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Saudi crude oil exports hit 2-year high of 7.6m bpd in August: JODI

Saudi crude oil exports hit 2-year high of 7.6m bpd in August: JODI
It was the third month in a row Saudi Arabia registered a rise (Shutterstock)
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Updated 17 October 2022
Arab News

Saudi crude oil exports hit 2-year high of 7.6m bpd in August: JODI

Saudi crude oil exports hit 2-year high of 7.6m bpd in August: JODI
Updated 17 October 2022
Arab News

RIYADH: Saudi Arabia’s crude oil exports hit a more than two-year high of 7.6 million barrels per day in August, according to data from the Joint Organization Data Initiative.

The Kingdom saw a 3 percent rise from July, recording its highest volume since April 2020.

It was also the third month in a row to register a rise.

Inventories

The data also showed that crude production in Saudi Arabia broke the 11 million bpd cap for the third time in the country’s history in August, reaching 11.1 million bpd.

Domestic crude refinery output increased by 38,000 bpd to reach 2.8 million bpd, whereas its direct crude burn increased by 3,000 bpd to reach 664,000 bpd in August. 

JODI data revealed that the country’s crude inventories fell by 0.5 mb in August, whereas its product inventories grew by 2.3 mb. 

Demand

Earlier this month, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies, termed OPEC+, decided to cut their output target by 2 million bpd. 

The global oil demand increased by more than 2millon bpd in August after dropping counter-seasonally — pulled up by the US, China, Japan, Saudi Arabia, and Indonesia — whereas the global crude output rose by almost 500,000 bpd in July. 

In August, global demand stood at 99 percent of pre-pandemic levels, while crude production stood at 98 percent, according to the JODI data.

Russia and the EU

Furthermore, Russian oil production saw a modest rise to 10 million bpd, down by 260,000 bpd from 2021 prior to the Russia-Ukraine war. 

The level of Russian gas production rose marginally for the first time since March 2022, yet was still 31 percent below March levels and at a five-year seasonal low.

The data also revealed that natural gas inventories of the EU and the UK combined grew by 12.2 billion cubic meter to be 81 percent full at the end of August.

 

Topics: crude oil Crude oil exports Joint Organization Data Initiative

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Gaming is booming but work still to be done, Saudi esports chief tells FII Priority conference

Gaming is booming but work still to be done, Saudi esports chief tells FII Priority conference
Updated 14 sec ago
DANIEL FOUNTAIN

Gaming is booming but work still to be done, Saudi esports chief tells FII Priority conference

Gaming is booming but work still to be done, Saudi esports chief tells FII Priority conference
  • Global esports market is forecast to be worth $1.87 billion in 2025, with 377 million esports gamers in the Middle East
Updated 14 sec ago
DANIEL FOUNTAIN

MIAMI: Saudi Arabia’s youth are driving innovation in the gaming and esports sector thanks to the Kingdom’s growing investment and commitment to developing it as a viable career choice, the chief of the Saudi Esports Federation said on Thursday.

However, Prince Faisal bin Bandar said that the Kingdom, and the global esports sector as a whole, could do more to make the industry even more inclusive, especially for women.

Valued at $1.38 billion in 2022, the global esports market is forecast to be worth $1.87 billion in 2025, and with 377 million esports gamers in the Middle East, the region is expected to become the fastest-growing gaming region in the world.

With a large youth population and high smart phone and Internet use rates, in Saudi Arabia alone, 68 percent of the country’s citizens consider themselves gamers. The Kingdom is also set to host Gamers8 this summer, the world’s largest esports and gaming event.

“This next generation are living (esports), they are the ones pushing the innovation,” Prince Faisal said. “Our job, and what we’re doing in Saudi Arabia, is putting the tools in place for them to take it and run with it, to take the lead, and we can just get out of their way,” he said.

While US content dominates the TV, film and music markets globally, gaming is much more an international industry that has allowed Saudis to flourish on the world stage and, like the rest of the world, is one of the most gender-balanced and inclusive arenas in the Kingdom.

“The tools required to build games are now accessible to everyone,” Prince Faisal said. “And in gaming in general, it is pretty equal, it’s about 48 percent female, 52 percent male,” he said.

“Where we have a lot of room to catch up is in the professional (gaming sphere); there’s a lot of room for women to grow within that, even though there has been a lot of growth over the past five years, worldwide, and not just in Saudi Arabia.

“(However) in Saudi Arabia, we’ve had our first international champion, Najd Fahd, who won the collegiate ladies FIFA world championship, and she’s one of our role models to showcase that this is a valid career path not just for young men but also for young women.

“What we need to do is give more room for our young men and women to show they are the heroes of the future, and let them be the voice of the next generation,” he said.

