An investor looks at an electronic board showing stock information on the first trading day after the New Year holiday at a brokerage house in Shanghai, China, January 3, 2017. REUTERS/Aly Song Asian stock markets rose on Tuesday while crude oil prices languis... More »
A customer uses a petrol nozzle in a gas station in Nice August 8, 2012. REUTERS/Eric Gaillard Oil markets edged higher on Tuesday on expectations that at least some planned production cuts would be implemented, making a slight recovery from big losses the pre... More »
Plants are pictured near an oil pump, owned by oil company Rosneft, in the settlement of Akhtyrskaya in Krasnodar region, southern Russia, December 21, 2014. REUTERS/Eduard Korniyenko Oil prices edged down on Wednesday as the market waits to see how OPEC and n... More »
An employee at a Total fuel station waits for customers in south Jakarta February 12, 2015. REUTERS/Darren Whiteside Oil prices rose on Monday in anticipation of tighter crude supply going into 2017 following the decision by OPEC and other producers to cut out... More »
Ride-hailing app Careem has closed the first part of a $500 million funding round backed by investors including Japan’s Rakuten Inc and Saudi Telecom Co (STC), the Dubai-based company said in a statement on Monday. More »
Saudi King Salman (R) meets with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia December 18, 2016. Saudi Press Agency/Handout via REUTERS Saudi Arabia and the United States on Sunday played down media reports that Washington had decided to limit mi... More »
A flag with the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) logo is seen before a news conference at OPEC’s headquarters in Vienna, Austria December 10, 2016. REUTERS/Heinz-Peter Bader Goldman Sachs said the formal agreement by non-OPEC oil produc... More »
An employee holds a gas pump at a petrol station in Sao Paulo, Brazil, November 8, 2016. REUTERS/Paulo Whitaker Oil prices shot to their highest levels since mid-2015 on Monday after OPEC and other producers reached their first deal since 2001 to jointly reduc... More »
ExxonMobil Chairman and CEO Rex Tillerson speaks during the IHS CERAWeek 2015 energy conference in Houston, Texas April 21, 2015. REUTERS/Daniel Kramer/File Photo The central question facing Exxon Mobil Corp Chief Executive Rex Tillerson if he becomes U.S. sec... More »
Rigging equipment is pictured in a field outside of Sweetwater, Texas June 4, 2015. REUTERS/Cooper Neill Oil prices fell by one percent on Monday as a higher U.S. rig count unsettled markets amid nagging concern that output cuts, planned as part of concerted a... More »
Smoke rises from a damaged building after a strike on the rebel-held besieged al-Shaar neighbourhood of Aleppo, Syria November 26, 2016. REUTERS/Abdalrhman Ismail Another key district of eastern Aleppo has effectively fallen to advancing Syrian government forc... More »
An employee holds a gas pump at a petrol station in Sao Paulo, Brazil, November 8, 2016. REUTERS/Paulo Whitaker/File Photo Oil prices fell on Monday, adding to Friday’s steep losses as doubts re-emerged over the ability of major producers to agree output cuts ... More »
Men walk past an electronic board showing Japan’s Nikkei average outside a brokerage in Tokyo, Japan, November 18, 2016. REUTERS/Toru Hanai The dollar and U.S. bond yields fell on Monday as investors reversed a “Trumpflation” trade that has gripped markets sin... More »
The OPEC flag and the OPEC logo are seen before a news conference in Vienna, Austria, October 24, 2016. REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger Oil prices rose around 1 percent on Monday as OPEC moved closer to an output cut to rein in oversupply that has pressured prices for... More »
Arab coalition warplanes struck military sites in the Yemeni capital Sanaa on Monday, residents said, as two-day ceasefire that was marred by heavy fighting entered its final hours. More »
A pump jack stands idle in Dewitt County, Texas January 13, 2016. REUTERS/Anna Driver Oil fell to its lowest in three months on Monday, as the prospect of another year of oversupply and weak prices overshadowed chances that OPEC will reach a deal to cut output... More »
The Saudi Arabian central bank hopes interbank money rates SAIBOR= continue to fall, central bank governor Ahmed al-Kholifey told a news conference on Monday. More »
Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) meets with U.S. President Barack Obama on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Hangzhou, China, September 5, 2016. Sputnik/Kremlin/Alexei Druzhinin/via REUTERS Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and his U.S. counterpart Barack... More »
Prominent Emirati businessman Mohamed Alabbar said on Sunday he had teamed up with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) and other private investors to launch a $1 billion Middle Eastern-focused e-commerce platform. More »
A man walks past the Kingdom Centre Tower in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia April 12, 2016. REUTERS/Faisal Al Nasser/File Photo Saudi Arabia has avoided an economic crisis due to low oil prices this year but the outlook for state finances and growth will remain murky fo... More »
Tribal fighters walk as fire and smoke rises from oil wells, set ablaze by Islamic State militants in the oil-producing region of Qayyara, Iraq. REUTERS/Alaa Al-Marjani With Iraqi troops battling inside Islamic State’s Iraqi bastion of Mosul, the militants’ le... More »
Flames emerge from a pipeline at the oil fields in Basra, southeast of Baghdad, Iraq October 14, 2016. REUTERS/Essam Al-Sudani Oil prices fell early on Monday as Iraq said it wanted to be exempt from any deal by producer cartel OPEC to cut production to prop u... More »
Clouds move over the Riyadh skyline November 17, 2013. REUTERS/Faisal Al Nasser (The opinions expressed here are those of the author, a columnist for Reuters) More »
Peshmerga forces gather on the east of Mosul during preparations to attack Mosul, Iraq, October 16, 2016. REUTERS/Azad Lashkari Iraqi government forces, with air and ground support from the U.S.-led coalition, launched an offensive on Monday to drive Islamic S... More »
The building of Vodafone Egypt Telecommunications Co is seen at the Smart Village in the outskirts of Cairo, Egypt, October 27, 2015. REUTERS/Asmaa Waguih Vodafone Egypt and Etisalat have requested fourth-generation mobile phone service licenses in Egypt, an o... More »
A person carrying an umbrella walks by the Ogranization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) headquarters in Vienna, Austria October 4, 2016. REUTERS/Heinz-Peter Bader Global oil supply could fall in line with demand more quickly if OPEC and Russia agre... More »
Saudi Arabia’s Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih talks during the 23rd World Energy Congress in Istanbul, Turkey, October 10, 2016. REUTERS/Murad Sezer Saudi Arabia’s Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih will not attend meetings on Wednesday between OPEC and non-OPEC... More »
A worker checks the valve of an oil pipe at an oil field owned by Russian state-owned oil producer Bashneft near the village of Nikolo-Berezovka, northwest of Ufa, Bashkortostan, Russia January 28, 2015. REUTERS/Sergei Karpukhin/File Photo Oil fell back from o... More »
An empty reception area at Falcon Private Bank office in Singapore October 11, 2016. REUTERS/Edgar Su Singapore’s central bank on Tuesday shut down a second Swiss bank in the city-state and fined banks DBS and UBS in its biggest crackdown on alleged money-laun... More »
A Texaco service station displays the price of petrol and diesel close to the financial centre of London January 30, 2016. REUTERS/Paul Hackett Oil prices fell away from $50 per barrel on Monday despite an agreement last week by exporters to cut output, with t... More »
The exterior of a Schlumberger Corporation building is pictured in West Houston January 16, 2015. REUTERS/Richard Carson Investment in exploration and production will have to start increasing soon to help balance the global oil market, Schlumberger CEO Paal Ki... More »
Arrangement of various world currencies including Chinese Yuan, US Dollar, Euro, British Pound, in this picture illustration taken January 25, 2011. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel/Illustration/File Photo The yen was holding strong on Monday in the face of another volle... More »
A worker looks on at the Bashneft-Ufaneftekhim oil refinery outside Ufa, Bashkortostan, Russia January 29, 2015. REUTERS/Sergei Karpukhin/File Photo Oil held steady on Monday, as the world’s largest producers gathered in Algeria to discuss ways to support the ... More »
Traders work at their desks in front of the German share price index, DAX board, at the stock exchange in Frankfurt, Germany, September 21, 2016. REUTERS/Staff/Remote European and Asian shares retreated on Monday as investors waited to see how Donald Trump wou... More »
