Summary: with civilian casualties mounting two generals battle for supremacy while Abu Dhabi watches with growing concern as the military leaders it has backed and the country it has heavily invested in threatens to slide toward all-out civil war.
Summary: what is being called the worst leak of top secret documents since Wikileaks has caused concern in DC and provoked swift denials in Egypt, the UAE and Israel.
Summary: Saudi Arabia’s crown prince is using giga-projects to drive forward his plan to wean the kingdom off its dependency on oil revenues; the results thus far of his Vision2030 project are mixed but if oil prices hold steady MbS may yet see some of his hugely ambitious schemes come to fruition by the end of the decade.
Summary: as Washington pushes forward on a UN plan for an election this year in Libya, the Biden administration once again dictates that personalities rather than the interests of the Libyan people will prevail.
Summary: roughly a quarter of countries in the Arab League, including currently suspended member Syria, are suffering from currency depreciation, a US dollar shortage and rising debt levels. Issues are being compounded by surging inflation, while in some countries (in)formal capital controls and sanctions are impacting trade and debt repayments.
Summary: after years of decline, the production of oil and gas in Algeria could be given a strong boost by the decision of the Algerian authorities to allow the exploration of the country’s shale resources.
Summary: the IMF has failed to appreciate how the linkage between the Sisi regime and Egypt’s military-security complex cannot be broken even as it demands changes to an economic model that continues to fail the Egyptian people while building an enormous debt mountain.
Summary: the war-induced scramble for hydrocarbons and calls from the majors for more investment in oil and gas output should not distract from an ongoing seismic shift to renewables which may advance ‘peak oil’ to as early as 2025, a scenario that will give pause for thought and serious consideration in Gulf energy states.
Summary: with the JCPOA talks going nowhere and the Biden administration seemingly dismissive of the threat Iran poses to Middle East security whilst focussing on China and the war in Ukraine, the West may be sleepwalking towards a potentially disastrous conflagration in the region.
Summary: the fighting may have all but ended in 2022 but that may be the calm before a coming storm as Washington prepares to challenge the Wagner group in Africa and contestation grows over gas rights in the eastern Mediterranean.
