Oil Price Development and Political Stability in Saudi Arabia

Over the past decade, an increasing number of emerging markets has joined the liquefied natural gas (LNG) import club. From 7 countries in 2010, they were 17 in 2017: from traditionally export-oriented regions (such as the Middle East and North Africa) facing burgeoning gas and electricity demand, from emerging economies with growing energy needs (Southeast Asia), from countries facing severe energy and gas shortages and willing to replace imported oil in power generation (South Asi ...

The fall in oil prices, which began in fall 2014, had a significant influence on the strategies of the key players in the oil industry in Africa. The continent’s oil sector has experienced deep-reaching changes, ranging from a drop in exploration budgets, the disappearance or sale of weakened companies, the reorganization or pullback of the traditional oil majors, the establishment of new companies and the arrival of state-owned companies attracted by the crisis-induced windfall eff ...

This paper reports the results of an application using an interregional input-output matrix for Morocco together with regional information on water consumption by sectors. We develop a trade-based index that reveals the relative water use intensities associated with specific interregional and international trade flows. We estimate, for each flow associated with each origin-destination pair, measures of trade in value added and trade in water that are further used to calculate our in ...

Le lancement d’un contrat à terme pétrolier sur le Shanghai International Energy Exchange (INE) ne saurait être vu comme un évènement « technique » ou secondaire tant il préfigure ce que seront dans quelques années les marchés mondiaux de matières premières. Le Shanghai Futures Exchange (SHFE) et le Dalian Commodity Exchange (DCE) ont certes vu leurs volumes de trading augmenter considérablement sur la dernière décennie grâce à l’acier et au minerai de fer, ce qui pourrait laisser à ...

President Trump’s proclamation that, because of national security concerns, he will apply a 25% tariff on all steel and a 10% tariff on all aluminium imports into the United States – except provisionally and dependent on NAFTA negotiations those from Canada and Mexico – affects, respectively 5.1 billion Euros and 1.1 billion Euros of EU exports. These are not trivial sums. However, the invocation of the national security exception in this case has implications that go far beyond nar ...

Commodities are at the very heart of economic activity. From oil to wheat, from aluminum to coffee or rubber, we are all, in one way or another and to varying degrees, dependent on commodities. Different in terms of their physical properties but governed by common economic mechanisms, traded on global and oligopolistic markets, subject to intense competitive pressures and speculative bets, often marked by highly volatile prices, objects of geopolitical rivalries or cooperatives stra ...

The prices of metals -most notably industrial metals- have risen significantly since January 2016, in contrast with 2014 and 2015, which were difficult years. This trend is due to substantial improvements in market fundamentals, both for demand and supply. However, the importance of speculative movements underlying this sharp rise in prices cannot be minimized or omitted. In the short term, it poses the risk of a correction linked to profit taking and a return to greater rationality ...

Les cours des métaux, industriels notamment, se sont inscrits dans un mouvement haussier particulièrement marqué depuis janvier 2016 qui tranche avec les années difficiles de 2014 et 2015. À l’origine de cette dynamique : une sensible amélioration des fondamentaux du marché, tant du côté de la demande que de l’offre. L’importance des mouvements spéculatifs qui sous-tendent cette forte remontée des cours ne peut cependant être oubliée voire minimisée. Elle pose à court terme le risqu ...

Since inception nearly a century ago, corporations and industries have coevolved with Morocco’s legacy of peace and prosperity. With a growing pressure on agricultural production and natural resources, exacerbated with climate change, there is urgency to define sustainable strategies that would reassure corporations and industries for longterm prosperity and for a healthy economy. Studies have highlighted the perilous state of our natural environment, the exhaustion of our aquifers, ...

Dealing with the dynamics of commodity prices requires the characterization of three phenomena to which they are subject: (very) long-term trends, medium / long-term cycles and short-term variability / volatility (Jacks, 2013). As they strongly infuence the economies of exporting countries, each of these phenomena calls for the implementation of specifc strategies, particularly in terms of public policies. Thus, whereas volatility raises the question of availability of hedging tools ...