from 6.52GW at end-2016. According to OPWPC, demand for gas supply to the Main Interconnected System (MIS – Muscat and northern Oman) and Dhofar grids will rise by 24% in the period to 2023, equivalent to 1.9bcm/yr.

Bahrain’s troubled Bank Alkhair has appointed Khalil Nooruddin as managing director and chief executive, the bank said in a statement on 18 September.

Malawian extractive industries watchdog Natural Resources Justice Network (NRJN) has raised concerns about a $235,700 payment made by the UAE-based Rak Gas to the government of the southern African state’s disgraced former president Joyce Banda. The payment, to the Reserve Bank of Malawi’s mines department, was made just weeks before elections in 2014 that removed Banda from power. Her government presided over ‘cashgate’, the biggest financial scandal in Malawi’s history.

Four companies have submitted bids for Saudi Arabia’s first wind power project, a 400MW scheme in Al-Jouf province. They include the local Acwa Power – which won the kingdom’s first solar power project in February, also in Al-Jouf – as well as France’s EDF and Engie and Italy’s Enel. It remains unclear at this stage when the bids will be opened and a winner announced.

AIM-listed Gulfsands Petroleum seems well positioned to capitalise on Syria and Iraq’s political re-awakenings. Listed on London’s Alternative Investment Market, Mayfair-based Gulfsands Petroleum’s share prise rose by 2.7% on 24 April to £2.02 on news that its Khurbet East Field on Block 26 in Syria was larger than expected.

Muscat has signed separate memoranda of understanding (MoUs) with Shell and Total to develop recent natural gas discoveries in the Greater Barik area of Block 6 in central Oman, close to BP’s Khazzan tight gas field which was brought onstream in September. The proposed development is expected to produce an initial 500mcf/d, potentially rising to 1bcf/d in time.

The largest energy investor in Iraqi Kurdistan, Sharjah-based Dana Gas, has begun arbitration proceedings against the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) at the London Court of International Arbitration. Dana and its partners in Iraq say they want to “clarify certain contractual rights”, and recoup more than $1bn in unpaid receivables. The KRG says there are no outstanding receivables and that, in fact, Dana and its affiliates owe Erbil money. Dana’s KRG interests are held via a 40% share of Pearl Petroleum, which is co-owned by Dana’s main shareholder, Crescent Petroleum (40%), OMV Upstream International (10%) and MOL Hungarian Oil and Gas (10%).


The United States’ sanctions against Iran appear to be hardening views inside the Islamic Republic, according to a new survey of public opinion by IranPoll. Some 76% of those polled (by telephone among a representative sample of 1,017 Iranians from 4-12 December) now think it is “very important” for Iran to develop missiles, up from 74% in January 2018. A further 20% think it is “somewhat important” to do so. Sanctions are doing nothing to change minds about the country’s nuclear power programme.

Consensus has built behind the EU’s threat to embargo Syrian state oil companies, crude exports and products imports in an effort to seriously squeeze the Assad regime

Output slipped for Norway’s DNO International in Yemen during October, as three wells were temporarily shut after the failure of electric submersible pumps on Block 53.

French company Technip has won a Dubai Petroleum contract to replace a 12-inch gas pipeline and six 18-inch water injection pipelines at the South West Fatah and Falah fields.

The involvement of Gulf states in funding a security team in the Puntland region shows that pirates, radical Islamists and warlords are a serious regional problem, and that oil interests may also be at stake

The UAE scored a PR victory when it hosted Pope Francis’ three-day visit in early February – the first to the Arabian Gulf by a pontiff. Prior to his arrival, Francis said the UAE was “striving to be a model for coexistence, human fraternity, a meeting of faiths and civilisations”. But he also criticised events in Yemen, pointing to “children who are hungry, who are thirsty, they don’t have medicine and… are in danger of death”.

The row over gas sales between Sharjah-based Crescent Petroleum and Iran has resurfaced as both sides continue to dispute the contractual terms of an agreement to export Iranian gas to the UAE (GSN 812/12). Under pressure to meet rising domestic demand, the dispute began when the Islamic Republic

Reshuffle MBS style: The reappointment to government on 25 February of Khalid Al-Falih – after he was removed as energy minister last year – to head a new Ministry for Investment highlighted Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman’s style of government. Despite his apparent fall from grace during a difficult period for his industrial strategy and the Saudi Aramco listing, Falih is one of a small group of trusted officials through whom MBS promotes his rule.