Egypt's market extended losses on Sunday in a broad decline, while Saudi Arabia's stock market moved very little.
The Cairo index fell 1.2 percent as most stocks traded lower, continuing a decline which began last week as Egypt's weighting in MSCI's emerging markets index was reduced with Telecom Egypt's exclusion from the benchmark.
Also, Egypt started rationing gas supplies to a number of industrial consumers, such as steelmaker Ezz Steel, last week as a rise of temperatures across the country led to an increase in power consumption.
Ezz Steel shares dropped 2.7 percent on Sunday and another industrial gas consumer, carpet maker Oriental Weavers , was down 3.6 percent.
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia's index was nearly flat amid a mixed performance by local stocks. Petrochemicals giant Saudi Basic Industries climbed 0.7 percent after Brent oil jumped almost 5 percent on Friday.
But another firm in the same sector, PetroRabigh, dropped 2.2 percent to a one month-low of 23.45 riyals after the company said on Sunday it had shut down a hydrogen-producing facility on May 29 because of faulty pipes.
PetroRabigh said it was still assessing maintenance work needed as well as the financial impact of the stoppage.
