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Saudi Arabia raises crude prices to Asia for May for second month

SINGAPORE/SAUDI ARABIA (Reuters) – Saudi Arabia, the world’s top crude exporter, raised the prices for all the grades it will sell to Asia in May, increasing levels for the second straight month as robust refining margins supported demand in the region. The OPEC producer kept output steady and cut prices sharply late last year in a fight for market share during a global supply glut. Its ability to raise prices for April and May suggested its strategy was working, although stiff competition kept its flagship Arab Light at a discount to Oman/Dubai quotes, analysts said. "Even though it’s a slight increase, overall it’s still a discount," said Shunling Yap, a senior oil and gas analyst at BMI Research. "There is still competition for the Asia market, even though it is also a sign that some of the production elsewhere is less able to compete in the market right now." […]

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Oil prices spike on end of Saudi discount

U.S. markets reopen after Good Friday’s release of labor figures with crude oil prices up more than 2 percent at the opening bell. File Photo by John Angelillo/UPI NEW YORK, April 6 (UPI) — A Saudi decision to raise market prices for Asia pushed oil upward in Monday trading, erasing concerns from last week’s poor U.S. labor showings. Brent crude oil prices were up more than 2.5 percent in early Monday trading to around $56.40 per barrel. Brent see-sawed last week as the market weighed the prospects of more available Iranian crude oil as a result of nuclear negotiations in Switzerland. Brent rallied after the Saudi Arabian Oil Co., known also as Saudi Aramco, said it was raising its price for Asian buyers in a sign of improving global demand . Prices for Asia were cut after the Sunni-led kingdom hinted that it needed to protect its market share […]

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First Saudi Sovereign Debt Since ’07 Seen This Year as Oil Bites

An oil installation stands in Saudi Arabia’s northeastern Gulf port of Jubail. The world’s biggest oil exporter hasn’t issued debt with a maturity of more than 12 months for eight years, choosing instead to run down reserves when necessary to fund expenditure. Photographer: Bilal Qabalan/AFP/Getty Images Saudi Arabia may issue sovereign debt for the first time since 2007 this year after oil’s decline sent its cash reserves plunging, according to Ashmore Group Plc. Assets of the biggest Arab economy’s central bank tumbled by 76 billion riyals ($20 billion) in February, the largest monthly drop since at least 2000. The country has a debt-to-GDP ratio of about 2.6 percent, according to International Monetary Fund estimates, among the lowest in the world, and may now take advantage of record low interest rates and ample bank liquidity, said John Sfakianakis, a Riyadh-based director at Ashmore and former chief economic adviser to Saudi’s […]

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Saudi Arabia wants nuclear weapons

Saudi Arabia wants nuclear weapons thumbnail Saudi Arabia will not rule out building or acquiring nuclear weapons , the country’s ambassador to the United States has indicated. Asked whether Saudi Arabia would ever build nuclear weapons in an interview with US news channel CNN, Adel Al-Jubeir said the subject was “not something we would discuss publicly”. Pressed later on the issue he said: “This is not something that I can comment on, nor would I comment on.” The ambassador’s reticence to rule out a military nuclear programme may reignite concerns that the autocratic monarchy has its eye on a nuclear arsenal. Western intelligence agencies believe that the Saudi monarchy paid for up to 60% of Pakistan’s nuclear programme in return for the ability to buy warheads for itself at short notice, the Guardian newspaper reported in 2010. The two countries maintain close relations and are sometimes said to have […]

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Saudi Arabia Leads Air Assault in Yemen

WASHINGTON — Saudi Arabia announced on Wednesday night that it had begun military operations in Yemen , launching airstrikes in coordination with a coalition of 10 nations. The strikes came as Yemen was hurtling closer to civil war after months of turmoil, as fighters and army units allied with the Houthi movement threatened to overrun the southern port of Aden where the besieged president, Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi, has gone into hiding. The rapid advances by the president’s opponents included the seizure of a military air base and an aerial assault on his home. There were unconfirmed reports that the president had fled the country by boat for Djibouti, the tiny Horn of Africa nation across the Gulf of Aden. The region’s most impoverished country, Yemen has been a central theater of the American fight against Al Qaeda , and its possible collapse presents complex challenges to the Obama […]

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Yemen Houthis respond to Sana’a air raids with rocket attacks

