Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund is taking a critical look at Neom and its banner construction project The Line to decide whether building the futuristic city from scratch is still feasible.

The sovereign wealth fund has asked consulting firms to conduct a strategic review and suggest possible changes amid declining oil prices and concerns that the kingdom can’t afford the 170-kilometer (105-mile) project as originally laid out in 2017, Bloomberg reports.

Neom, the PIF’s umbrella company for The Line and an array of other megaprojects in western Saudi Arabia, issued a statement on Monday outlining its aims in assessing The Line.

“As is typical with large-scale, multi-year projects, strategic reviews are common practice and occur several times over the course of a major development project or infrastructure program,” Neom said. “The Line remains a strategic priority and Neom is focused on maintaining operational continuity, improving efficiencies and accelerating progress to match the overall vision and objectives of the project.”

The review reflects changes in the Saudi economy since the stunning $500 billion Neom development was introduced at a gathering of international investors eight years ago by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Prices for oil, the bedrock of the kingdom’s finances, reached as high as $139 a barrel in 2022 and have since fallen to about $71. Saudi Arabia needs a price of $96 a barrel to balance its budget, and $113 if domestic spending by the PIF on the Crown Prince’s projects is included, according to Bloomberg Economics.

Wizz Air will suspend its Abu Dhabi operations in September after running the budget carrier as a joint venture with ADQ for the past five years.

The Hungarian airline blamed persistent engine issues that grounded its planes, along with geopolitical tensions in the Middle East and regulatory challenges, Bloomberg reports.

Wizz Air Abu Dhabi teamed up with sovereign wealth fund ADQ in 2019 to focus on low-cost flights from its hub in the UAE capital to cities in the Middle East, Africa and India. Five weeks ago, it suffered its worst-ever stock decline amid the airline’s rising costs.

“The more we operate in Abu Dhabi, the more engines we have to ground” because of the hot and harsh environment, Wizz CEO Jozsef Varadi said in an interview with Bloomberg.

With its departure from the UAE, Wizz will focus on its core market in central and eastern Europe, where Varadi said the airline has under-invested because of its concentration on Abu Dhabi and the engine issues. Airline staff in Abu Dhabi will be offered jobs in Europe.

U.S. President Donald Trump will address an energy conference in Pittsburgh, Pa., on Tuesday that is expected to draw some of the world’s most influential investors and oil company executives.

Among those scheduled to attend the Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit, hosted by Republican Senator Dave McCormick, are Khaldoon Al Mubarak, CEO of Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala sovereign wealth fund, Blackstone President and COO Jon Gray, BlackRock’s Larry Fink and Bridgewater’s Nir Bar Dea, Axios reports.

Also expected at the forum are Dina Powell McCormick, the senator’s wife who was Deputy National Security Advisor to Trump in his first term and is now Vice Chairman and President of Global Client Services at BDT & MSD Partners, a merchant bank based in Chicago and New York.

Trump and McCormick will use the summit, which is taking place at Carnegie Mellon University, to announce $70 billion in AI and energy investments for the state of Pennsylvania, including thousands of new jobs, according to Axios. Gray will announce a $25 billion investment by Blackstone in data-center and energy infrastructure development in Northeast Pennsylvania, along with a joint venture for increased power generation, the news site said.

Others scheduled to attend are ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods, Chevron’s Mike Wirth, Alphabet/Google’s Ruth Porat, Palentir’s Alex Karp and Anthropic’s Dario Amodei.

From Trump’s cabinet, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Energy Secretary Chris Wright will attend the forum.

LIV Golf, the upstart league owned by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, is building up in Europe with the signing of HSBC as its official international banking partner.

The three-year alliance with the London-based bank will start today with the LIV Golf Andalucia event at Real Club Valderrama in Spain.

HSBC has been a longtime sponsor of Europe’s DP Tour, which entered a strategic alliance in 2020 with the PGA, the established U.S. tour.

Under the agreement, HSBC said it will sponsor two of the league’s 13 teams, the Crushers GC and Majesticks GC.

HSBC will also become the presenting partner of LIV Golf’s “9 to Play” segment that will appear during every LIV Golf live broadcast and is seen in 120 international markets.

“HSBC’s track record in supporting and advancing the game of golf is inspiring and admirable, and we are proud to welcome them into LIV Golf’s growing roster of global partners,” LIV Golf CEO Scott O’Neil said in a statement.

LIV Golf, which poached some of the PGA’s biggest names through $100 million-plus contracts, is currently in its fourth season.

