GULF WEEKLY: Moody’s raises Oman’s outlook to Positive, Kuwait has a new finance minister, oil falls despite outages in Libya
A skimmable summary overlaid with our analysis and links. Headlines:
* Oil is trading down this week despite disruption to Libyan production because of a new political crisis.
* PIF renewed a $15bn syndicated credit facility for 3-5 years.
* India wants to renegotiate its UAE Cepa to mitigate tax dodging on precious metals imports.
* Savills ranked Dubai and Abu Dhabi as the best cities globally for remote workers.
* The stock exchanges in Dubai and Shenzhen signed a deal to facilitate cross-border trading.
* IPOs are underway for Al Majed for Oud and NMDC Energy; Talabat is planned for Q4.
* Abu Dhabi is investing heavily in Germany, nearing a formal €12bn bid for Covestro and joining a consortium bidding €14bn for DB Schenker.
* QatarEnergy’s Golden Pass LNG project in Texas may be further delayed beyond late 2025.
* Ukraine’s president suggested Qatar or Saudi Arabia as possible hosts for a peace summit.
* Kuwait Petroleum signed a second 15-year LNG contract with QatarEnergy.
* Kuwait reshuffled its cabinet, including appointing new finance and trade ministers.
* Moody’s raised Oman’s outlook to Positive given further debt reduction and fiscal effectiveness.
* Bahrain’s inflation slowed to 1.1%, as food eased to 3.8%, although hospitality rose to 10.7%.
* Hezbollah’s response to the Shukr assassination was smaller than expected. Israel launched a major assault on the northern West Bank.
* Limited pauses will begin in Gaza next week for WHO polio vaccination; ceasefire talks continued in Qatar.
* Databank: There is no update this week because little data was released.
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