Topics: FII Priority Conference gaming eSports

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  • Tidjane Thiam told the Future Investment Initiative’s Priority conference in Miami that the sector is not fragile, and his confidence is based in part on the strength of the global economy
  • He blamed the current crisis, after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and the emergency takeover of Credit Suisse, and fears for the future of Deutsche Bank on speculators
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MIAMI: Credit Suisse’s former CEO Tidjane Thiam, now executive chairman of the Freedom Acquisition Corporation, on Thursday talked about the risks he believes the banking sector will face in the years ahead but said that, overall, he is “quite comfortable” about its current state.

Speaking during a panel discussion at the Future Investment Initiative’s Priority conference in Miami, he said the industry is not fragile, and his confidence is based in part on the strength of the global economy.

“Most banking or financial crises have their roots in challenges in the real economy,” he said. “So, the real economy is strong, the banks are profitable.”

The current profitability of the banking sector and strong balance sheets further bolster his level of confidence.

“It’s really a liquidity crisis that generally leads to the failure of an institution, not capital,” he said. “So, overall, I’m quite comfortable.”

Still, the collapse of US-based Silicon Valley Bank this month, followed by the emergency takeover of Credit Suisse by rival UBS, have shaken the confidence of some, and there have been concerns that Deutsche Bank might be the next major financial institution to face a crisis.

However, Thiam blamed the panic, and recent moves involving securities linked to Deutsche Bank, on speculators. Deutsche remains profitable and is protected by the “backstops” put in place by the European Central Bank in 2012, he said.

“After the euro market closes, speculators go and short the CDS (credit default swaps), increase the spread on the CDS, then you get articles saying that Deutsche is going bankrupt, and then they go into the ADR (American depository receipt) market, which is very illiquid, where they take a position and make good money,” he said.

“So, you really have to distinguish what is going on in the real economy and those speculative positions taken by people, basically aimed at making money.”

He also warned about low interest rates and liquidity, saying: “Excessive liquidity has led people to take riskier positions, and everybody knows the famous Warren Buffett sentence: ‘When the tide goes down, you can see who has been swimming without trunks.’

“They are exposed, and you will see that every time you have a long period of a given state in financial markets, and when you come out of that there are some casualties at the interest rates. But I think overall, it’s healthy for the world economy to have more normal interest rates.”

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Global job-creation challenges remain but there is reason to be optimistic, experts tell FII Priority

Business leaders and former ministers during a panel discussion at the Future Investment Initiative’s Priority conference
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Updated 31 March 2023
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Global job-creation challenges remain but there is reason to be optimistic, experts tell FII Priority

Business leaders and former ministers during a panel discussion at the Future Investment Initiative’s Priority conference
  • Experts at the event in Miami on Thursday said sectors such as financial technology, artificial intelligence, energy transition and healthcare will spearhead new employment opportunities
  • They said that more traditional jobs will remain important, too, but that it will be a matter of providing ‘good jobs’ rather than simply job creation for job creation’s sake
Updated 31 March 2023
DANIEL FOUNTAIN

MIAMI: There is reason to be optimistic about global job-creation efforts in the years ahead, business leaders and former ministers agreed during a panel discussion at the Future Investment Initiative’s Priority conference in Miami on Thursday.

Globally, 208 million people will be unemployed during 2023, according to UN agency the International Labour Organization. And as the working-age population increases, by 2035 an additional 470 million people will be looking for employment, the World Bank said recently.

Tyler Dickson, global co-head of banking, capital markets and advisory at Citi, said managing these numbers in the coming years will be a challenge, but he remained optimistic that sectors such as financial technology, artificial intelligence, energy transition and healthcare will be at the forefront of job creation.

Sven Otto Julius Littorin, a former employment minister from Sweden, agreed and added that it will be a matter of creating “good jobs,” rather than simply job creation for job creation’s sake.

“If we want to have an inclusive society, where people feel they are needed and part of building the future, we not only need to have jobs but we need to have good jobs, and jobs that are productive but also ‘meaningful’ jobs,” he said.

“Upskilling” and “reskilling” will be the driving force behind job creation, according to Gaston Taratuta, the CEO and founder of digital advertising company Aleph Group. He said that, moving forward, developing skills that are relevant as the global gross domestic product becomes increasingly digital-based will be key.

He added that in the future it will not be “what you know, but what you can do for me” that will set potential employees apart. People with skills in coding, cybersecurity, digital marketing and logistics will be the ones best serving the future global economy.

However, Josh Harris, executive vice-president of data analytics company Palantir Technologies, said jobs in traditional sectors will still be relevant in the future. He added that although employees will need to make themselves indispensable, employers will have to use technology to improve existing jobs rather than replace or make employees redundant.

Littorin agreed, saying that inclusive, lifelong learning and adapting to new technology will be important for the future workforce. Governments around the world have a key role to play in ensuring this is available for the entirety of their labor forces.

“Look at Saudi Arabia,” he said. “It has, in the last few years, liberated the female part of the workforce, basically doubling the size of that workforce, and hundreds of thousands of jobs have been created in (the Kingdom). It’s just amazing.”

