Business

Biden increases crude oil royalty rate, scales back leases

The Interior Department on Friday said it’s moving forward with the first onshore sales of public oil and gas drilling leases under President Joe Biden, but will sharply increase royalty rates for companies as federal officials weigh efforts to fight climate change against pressure to bring down high gas prices.

The royalty rate for new leases will increase to 18.75 percent from 12.5 percent. That’s a 50 percent jump and marks the first increase to royalties for the federal government since the early 1900s.

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Biden suspended new leasing just a week after taking office in January 2021. A federal judge in Louisiana ordered the sales to resume, saying Interior officials had offered no “rational explanation” for canceling them.

The government held an offshore lease auction in the Gulf of Mexico in November, although a court later blocked that sale before the leases were issued.

Friday’s announcement comes as Republicans pressure President Joe Biden to expand US crude production and rein in higher gasoline prices as the pandemic and war in Ukraine roil the global economy. The Democrat faces calls from within his own party to do more to curb emissions from fossil fuels that are driving climate change.

Leases for 580 square kilometers of federal lands primarily in the West will be offered for sale in a notice to be posted on Monday, officials said. The parcels represent about 30 percent less land than officials had proposed for sale in November and 80 percent less than what was originally nominated by the industry.

The sales notices will cover leasing decisions in nine states — Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Montana, Alabama, Nevada, North Dakota and Oklahoma.

Interior Department officials declined to specify which states would have parcels for sale or to give a breakdown of the amount of land by state, saying that information would be included in Monday’s sales notice. They said the reduced area being offered reflects a focus on leasing in locations near existing oil and gas development including pipelines.

Hundreds of parcels of public land that companies nominated for leasing had been previously dropped from the upcoming lease sale because of concerns about wildlife being harmed by drilling rigs.

At the time, officials said burning fuel from the remaining leases could cost billions of dollars in climate change impacts. Fossil fuels extracted from public lands account for about 20 percent of energy-related US greenhouse gas emissions, making them a prime target for climate activists who want to shut down leasing.

Republicans want more drilling, saying it would increase US energy independence and help bring down the cost of crude. But oil companies have been hesitant to expand drilling because of uncertainty over how long high prices will continue.

Friday’s announcement comes after Interior officials had raised the prospect of higher royalty rates and less land available for drilling in a leasing reform report issued last year.

“For too long, the federal oil and gas leasing programs have prioritized the wants of extractive industries,” said Secretary Deb Haaland. “Today, we begin to reset how and what we consider to be the highest and best use of Americans’ resources.”

But the move brought condemnation from both ends of the political spectrum: Environmentalists derided the decision to hold the long-delayed sales, while oil industry representatives said the higher royalty rates would deter drilling.

Nicole Ghio with the environmental group Friends of the Earth said Biden was putting oil industry profits ahead of future generations that will have to deal with the worsening consequences of climate change.

“If Biden wants to be a climate leader, he must stop auctioning off our public lands to Big Oil,” Ghio said in an emailed statement.

American Petroleum Institute Vice President Frank Macchiarola said officials had removed some of the most significant parcels that companies wanted to drill while adding “new barriers” that would discourage companies from investing in drilling on public lands.

Lease sales and royalties that companies pay on extracted oil and gas brought in more than $83 billion in revenue over the past decade. Half the money from onshore drilling goes to the state where it occurred.

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Business

Almarai signs multiple agreements to localize jobs through training and recruitment programs

Almarai signed a cooperation memorandum with the Food Industries Polytechnic, the
Transport General Authority, and the Saudi Logistics Academy to localize jobs in the
food and beverages sector through training and rehabilitation programs ending in
employment. This came within the first international conference on the labor market,
organized by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development on 13 – 14
December 2023 at the King Abdulaziz Convention Center in Riyadh.

‘These agreements are part of Almarai’s corporate program for the social responsibility
to achieve localization in the food industry sector, which is one of the top priorities of the
comprehensive strategic plans in Almarai, especially since the company is one of the
largest working environments in the kingdom, with more than 9,000 Saudi employees,
including more than 900 Saudi female employees.”Fahad Aldrees, Chief Human
Resources Officer of Almarai, said.

He added that the agreements signed to train and qualify young people are part of the
integrated initiatives and training and rehabilitation programs for national human
resources in Almarai. He pointed out that the company provided about half a million
employee training hours during 2022, raising its retention rate to 90% during 2022.

It is worth mentioning that Almarai is the world’s largest vertically integrated dairy
company, and the largest food and beverage producer and distributor in the Middle
East. Almarai was ranked among LinkedIn’s top 15 Saudi companies for professional
career development for 2022.

