A call on the Gulf

Good morning, ladies and gents. The world is lining up at the Gulf’s door for barrels, and the Gulf is lining up at Washington’s for chips. Everyone, it seems, is waiting for something.

Indonesia has a friend in the UAE, and a call on up to 30 mn barrels of its oil. Djoko Siswanto, head of the upstream regulator SKK Migas, said after meeting UAE Ambassador Abdulla Salem Al Dhaheri in Jakarta that Indonesia can draw on the supply anytime, though he declined to give a delivery timeline, Reuters reports. Indonesia’s Ombudsman has reported fuel disruptions from Aceh to West Papua, with queues of around 1 km in some places, and linked them to logistics and shipping delays.

Jakarta has opened a faster route for government-to-government supply: With no way to predict how long the Middle East tensions will last, a recent regulation lets a public agency import crude, fuel, and LPG under agreements between the Indonesian government and foreign countries or suppliers, Indonesia’s Energy Minister Bahlil Lahadalia said. Imports will go through the state agency Lemigas to state energy firm Pertamina, bypassing lengthy tenders.

The Gulf’s loading terminals are in range too. The Houthis claimed a ballistic missile strike on Aramco’s 550k bbl / d Ras Tanura refinery yesterday, and Saudi Arabia contained a fire near the terminal, Bloomberg reported, citing a person familiar with the matter. The extent of any damage, and whether refining or exports were interrupted, remained unclear.

Our Lede this morning is about the other infrastructure in range: the Gulf’s AI. Two of Amazon Web Services’ UAE facilities were struck in March, and the UAE’s licence-free access to advanced US chips runs only until 6 April 2027, after which G42 and Core42 must become US companies or apply to the US Bureau of Industry and Security. Saudi Arabia holds a license that “may be ephemeral,” June Park of Singapore Management University tells us. We ask who owns the Gulf’s AI, and what its owners do when the racks are the target.