https://arab.news/cs9kk
RIYADH: Arabian Drilling Co’s initial public offering attracted strong investor interest, with oversubscription by 61 percent.
With a share price of SR100 ($27), subscriptions took place between Sept. 28 and Oct. 5, according to a bourse filing.
The Saudi Arabia-based drilling company is seeking to float 26.7 million shares, or 30 percent of its capital, through an initial public offering on the Saudi main index.
Founded in 1964, Arabian Drilling Co. is a limited liability company co-owned by Industrialization and Energy Services Co. and Schlumberger, owning 51 percent and 49 percent respectively.
The company operates a fleet of 45 drilling rigs, both onshore and offshore, which include equipment capable of drilling wells from 375 feet below sea level, as well as multi-purpose self-propelled service vessels that can intervene and test wells in the field.
Its main customers are Saudi Aramco, Al-Khafji Joint Operations, Schlumberger Middle East S.A. and Dowell Schlumberger Saudi Arabia Ltd., and Baker Hughes Saudi Arabia.
Arabian Drilling has a contract backlog of SR8.2 billion as of July. 31, which provides further visibility into future revenue.
RIYADH: Jarir Marketing Co.’s profits declined by 4 percent during the first nine months of 2022 despite the slight increase in sales.
The retail giant saw its profits drop to SR702 million ($187 million), compared to SR729 it made during the first nine months of 2021, according to a bourse filing.
While sales rose 0.7 percent, the increase could not cover higher marketing and sales expenses caused by an increase in advertising to promote sales, which led to lower profits, the company said.
RIYADH: Saudi Arabia’s annual inflation rate accelerated to a 15-month high of 3.1 percent in September, up from 3 percent in August, according to data released by the General Authority for Statistics.
The increase in Consumer Price Index, or CPI, is driven by a rise in food and beverage prices, said GASTAT in a press release.
According to the GASTAT report, the annual growth in the price index for food and beverages stood at 4.3 percent in September, while meat prices surged 6.5 percent.
“Food and beverages prices were the main drivers of the inflation rate in September 2022 due to their high relative importance in the Saudi consumer basket with a weight of 18.8 percent,” said GASTAT in the report.
RIYADH: Oil prices struggled to find their footing in Asian trade on Thursday after easing in the previous session on the back of a weakening global demand outlook, amid showing signs of bouncing back.
Brent crude was up 0.08 percent at $92.52 per barrel at 08.10 a.m Saudi time, while US West Texas Intermediate crude dropped 0.06 percent to $87.22 a barrel.
Saudi Arabia rejects statements critical of OPEC+ oil cut
Saudi Arabia rejected as “not based on facts” statements criticizing the Kingdom after the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies, known as OPEC+, last week decided to cut its oil production target despite US objections.
The OPEC+ decision was unanimous and took into account the balance of supply and demand and was aimed at curbing market volatility, the Saudi foreign ministry said in a statement on Thursday.
Meanwhile, a report published in the Associated Press noted that the US had urged Saudi Arabia to postpone a decision by OPEC+ to cut oil output by a month, as the American mid-term elections are scheduled to take place on Nov. 8.
“The government of the Kingdom clarified through its continuous consultation with the US administration that all economic analyzes indicate that postponing the OPEC+ decision for a month, according to what has been suggested, would have had negative economic consequences,” the Saudi foreign ministry said in the statement.
UAE’s ADNOC Drilling secures $980 million contract to hire offshore rigs
Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. awarded a contract worth $980 million to ADNOC Drilling to hire two jack-up offshore rigs, the company said on Thursday.
The award will support the expansion of ADNOC’s production capacity as it responds to the growing global demand for lower carbon-intensity oil and gas, the company added.
Gambian fuel firms vow to suspend operations due to dollar shortage
Gambian oil marketing companies on Wednesday said they would be forced to halt operations by Oct. 17 due to a shortage of dollars on the market to buy fuel, leaving them unable to resupply fuel stations.
They announced the move in a joint statement that blamed the government pricing structure and called on the authorities to act.
Strikes to continue at four TotalEnergies refineries, storage facility
The strikes affecting four refineries of French oil major TotalEnergies will continue Thursday, a CGT union representative told Reuters, adding they would also affect one storage site while another charging point for petrol shipments was now open again.
A representative of the union’s branch at Esso France had said on Wednesday the walkouts there would also continue.
(With input from Reuters)
RIYADH: Saudi Arabia has told the US that postponing OPEC+ decision to cut production is negative for the world, the foreign ministry said in a statement.
“The Kingdom clarified through its continuous consultation with the US Administration that all economic analyses indicate that postponing the OPEC+ decision for a month, according to what has been suggested, would have had negative economic consequences,” the statement said.
The Kingdom also rejected statements criticizing it after last week’s OPEC+ decision to cut oil supply.
Members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and their allies agreed to cut supply by 2 million barrels a day on Oct. 5.
President Joe Biden, who is attempting to stop Russia profiting from energy sales to limit President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine, had called the decision “shortsighted” after the alliance announced the cuts in Vienna.
Biden promised this week “there will be consequences” for Saudi-US relations because of the OPEC+ move, without clarifying what his administration intends to do.