People search for survivors on Thursday after an air strike near Sana’a airport Houthi rebels say they have responded to Saudi Arabia-led air strikes on Sana’a, the Yemen capital, by launching rockets across the northern border into the oil-rich kingdom, as civil conflict threatens to escalate into a regional war. Saudi Arabia, backed by a 10-country Muslim coalition, launched the air strikes early on Thursday against targets in Houthi-controlled Sana’a, including the airport and a military air base. News of the strikes and retaliation triggered a surge in the price of crude oil . Brent crude, the international benchmark, rose $2.89, or 5.1 per cent, to $59.37 while West Texas Intermediate, the US benchmark, also rose, up $3.01 to $52.22 a barrel. It had reached $52.48 a barrel in earlier trading. Although the attack is not expected to cause any major disruption, the narrow waters between Yemen and Djibouti […]

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Saudi Arabia invites Iraq’s Abadi to visit in big sign of thaw

BAGHDAD/RIYADH (Reuters) – Saudi Arabia’s King Salman has invited Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi to visit the kingdom, Abadi’s office said on Monday, in the biggest sign yet of improving ties between the countries after decades of tension. Abadi’s office gave no details about the invitation or possible visit, which would be his first as prime minister, including when it might take place. But the invitation caps months of better cooperation between Riyadh and Baghdad since the prime minister replaced Nouri al-Maliki last summer. Iraq and Saudi Arabia have found new room to cooperate with each other in the fight against the Islamic State group, which both see as a threat, but long-held suspicions persist. Saudi Arabia hopes Abadi will do more to include Iraqi Sunnis in the government than Maliki did, and will prove more able to distance himself from Iran, Baghdad’s main ally and Riyadh’s biggest regional […]

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Why Bombing This Tiny Oil Producer Is Roiling the Energy Market

(Bloomberg) — While Yemen contributes less than 0.2 percent of global oil output, its location puts it near the center of world energy trade. The nation shares a border with Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest crude exporter, and sits on one side of a shipping chokepoint used by crude tankers heading West from the Persian Gulf. Global oil prices jumped more than 5 percent on Thursday after regional powers began bombing rebel targets in the country that produced less than Denmark in 2013. Yemen’s government collapsed in the face of an offensive by rebels known as Houthis, prompting airstrikes led by Saudi Arabia, the biggest producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. The Gulf’s main Sunni Muslim power says the Houthis are tools of its Shiite rival Iran, another OPEC member, and has vowed to do what’s necessary to halt their advance. “While thousands of barrels of oil […]

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Exclusive: Saudi Arabia building up military near Yemen border – U.S. officials

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Saudi Arabia is moving heavy military equipment including artillery to areas near its border with Yemen, U.S. officials said on Tuesday, raising the risk that the Middle East’s top oil power will be drawn into the worsening Yemeni conflict. The buildup follows a southward advance by Iranian-backed Houthi Shi’ite militants who took control of the capital Sanaa in September and seized the central city of Taiz at the weekend as they move closer to the new southern base of U.S.-supported President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi. The slide toward war in Yemen has made the country a crucial front in Saudi Arabia’s region-wide rivalry with Iran, which Riyadh accuses of sowing sectarian strife through its support for the Houthis. The conflict risks spiraling into a proxy war with Shi’ite Iran backing the Houthis, whose leaders adhere to the Zaydi sect of Shi’ite Islam, and Saudi Arabia and the […]

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Saudis claw back global market share with oil output push

LONDON (Reuters) – When Saudi Arabia’s oil minister Ali al-Naimi says he does not want the kingdom to lose market share anymore, he really means it. Iraq, Venezuela, Russia and Kazakhstan all saw their oil partially replaced by Saudi crude in Asia, the United States and even Europe, with its lackluster demand, as traders said the kingdom offered customers more oil, and more cheaply. Supplies from OPEC’s leading producer are notoriously difficult to track as they reach customers under confidential direct deals rather than via the spot market. But an indirect confirmation of rising deliveries came on Sunday from Naimi himself. The veteran minister, who carefully chooses his words and figures in his speeches, said the kingdom was now pumping around 10 million barrels per day – near an all-time high and some 350,000 bpd above the figure Saudi Arabia gave to OPEC for its February output. And to […]

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