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Qatargas Operating Company announced on 28 February it had delivered its first liquefied natural gas (LNG) cargo to the Ennore LNG receiving terminal, in Kamarajar Port, some 40km from Chennai in southern India. The 147,000m3 cargo was delivered by the Al-Nuaman Q-Flex vessel to the 5m t/yr terminal’s operator, Indian Oil Corporation subsidiary Indian Oil LNG Private. In February 2019, Qatargas helped to commission the Ennore terminal by supplying LNG via Swiss-based trader Gunvor.

Fujairah Ruler Sheikh Hamad Bin Mohammed Al-Sharqi has laid claim to a cargo of crude oil seized by the United States, which alleges it came from Iran.

There have been further oil and arrears payments by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to international oil companies (IOCs) in recent days, according to announcements by London-listed Genel Energy, and Gulf Keystone Petroleum (GKP), and Oslo Stock Exchange-listed DNO ASA. Data for January sales were published by Genel, which said it had received its share of payments for the month from Tawke ($10.9m plus an override payment of $6.5m), Taq Taq ($2.6m) and Sarta ($1.5m), plus a receivable recovery payment of $2.4m for unpaid invoices from 2019-20.

Emir Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmed Al-Jaber Al-Sabah continues to struggle with poor health after an emergency trip to New York for medical treatment earlier this month. Accompanied by Kuwait’s top gastroenterologist, Dr. Fahad Al-Ibraheem, the ruler was sent for tests related to the long-term impact of his stomach cancer. Sheikh Nawaf has for years struggled with the ailment.  

Dubai Crown Prince and Dubai Executive Council chairman Sheikh Hamdan Bin Mohammed Bin Rashid Al-Maktoum attended the ceremony for the 21st batch of graduates from the Rashid Bin Saeed Al-Maktoum Naval College in Al-Taweelah, Abu Dhabi on 9 March, posing for a photo with the graduating officers.

The corruption case against former prime minister Sheikh Jaber Mubarak Al-Sabah, former defence minister Khaled Jarrah Al-Sabah and four other senior officials is set to start on 14 April in the Ministerial Court. The court’s Investigative Committee, which is responsible for prosecuting high-ranked members of the ruling family, has demanded they be punished for mismanagement of government funds at the Ministry of Defence.

In a royal decree on March 30, King Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa appointed Khalid Yusuf Al-Jalahma as Bahrain’s first ambassador to Israel, following the Abraham Accords signed in September.

Syria’s foreign affairs and expatriates minister Faisal Mekdad was in Muscat on 21 March for talks with officials including Royal Office minister General Sultan Mohammed Al-Nuamani, foreign minister Sayyid Badr Bin Hamad Al-Busaidi and deputy prime minister for international relations and co-operation Sayyid Asaad Bin Tariq Al-Said.

Dubai Holding has signed an agreement with Itochu Corporation, Hitachi Zosen Inova, Besix Group and Tech Group to develop an energy-from-waste facility, which will process up to 45% of Dubai’s current level of municipal waste.

The apparent involvement of Bassem Awadallah in the alleged plot to overthrow King Abdullah II signals the fall of a Palestinian Jordanian (born in Jerusalem in 1964) who flew high in Hashemite politics and later cultivated the senior Saudi leadership.

The northern peninsula continues to be a focus for policy-makers in Muscat, not least due to the perceived risk of outside interference and a small separatist movement. The isolated region is getting long-awaited infrastructure spending by the Omani government – and has also attracted the attention of a Texan oil company.

Omani citizen Abdullah Awad Al-Shamsi was reportedly released by the UAE authorities in April, having been arrested on charges of spying for Qatar in August 2018. In May 2020 he was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Abu Dhabi Federal Court of Appeals in what advocacy group Human Rights Watch described as “a grossly unfair trial.”

President Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al-Nahyan’s diplomatic adviser Anwar Gargash led the UAE delegation at a meeting with the foreign ministers of Greece, Cyprus and Israel on 16 April. The talks, held in Cyprus, covered recent developments in the east Mediterranean and links between the four countries in investment, tourism and other economic areas.

Governments around the Gulf appear to have rediscovered the potential for diplomacy to settle their differences in a significant mood shift after the turmoil of the Donald Trump presidency, when allies knew there was little chance of being upbraided for anything deemed ethically questionable or destabilising, as long as they kept buying American military equipment.

Oil companies have ramped up KRI activity as they continue to report payments bring made by the KRG for current production and overdue sums for past output (known as ‘over-ride’ payments). On 13 April, Norway’s DNO said it had received $54m, of which $35.2m was its share of February exports from the Tawke licence and the rest over-ride payments for 2017 and 2019/20.