Asec of Egypt soon to sign Sudan gold concession deal
Asec Co. for Mining, Egypt’s biggest publicly traded mining company, is set to sign an agreement with the Sudanese government for a gold concession in Africa’s largest country, Chairman Fayez Gress said.
“We are now preparing the contract between us and the ministry of mining and energy in Sudan,” Gress said in a phone interview today from Cairo, where the unit of private equity firm Citadel Capital is based. Read more
Abu Dhabi retail gold sales down 25%
Today: UAE. Retail gold sales dropped by about 25% in March in Abu Dhabi compared with the same period last year, an industry executive said this week.
Tushar Patni, managing director of Ajanta Jewellery added that if the price of the precious metal stays over AED100 (US$27.4) per gram then it could force closure of some retail outlets.
“Currently the price of gold is at AED110 and I expect that it will stay at this level which spells bad news for many of the smaller retailers here who will be forced out of the market,” Patni, who manages the largest retailer of 22 carat gold in the capital of the United Arab Emirates, told Reuters. Read more
Oil-rich Abu Dhabi takes lead from high-flying Dubai
Abu Dhabi, which controls more than 90 percent of the vast oil wealth of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), appears to have set its sights on following the example of booming Dubai.
Officials from the largest emirate in the UAE federation used the podium of a two-day economic forum this week to emphasise the emirate’s drive to diversify and restructure the revenue base of its economy.
“Abu Dhabi stands today at the threshold of a crucial period of economic transition,” Sheikh Hamed bin Zayed al-Nahayan, a son of the founder of the Gulf state, told delegates at the Abu Dhabi Economic Forum.
“Our political leadership is determined to benefit from the current achievements through building on them to reach a dynamic and diversified economy,” he said. Read more
Utah, Colorado rival OPEC oil reserves, lure Chevron, Exxon, Shell
Colorado and Utah have as much oil as Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Venezuela, Nigeria, Kuwait, Libya, Angola, Algeria, Indonesia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates combined.
That’s not science fiction, according to Bloomberg News. Trapped in limestone up to 200 feet (61 meters) thick in the two Rocky Mountain states is enough so-called shale oil to rival OPEC and supply the U.S. for a century.
Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp., the two biggest U.S. energy companies, and Royal Dutch Shell Plc are spending $100 million a year testing new methods to separate the oil from the stone for as little as $30 a barrel. A growing number of industry executives and analysts say new technology and persistently high prices make the idea feasible.
“The breakthrough is that now the oil companies have a way of getting this oil out of the ground without the massive energy and manpower costs that killed these projects in the 1970s,” said Pete Stark, an analyst at IHS Inc., an Englewood, Colorado, research firm. “All the shale rocks in the world are going to be revisited now to see how much oil they contain.” Read more
