The Importance of Developing Energy Supply Chains

The TASS news agency cited a joint statement released Monday that the foreign ministers of Russia and the Gulf Cooperation Council countries had agreed to work on developing energy supply chains.

And the Russian Energy Ministry said that Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak had instructed oil companies to give priority to delivering gasoline to the domestic market, even in cases where exports bring higher profits.

In a recent report, the World Bank expected the GCC economy to grow by 6.9% in 2022 before slowing to 3.7% in 2023 and 2.4% in 2024.

The Impact of Rising Oil and Gas Prices

The report also expects the Gulf region to post a public finance surplus of 5.3% of GDP in 2022 and an external balance surplus of 17.2% of GDP.

The report indicates that these surpluses are due to rising oil and gas prices.

The World Bank expects growth in Saudi Arabia to accelerate to 8.3% in 2022 before decelerating to 3.7% and 2.3% in 2023 and 2024, respectively.

The World Bank indicated that the oil sector will remain the main driver of this growth, expecting a 15.5% increase in production in 2022.

The World Bank also expected Saudi Arabia’s budget to record a surplus of 6.8% of GDP this year.