The statement by the Saudi Foreign Ministry said criticism that the Kingdom was taking sides in international conflicts or had supported the cuts for political reasons against the US were not based on facts and took the OPEC+ decision out of its economic context.
The ministry statement said the agreement between OPEC+ nations was unanimous and sought to balance supply and demand to help curb market volatility, adding that Saudi Arabia rejected any attempt to divert it from the goal of protecting the global economy from oil market fluctuations.
Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman told Bloomberg after the cuts were announced: “Our current priority is stability in the market in terms of demand and investment.” On prioritizing profit directly he said, “that mantra maybe could be acceptable if it is meant to be that we are deliberately doing this to jack up prices and that is not on our radar, our radar is to make sure we sustain markets.”
The Saudi foreign ministry statement, citing an unnamed official, said: “Resolving economic challenges requires the establishment of a non-politicized constructive dialogue, and to wisely and rationally consider what serves the interests of all countries. The Kingdom affirms that it views its relationship with the US as a strategic one that serves the common interests of both countries.”
US Democrats, with an eye on the impact of rising gas prices ahead of November elections, have assailed the Kingdom, with some even calling for the end of defense cooperation between the longstanding partners.
The average US gas price stood at $3.92 per gallon on Wednesday.
Saudi Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Adel Al-Jubeir told Fox News on Friday: “The idea that Saudi Arabia would do this to harm the US or to be in any way politically involved is absolutely not correct at all. With due respect the reason you have high prices in the United States is because you have a refining shortage that has been in existence for more than 20 years, you haven’t built refineries in decades.”
Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo blamed Biden for the current energy crisis.
“This is a failure of American policy. Joe Biden is directly responsible for the place that the world finds itself on energy.”
He also accused the progressive left of spending 25 years of thinking they are “going to run the world on sunshine and windmills.”
Aside from not building new refineries, Pompeo said the current administration has the wrong strategy for making the US energy independent.
“We shut down a pipeline, we’ve made it hard to permit, we’ve got ESG rules that now deny the capacity to get American energy out of American ground for American consumers.”
“We have the capacity for self-help here in the US,” Pompeo told Fox News Sunday.
“To point the finger at someone else, at OPEC or at the Saudis, is an enormous mistake when America has the capacity to produce energy independence for its own country and, frankly, provide energy for the world as well.”
RIYADH: Crypto investment products firm 21.co said on Wednesday its subsidiary 21Shares AG has listed a bitcoin exchange-traded product on Nasdaq Dubai, making it the Middle East’s first physically-backed bitcoin ETP, reported Reuters.
The 21Shares Bitcoin ETP trades, under the ticker ABTC, in the same way as the 21Shares Bitcoin ETP in Europe, 21.co said in a statement.
Dubai has ambitions to become a global cryptocurrency hub and has attracted big industry players to set up shop like Binance, which went on a UAE hiring spree this year and is helping to shape the Middle East commercial hub’s virtual assets regulations.
Following the Dubai listing, 21Shares has 46 listed products in seven countries, 21.co added.
Swiss-based 21.co last month raised $25 million in a funding round that valued it at $2 billion, which it said made it “Switzerland’s largest crypto unicorn.”
The crypto market has suffered a rout that has forced some of its biggest players to lay off thousands of employees to cut costs.
But Sherif El-Haddad, appointed 21Shares head of Middle East in August, was upbeat, saying cryptocurrencies were “fast becoming the asset of the future for investors and wealth managers around the world.”
The Middle East and North Africa is the world’s fastest-growing cryptocurrency region, where the volume of crypto received jumped 48 percent in the year to June, blockchain researcher Chainalysis said in a report last week.
Hany Rashwan, CEO and co-founder of 21Shares, said in the statement the company “will continue to support the Middle East’s ambitions to become a global crypto hub.”
Sprinklr partners with Abu Dhabi Digital Authority
Sprinklr, the unified customer experience management (Unified-CXM) platform for modern enterprises, on Wednesday announced a partnership with the Abu Dhabi Digital Authority to help Abu Dhabi Government Entities adopt and scale unified CX programs to improve citizen experiences and engagement across the region.
“This partnership is critical as it will lead to more transparent and collaborative governance approaches that boost resident engagement, enhance the decision-making processes as well strengthen relevance, responsiveness, and accountability of government entities,” said Dr. Mohamed Abdel Hamid Al-Askar, director general of the Abu Dhabi Digital Authority.
Many of the world’s most iconic enterprise brands and largest public organizations leverage Sprinklr’s Unified-CXM platform to help ensure every customer and citizen experience on 30+ digital channels is delivered on-schedule, on-brand, and on-target.
Partnering with ADDA, Sprinklr can simplify the pricing and procurement process to more easily bring solutions to market for ADGEs across the country and continue to scale its presence in the region. By reducing complexity to focus on the resident journey and their needs, the new Unified-CXM programs will provide seamless engagement between residents and government services.
“The rise of modern digital and social channels has transformed the customer and citizen journey — creating an infinitely more interactive, immediate, and personalized path,” said Sprinklr Founder and CEO, Ragy Thomas.