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Prime Minister Abdelmajid Tebboune is out and Ahmed Ouyahia is back (for the fourth time.) Tebboune was too destabilizing, and if there's anything that President Abdelaziz Bouteflika does not like it's instability. Ouyahia is a known entity. He's a sure thing. And he gets things done discretely that would otherwise be unpopular. This has implications for workaday Algerians and for the energy sector alike.
In his first speech to parliament after being appointed Prime Minister, Abdelmajid Tebboune lashed out at those who mix money and power, saying “the state is the state and money is money.” There was no question in anyone’s mind that he was referring to Ali Haddad, one of Algeria’s richest men, the president of the Forum des Chefs d’entreprise, and a close associate of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s younger brother Said. Since the prime minister’s comments back in June, the slugfest between Tebboune and Haddad hasn’t let up. Blood’s spattered the mat, but still no knockout blow.
Ramadan is over just in time to segue to summer holidays in North Africa. Even so, there have been noteworthy developments across NARCO’s big buckets. Politics throughout the Maghreb remain disjointed with no common thread. In terms of security, all North African countries still face some kind of Islamic State threat. And oil? Forget global markets, it’s all local in North Africa.
The big question everyone is asking is now that Libyan production has hit the magic 1mbpd, how long can it stay there? A lot of analysts are spitballing, but it’s really a question without an answer. Here’s why. Because there is no overarching strategy that brought production back, there is therefore no corresponding trajectory allowing us to project how long production will remain at these levels. At its root, the problem is not one of production analysis, but more of meta-analysis: if we can’t identify a pattern that explains how we got to where we are, then we can’t develop a pattern to tell us where we’re going.