The Aramco public offering gives China an opportunity to gain a foothold at the center of the global oil industry. According to Joseph Dana, the move is part of a longer-term attempt by Beijing to challenge the dollar’s dominance as the world’s universal currency.
The EU may condemn Turkey’s military incursion into Syria, yet it also has Turkey to thank for holding back the migrant crisis. Publicly, Europe wants to send a message. Privately, it knows it cannot say too much, writes Faisal Al Yafai.
Far from taking the refugee issue away from the far-right, the EU's new migration policy plan will simply hand the far-right a grievance it can exploit for years to come, writes Faisal Al Yafai.
Air travel is not the only threat to life on earth, but it is a useful barometer of runaway economic growth and development that, if allowed to continue unmitigated, will irreparably harm the planet, writes Jonathan Gornall.
After a Saudi oil processing facility came under attack, attention turned on the immediate effect this could have on oil prices. But the worry should be more over the medium term than the short term, writes Robin Mills.
When shares in Saudi Aramco eventually go public, there will doubtless be a feeding frenzy on what promises to be the largest initial public offering ever seen. More significantly, the move would also signal Saudi Arabia’s recognition that sunset for fossil fuel is just over the horizon, writes Jonathan Gornall.
A new generation of EU leaders is grappling with the shipping crisis in the Arabian Gulf in a way that could determine the future military posture of individual countries, and perhaps even of the European Union, writes Faisal Al Yafai.
Most oil and gas experts agree that the East Med Pipeline Project is a pipe dream that cannot compete with cheap Russian gas. But America’s enthusiastic support for it is more about a re-alignment of alliances, and securing energy supply, writes Nour Samaha.
The issue of migrants entering Europe will dominate the European Parliament's upcoming session, but the proposals already put forward are simple remakes of previously failed plans for the migrant crisis, writes Faisal Al Yafai.
Next week, for the first time, the EU will have a major far-right political grouping in the European Parliament. And although it will only rank fifth in size, its influence reaches well beyond the ballot box, writes Faisal Al Yafai.
The attack of two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman yesterday (13 June), which were widely attributed to Iran, shows Tehran is engaged in a series of missteps that will land it further in financial pain rather than war, writes Hagar Hajjar Chemali.
The EU cultivates the impression that it is desperately cheerleading Ankara’s accession, only to be disappointed. In fact, letting Turkey join would entail a decision over the future of the European Union which no one, for now, seems ready to make, writes Faisal Al Yafai.
Life in rebel-held northwest Syria has, without a doubt, been made easier by Watad Petroleum’s presence. But with no information available publicly about who owns or runs it, there is a persistent suspicion about it, writes Haid Haid.
America’s extensive use of military and economic coercion in the Middle East and other oil-producing countries around the world reflects the US’s new position as an exporter of oil and liquefied natural gas, argues Robin Mills. Robin Mills is the...
A recent attack on Saudi oil facilities west of Riyadh were designed to demonstrate Tehran’s ability to target all of the region’s oil and gas exports and raise exponentially the cost of military conflict for the US and its allies in the Gulf region, writes Hasan Alhasan.
There can be little doubt now that Iran and the US are inching toward full-scale war. All attempts by either to force a change in the other’s behavior have come to nothing. Conflict now seems inevitable, writes Dnyanesh Kamat.
Israel is moving quickly with the help of the US in a bid to transform Europe’s energy market. But geopolitics – and a large dose of local activism – could change the economic calculation for the EastMed pipeline, writes Joseph Dana.
As Tunisians go to the polls later this year to elect a new president and parliament, they are confronted by a confluence of factors that could seriously threaten the viability of their young democracy, writes Dnyanesh Kamat.
Neither the EU nor the Arab League really knows where it is going. Yet, divided as they are, both sides also face harsher and more cohesive adversaries: China, Russia and the US, writes Fiasal Al Yafai.
Without a doubt, fully automated cars are coming to a road near you – and soon. But if the mesmerized governments and technocrats don’t pause to address the concerns of the man and woman on the street, they may find themselves facing social upheaval on a massive scale, writes Jonathan Gornall.
The discovery of massive natural gas fields off Israel’s northern coast more than a decade ago and subsequent attempts to export this gas to Europe have highlighted the true fault lines in the Turkish-Israeli alliance, writes Joseph Dana.
Has America used the Kurds in Syria only now to dump them? Observers who believe in moral debt, rather than the cold logic of realpolitik, understandably are concerned about the implications for the Kurds of an immediate US withdrawal from Syria, writes Ömer Taşpınar.
With the United States' withdrawal from the Middle East, a proposed Arab security alliance could be a good start on the path to self-reliance, argues Jonathan Gornall.
In the second half of the century, most of the territory bordering the Gulf, Red Sea and Arabian Sea could experience “wet bulb temperatures” making outdoor activities practically impossible, writes Jonathan Gornall, warning this could create social upheaval on the grandest of scales.