Topics: FII Priority Conference FII Priority Employment Miami Saudi Arabia

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US-China divide may be defining issue of our time, CEO says

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  • Chip Kaye of Warburg Pincus tells Miami conference that geopolitical frictions yet to stabilize, warns of ‘sticky’ inflation
  • Others say shift can offer opportunities for countries like Saudi Arabia 
Updated 30 March 2023
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MIAMI: Tensions between the US and China may be the “defining issue of our time” for business, a senior American CEO has said as the Future Investment Finance conference opened in Miami.

Chip Kaye, of private equity company Warburg Pincus, was discussing the dangers of increasingly fractured geopolitics with other business executives on a panel titled “Business in the new world order.” 

He said that everything from climate change to “very local issues… rely on some dimension of state capacity and some dimension of political discourse” to be solved.

“And that’s in short supply in an environment where two sides don’t understand each other at all. (The) US-China divide may be the defining issue of our time.”

Kaye said geopolitical frictions and cultural wars, not only between the US and China, were having far-reaching effects on economic stability.

“I think economic activity is all stronger than we think and the reality is, inflation is a little stickier than we think, and that we may live in a more elevated inflation environment for a longer stretch of time,” he said. “We’re at the very beginning of this adjustment, as opposed to the end.”

Speakers on the panel discussed the consequences of these adjustments on the global economy, and argued that despite the many obstacles it would not lead to the end of globalization.

“I don’t think globalization is dead,” said Jenny Johnson, CEO of investment company Franklin Templeton.

“It’s slowing down and there’s probably some themes that can inform some investments.”

Johnson pointed out how this shift could offer opportunities for investors, particularly for countries like Saudi Arabia that focus on “entrepreneurship, entrepreneurism, on education, where the government is supporting business.”

Speakers also said investors needed to focus more on micro-level problem-solving rather than trying to predict macro-level trends.

“I think macro should have humbled us all at this point,” said She Nyatta, founder of Bicycle Capital, a US-based growth equity investment firm.

“Trying to make big macro predictions over the last four years has been a complete fool’s errand.”

One way investors can support micro-level problem-solving was by investing in developing markets, which Nyatta said were fertile ground for innovation and problem-solving due to their lack of infrastructure and advanced technology.

“I think we need to look where problems are, and find ways to solve those problems at a micro level and those will turn into good businesses because a problem is being solved,” Nyatta said.

But “take risks. In an uncertain time don’t sit on your hands. Don’t wonder what’s going to happen. Take risks.”

Topics: FII Priority Conference FII Priority Miami US China

FII Priority: Global South wants a more balanced world order, says Prof. Mohan Munasinghe

Prof. Mohan Munasinghe, founder and chairman of the Munasinghe Institute of Development, at the FII Priority conference
Prof. Mohan Munasinghe, founder and chairman of the Munasinghe Institute of Development, at the FII Priority conference
Updated 30 March 2023
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FII Priority: Global South wants a more balanced world order, says Prof. Mohan Munasinghe

Prof. Mohan Munasinghe, founder and chairman of the Munasinghe Institute of Development, at the FII Priority conference
  • BRICS countries have overtaken the G7 countries in terms of their contribution to the global GDP
Updated 30 March 2023
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MIAMI: Countries in the Global South are increasingly asserting themselves and showing more independence, said Prof. Mohan Munasinghe, founder and chairman of the Munasinghe Institute of Development, at the FII Priority conference on Thursday.

“One of the important reasons is that there is a realization that 85 percent of the global population lies in these countries and only 15 percent in the so-called West,” he said.

BRICS countries — referring to Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — in particular, have overtaken the G7 countries in terms of their contribution to the global gross domestic product.

As the BRICS countries expand with the potential addition of Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Indonesia and Bangladesh, the Global South is looking at a new world order, as opposed to the existing order, which has been more or less shaped by Western countries since the Second World War, said Munasinghe.

The new priorities for countries in the Global South are “sustainability, economic development, raising the poor out of poverty,” and they are “less interested in military interventions or economic sanctions — those kinds of confrontational approaches,” he added.

Munasinghe strongly recommended integrating climate change into the sustainable development strategy for these countries.

“There is a way to balance what I call the ‘sustainable development triangle’,” which calls for economic growth to improve poverty while protecting the environment, and the “social and cultural matrix,” he said.

These countries “are a little tired of 500 or more years of colonial interventions” and they still remember the aggressive interventions from the West, he pointed out.

As it gains more power, fueled by the emergence of BRICS countries, the Global South has more hope, signaling a shift away from the Western-led unipolar world order to a more balanced, multipolar world.

Now, with digital technologies and “other new methods,” there are more opportunities for these countries that will allow them to have a “level playing field” and have their “dignity and self-respect restored,” said Munasinghe.

Topics: FII Priority Conference FII Priority Miami Global South

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