The two leagues have been negotiating a merger unsuccessfully for the past two years.

President Donald Trump is one of LIV Golf’s most prominent fans and has hosted events at his golf resorts in New Jersey, Florida and Washington D.C.

The world’s oil producers are bracing for a decline in global demand next year and lower-than-expected sales through 2029 amid a slowdown in China’s economic growth and its expanded use of alternative fuels.

The forecast is contained in OPEC’s 2025 World Oil Outlook, which was published today in connection with the organization’s biennial International Seminar taking place in Vienna, Austria.

In the long run, however, OPEC sees demand rising again in 2030 as consumption grows in India, the Middle East and Africa. Among the factors for the predicted rebound are expectations that many countries will miss their climate goals for transitioning to sustainable fuels.

World oil demand in 2026 will average 106.3 million barrels per day, down from 108 million bpd last year, OPEC said in the report. It expects demand to grow steadily to 111.6 million bpd in 2029, which is below previous forecasts.

Behind the expected cut in demand is the economic slowdown in China, which is the world’s biggest oil importer. Other factors cited were China’s embrace of electric vehicles and their charging infrastructure along with increased use of solar power and other sustainable energy sources.

Amid the expectations for next year’s decline in oil demand, the OPEC+ group – which comprises both OPEC members and other producers including Russia – announced on Saturday that it will further lift mandated supply limits in August to regain market share after years of cuts.

OPEC Secretary General Haitham Al-Ghais said today that the group sees signs of strong demand during the current year, driven by China and India as well as a “booming” aviation season and an uptick in U.S. gasoline demand. In an interview with CNBC he cited the importance of uninterrupted oil supply around the world, warning that conflicts in the Middle East and U.S. sanctions threaten to undermine that.

Saudi Arabia’s state-owned chemical maker Sabic is considering selling shares of its industrial gas unit as part of a rigorous review of its operations after a string of quarterly losses.

An IPO for National Industrial Gasses Co. on Riyadh’s Tadawul stock exchange is among the “strategic options” being evaluated, Sabic said today in a statement, confirming earlier reports that a share sale was being discussed.

Sabic, a maker of petrochemicals and fertilizers that is 70% owned by Saudi Aramco, has posted losses in its past two quarters, prompting discussions about restructuring the company to focus on its core businesses. Sabic shares are down 16% this year.

Preliminary consultations with investment banks about selling shares of the gas unit – in which Sabic owes a 74% stake – included talks with Lazard, HSBC, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley, Bloomberg reported in May.

Sabic, short for Saudi Basic Industries Corp., said in today’s statement that it will offer details on its restructuring in the third quarter and aims to complete the plan by the end of this year.

Mubadala Capital said it hired Ophir Shmuel, a London-based money manager at Eaton Partners, as its new Head of Business Development.

Shmuel will “lead efforts to expand and deepen our relationships with investors globally,” Mubadala Capital, an investment arm of Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala sovereign wealth fund, said on LinkedIn.

At Eaton, a U.S. private equity firm based in Stamford, Conn., Shmuel was Managing Director and Head of the Europe, Middle East and Africa division in London.

Shmuel is a graduate of Oxford Brookes University in the U.K. and previously worked as a research analyst at Goldman Sachs.

Mubadala Capital was founded in 2011 as the sovereign wealth fund’s alternative investment arm and manages about $30 billion in assets. In 2017, Mubadala became the first sovereign wealth fund to manage third-party capital on behalf of global institutional investors.

In April, TWG Global, the U.S. investment firm led by financiers Mark Walter and Thomas Tull, took a 5% stake in Mubadala Capital. In December, Mubadala Capital acquired a 42% stake in Los Angeles-based credit asset manager Silver Rock Financial.

Barclays is putting together two of its senior bankers as joint chief executives to bolster its growing business in the Middle East.

The London-based lender said it promoted Khaled El Dabag and Walid Mezher to preside over banking activities from its regional headquarters in Dubai. They will report to Stephen Dainton, Head of Investment Bank Management.

“As the Middle East continues to play a bigger role in shaping global capital markets and attracting more wealth, the region is also becoming increasingly important to Barclays’ overall success,” Dainton said in a statement.

Mezher has been head of markets for the MENA region since 2017. El Dabag, who joined the Barclays from Goldman Sachs more than a decade ago, has been leading investment banking locally and was acting as CEO of the broader region, Bloomberg reports.

Meanwhile, Laura Hinton, a managing partner at PwC in the U.K. is being considered to head the accounting firm’s Middle East operations, the FT reports.