Norway will put its military on a raised level of alert from Tuesday as it sharpens security in response to the war in Ukraine, the Nordic country's prime minister said on Monday.

Norway is now the biggest exporter of natural gas to the European Union, accounting for around a quarter of all EU imports after a drop in Russian flows.

"This is the most severe security situation in several decades," Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere told a news conference.

"There are no indications that Russia is expanding its warfare to other countries, but the increased tensions make us more exposed to threats, intelligence operations and influence campaigns."

The armed forces will spend less time training and more time on operational duties, and the Home Guard, a rapid mobilisation force, will play a more active role, Defence Minister Bjoern Arild Gram said.

The air force had called off training in the United States with its F35 fighter jets, preferring to keep them in Norway, said the head of the armed forces, General Eirik Kristoffersen.

"We expect this situation to last for at least one year," Kristoffersen said.

Norway first deployed its military to guard offshore platforms and onshore facilities after leaks on the Nord Stream pipeline on Sept. 26 and has received support from the British, French and German navies.(Reuters)

Lebanon took delivery on Monday of its first vaccines to combat a worsening cholera outbreak - together with sharply worded criticism of the crisis-hit country's crumbling public health infrastructure from donor nation France.

By Sunday, cases of cholera - a disease typically spread through contaminated water, food or sewage - stood at 1,447, with 17 deaths, since the first were recorded in the country a month ago, the health ministry said.

Lebanon had been cholera-free since 1993, but its public services are suffering under a brutal economic crisis now in its fourth year, while infighting among the country's faction-riven elite has paralysed its political institutions.

The outbreak has reached Beirut, but authorities say most cases remain concentrated where it started in the northern town of Bebnine, where health authorities have set up an emergency field hospital.

The vaccines would play "an essential role" in limiting the disease's spread, Health Minister Firass Abiad told reporters in the capital as he announced the first batch. He did not specify how many more were on the way.

Standing next to Abiad, the ambassador from former colonial power France said the delivery comprised more than 13,000 doses donated by her government, while urging Lebanese authorities to address the outbreak's causes.

"The origins of this epidemic, in which public health is at stake, must also be treated," Anne Grillo told reporters. The outbreak was "a new and worrying illustration of the critical decline in public provision of access to water and sanitary services in Lebanon."

In the Bebnine field hospital, two young boys sat next to each other on one hospital bed, while a mother waited anxiously to confirm if her son, lying limp on another bed and being treated by a doctor and a nurse, had also caught the disease.

Nearby, Syrian children in a makeshift refugee camp played in dirty water chocked with rubbish and medical waste and fed by an outflow from an open pipe.

The World Health Organization has linked cholera's comeback in Lebanon to an outbreak in neighbouring Syria, to where it had spread from Afghanistan via Iran and Iraq.(Reuters)

The United Arab Emirates' energy minister said on Monday that OPEC+ is willing to provide the world with the oil it needs, and that if consumers require more, the alliance of top producers was "only a phone call away".

Suhail al-Mazrouei told a major industry event in Abu Dhabi that OPEC+, which groups the producer bloc with allies including Russia, can always be trusted to balance oil supply and demand. "We are only a phone call away if the requirements are there," he said.

OPEC+ faced one of its biggest clashes with the West after it agreed oil production cuts in October, a decision the U.S. administration called shortsighted. OPEC+ producers rallied around top oil exporter Saudi Arabia after the United States accused it of pushing members into the cut.

The group is expected to hold its next meeting in Vienna on Dec. 4, one day before an agreement by the Group of Seven countries to cap Russian oil sales at an enforced low price is due to go into effect.

Energy ministers and CEOs of top oil companies have meanwhile gathered in Abu Dhabi to discuss investment in oil and gas, crude markets, energy prices and economic growth at a time when Russia's invasion of Ukraine has shaken up the global oil trade.

Speaking at the conference on Monday, U.S. energy envoy Amos Hochstein said energy had to be priced to allow for economic growth, adding that more investment is needed in the oil and gas sector.

Investment from the United States and others is not enough, he stressed. "Regardless where you are on energy spectrum, we must all invest and innovate," he said.

Hochstein said the relationship between the United States and the UAE is "strong, long-standing and enduring". Reflecting on the spat with OPEC+, he told reporters: “People are allowed to have disagreements. It’s a lot less drama than people think.”

Saudi Arabia and the UAE, two of the world's biggest oil producers, are boosting output and refining, and working on clean hydrogen, Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said on Monday.

"We and the UAE are going to be the exemplary producers," he said.

The UAE is releasing its first revision of its energy plan in 2023, which will increase its green targets, Mazrouei said.

"We are expecting that this update will have more green sources of energy in it," he said. "We will see the target, but the expectation, I'm optimistic that we will raise up the contribution of renewables."

Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) Chief Executive Sultan al-Jaber said earlier that zeroing out hydrocarbon investment due to natural decline could lead to a loss of 5 million barrels of oil a day per year from current supplies.

"This would make the shocks we have experienced this year feel like a minor tremor," Jaber said.

The world needs maximum energy and minimum emissions, he said.

"Here are the hard facts: Global supply chains continue to be fragile. Geopolitics are now more complex, fragmented and polarised than ever," he said.(Reuters)

Saudi Arabia's gross domestic product expanded by 8.6% in the third quarter compared with the same period in 2021, according to initial government estimates on Monday, as the world's top oil exporter benefits from higher energy prices.

Growth was largely driven by a 14.5% increase in oil activities, the General Authority for Statistics said, while non-oil activities expanded 5.6%.

Second quarter real gross domestic product was up 12.2%, the kingdom reported in September, exceeding a flash estimate at the end of July of 11.8% growth on the back of higher oil prices.

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[1/3] A view shows vehicles driving on a street in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia February 16, 2021. REUTERS/Ahmed Yosri

 

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DUBAI, Oct 31 (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia's gross domestic product expanded by 8.6% in the third quarter compared with the same period in 2021, according to initial government estimates on Monday, as the world's top oil exporter benefits from higher energy prices.

Growth was largely driven by a 14.5% increase in oil activities, the General Authority for Statistics said, while non-oil activities expanded 5.6%.

Second quarter real gross domestic product was up 12.2%, the kingdom reported in September, exceeding a flash estimate at the end of July of 11.8% growth on the back of higher oil prices.

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The finance ministry separately reported on Monday Saudi Arabia's fiscal figures for the third quarter.

It recorded revenues of 301.87 billion riyals ($80.14 billion), a rise of 24% from the same period a year earlier.

Expenses rose 22% to 287.73 billion riyals in the third quarter, compared with the year earlier period.

It reported a budget surplus of 14.14 billion riyals for the third quarter, and oil revenues of 229.02 billion riyals.

Although revenues and expenses were higher year-on-year, there was a slight pullback compared with the second quarter, with revenues of 370.36 billion and expenses of 292.46 billion.

"The fiscal surplus narrowed in 3Q in quarterly terms on the back of lower revenue, both oil and non-oil, and despite a modest pullback in government spending from the 2Q level," said Monica Malik, chief economist at Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank.

"Nevertheless, Saudi is in position to realise a healthy fiscal surplus in 2022 with a strong yearly increase in oil revenue," Malik said.