Bloomberg Total SA plans to start a digital factory in the coming weeks to tap artificial intelligence in a bid to save hundreds of millions of dollars on exploration and production projects, according to an executive. The use of artificial intelligence to screen geological data will help identify new prospects, and shorten the time to acquire licenses, drill and make ...

Bloomberg After marking the best start in seven years, Taiwan’s booming loan market is about to get a further fillip. Jumbo financings for offshore wind farm projects are expected to drive syndicated loan volumes this year, according to CTBC Bank. Taiwan’s bid last week to coax its business people to bring back home billions in overseas assets is set to ...

Bloomberg Billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s debt-fuelled bet on the rise of the Indian consumer is starting to pay off, with his retail and telecommunications businesses contributing an increasing share of revenue and profit to his $87 billion empire. The two divisions accounted for a combined 23 percent of revenue for the year ended March, up from 17 percent in the previous ...

Bloomberg China is intensifying its crackdown on makers of ineffective vaccines by introducing heavier penalties and more stringent regulations. Companies guilty of making or selling counterfeit vaccines can be fined between 15 to 30 times the value of the products involved, China News Service reported, citing the second draft of a new vaccine management law. That compares with a proposed ...

Bloomberg Working women are playing a bigger role in Japan than Goldman Sachs’ Kathy Matsui thought possible when she penned her first report on “Womenomics” in 1999. Yet the country needs to pick up the pace of change or risk being overtaken by a demographic crisis. Two decades ago, Matsui struck an optimistic note amid general gloom over Japan in ...

Bloomberg Reliance Industries Ltd does not have any arrangement to buy crude oil from Venezuela’s state-owned oil company, PDVSA, for payment in cash to third parties and media reports of such a mechanism are false, it said. “Reliance has purchased Venezuelan crude oil from companies such as Rosneft long before the imposition of US sanctions, as they do get title ...

Bloomberg Nintendo Co shares jumped after China’s Tencent Holdings Ltd won approval to distribute one of the company’s games for its Switch console, a sign the Japanese company may benefit from growth in the world’s largest games market. Tencent received approval for the test version of New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe for the handheld device, according to a notice ...

Bloomberg Apple Inc.’s legal surrender is a blow for the company’s supply chain strategy, and one of the biggest tests of its push to cut reliance on providers of key components. The iPhone maker struck a deal with Qualcomm Inc. to halt all litigation and start using the chipmaker’s modems again, likely including important new 5G versions. That ended a ...

Bloomberg Ford Motor Co. predicted an earnings boon from converting just one car plant to make trucks and sport utility vehicles. And the automaker said that factory is just the first of many that will pump out more profit. In 2021, Ford will reap $1 billion more in earnings before interest and taxes than it did two years ago from ...

Bloomberg The latest Brexit delay means more uncertainty, frozen investment and lost customers for UK manufacturers. That’s the verdict of Stephen Phipson, who represents 5,000 companies as chief executive officer of the MakeUK industry lobby group. Prime Minister Theresa May’s agreement with the European Union to postpone Brexit to October 31 from April 12 leaves companies in limbo, he said ...