Business

SEBA Bank rebrands to AMINA Bank and continues to write its success story

a fully licensed Swiss crypto bank, announced today its new brand identity: AMINA Bank AG. The group operates
globally from its regulated hubs in Zug, Abu Dhabi and Hong Kong, offering its clients traditional and crypto banking services.
SEBA Bank made history in 2019 by becoming one of the first FINMA-regulated institutions to provide crypto banking services. This rebrand marks a new chapter for the company, which has proudly been in operation for more than four years. AMINA Bank is inspired by the same trailblazing ambition to lead the way for its clients and to write its own future as a Swiss-
regulated crypto bank offering services to its traditional and crypto savvy clients around the globe. The name ‘AMINA’ stems from the term ‘transAMINAtion’, meaning transference of one compound to another. AMINA is a brand driven by perpetual change, bringing together the various ‘compounds’ of traditional, digital, and crypto banking to unlock new potential and
growth for our clients. This vision of change represents the transformation of our clients’ financial future. Franz Bergmueller, CEO of AMINA, said: “We are delighted to introduce the world to our new brand identity. While we say goodbye to the SEBA name, we remain forever proud of the achievements made by the group under the former brand. “Our brand signifies a new era in the company’s growth and strategy; we are a key player in crypto banking and are here to define the future of finance. With our client-focused approach, our years of traversing traditional and crypto finance, we offer a platform for investors to build
wealth safely and under the highest regulatory standards.” “We are grateful to be encouraged by our supportive and committed investors who have been very helpful, supporting the growth of the company. We thank our employees in all the regions
for their dedication and client focus. As we look forward to 2024, our ambition is to accelerate the growth of our strategic hubs in Switzerland, Hong Kong, and Abu Dhabi, and to continue our global expansion, building on all the successes we have laid down over the past years.” Current clients of AMINA Bank (formerly SEBA Bank) will be unaffected by the rebrand other than encountering the new name; all operations will be business as usual across the board. The branch office based in Abu Dhabi and the subsidiaries in Hong Kong and Singapore will subsequently apply for a name change to align with the head office in Zug.

Business

Uptime Appoints Mustapha Louni Chief Business Officer

Uptime Institute is pleased to announce the appointment of Mustapha Louni to the position of Chief Business Officer, a role specifically created to drive strategic leadership and client success. In this new role, Mr. Louni will assume responsibility for the global Uptime sales and marketing organizations and drive overall business value for all Uptime clients. He will retain his existing responsibilities overseeing operations in the Middle East, India, Africa, and the Asia Pacific regions. In this elevated capacity, Mr. Louni is poised to play a pivotal role in driving Uptime’s next phase of global expansion through strategic initiatives to enhance market awareness of the dramatically expanding global service lines and delivery capabilities of Uptime that uniquely support the global data center industry in its pursuit of ever higher performance through elevated availability, resiliency, sustainability, and cyber-security of digital infrastructure. Louni’s appointment renews and expands Uptime

Institute 39;s 30-year commitment to advancing excellence in the data center sector on a global scale. “Today we are experiencing the next phase of the one-time, planetary transformation from analog to digital. This unprecedented, once-in-a-generation growth in data center demand is primarily driven by continuing cloud adoption, the new promise of AI, and the demonstrable fact
that hybrid digital infrastructure is here to stay for the foreseeable future,” said Martin McCarthy, CEO, Uptime Institute. “These complex and nuanced market demands require a visionary talent like Mustapha Louni. He is someone who cannot only deftly manage specific aspects of the business but also remain ahead of accelerating changes and trends. He continues to earn client
trust and respect by timely delivery on demanding commitments while he also inspires and energizes colleagues and clients alike. I am delighted to announce Mr. Louni’s new position and know that he will continue to expand the impact that he has already brought to Uptime since his arrival.” In 2014, Mr. Louni joined the Uptime organization in the United Arab Emirates, leveraging his extensive experience from roles at Panduit and Schneider Electric in Paris and Dubai. As the company’s first commercial resource in the Middle East and Africa region, Mr. Louni played a pivotal role in expanding Uptime’s presence. Within a year, he successfully established what became and remains Uptime’s fastest growing regional office. Under his leadership, Uptime has
extended his impressive trajectory of growth in MEA to the Asia-Pacific regions, augmenting the Uptime workforce with dedicated team members spanning more than a dozen countries across these regions. A new Uptime office has been inaugurated in Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) this year, further fortifying the company’s ability to meet its commitment to sustained
growth and excellence and serve clients in critical, accelerating markets for digital infrastructure.

Uptime Institute began development of its proprietary and now globally recognized Tier Standards and its Tier Certifications 30 years ago to ensure that the mission critical computing needs of all organizations could be met with confidence and understood by executive management. Since that time, Uptime Tier Certification as well as other Uptime offerings including assessments and awards in digital infrastructure for ensuring business performance in areas of management and operations, risk and resilience, sustainability, and more recently cyber- security have gained global adoption. Uptime’s expanding success is based on delivering a
unique business service that is based upon unparalleled engineering excellence and technical mastery, while remaining vendor independent and technology agnostic.