The Kremlin said on Monday it was gravely concerned by the situation in Syria where “terrorists” were using a ceasefire to regroup their forces and wage offensives against government troops. More »
A significant portion of Kurdish YPG militia fighters who were in the northern Syrian town of Manbij are withdrawing to the east of the Euphrates river in a move welcomed by Turkey, Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus told reporters on Monday. More »
Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro (C) attends the 17th Non-Aligned Summit in Porlamar, Venezuela September 18, 2016. Miraflores Palace/Handout via REUTERS Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said on Sunday that OPEC and non-OPEC countries were “close” to re... More »
A person touches the south reflecting pool at the National September 11 Memorial and Museum on the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks in Manhattan, New York, U.S., September 11, 2016. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly The Saudi-dominated Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) on... More »
Rigging equipment is pictured in a field outside of Sweetwater, Texas June 4, 2015. REUTERS/Cooper Neill Oil fell for a second trading day in a row on Monday, after speculators cut their bullish bets by the most in three months last week and U.S. crude driller... More »
Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov talks during a news conference at the Foreign Ministry in Beirut December 5, 2014. REUTERS/Aziz Taher (LEBANON – Tags: POLITICS) A new round of talks between the Syrian government and opposition may be held in ... More »
A worker looks on at the Bashneft-Ufaneftekhim oil refinery outside Ufa, Bashkortostan, Russia January 29, 2015. REUTERS/Sergei Karpukhin/File Photo Crude prices inched down on Monday in Asia, paring 3 percent gains in the previous session amid worries over a ... More »
Boys sit on the Iraqi-Turkish pipeline in Zakho district of the Dohuk Governorate of the Iraqi Kurdistan province, Iraq, August 28, 2016. REUTERS/Ari Jalal Iraq’s government would consider selling crude through Iran should talks with the autonomous Kurdish reg... More »
A pumpjack drills for oil in the Monterey Shale, California, April 29, 2013. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson Oil prices fell over 1 percent on Monday after the U.S. dollar jumped, with markets pressured as Iraq’s production rose and as Iran said it would only cooperate... More »
At least 15 bodies were transferred to a hospital run by Medicins Sans Frontieres in the southern Yemen city of Aden on Monday, a source at the hospital said, after an attack on a building used by local militias. More »
Millennium Award recipient Britney Spears performs a medley of songs at the 2016 Billboard Awards in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S., May 22, 2016. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni/File Photo Britney Spears is hitting up pop culture one more time, releasing a new album, singing ... More »
By Libby George | LONDON LONDON Oil prices rose on Monday to their highest in nearly a month, with benchmark Brent crude trading more than 10 percent above the start of August, as speculation intensified about potential producer action to support prices in an ... More »
DUBAI U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned an air strike on a school in northern Yemen that killed 10 children and called for an investigation, while the Saudi-led coalition said the attack had targeted a training facility run by the Houthi group. Aid ... More »
By Marc Jones | LONDON LONDON World shares set up camp at one-year peaks on Monday as a rally in Chinese stocks helped offset news that Japan’s economic growth had ground to a halt last quarter, while oil prices extended their latest rally. Europe’s main bours... More »
CAIRO An aircraft powered by solar energy left Egypt on Sunday on the last leg of the first ever fuel-free flight around the globe. Solar Impulse 2, a spindly single-seat plane, took off from Cairo in darkness en route to Abu Dhabi, its final destination, with... More »
RIYADH The Saudi Olympic Committee has approved four female Saudi athletes to compete as part of the conservative Gulf kingdom’s team at the Rio Olympics, a spokesman said on Sunday. Sara Al-Attar, Lubna Al-Omair, Cariman Abu Al-Jadail and Wujud Fahmi will bec... More »
