Gas production at Algerias In Amenas field near the border with Mali was halted after an attack by an Islamist group that seized dozens of workers as hostages on January 16, AFP reported. In a subsequent attack by the Algerian army to free the captives, at least 30 hostages and 11 Islamist militants were killed on Jan 17. Algerias gas industry is losing around 24 million cubic meters a gas per day and 60,000 barrels a day of liquids production due to the attacks. British oil giant BP, Norway's Statoil and Algerian state-run energy firm Sonatrach are jointly operating the In Amenas plant. Algeria is the third largest gas supplier to Europe with its economy heavily dependent on gas export revenues. |
Bahrain Middle East Bank made a USD 13mn full repayment of a loan obligation including a USD 1.4mn interest payment taking total repayments by the troubled lender to USD 43mn, the bank said in ... more
National Bank of Abu Dhabi (NBAD), the UAE's largest lender by market value, initiated a USD 17mn fifteen-year Uridashi bond, MENA's first ever, allowing the bank to directly access Japanese ... more
The GCC economies remain insulated from economic and political turbulence in the MENA region and globally but structural challenges continue to constrain sovereign ratings, ratings agency ... more