Oil windfall nearly wipes out Oman's 1H budget deficit

Oman is on its way to closing its budget deficit in 2026, driven by a 10% rise in net oil revenue and a 32% jump in natural gas income. The oil price windfall, cemented by Oman’s geography that sits outside Hormuz, led to revenues growing at a faster pace than spending — helping narrow the deficit in 1H to roughly OMR 17 mn, a 93% y-o-y drop from 1H 2025.

A disciplined fiscal policy protected the windfall: Public debt barely moved in 1H, rising just 0.3% y-o-y to reach OMR 14.2 bn. State revenues rose 13% y-o-y to OMR 6.6 bn (USD 17.1 bn) through June, while spending grew at a slower pace, up 9% to OMR 6.6 bn.

There’s one leak, though. The same crude price inflating the treasury is also inflating the subsidy bill that shields pump prices from it. Petroleum-product subsidies hit OMR 162 mn in 1H — 4.6 times the full-year amount Oman budgeted for 2026.

REMEMBER- Muscat built its 2026 budget on USD 60 per crude barrel, but the average this year has been at USD 74 so far — comfortably above the roughly USD 67 breakeven price Fitch estimates for Oman’s finances.

Lebanon’s hunt for corruption continues

Lebanon is launching an audit to investigate possible corruption and mismanagement of public funds in the energy sector. The audit will look into an agreement that secured three floating power units from the Turkish company Karpowership and the associated fuel import contracts that powered the vessels.

What is being investigated exactly? Former Energy Minister Gebran Bassil, who oversaw the adoption of the power barges, claimed that they generated cheaper power at roughly USD 0.14 per kWh compared to higher rates of the state-owned power utility Électricité du Liban (EdL) and private generators. However, EdL rates were consistently lower, Lebanon’s Energy Minister Joe Saddi said during a presser. Between 2014 and 2015, production costs at EdL’s main plants in Deir Ammar and Zahrani stood between USD 0.11 and 0.17 per kWh — compared to USD 0.13-0.2 cents for the floating plants, amounting to USD mns of losses, Saddi said.

Background: The floating power stations were initially brought in as a temporary solution to supply electricity while permanent power plants were built. However, those land-based plants were never completed, leaving the barges docked in Lebanon for nearly a decade while accumulating massive costs for the public treasury.

The Energy Ministry is looking for auditors for the probe, which will cover the deployment period from 2012 to 2021, and will span technical, financial, and legal aspects of the agreements. The ministry will accept bids from auditors up to 15 October.

Wiried in

Leoni’s Tunisian arm already out-earns every other country the German auto-parts giant operates in — and it isn’t done expanding. The company is looking to add new projects and expand existing ones across Tunisia, CEO Mohamed Larbi Rouis told Equipment and Housing Minister Salah Zouai, who also oversees the industry portfolio, during a meeting earlier this week. Leoni, which specializes in wiring harnesses, has been in Tunisia for over four decades, and its Tunisian arm generated some 29% of its global profits in 2024 — more than its plants in Morocco, Egypt, Serbia, Romania, Ukraine, Mexico, and China.

REMEMBER- Leoni has been expanding its North Africa wiring-harness footprint amid a localization drive in the region and a company-led push to relocate some of its Eastern Europe-based plants, like its Serbia operations, to new markets amid rising labor costs and the headwinds facing Europe’s auto industry. The expansion in Tunisia will come alongside new projects in Egypt, where Leoni is building a new industrial complex in Robbiki Leather City to add to its existing EUR 40 mn cable harness factory there, we reported in November.

Data point

1.1k — that’s the number of new firms the Qatar Financial Centre (QFC) onboarded in 1H 2026, pushing total registrations past 4.7k, according to QFC’s half-yearly update. The 1H figures represent 37% y-o-y growth. Technology and Innovation firms drove the intake, accounting for 544 of the new registrations on the back of roughly 2.3k licensing applications generated at Web Summit Qatar 2026, up 44% y-o-y.