The Iraqi State Faces A Perilous 2017

...Iraq is exiting 2016 buoyed by high oil prices, but faces a tumultuous 2017. The current administration is unlikely to be toppled, but as for the viability of the state? That’s a different question. Iraq ends 2016 with its leaders publicly praising the country’s security improvements, ye...

Qatar Wealth Fund QIA And Glencore In $11.3bn Rosneft Deal

...0,000 b/d in the Middle East, from fields in the UAE, Qatar, Oman, Iraq and Yemen. Next year Total will take over as operator of Qatar’s most important oilfield, 300,000 b/d al-Shaheen, when Danish operator Maersk’s license expires in July 2017. QIA was also a shareholder in Shell – itself a major in...

World Bank 2017 ‘Ease Of Doing Business’: UAE Climbs 5 To Cement Top Mena Ranking; Saudi Down Again

Lebanon: Can New President Get The Country Moving?

...is week. Mr Gobril says parliament’s first priority is to approve a budget for 2017 after failing to do so for almost a decade. He stresses the need to reduce the squandering of fiscal resources and to cut the budget deficit, which is expected in 2016 to reach 8.6% of GDP, with public debt at 144% of GD...

Kuwait Dissolves Parliament Amidst Subsidy Reform Uproar

...sing oil prices. For the current financial year, which ends in March 2017, oil revenues are on course to total $43bn, $10bn above budget. Kuwait Export Blend crude averaged just $34.35/B in the first half of the year but rose to $41.49/B in Q3, just $6/B below the previous year. With Kuwaiti ex...

IS, Syria, Yemen – World Leaders Face ‘Crisis-Control’ On Multiple Fronts, IISS Says

...ipman. “Multiple strategic earthquakes” have left “world leaders in a constant state of crisis control.” As a result, said Mr Chipman, “foreign policy has become and will continue to be in 2017 a branch of psychology. Managing competing interests or settling neat balances of power…will be superseded by th...

Kurdish Political Unity Fragments As Barzani Reaches Out To Baghdad

...litics is becoming increasingly fractious and there is a growing geographical split between the KDP-dominated Erbil and the PUK/Goran-stronghold of Sulaymaniyah. With parliamentary elections due by September 2017, the region’s political stability could deteriorate further. Its demise was the cu...

Iraqi Finance Minister Sacked, Deepening Political, Financial Crisis

...th Iraq on drafting the 2017 budget. MP Najibah Najib, a member of the parliamentary economic committee, said on 18 September that the IMF had told Iraq to increase the oil price assumption in the first draft from a pessimistic $35/B to $43/B for 2017, with crude oil exports projected at 3....

Iraq’s Embattled Government Under Fresh Pressure

...ess conference on 23 August, that the cabinet was ahead of schedule on budget planning and had met that day to discuss the 2017 budget (MEES, 26 August). In a separate statement from his office, he committed to sending the budget to parliament by mid-September. The 2017 budget will be set at an oi...

New Iraqi Oil Minister Sets Out Priorities

...l production if it’s going to substantially boost its oil revenues. But this doesn’t look like occurring any time soon. UAE’s Taqa announced last week that first oil at the Atrush field – planned for 30,000 b/d – might slip into Q1 2017. Taqa is partnered with US-firm Marathon and Canada’s Sh...

GCC Fiscal Reforms: Long Overdue And A Long Road Ahead

...arter of this year. The agreement paves the way for the introduction of these taxes in the GCC from 1 January 2017, for excise duty, and 1 January 2018, for VAT, respectively. The introduction of a GCC-wide VAT of 5% in 2018 will play a central role in supporting revenue diversification, however the li...

International Donors Provide Fresh Funds For Countries Hosting Syrian Refugees

...ceive JD810mn ($1.14bn) in foreign grants. This is less than the JD890mn ($1.25bn) it received in 2015 and appears conservative (MEES, 25 March). The World Bank this month announced a new aid package of $1.4bn for Jordan under its Country Partnership Framework (CPF) over the six-year period 2017-22. An...

Prince Muhammad’s Vision 2030: Far Sighted Or Over-Ambitious?

...l giant Saudi Aramco, scheduled for 2017. He expects this to value the company at $2-3 trillion. The IPO will be floated on the Saudi stock market, but there are ideas of offering the Aramco shares outside Saudi Arabia, potentially via a New York-based fund. Thus Aramco will be transformed from an...

MEES Special Report: Jihadist Instability In North Africa And Beyond

...e development of upstream oil and gas potential. A series of new tight gas developments in the southwest of the country are set to begin coming onstream from 2017. All are operated by joint ventures between Sonatrach and overseas oil firms deliberately recruited for their expertise in developing di...

BP: Mideast Moves To Center Stage In Cash-Constrained Times

...ojects where appropriate in response to the current business environment.” BP expects Capex of between $17-19bn for 2016 and 2017, a modest-to-zero reduction on 2015 Capex of $18.7bn, down by 18% from 2014’s $22.9bn. BP says it also expects to make $5-8bn from divestments by 2017. BP’s 2015 spend in...

Tunisia Bags EU, IMF Cash But Oil & Gas Output At Record Lows

...untry’s second year of production. Gas output has fared only somewhat less badly (see graph) More bad news came with Austria’s OMV revealing in its 18 February results presentation that first gas from southern Tunisia’s Nawara project has slipped from 2017 to 2018 following the start of pipe laying in De...

Iraq’s Leaders Admit To Economic Woes

...ectric to boost production capacity, noting that payments would be over three years, starting in 2017, because right now Iraq does not have the money. GE is thus betting on an Iraqi fiscal recovery. Right now that recovery appears a long way off (MEES, 22 January). Finance Minister Hoshyar Zebari ca...

Will 2016 See The ‘Cyprus Problem’ Become The ‘Cyprus Solution’?

...e Cyprus problem negotiations.” He says a new bid round will not be contemplated before the end of 2016 or possibly 2017, once what happens with talks on the Cyprus problem become clearer....

Ninth-Time Lucky For Cyprus Gas Import Tender?

...illion BTU by 2025. According to the terms of the tender, first gas is to be delivered between 1 January 2016 and 30 June 2017, but that is looking increasingly unlikely and will most likely be revised if an agreement is reached with any of the bidders (MEES, 18 April 2014). ...