Simon Watkins is a former senior FX trader and salesman, financial journalist, and best-selling author. He was Head of Forex Institutional Sales and Trading for Credit Lyonnais, and later Director of Forex at Bank of Montreal. He was then Head of Weekly Publications and Chief Writer for Business Monitor International, Head of Fuel Oil Products for Platts, and Global Managing Editor of Research for Renaissance Capital in Moscow. He has written extensively on oil and gas, Forex, equities, bonds, economics and geopolitics for many leading publications, and has worked as a geopolitical risk consultant for a number of major hedge funds in London, Moscow, and Dubai. In addition, he has authored five books on finance, oil, and financial markets trading published by ADVFN and available on Amazon, Apple, and Kobo.
It was no coincidence that just over a month after staunch U.S. ally-Israel and the United Arab Emirates declared that they would normalise relations and…
Since the formation of the new system of governance in Iraq in 2003 immediately after the fall of Saddam Hussein there have been a slew…
A key complicating factor in the ‘if and when’ conjecture over the U.S. and Iran re-opening talks on the Join Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)…
More shares in flagship oil and gas company, Saudi Aramco (Aramco), may be released for sale to the public if conditions are right, said the…
Facing a budget deficit this year alone that may reach 18 per cent of GDP, according to S&P Global Ratings, and budget deficits averaging at…
The geopolitically game-changing Goreh-Jask pipeline project saw a major advance last week with the commencement last week of offshore pipe-laying operations. The implementation of this…
There are three major troubling factors for new U.S. President Joe Biden. In the recently agreed US$2 billion five–year prepayment oil supply deal between the…
Iran has been looking in earnest to poach major oil supply contracts from Saudi Arabia since the Tehran-backed Houthi attacks on two of the Kingdom’s…
Iraq announced two deals with countries that Iran hopes can be gradually moved further into its sphere of influence. One of the two, Lebanon, is…
Iran has been waiting since former U.S. President, Donald Trump, unilaterally pulled his country out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in May…
Abu Dhabi – the oil powerhouse at the centre of the U.S.’s pushback against increasing Chinese influence across the Middle East - last week further…
In line with Iraq’s currently perilous finances and with its future target of increasing crude oil production to 7 million barrels per day (bpd) by…
In tandem with Iraq’s reiterated target for crude oil production of 7 million barrels per day (bpd) by 2025, from the previous 5 mbpd, Baghdad…
Alongside the continued development of its huge West Karoun oil fields, the completion of the supergiant South Pars non-associated gas offshore sector (including the implementation…
More details have emerged on the Iraq-Jordan electricity power grid that is fast becoming a highly controversial project due to Iraq’s persistent political game-playing with…
Drilling operations of the first well of the game-changing but highly-controversial Phase 11 of Iran’s supergiant South Pars non-associated natural gas field officially began last…
At the core of Russia’s hydrocarbons-related power is its Arctic oil and gas reserves, with the Russian Arctic sector comprising over 35,700 billion cubic metres…
The Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) - the key corporate proxy at the centre of the U.S.’s Middle East pushback against increasing Chinese and…
The oil-producing subsidiary of Russian state gas giant Gazprom, Gazprom Neft, has announced that it plans to launch a fourth well at the Sarqala field…
Now that Bahrain is part of the new U.S.-Israel-Middle East corridor of co-operation that is being developed from the U.S. (and Israel), through the UAE…