VENTURE CAPITAL POST

Fading hopes OPEC will cut production when it meets Thursday sent oil prices tumbling to a four-year low and the world stock-market rally paused for Thanksgiving in the United States.

The United Nations Security Council imposed targeted sanctions on Friday on Yemen's former President Ali Abdullah Saleh and two senior Houthi rebel leaders for threatening the peace and stability of the country and obstructing the political process.

Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi is making his first visits in years to fellow exporters Venezuela and Mexico, although tumbling oil prices are not the stated purpose of the trip, according to officials and sources.

More than a dozen oil producers have joined to lobby the federal government to reverse the 40-year-old ban on U.S. crude exports, a move that supporters say would create jobs and keep the energy boom alive, a spokesman for one of the companies and a lobbyist for another one said on Friday.

Venezuela's 2015 budget will be based on a target oil price of $60 dollars per barrel, President Nicolas Maduro said on Friday night, but he repeated expectations that prices will recover.

Saudi Arabia effectively started a global oil price war this month aimed at quickly denting U.S. oil output. Slowing a U.S. drilling boom, however, could take more than a year.

World oil prices are set to fall further, extending a months-long rout as Saudi Arabia is unlikely to make deep enough production cuts to erase a growing surplus of supply, according to Gary Ross, chief executive of PIRA Energy Group.

The U.S. State Department has approved a $1.75 billion sale to Saudi Arabia to upgrade its Patriot air defense system with PAC-3 missiles, a deal that would benefit Lockheed Martin Corp (LMT.N) and Raytheon Co (RTN.N), the Pentagon said Wednesday.

The drop in oil prices to their lowest in two years has caught many observers off guard, coming against a backdrop of the worst violence in Iraq this decade, heightened tensions between the West and Russia, and sanctions against Iran.

In an unprecedented, three-year cyber espionage campaign, Iranian hackers created false social networking accounts and a bogus news website to spy on military and political leaders in the United States, Israel and other countries, a cyber intelligence firm said on Thursday.

NBK Capital appointed Perella Weinberg Partners as its adviser on a planned stake sale, reported Bloomberg.

Saudi Arabia-based development and investment firm Technology Development & Investment Co (TAQNIA) picked up a 50% stake in Sun & Life, the solar energy unit of power and water company Acwa.

Winterthur, Switzerland-based industrial engineering and manufacturing firm Sulzer Ltd inked a deal to purchase a 75% interest in Saudi Pump Factory together with the latter's owner Nabil Al Hashim, in a deal valued at CHF33 million.

A 2013 Billionaire census report by Wealth-X and UBS showed an increase in the number of millionaires in the Middle East, and that amount of wealth hold by Middle Eastern billionaires topped any other region in the world.

Fremantle-based livestock export giant Wellard Group’s shipping and land division have attracted strong interests from wealthy investors in Saudi Arabia and Brazil, according to industry insiders.