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GCC Rallies Round Kuwait Following Iraq’s New Boundary Claim
...atures that lie within its waters and are exposed at low tide but submerged at high tide, while Iraq says that use of the shoals as baseline points is contrary to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Kuwait uses these shoals as baseline points under a 2014 Emiri decree that Baghdad re...
Volume: 69Issue: 09Published at Fri, 27 Feb 2026 -
Kurdish Hopes Of Autonomy In New Syria Unravel
...nister Nouri al-Maliki now the frontrunner for the post (MEES, 16 January), Iraqis are experiencing a sense of déjà vu, drawing an uneasy parallel with 2014, when ISIS fighters swept across the country under his watch, seizing Anbar province, Mosul and large swathes of territory. For now, incumbent Pr...
Volume: 68Issue: 23Published at Fri, 23 Jan 2026 -
Maliki to Return as Iraqi PM?
...ndidate. Nouri al-Maliki has emerged as the frontrunner for Iraq’s premiership, potentially returning to a post he held between 2006 and 2014 (see table). Mr Maliki headed the country’s first permanent government after the 2003 US invasion and remains the only politician to have served two terms as prime mi...
Volume: 69Issue: 03Published at Fri, 16 Jan 2026 -
Lebanon Approves Cyprus Maritime Border, Syria Next
...11, but Syria – not a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) – rejected this in 2014. Since the end of its civil war in 1990, Lebanon has oscillated between Iran-Syria and western influence. But with Hezbollah out of government in Lebanon and Syria now moving to...
Volume: 68Issue: 44Published at Fri, 31 Oct 2025 -
Turkey’s ITP Exit Sets Stage For Intensive Talks With Iraq
...ghdad largely emerged as the winner in an arbitration case against Ankara for facilitating independent Kurdish oil exports between 2014 and 2018 (MEES, 31 March 2023). Before the shutdown, the ITP carried up to 400,000 b/d of Kurdish crude and around 70,000 b/d of Federal Kirkuk production to Ceyhan. Th...
Volume: 68Issue: 30Published at Fri, 25 Jul 2025 -
Drone Attacks Force Shutdown Of Key Kurdistan Oil Fields
...ersee security since ISIS was ousted in 2017. The field fell under ISIS control in 2014, and the security situation in the area remains precarious. SANCTIONS RETALIATION? Iraq’s deal with HKN comes as Baghdad has been trying to convince US companies to invest in the country’s energy se...
Volume: 68Issue: 29Published at Fri, 18 Jul 2025 -
HKN Signs Preliminary Deal For Development Of Federal Field
...supply nearby power plants. That said, oil ministry data seen by MEES put output below 10,000 b/d in early-2024 and an informed source says operations have been undermined by the security situation in the area. The field suffered severe damage after the ISIS takeover in 2014 and Iraqi security fo...
Volume: 68Issue: 29Published at Fri, 18 Jul 2025 -
Libya Slams Greek Hydrocarbons Tender Amid Maritime Border Dispute
...vereign rights in 2014.” CALL FOR TENDERS On 12 June, the European Union’s official journal published a notice from Greece announcing an international call for tenders for “the exploration and exploitation of hydrocarbons in maritime areas” including Blocks “South of Crete 1” and “South of...
Volume: 68Issue: 26Published at Fri, 27 Jun 2025 -
Deadly Clashes Threaten Libya’s Short-Lived Stability
...nister Khalifa Abdelsadiq hailed the relative stability the country has witnessed in the past few years, stressing that Libya was “open for business,” with existing partners like Repsol and OMV, as well as Italy’s Eni, recently resuming drilling in Libya for the first time since 2014 (MEES, 28 Fe...
Volume: 68Issue: 20Published at Fri, 16 May 2025 -
Baghdad Scrambles To Keep US Sanctions Waivers On Iran Electricity Imports
...mains questionable given substantial damage to the region’s infrastructure when under ISIS control in 2014-16 . Mr Sudani also highlights Iraq’s plans to import electricity via the GCC’s common interconnector and Jordan this summer. Having missed its earlier end-2024 target, the GCC Interconnection Au...
Volume: 68Issue: 07Published at Fri, 14 Feb 2025 -
Will Iraq Be Caught In The Crossfire Of Trump’s Iran Policy?