DUBAI Growth in Saudi Arabia’s non-oil gross domestic product is expected to slow to 2.8 percent in 2016 from 3.4 percent in 2015, Saudi central bank governor Ahmed al-Kholifey told state television station Ekhbariya. Kholifey, speaking in an interview broadca... More »
KUNMING, China/VIENTIANE For the southwestern city of Kunming, China’s plan to extend a high-speed rail link 3,000 km (1,875 miles) south to Singapore is already a boon: pristine expressways, a gleaming station and something of a real estate boom, as young buy... More »
AMMAN The Syrian army pushed into Raqqa province, home to the de facto capital of Islamic State, after a major Russian-backed offensive against the militants, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Saturday. The offensive is the third big assault on t... More »
DUBAI Saudi Arabia aims to create the world’s biggest sovereign wealth fund, a $2 trillion behemoth that can throw its weight around global markets, but the fund’s growth abroad is likely to be slowed by its responsibility for aiding the economy at home. Build... More »
LONDON Oil prices jumped over 2 percent on Monday to their highest since November 2015 on growing Nigerian oil output disruptions and after long-time bear Goldman Sachs said the market had ended almost two years of oversupply and flipped to a deficit. Brent cr... More »
MOSCOW Russia and the United States have agreed to extend the “regime of calm” in Syria’s city of Aleppo for another 48 hours starting from May 10, RIA news agency on Tuesday quoted Russia’s Defence Ministry as saying. (Reporting by Lidia Kelly- Editing by Dmi... More »
DHAHRAN, Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia’s state-owned oil giant Aramco is seeking to expand globally via joint ventures overseas as it prepares for a partial privatization pushed by a government intent on diversifying the economy. The company is looking at opportun... More »
DHAHRAN, Saudi Arabia Saudi Aramco’s oil production is trending slightly upwards in 2016 because of growth in demand, chief executive Amin Nasser said on Tuesday. The company will expand its capacity in future if that is needed, but for the time being its maxi... More »
DHAHRAN Saudi Aramco is in the final stages of preparing options for its initial public offer of shares before presenting the options soon to its Supreme Council for consideration, chief executive Amin Nasser said on Tuesday. Aramco has a huge team working on ... More »
LONDON Oil rose on Tuesday, driven by supply disruptions in Canada and elsewhere that have knocked out 2.5 million barrels of daily production and temporarily eclipsed concern over high global inventories and a looming surplus of refined products. In spite of ... More »
DHAHRAN, Saudi Arabia State oil company Saudi Aramco wants to expand globally and is looking at potential joint ventures in several countries, including Indonesia, India, the United States, Vietnam and China, chief executive Amin Nasser said on Tuesday. “We ar... More »
DUBAI Yemeni government forces and their allies killed more than 800 al Qaeda fighters when they advanced into the port city of Mukalla, the Saudi-led pro-government coalition said. Yemeni and Emirati soldiers seized the seaport on Sunday, depriving the group ... More »
DUBAI The International Monetary Fund said it was encouraged by the efforts of Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab oil exporters to repair damage to their state finances as low crude prices slash export revenues. “I do see in a number of countries action to addre... More »
WASHINGTON The White House will likely make a decision by June on whether it will release some classified material withheld from the public 9/11 Commission Report, a former U.S. senator who co-chaired the congressional inquiry into the attacks said on Sunday. ... More »
KUWAIT Peace talks in Kuwait aimed at ending over a year of civil war and a Saudi-led intervention in Yemen will not begin on Monday as planned, officials from the warring sides said, amid objections over continued fighting despite an announced ceasefire. Dele... More »
BEIRUT Syrian rebel groups announced a new battle against government forces on Monday, a sign of escalating violence that has undermined a ceasefire deal and threatens to derail U.N.-led peace talks. The groups, which included factions fighting under the banne... More »
SINGAPORE Oil prices tumbled on Monday after a meeting by major exporters in Qatar collapsed without an agreement to freeze output, leaving the credibility of the OPEC producer cartel in tatters and the world awash with unwanted fuel. Tensions between Saudi Ar... More »
