Shabaneh, Rami

23 May 2024

This paper investigates the role of the Middle East and Africa (MEA) in supplying liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Europe in the context of sustained Russian gas pipeline disruptions.

14 December 2023

As part of a diverse energy portfolio, hydrogen can support global efforts toward transitioning to a more sustainable energy system. This would align with climate goals, such as those outlined in the Paris Agreement. For hydrogen to fulfill this potential, its production method needs...

10 May 2023

croeconomic and sectoral assessment of the energy price reform (EPR) can provide policymakers with useful insights regarding price deregulation options. A key feature of this research that differentiates it from many other studies is its modeling framework. The framework first estima...

01 March 2022

Energy transition discussions, policymakers are increasingly viewing hydrogen as a preferred emissions-free substitute for oil, natural gas and coal in hard-to-abate sectors. However, hydrogen is not a primary energy source but rather is a carrier of energy. Many factors, including i...

23 March 2021

Natural gas development across the member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) — including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar, Kuwait, Oman and Bahrain —has become a priority for achieving long-term energy security and for supporting economic diversification ...

06 January 2021

The advent of American shale oil and its prospects for continued production growth have raised concerns about whether oil refineries can handle the increasingly lighter crude oil supply. To provide a perspective on this issue, we run a global oil refining model for the years from 201...

08 December 2019

Saudi Arabia expects to double its natural gas production within the next decade. This increased domestic supply is expected to meet the demand for gas from Saudi Arabia’s industrial development and, most importantly, to displace liquid fuels in its electricity sector. Given the stro...

27 October 2019

This paper explores the value of explicitly integrating the modeling of political concerns into a model of energy market projections. This is achieved by assessing the impact on global gas markets of political constraints on restarting Japanese nuclear reactors. The 2018 KAPSARC disc...

02 September 2019

Natural gas is already playing a prominent role in diversifying Saudi Arabia’s power mix away from a heavy reliance on oil-based fuels. Between 2010 and 2017, the share of natural gas used in power generation in Saudi Arabia grew from 44% to 54%. The country’s gas fields are being de...

15 November 2018

NGLs may present a silver lining to the future of natural gas, given their close links. The power sector is usually considered the principal driver of future demand growth. However, natural gas is likely to have a bigger role to play in future, given the essential role of NGLs i...

04 June 2018

Petrochemical products, particularly plastics, contribute to a significant share of expanding and increasingly diverse trade flows between the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries and China. The petrochemical sector could benefit from a preferential bilateral trade regime between...

20 May 2018

Natural gas resources in Tanzania and Mozambique have emerged as a new source of gas supply. While they are poised for export to global gas markets, they can also provide a key source of energy to the rest of Eastern Africa (defined in this paper to include Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, ...

03 May 2016

In the past year, global gas prices have dropped significantly, albeit at unequal paces depending on the region. All else being equal, economists would suggest that this should have generated a positive demand response. However, “all else” was not equal. Prices of other commodities a...

17 July 2025

This perspective sheds light on emerging research priorities crucial for advancing the low-carbon hydrogen sector considered critical for achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions targets especially for hard-to-abate sectors. Our analysis follows a five-step process, including drawi...

18 April 2024

This book provides a first-of-its-kind analysis of the emerging global hydrogen economy from the vantage point of one of the world’s biggest energy providers: Saudi Arabia. In 2021, and within the context of the Circular Carbon Economy framework, Saudi Arabia anno... Read Full Book Here

15 June 2019

. The book comprises in-depth studies of a smaller set of countries, but those of critical regional and international importance to the future of gas: Qatar, Iran, Oman, Saudi...   https://www.oxfordenergy.org/shop/the-future-of-gas-in-the-gulf-continuity-and-change/?v=3dd6b9265ff1

21 March 2023

The United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 26) in Glasgow focussed on advancing low-carbon fuels to reach emissions abatement targets. The conference also reaffirmed the goals of the Paris Agreement: to secure global net-zero emissions by mid-century and limit the glob...  

08 December 2022

In early 2022, 80 countries (including Saudi Arabia), representing around 74% of global greenhouse gas emissions, pledged to reach net-zero emissions (NZE) in the coming decades. Achieving these ambitious climate policy objectives requires shifting the energy mix toward existing and ...

