Photographer: Phil Weymouth/Bloomberg An oil pump operates near a valve assembly in the Awali oil field in Bahrain. The country requires an average oil price of about $120 a barrel to balance its budget, according to S&P. Tumbling oil prices are battering Bahrain’s Shariah-compliant bonds. The Gulf nation’s dollar-denominated sukuk that mature in 2018 have dropped 1.3 percent since the end of September, compared with an average 0.8 percent gain for more than 30 Islamic sovereign dollar bonds tracked by Bloomberg. Only the five-year $1 billion sukuk issued by Pakistan, where Islamic militants have killed more than 50,000 people since 2001, have performed worse. The decline underscores how oil’s 45 percent slide since last year is hurting a country where Standard & Poor’s estimates crude accounts for 65 percent of fiscal revenue and yet has oil reserves that are less than 0.1 percent of neighboring Saudi Arabia’s. The retreat threatens to jeopardize some of the $30 billion of infrastructure projects the government is planning to sustain economic growth and becalm protests by the majority Shiite population, according to Commerzbank AG. “Bahrain is a bit more sensitive because they don’t have a lot in reserves as Saudi or others to keep supporting their projects,” Apostolos Bantis, a credit analyst at Commerzbank in Dubai, said by phone on Dec. 17. “They will have to cut costs and stop some of the projects they’re working on. There is a risk of political unrest.” Low oil prices will “exacerbate” structural weaknesses in Bahrain’s public finances and may lead to a 10 percent decline in government revenue next year, S&P said in a Dec. 12 report, revising the country’s debt outlook to negative from stable. bloomberg