DOHA A deal to freeze oil output by OPEC and non-OPEC producers fell apart on Sunday after Saudi Arabia demanded that Iran join in despite calls on Riyadh to save the agreement and help prop up crude prices. The development will revive oil industry fears that ... More »
ADEN A shaky truce took hold in Yemen on Monday under a U.N.-backed effort to end a war that has made the country a front in Saudi Arabia’s region wide rivalry with Iran and caused one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. The war-damaged capital Sanaa spe... More »
MILWAUKEE Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump predicted that the United States is on course for a “very massive recession,” warning that a combination of high unemployment and an overvalued stock market had set the stage for another economic slum... More »
BEIRUT Protesters attacked the Beirut office of Saudi-owned newspaper Asharq al-Awsat on Friday in response to a cartoon published by the paper criticizing the Lebanese state. The cartoon depicted the Lebanese flag with the words “an April fool…” written above... More »
BEIRUT The Saudi-owned television news channel Al Arabiya shut its offices in Lebanon and dismissed 27 employees, two of its journalists said on Friday, in a sudden move that comes amid political tensions between Riyadh and Beirut. Protesters also attacked the... More »
DUBAI A Saudi-led military coalition on Monday said it had completed a prisoner swap in Yemen, exchanging nine Saudi prisoners for 109 Yemeni nationals ahead of a planned truce and peace talks aimed at ending the year-long war with Houthi rebels. The statement... More »
SINGAPORE Oil prices fell on Monday, weighed down by global oversupply and slowing economic growth prospects, although the prospects of falling production lent crude some support. U.S. crude was trading at $38.15 per barrel at 0759 GMT, down 35 cents from thei... More »
LONDON Iran has managed to sell only modest volumes of oil to Europe since the lifting of sanctions seven weeks ago and several former buyers are staying away, citing legal complications and Tehran’s reluctance to sweeten terms to win back customers. Tehran ha... More »
Amid Yemen’s misery, two young women living in the war-damaged cities of Aden and Sanaa know they are among the relatively fortunate. They are not starving, their homes have not been destroyed and they have survived bombs and bullets unscathed. But both long t... More »
RIYADH Saudi Arabia’s plans for economic reform foresee winding down ‘jobs for life’ in an inefficient state bureaucracy and replacing them with new careers in a dynamic private sector. That’s the theory, at least. But in the short term, there is a problem: 20... More »
DUBAI Saudi Arabia’s government has asked banks to submit proposals to extend it a five-year, U.S. dollar loan of between $6 billion and $8 billion, with an option to increase the size, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters on Wednesday. Earlier this m... More »
MOSCOW Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry spoke on the phone on Sunday about closer cooperation between their countries’ militaries on the Syria ceasefire plan, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said on Monday. The conversati... More »
SHANGHAI Investors hoping for a grand plan from the world’s top financial officials to stabilize shaky markets are set for disappointment, insiders say, when finance ministers and central bankers gather this week in Shanghai to discuss the troubled global econ... More »
HOUSTON The world’s top oil executives gathered in Houston this week seem to agree on one thing: this year is set to be so horrible that many skip right to 2017 and beyond to talk about hopes for market rebalancing that so far has eluded the battered industry.... More »
BEIRUT The Syrian army advanced toward the Turkish border on Monday in a major offensive backed by Russia and Iran that rebels say now threatens the future of their nearly five-year-old insurrection against President Bashar al-Assad. Iranian backed-militias pl... More »
LONDON Crude oil prices eased in thin trade on Monday as a meeting between OPEC producers Saudi Arabia and Venezuela showed little indication that steps would be taken to boost prices. Global benchmark Brent futures LCOc1 were down 8 cents at $34.98 at 4.32 a.... More »
