person:john sfakianakis

Simplicissimus @simplicissimus 3/04/2018

Bahrain’s Biggest Oil Find Since 1932 Dwarfs Reserves - Bloomberg
▻https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-01/bahrain-says-its-biggest-oil-find-since-1932-dwarfs-reserves
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• Kingdom currently has two fields, one shared with Saudi Arabia
• New undersea deposit lies off Gulf nation’s western coast
Bahrain, the smallest energy producer in the Persian Gulf, discovered its biggest oil field since it started producing crude in 1932, according to the country’s official news agency.
The shale oil and natural gas discovered in a deposit off the island state’s west coast “ is understood to dwarf Bahrain’s current reserves, ”Bahrain News Agency reported, without giving figures. U.S. consultants DeGolyer & MacNaughton Corp. evaluated the field, and Bahrain plans to provide additional details on Wednesday about the reservoir’s “size and extraction viability,” BNA reported.
[…]
Bahrain discovered the offshore Khaleej Al Bahrain Basin as it seeks to expand output capacity at its wholly owned Bahrain Field to 100,000 barrels a day by the end of the decade. The country is pumping about 45,000 barrels of oil a day from its Bahrain Field, and it shares income from a deposit with Saudi Arabia that produces about 300,000 barrels a day, according to figures from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
- #Bahrain
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- Simplicissimus @simplicissimus 5/04/2018
  
  Bahrain Seeks Big Oil’s Help to Develop New Shale Discovery - Bloomberg
  ▻https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-04/bahrain-seeks-big-oil-help-to-develop-its-new-shale-discovery
  The amount of oil and gas that can be recovered from hard-to-reach pockets in shale rocks under the sea is uncertain, and development is potentially an expensive proposition. Halliburton Co. will drill two wells this year in the offshore Khaleej Al Bahrain Basin to appraise how much of the oil contained underground is actually recoverable.
  “Only a fraction of the 80-plus billion barrels is likely to be recoverable,” Tom Quinn, senior analyst for Middle East upstream at consultant Wood Mackenzie Ltd., said by email. “The oil will also be technically challenging and potentially high cost to develop,” while Bahrain’s previous oil contracts offered meager returns for international oil companies, he said.
  […]
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  Elsewhere in the Middle East, differences between estimated shale resources and the amounts that are exploitable can be great. Oman’s Rub Al-Khali Basin area contains an estimated 24 billion barrels of oil, but only 1.2 billion barrels are “technically recoverable,” according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Jordan’s Wadi Sirhan Basin resource holds about 4 billion barrels, and just 100 million can be extracted, according to the EIA. Both deposits are onshore.
  In addition Bahrain’s sole wholly owned field, the country shares income from a separate deposit with Saudi Arabia that produced 153,500 barrels a day in 2016, according to the International Energy Agency. The government needs oil at $118 a barrel, almost twice the current price, to balance this year’s budget.
  The newly discovered field should provide support for Bahrain’s “very strained fiscal situation,” said John Sfakianakis, director of economic research at the Gulf Research Center in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. “It will provide additional cushion, depending on when the stream of oil comes into play and the price of oil at that point.”
  
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- Simplicissimus @simplicissimus 11/04/2018
  
  Bahrain Shale Find Puts Oil Market on Notice
  The Global Oil Market Is About to Be Upended - Bloomberg
  ▻https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-04-10/the-global-oil-market-is-about-to-be-upended
  Bahrain discovered the first oil on the Arab side of the Gulf in 1932. It took a long time for the small island to find anything of similar significance, but its recent announcement of an enormous shale oil resource under its shallow waters should not be underestimated: Commercial offshore shale oil production would be a first for the worldwide industry.
  Perhaps more significant is that this discovery has the potential to boost Middle East output, while raising the odds that shale oil production outside the U.S. and Canada finally takes off. The Middle East has the advantages of good geology, existing petroleum infrastructure, and a lack of environmental or community opposition.
  
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Nidal @nidal CC BY 5/02/2016

Saudi currency devaluation would carry major political risk
▻http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2016/Feb-05/335754-saudi-currency-devaluation-would-carry-major-political-risk.ash
Currency traders have been betting against the Saudi peg, and those of other regional oil producers, in the wake of oil’s price collapse. Societe Generale said Thursday it saw at least a 25 percent chance of a near-term devaluation or 40 percent if oil prices stay at current levels throughout 2016.
But in Saudi Arabia’s largely dollar-denominated economy breaking the peg would immediately raise the price of goods, hitting living standards.
Combined with other pending painful economic reforms, this could lead to unrest in a country where the unwritten social contract swaps citizens’ obedience and allegiance to the king for good government services and a share in oil wealth.
“Devaluation of the currency or depegging would self-inflict destructive economic pain. It would be catastrophic,” said John Sfakianakis, a Riyadh-based economist.

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Zara @zara 22/02/2015

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Saudi King Unleashes a Torrent of Money as Bonuses Flow to the Masses - NYTimes.com
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/20/world/middleeast/saudi-king-unleashes-a-torrent-as-bonuses-flow-to-the-masses.html?rref=world/middleeast&module=Ribbon&version=context&region=Header&action=click&content
“It is party time for Saudi Arabia right now,” said John Sfakianakis, the Riyadh-based Middle East director of the Ashmore Group, an investment company, who estimates that the king’s post-coronation giveaway will ultimately cost more than $32 billion.
▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=UAVkknyLFC4
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- Reka @reka CC BY-NC-SA 23/02/2015
  
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Jean-Pierre Séréni @jean_pierre 28/09/2014

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63 pct. of Saudi students in majors ‘unsuitable’ for market - Al Arabiya News
▻http://english.alarabiya.net/en/business/economy/2014/09/28/63-pct-of-Saudi-students-in-majors-unsuitable-for-market.html
A majority of young Saudi men and women in colleges study subjects which are not in demand in the labor market, an economist was quoted as saying in a section of the Arabic press here on Saturday.
It is important that high school graduates focus on technical and vocational training, especially in light of the fact that 90 percent of those who signed up for Hafiz Unemployment Aid Program hold degrees with specializations unsuitable for the market, Dr. John Sfakianakis, chief economist at Saudi-Fransi Bank, told Al-Hayat newspaper.
Some 46 percent or 290,000 of the kingdom’s unemployed youth hold bachelor’s degrees. The percentage of unemployed women with bachelor’s degrees stands at 88 percent. Hafiz program has 320,000 applicants in its database.
Sfakianakis believes that the percentage of high school students admitted into college should be reduced. Official reports indicate that 78 percent of high school graduates have joined universities this year, the highest around the world, compared with 56 percent in member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
What is really alarming is the fact that currently 63 percent of Saudi students are enrolled in majors unsuitable for the needs of the labor market such as education, humanities, social sciences, and Islamic studies. The private sector is not interested in such specializations, said Dr. Sfakianakis.
“High school graduates should be encouraged to enroll in technical and vocational colleges,” noted Sfakianakis.
Only 9 percent of high school graduates have taken up technical and vocational programs in the kingdom compared with 41 percent in OECD member countries and 37 percent in Turkey. The global average of students who join technical and vocational colleges is 40 percent.
Jean-Pierre Séréni @jean_pierre
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