Simon Watkins

Latest articles from Simon

• Does China’s Friendship With Russia Really Have ‘No Limits’?

  Published 05 April 2022 | viewed 42,249 times

  For several years, China and Russia have been building an alternative world order to that offered by the U.S. and its allies, as analysed in…

• Baghdad’s Bold Move To Take Over Kurdistan’s Oil Sector Is A Blow To Russia

  Published 04 April 2022 | viewed 13,875 times

  Following two recent landmark legal rulings by the Supreme Court of the Federal Government of Iraq (FGI) in Baghdad, news emerged last week that Iraq’s…

• Saudi Aramco Further Tightens Its Ties To China

  Published 31 March 2022 | viewed 58,275 times

  Saudi Arabia’s state-owned oil giant, Saudi Aramco, is looking at several further opportunities to expand its downstream dealings with China, according to recent comments from…

• Russian Crude Continues To Flow Despite Harsh Sanctions

  Published 28 March 2022 | viewed 35,887 times

  Despite the U.S.-led ban on importing Russian oil that some of Washington’s allies will also implement, Russian oil in significant volumes will continue to flow…

• UAE Fast-Tracks Goal To Reach 5 Million Bpd Production Capacity

  Published 22 March 2022 | viewed 20,099 times

  Together with its aims of becoming self-sufficient in gas and creating the pre-eminent oil storage and supply hub in the Middle East, boosting crude oil…

• The Final Obstacle To A New Iran Nuclear Deal

  Published 21 March 2022 | viewed 9,544 times

  According to several sources close to the negotiations to resuscitate the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – including a highly-placed source who works closely…

• Huge Russian-Run Iraqi Oilfield May See Near-1 Million Bpd Output Boost

  Published 15 March 2022 | viewed 50,245 times

  Given the historically elevated oil and gas prices that have resulted from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the lack of a meaningful shift in OPEC+…

• Mission Impossible: Can Biden Bring Oil Prices Down?

  Published 14 March 2022 | viewed 13,573 times

  The longer that high oil and gas prices are sustained, the greater the economic damage for highly developed and industrialized countries that are not self-sufficient…

• Saudi Arabia Reaffirms Commitment To Russia Despite War In Ukraine

  Published 08 March 2022 | viewed 59,627 times

  Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) reiterated last week his country’s “commitment to the ‘OPEC+’ agreement” – working alongside the agreement’s other key…

• U.S. Sanctions Can’t Keep China From Buying Russian Oil

  Published 07 March 2022 | viewed 42,128 times

  China has proven with Iran that it has much practice and great skill in working around sanctions, and the U.S. has made it even easier…

• Russia’s Invasion Of Ukraine Highlights America’s Fading Geopolitical Influence

  Published 01 March 2022 | viewed 11,308 times

  Last week’s failure of the UAE and India – along with just China – to vote in favor of the UN Security Council’s resolution to…

• Iran Is "Tantalizingly Close" To A Nuclear Deal That Could Drag Oil Prices Down

  Published 28 February 2022 | viewed 19,125 times

  The spike in crude oil prices last week in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has lent further urgency to the long-running efforts to…

• Western Oil Companies Grapple With Uncertainty In Kurdistan

  Published 21 February 2022 | viewed 7,878 times

  The Supreme Court of the Federal Government of Iraq (FGI) in Baghdad has made two landmark legal rulings that have significant, if not catastrophic, implications…

• China And Saudi Arabia Strengthen Ties With $10 Billion Petrochemical Plan

  Published 21 February 2022 | viewed 36,509 times

  Plans for a joint Saudi Arabia-China refining and petrochemical complex to be built in northeast China that were shelved in 2020 are now being discussed…

• The Fundamental Problems With Saudi Aramco's $50 Billion Stock Offering

  Published 15 February 2022 | viewed 13,383 times

  Saudi Arabia’s state-owned oil giant, Saudi Aramco, is in talks with senior external banking and legal advisers over the sale of up to another US$50…

• Russia And China Ink Huge Oil Deals As Ukraine Tensions Soar

  Published 14 February 2022 | viewed 22,689 times

  At around the same time as Russian President, Vladimir Putin, had his first in-person meeting with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, for nearly two years…

• UAE Expands Strategic Oil Hub To Counter Iranian Threat

  Published 09 February 2022 | viewed 5,725 times

  The geopolitically critical positioning of the UAE’s Fujairah as an alternative global crude oil storage facility and transit hub to the perennially troublesome Strait of…

• Iraq Ready To Execute Four Game-Changing Energy Projects

  Published 07 February 2022 | viewed 8,659 times

  The US$27 billion four-project deal agreed last year between French energy supermajor, TotalEnergies, and Iraq’s Oil Ministry is set to move into its ‘execution phase’…

• New Energy Deals Are Transforming Geopolitics In The Middle East

  Published 01 February 2022 | viewed 3,552 times

  A core strategy of both the U.S. and China in securing the dominant influence in the Middle East is to hold sway over the region’s…

• China Tightens Its Grip On Iraq With Three Major Oil Deals

  Published 31 January 2022 | viewed 6,282 times

  China has continued to press home the geopolitical advantage given to it in Iraq following the official end of the U.S.’s ‘combat mission’ in the…