Good morning, friends, and happy hump day. We bring you a relatively quiet day for news — and have taken advantage of a slow day to put together a couple of explainers for you: One is an overview of the Kingdom’s top gigaprojects, another on “backwardation.”

MEANWHILE- White House national security advisor Jake Sullivan is due in Saudi today to meet with Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohamed bin Salman, Axios reports in an exclusive out early this morning. Sullivan will be joined by Brett McGurk, the top White House Middle East envoy, and senior energy advisor Amos Hochstein

On the agenda: “A potential mega-deal that would include Saudi normalization with Israel” as part of a series of agreements that would include a US-Saudi defense pact, the news outlet reports. A nuclear agreement could also be part of it.

IN CONTEXT- Saudi officials have made clear that there will be no normalization without an agreement with the US and Israel on an irreversible commitment on the recognition of a viable Palestinian state.

The over / under: “Many in the White House think the Saudi mega-deal is a pipe dream, citing the war in Gaza, Netanyahu’s dependence on his radical right-wing coalition partners, and US domestic politics,” writes Axios.

** DID YOU KNOW that we now cover Egypt and the UAE?

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Reading us this morning in Riyadh? You might want to leave for work a bit early this morning — and grab an umbrella when you do. The weather forecast calls for a reasonable chance of showers early this morning with the possibility of isolated thunderstorms. Look for cloudy skies this afternoon with a muggy high of 29°C and a low overnight of 19°C.

It’s more of the same in Taif, though rainfall will be more modest and AlUla is looking at periods of light rain throughout the day today.

** So, when do we eat? Maghrib prayers are at 6:11 pm in the capital city, and you’ll have until 4:24 am tomorrow to hydrate and caffeinate ahead of fajr. Today is day 23 of Ramadan.

WATCH THIS SPACE-

#1- Custom duty exemptions for a wider range of manufacturing inputs went into effect yesterday in a bid to make life easier for manufacturers, the Industry and Mineral Resources Ministry said in a post on Linkedin. The waiver program now includes imports of many forms of raw materials, finished and semi-finished goods, packaging materials, machinery, equipment, and spare parts that are directly used in manufacturing, according to the ministry.

Manufacturers can apply for the exemptions through the ministry’s website. All you need is a valid industrial license, commercial registration number, and a handful of other supporting documents.

#2- Tadawul briefly stopped trading in the shares of six Tadawul-listed companies and two Nomu-listed firms for failing to report their 2023 results on time, it said in a statement.

The exchange suspended trading yesterday of the eight companies. They’ll trade normally today and have until Monday, 6 May to make good on their disclosure requirements. Companies that fail to release their FY 2023 results by then will see trading of their shares suspended until they set things right.

#3- Kindergarten and nursery operators will face new licensing requirements, the Education Minister said in a statement yesterday. The updated requirements include obtaining a commercial register and approvals from the Municipal and Rural Affairs Ministry and General Directorate of Civil Defense. The rules will require nurseries agreeing as a condition of licensing not to add new programs or to extend their course offering past the nursery stage.

PSA-

Property owners in five Riyadh neighborhoods can now register their assets: The Real Estate General Authority (REGA) is asking the owners of some 25.7k properties in Al Hada, Al Shola, Al Fursan, and Al Nokhba and areas of Sedra to register their properties in the real estate registry (RER), according to a statement. The rollout the latest in REGA’s rollout of the national registry. Registration opened on Sunday, 31 March, and will run Tuesday, 4 July.

The RER is wholly owned by the Public Investment Fund and aims to establish a real estate registry across the Kingdom to make it easier for individuals and corporations to know who has a clear title to a property when buying or selling.

OIL WATCH-

#1- Oil production by Opec countries dropped in March on the back of lower output from Iraq and Nigeria, a Reuters survey showed yesterday. The group saw production down 50k barrels per day (bpd) to 26.4 mn bpd last month. Iraq had pledged to slash output last month after it pumped above OPEC’s target, while Nigeria’s output was down as exports dropped. Saudi, Kuwait and UAE maintained output close to voluntary curbs that will remain in effect through June 2024.

Keep an eye out for an Opec+ panel tomorrow. The panel will review production by oil-exporting members and isn’t expected to result in any changes to output policy ahead of next Opec+ meeting scheduled for Saturday, 1 June 2024.

#2- Aramco to hike by USD 0.20-0.50 per barrel the selling price of crude oil to Asia in May 2024, Reuters reports, citing six unnamed industry sources. The relatively modest price hikes will hit extra-light, light, medium, and heavy grades.

The oil market is in backwardation: The potential uptick in official selling prices follows the ongoing market backwardation structure where spot prices higher than futures prices, suggesting scarcity of supply.A crunch in supply for medium and heavy grade crude on the back of oilfield maintenance in the Kingdom, coupled with OPEC+ commitments to cut output, points to higher May prices, the newswire writes.

Background: OPEC — whose figures showed global demand hitting a record 102 mn bpd in 2023 — sees demand growing for at least the next two decades.

Go deeper: We have an explainer in this morning’s news well, below, on the concept of backwardation.

SPORTS-

⚽ What happened in the Saudi Pro League yesterday. It was matchday 26 of 34.

  • Al Ahli Saudi vs. Al Ittihad (1-0).
  • Al Hazm vs. Damak (0-0);
  • Al Khaleej vs. Al Raed (1-0);

Here are the fixtures for tonight’s SPL matches (all scheduled for 10 pm local time):

  • Al Hilal vs. Al Akhdoud;
  • Abha vs. Al Nassr;
  • Al Feiha vs. Al Wehda;
  • Al Tai vs. Al Taawoun.

HAPPENING THIS WEEK-

US Special Envoy for Yemen Tim Lenderking is coming to Saudi and Oman this week to push for an immediate halt of Houthi attacks on the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, according to a statement by the US State Department yesterday. The statement said Lenderking will meet with Saudi and Omani officials to discuss means both the Houthi situation and peace talks on Yemen.

THE BIG STORY ABROAD-

#1- The UK and US have inked what policymakers on both sides of the Atlantic are positioning as a “landmark” AI agreement, formally laying out how they will work together to assess risks from AI models. Calling AI “the defining technology of our generation,” US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo said the agreement will help keep “AI safe both now and in the future.”

Is joint regulation next? That’s the dream of AI doomers — and the nightmare of AI boomers, who are chafing at US, UK and EU regulators having recently taken a much more hands-on approach to Big Tech than at any point in the past three decades.

Read for yourself: Check out the announcement of the US-UK AI agreement, or go deeper with Time (it interviewed Michelle Donelan, the UK Secretary of State for Science, Innovation, and Technology) or the Financial Times.

SPEAKING OF REGULATION- Microsoft will start selling Teams separately from Office as it worries about antitrust legislation, Reuters notes. The regulators began looking into Teams when it set out in 2020 to kill Slack, the popular workplace messaging app.

#2- Israeli warplanes bombed Iran’s embassy in Syria yesterday, killing seven Iranian military advisors. The Saudi Foreign Ministry condemned the attack, state news agency SPA reported yesterday.

AND- Tens of thousands of Israelis turned out to protest Benjamin Netanyahu over the weekend and call for new elections. It was the “largest anti-government protest since the war in Gaza began,” Semafor notes.

SIGN OF THE TIMES- How Gen Z is becoming the toolbelt generation, in the Wall Street Journal, which notes that in the United States, “more young workers are going into trades as disenchantment with the college track continues, and rising pay and new technologies shine up plumbing and electrical jobs.”

Gen X did it first: Go read Matthew Crawford ’s Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work.

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