Category: Highlights

Saudi Aramco and Reliance Industries are abandoning a deal under which the Saudi oil giant was to buy a 20% stake in Reliance’s refining and chemical business, called Oil to Chemicals. The business has annual sales of about $43 billion, about a third of which is chemicals. In 2019, Aramco proposed to buy the stake for about $15 billion as part of a push to diversify its assets beyond oil and gas exploration in Saudi Arabia. But subsequent negotiations failed to yield a definitive pact. Reliance is also canceling plans…

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The OPEC+ organization’s decision this week to cut oil production despite stiff US opposition has further strained already tense relations between President Joe Biden’s White House and Saudi Arabia’s royal family, once one of Washington’s staunchest Middle East allies, according to interviews with about a dozen government officials and experts in Washington and the Gulf. The White House pushed hard to prevent the OPEC output cut, these sources said. Biden hopes to keep US gasoline prices from spiking again ahead of midterm elections in which his Democratic party is struggling to maintain control…

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The China-built 344-MW Kokhav Hayarden pumped storage hydropower plant, located near the city of Beit She’an and some 120 kilometers away from Tel Aviv, is expected to be the largest pumped storage power plant in Israel when it becomes operational in early 2023. It will also become the lowest power plant of its kind in the world, as the powerhouse lies 275 meters below sea level, according to building contractor Power Construction Corporation of China (PCCC). Chinese construction engineers take a group photo at the Kokhav Hayarden pumped storage hydropower plant construction site…

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The UK launched its first oil and gas licensing round since 2019 on Friday, aiming to award more than 100 licenses to ramp up domestic oil and gas production and reduce dependence on foreign sources of fossil fuels. The North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA), the regulator responsible for handling and awarding exploration and production licenses, said on Friday that it “is inviting applications for licenses to explore and potentially develop 898 blocks and part-blocks in the North Sea which may lead to over 100 licenses being awarded.” According to the authority and…

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Russia is not ruling out the possibility of repairing the Nordstream gas pipelines, the Russian Embassy in Denmark said in a statement on its website on Friday. The Russian embassy criticized the efforts to investigate the pipelines following four explosions that took them offline—some say indefinitely—because the Russian side was excluded from the investigations. “The Danish side’s reluctance to involve Russia’s representatives in the ongoing investigation undermines its credibility. Limiting the circle of participating states, which are either already members of NATO, or on the way to this alliance, turns…

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