PARIS Syrian Kurdish officials will not be invited to peace talks in Geneva, where negotiations for the opposition will be led by a Saudi-backed opposition group, France’s foreign minister said on Wednesday. Laurent Fabius said United Nations special envoy Sta... More »
DAVOS, Switzerland Politicians and business leaders gathering in the Swiss Alps this week face an increasingly divided world, with the poor falling further behind the super-rich and political fissures in the United States, Europe and the Middle East running de... More »
ANKARA Turkey is unsettled by “anti-Islamic” messages in the U.S. presidential race, in which the Republican front runner called for a ban on foreign Muslims, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Monday. Donald Trump last month advocated banning all forei... More »
DUBAI Iran took steps on Monday to try to limit the diplomatic damage from an attack on Saudi Arabia’s embassy in Tehran by an angry mob, laying blame on a top security official and saying some of those who carried out the attack were being interrogated. Irani... More »
SINGAPORE Brent crude fell to levels last seen in 2004 on Monday, dropping under the lows hit during the 2008 financial crisis on renewed worries over an oil glut, with analysts saying prices could head lower still. Global production remains at or near record ... More »
DUBAI U.N.-sponsored Yemeni peace talks in Switzerland appeared to be struggling amid differences over government demands for the release of senior officials held by the Iran-allied Houthis, sources close to the talks said on Thursday. The dispute comes amid f... More »
SINGAPORE Crude oil prices dipped further on Monday after OPEC failed to agree on output targets to reduce a bulging glut that has cut prices by more than 60 percent since June 2014. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries failed to agree on an o... More »
MOSCOW Russia will consider Afghanistan’s request for arms supply in a careful manner, but that task belongs first of all to the United States, RIA news agency cited Kremlin’s special envoy to Afghanistan as saying on Monday. Zamir Kabulov told the agency that... More »
WASHINGTON President Barack Obama on Sunday laid out the most sweeping defense yet of his strategy to defeat Islamic State, but he offered no U.S. policy shift to confront what he called a “new phase” in the terrorist threat after a mass shooting in California... More »
WASHINGTON President Barack Obama has asked the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the State Department to review the K-1 fiance visa program that was used by a couple responsible for a mass shooting in California, a White House official said on Sunday. ... More »
WASHINGTON The White House is urging Silicon Valley to help address the threat posed by militant groups by restricting the use of social media for planning and promoting violence, a senior administration official said on Sunday. Last week’s mass shooting in Ca... More »
VIENNA It used to be said of OPEC that it was like a teabag – it only worked in hot water. If that is so, conditions on world oil markets could hardly be more difficult as prices languish at almost seven-year lows near $40 a barrel. Yet, rather than closing ra... More »
BAGHDAD Two senior U.S. senators called on Sunday for Washington to nearly triple military force levels in Iraq to 10,000 and send an equal number of troops to Syria as part of a multinational ground force to counter Islamic State in both countries. Republican... More »
ABU DHABI U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry was set to hold talks with senior Emirati and Saudi officials in Abu Dhabi on Monday to find ways to bring Syrian opposition groups together at a conference that will be hosted by Saudi Arabia next month. The hastil... More »
MOSCOWRussia and Iran have signed a contract for Moscow to supply Tehran with S-300 surface-to-air missile systems, Sergei Chemezov, the chief executive of Russian state-owned defense conglomerate Rostec, was quoted by the RIA news agency as saying on Monday. ... More »
BRUSSELS Saudi blogger Raif Badawi, who has been sentenced to 1,000 lashes and 10 years in jail for insulting Islam and for cyber crime, was awarded the European Union’s prize for human rights and freedom of thought on Thursday. Badawi received the first of hi... More »
LONDON, Anyone who goes down with flu in Europe this winter could be asked to enroll in a randomized clinical trial in which they will either be given a drug, which may or may not work, or standard advice to take bed rest and paracetamol. Those who agree could... More »