...gures including leaders of the Popular Mobilization Units (PMUs). The PMUs were formed to fight Islamic State terrorists in 2014 but have also encompassed many of the Iran-backed militias. The PMUs, by law, are part of Iraq’s official security apparatus but the line between them and the militias has so...
Volume: 67Issue: 47Published at Fri, 22 Nov 2024 -
Tunisia’s Presidential Election: Strongman Saied Set For Re-election
...tober, observers say President Kais Saied is poised for re-election, with most of his critics and other candidates behind bars. Tunisia, which has long prided itself as the birthplace of the Arab Spring, was briefly touted as the only successful democracy in the region (MEES, 24 October 2014). But th...
Volume: 67Issue: 40Published at Fri, 04 Oct 2024 -
Egypt’s New Petroleum & Electricity Ministers Face Mounting In-Tray Challenges
...thority and the Shipbuilding Company in Ismailia and Port Said. He has also served in several leadership roles, including as Chairman of the Cairo Airport Company (2013-2014), the Holding Company for Airports and Air Navigation (2014-2016), and the Cairo Glass Manufacturing Company (since 2016). EC...
Volume: 67Issue: 27Published at Fri, 05 Jul 2024 -
Chevron Inches Towards Shale-Focused Algeria Entry
...at with Chevron, was the site of Algeria’s first trial shale well back in 2014. Whilst the initial well produced “excellent reserves,” shale plans were abandoned in the face of subsequent protests (MEES, 23 January 2015). Sonatrach’s MoU with Exxon also references “study[ing] the existing op...
Volume: 67Issue: 25Published at Fri, 21 Jun 2024 -
Iran Mourns Raisi & Abdollahian As Succession Speculation Mounts
...preme Leader, only the second in the Islamic Republic’s history after its founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (1979-89) is rumored to be ill. He was treated for cancer in 2014. In recent years, he has grown weary of what he and others see as Western plans for regime change, increasingly throwing his we...
Volume: 67Issue: 21Published at Fri, 24 May 2024 -
Kuwait’s Emir Suspends Parliament;Can He Quell Tumultuous Divisions?
...ss a crucial debt law since 2017 due to opposition by MPs, these onerous spending commitments saw Kuwait rack up some $108bn in cumulative deficits over 2014-2022 (see chart 2). A 2024-2027 government program published earlier this year envisages a further surging of deficits to a colossal total of KD...
Volume: 67Issue: 20Published at Fri, 17 May 2024 -
Kurdistan Slams Baghdad Over Continued Pipeline Closure
...rkuk-Ceyhan crude oil export pipeline which has been offline since the Islamic State damaged it in 2014 (see map, p10 & MEES, 12 April). Iraq optimistically says the pipeline could be up and running by the end of this month – mere days away – and will be capable of exporting 350,000 b/d. MEES un...
Volume: 67Issue: 17Published at Fri, 26 Apr 2024 -
Iraq Awards Akkas To Ukrainian Unknowns
...rce majeure in 2014 when the field was overrun by Islamic State militants, and even after the area was retaken by Iraqi security forces cited security concerns and refused to resume work. More recently Saudi Aramco was tapped for the project amid a thawing of relations between the two Gulf ne...
Volume: 67Issue: 17Published at Fri, 26 Apr 2024 -
Egypt-Turkey Talks: Gaza Conflict Tops Agenda As Relations Thaw
...RMALIZATION The landmark presidential visits are the first since relations soured over a decade ago after Sisi ousted Turkey-backed Islamist President Mohamed Mursi in a 2013 military coup (MEES, 5 July 2013), assuming the presidency a year later (MEES, 26 June 2014). In the years that followed, Turkey gr...
Volume: 67Issue: 17Published at Fri, 26 Apr 2024 -
Libya’s Mabruk: 2025 Restart?
...France’s TotalEnergies reveals in its 2023 annual report on 29 March that output at Libya’s Mabruk field will restart next year at best. The field in Libya’s Sirte Basin oil heartland has not produced since being overrun and badly damaged by IS-affiliated militants in December 2014 (MEES, 6 Ma...
Volume: 67Issue: 14Published at Fri, 05 Apr 2024