Peak Oil News and Message Boards

dirtyharry wrote:What is happening in KSA ? Any POV ? Is it trouble ?

Saudi Arabia is the world’s largest oil exporter, but falling oil prices have made it more difficult for the country to pay its oil workers.

Now the Saudi Arabian government has come up with a project that could give its economy a boost: a $500 billion mega-city that will connect to Jordan and Egypt and be powered completely by renewable energy.

On Tuesday, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman announced the project, called NEOM, at the Future Investment Initiative conference in Riyadh. It will be financed by the Saudi government and private investors, according to Reuters.

Knowledge Economic City Company Saudi Arabia is the world's largest oil exporter, but falling oil prices have hurt the economy and made it harder for the country to pay its oil workers. To give its economy a boost, the Saudi Arabian government has been working in recent years to transform hundreds of square miles of desert into new cities that create jobs and diversify the economy away from crude oil. One of the developments under construction is the Knowledge Economic City, set to be complete by 2020. Take a look at the master plan below. View As: One Page Slides Saudi Arabia is building the Knowledge Economic City in Medina, located 60 miles from the Red Sea coast. Knowledge Economic City Company Amr Dabbagh, Governor of the Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority, announced the project in 2006. Source: The Knowledge Economic City Company The$7 billion development will measure 51.6 million square feet when complete. Knowledge Economic City Company The city's master plan calls for retail,

Two days after the most stunning purge in recent Saudi history, the so-called "anti-corruption probe" - which was really a countercoup - that led to the arrest of dozens of Saudi Arabian royals, ministers and businessmen allowing Mohammed to further cement control over the Kingdom, appeared to be widening on Monday when, as Reuters reports, Saudi banks begun freezing the accounts of those arrested. The Saudi central bank ordered commercial banks to freeze the accounts of people under investigation in the probe, the Reuters sources said, adding that the number of accounts affected could run into the hundreds, although the names of those affected have yet to emerge. “The freezing of accounts has already happened,” said another source. “The freezing is a precautionary measure that will end as soon as the suspects are either charged or pronounced innocent.” Considering that prince

As expected, Saudi Arabia has cast itself as the victim of external Shia plotting after its internal weekend of chaos which included a missile attack from Yemen, the deaths of two princes and other high officials within a mere 24 hours, and an aggressive crackdown against dissent in the royal family which saw close to a dozen princes placed under house arrest. And as Al Jazeera noted, in this Saudi version of 'Game of Thrones', the 32-year-old Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS) shows that he is willing to throw the entire region into jeopardy to wear the royal gown. While Saudi Arabia has long blamed Iran for sowing unrest in the region, this evening's declaration by Saudi Gulf affairs minister Thamer al-Sabhan that Lebanon has "declared war" against the kingdom is truly an historic first. But perhaps the biggest problem is that international media is currently uncritically .

Princes, ministers and a billionaire are 'imprisoned' in the Riyadh Ritz-Carlton while the Saudi Arabian Army is said to be in an uproar... The House of Saud’s King Salman devises a high-powered “anti-corruption” commission and appoints his son, Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman, a.k.a. MBS, as chairman. Right on cue, the commission detains 11 House of Saud princes, four current ministers and dozens of former princes/cabinet secretaries – all charged with corruption. Hefty bank accounts are frozen, private jets are grounded. The high-profile accused lot is “jailed” at the Riyadh Ritz-Carlton. War breaks out within the House of Saud, as Asia Times had anticipated back in July. Rumors have been swirling for months about a coup against MBS in the making. Instead, what just happened is yet another MBS pre-emptive coup. A top Middle East business/investment source who has been doing deals for

It seems the move by Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to arrest members of the royal family and their business associates in a corruption crackdown is proving to be wildly popular among the Saudis young population. Yet, at the same time, it is adding a new sense of an oil price risk against a backdrop of a tighten global petroleum market. Most Saudi citizens are in their 30’s and have grown to be upset with the lavish lifestyles of the multitudes of royal family members and cousins while they struggle to make ends meet. The move by bin Salman to purge and drain the Saudi swamp is playing well at home even as it raises fears internationally of a potentially unstable Saudi Arabia, a long time American ally. It also raises concerns about a more aggressive Saudi Foreign policy that