01 March 2022

Hydrogen has gained considerable global support in the energy policy discourse on how to meet decarbonization targets. Due to its clean-burning properties and versatility, hydrogen is being examined as an alternative fuel source to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions ...    

30 June 2021

Fully leveraging clean hydrogen to sustainably power the global economy would give the Kingdom a competitive edge in an increasingly carbon-constrained world in which net-zero carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are both a requirement and a condition for surviva...  

12 October 2020

The last decade saw dramatic changes in the energy sector, including the shale oil and gas boom in the United States (U.S.), a commodity down-cycle, and heightened awareness of the global climate challenge. In response, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member countrie...    

13 January 2020

Fuel prices in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia have historically been below international market values. This has stimulated rapid growth in primary energy demand. The Kingdom’s natural gas demand has now outstripped its domestic production, forcing the government to impose rations on co...

04 December 2019

Saudi Arabia has taken a major step into global gas markets with Saudi Aramco signing a heads of agreement (HoA) with Sempra Energy. The HoA includes a 20-year sales and purchase agreement (SPA) for 5 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from phase 1 of the ...

18 May 2025

The international certification and trade of low-emission hydrogen are critical for decarbonizing hard-to-abate sectors such as heavy industry and transportation. However, fragmented regulatory frameworks across jurisdictions pose significant barriers to scaling global trade and inve...

08 May 2022

In our previous Instant Insight, The Global Methane Pledge: What It Means for the Oil and Gas Industry Post-COP26, we shed light on the increased momentum behind the issue of methane emissions and how it is taking center stage in major climate change forums. As of the time of writing...

13 January 2022

After two weeks of climate negotiations in Glasgow, the 2021 U.N. Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) concluded successfully. Representatives of nearly 200 nations agreed to well over 50 decisions (some of which have been pending since COP24), keeping the implementation ...

26 November 2020

On September 27, 2020, Saudi Aramco successfully exported the world’s first shipment of carbon-neutral ammonia to Japan, helping to fuel the nascent Japanese hydrogen economy. This pilot shipment of 40 tonnes is an important realization of the hydrogen economy for both the Kingdom of...

19 April 2020

In February 2020, Saudi Aramco announced that it obtained regulatory approval to develop the Jafurah Basin, Saudi Arabia’s largest unconventional natural gas field (Figure 1). Situated east of the giant Ghawar oilfield, it contains 200 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of gas resources.

30 January 2020

Following the assassination of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani in Baghdad on January 3, as a result of a United States (U.S.) airstrike, the Iraqi Parliament passed a resolution stating that it “must work to end the presence of any foreign troops on Iraqi soil and prohibit them from ...

12 December 2019

January 1, 2020 marks the enforcement of the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) rule on limiting sulfur emissions from ships (IMO 2020). The rule mandates ships to reduce the sulfur content in their fuels to 0.5% from the current 3.5%. This suggests that ship owners and oper...

08 December 2019

On August 26, 2019, India’s petroleum minister Dharmendra Pradhan announced that he would consider “a review of liquefied natural gas (LNG) prices under [India’s] long-term contracts”. However, Mr. Pradhan did not lay out a timeline for the review and reiterated that existing contrac...

15 October 2020

The transition from gray to blue and green hydrogen offers an adaptive path for hydrogen production and deployment in both energy resource-rich and consuming countries. An exchange platform and working group unifying industry practitioners, policy makers, and academics from the G20 c...

06 April 2020

The power sector in Saudi Arabia makes up just over half of the natural gas demand in the Kingdom, followed by the industrial sector and non-energy use as a feedstock for petrochemicals.

11 February 2020

Saudi Arabia’s fuel mix for power generation and water desalination comprises natural gas (57%) and a suite of liquid fuels (43%). Liquid fuels include crude oil, heavy fuel oil (HFO), and diesel.

21 October 2009

21 October 2008

21 April 2025

This report aims to provide a comprehensive analysis of plastic waste disposal, recycling rates and the recycling infrastructure gaps in the GCC countries, along with encouraging policies to capture the untapped potential of the recycling sector, and transition from current disposal-...