Bachar EL-Halabi | بشار الحلبي
@Bacharelhalabi • 10,677 subscribers
Global energy markets @ADNOCGroup. Formerly @ArgusMedia | @ME_Council Nonresident Fellow | Proud graduate of @uniofgalway, @AUB_Lebanon. Views my own.
Videos
🇺🇸The US security role in the Middle East is “not a commitment to open seas and open trade at any cost,” Ambassador Tom Barrack told the #Doha Security Forum today. Asked whether the oil-for-security bargain had ended, Barrack said: “It hasn’t ended. It’s transitioning.” “We’re not leaving,” he added, but regional countries can no longer rely on Washington to solve all their security problems.
Bachar EL-Halabi | بشار الحلبي34,719 views • 20 days ago
Breaking🇮🇶: Iran announces a “special gift” to Iraq, allowing its crude to pass through the Strait of #Hormuz. The official spokesperson of #Iran’s Khatam Al-Anbiya Ebrahim Zolfaghari, said Iraq is exempt from any restrictions on passage through Hormuz. But the timing says more than the statement itself. 🧵 (1) Until yesterday, Iraqi officials were scrambling for alternative crude export outlets, rerouting north (#Ceyhan) and trucking west (#Syria), while losing billions in revenues. Now suddenly, Baghdad is “gifted” an exemption. (2) Iraq has been the hardest hit by Iran’s Hormuz closure: • Monthly revenues fell from ~$6.8bn in February to ~$1.9bn in March • This left #Baghdad with a ~5 trillion Iraqi dinar gap just to pay salaries in a country with near-total dependence on oil revenues (3) This isn’t just about Iraq. Iraqi oil revenues remain a key source of dollar liquidity, including for Tehran itself. At the same time, Iran-aligned Iraqi militias, some now reportedly operating in Iran, depend on that same financial ecosystem. (4) Iraq has shut in many of its oil fields, with production falling from around 4.4mn b/d , including from the KRG, prior to the war, to around 900,000–950,000 b/d now, according to Argus Media estimates. Monitoring Iraq’s production and tanker movements will be key. #oott
Bachar EL-Halabi | بشار الحلبي228,022 views • 7 months ago
NEW🇶🇦🛢️: #Qatar’s energy minister Saad al-Kaabi pushing back on the idea that #Hormuz will become “worthless” within two years, has its merits. His comments reconfirm what many of us have argued since the start of the war, in that the Mideast Gulf’s exposure to #Hormuz is highly uneven. • Qatar, Kuwait (& Bahrain) remain the most structurally constrained. #Kuwait may eventually be able to deepen routing options through #SaudiArabia, but for Qatar the alternatives are far more difficult, particularly given the technical and commercial complexity of trying to pipe LNG across the kingdom. • #Iraq has the #Türkiye/Ceyhan outlet, but Baghdad first needs to materially ramp northern exports before talking seriously about replacing Mideast Gulf outlets with the Mediterranean. Hence why, I remain skeptical about the Kirkuk-Baniyas pipeline. Washington may be pushing it now, but if it does not materially advance within the next two years, its political momentum could fade after President Trump leaves office. • The #UAE, geographically, is in the strongest position to pursue something close to a “zero dependency on Hormuz” strategy. • Saudi Arabia has #RedSea optionality, but Hormuz still matters because of proximity and economics for Asian buyers. And even the Red Sea route ultimately depends on a more stable #Yemen/Bab el-Mandeb environment. So the real argument is whether individual Mideast Gulf producers can reduce their dependence on Hormuz, and if it makes sense to them to do so. #oott
Bachar EL-Halabi | بشار الحلبي51,472 views • 1 month ago
I filmed this video in June 2023. #SaudiArabia’s energy minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman and the #UAE’s سهيل المزروعي walking out of OPEC hand-in-hand, in a carefully choreographed moment of unity. Behind it was a dispute over quotas the market was already watching. Today, the UAE exited #Opec+. And as it turns out, oil diplomacy works but doesn’t resolve tensions. It manages them, until it doesn’t. #oott
Bachar EL-Halabi | بشار الحلبي31,012 views • 6 months ago
AFP photographer Chrisتينا Assi today carrying the Olympic flame in Vincennes, France, in honor of “journalists killed on duty”. Assi was severely injured in #Lebanon on 13 October by an Israel Defense Forces strike that also killed Reuters photographer Issam Abdallah - عصام العبدالله & injured others #OlympicGames
Bachar EL-Halabi | بشار الحلبي38,591 views • 2 years ago
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