A few months ago, no one would have noticed British opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn’s address at the annual conference of his Labour Party. But that was before he engineered its biggest increase in vote share since World War II after Theresa May gambled on a snap election and lost her majority. The election, Corbyn told the Labour faithful, “has put ...
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Saudi Arabia, Russia to set up $1 billion energy fund
KHOBAR / Reuters Saudi Arabia and Russia plan to set up a $1 billion fund to invest in energy projects, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said in a interview broadcast by Al Arabiya TV on Monday. The fund, to be finalised during this week’s visit by Saudi King Salman to Moscow, was part of efforts by two of the world’s ...
Read More »Kuwait mulls $70bn annual spending cap for three years
Bloomberg Kuwaiti officials are considering an annual public spending cap of 21 billion dinars ($69.5 billion) on average over the next three fiscal years to help the government plan future debt sales, a senior official said. The cap is being included in a proposed budget for the fiscal year starting in April, the official said, asking not to be named ...
Read More »Oil market stars risk being dimmed by China’s big refineries
Bloomberg China’s independent refiners burst onto the international oil market scene only a couple of years ago and lifted the nation past the US as the world’s No. 1 crude buyer. Now, a new generation of firms building some of the globe’s biggest plants are threatening to eclipse them. The original set of private processors, known as teapots, is clustered ...
Read More »NLC India to offer lower tariffs to save power plants
Bloomberg State-run generator NLC India Ltd is offering to reduce tariffs from two of its power plants after its main buyer asked the company to lower prices or shelve the projects, according to two officials with knowledge of the matter. NLC has offered to bring tariffs down by about Rs0.5 per kilowatt hour, taking a hit of 1.5 percentage point ...
Read More »Libya’s Sharara oil field closed since late Sunday
BENGHAZI / Reuters Libya’s giant Sharara oil field has been closed since late on Sunday, shutting off the production of more than 230,000 barrels per day (bpd), an engineer at the field and a Libyan oil source said. Libya’s National Oil Corporation (NOC) said in a statement on Monday that it was “working towards a swift restart of production. At ...
Read More »Qatar growth sinks as oil sector stalls
Reuters Qatar’s economic growth slowed in the second quarter to its lowest rate since the global financial crisis because of a sagging oil sector, and sanctions by Arab states, reports said. Gross domestic product, adjusted for inflation, expanded just 0.6 percent from a year earlier in the April-June period, the slowest growth since the 2009-2010 crisis. GDP grew 0.5 percent ...
Read More »Ambani’s Reliance Communications aborts Aircel deal in debt-cut blow
Bloomberg Reliance Communications Ltd.’s plan to merge with Aircel Ltd. collapsed in a blow to the Indian mobile phone carriers’ plans to pare debt and gain scale to take on bigger rivals. “Legal uncertainties†and “interventions by vested interests†caused delays in regulatory approvals, Reliance Communications said in an exchange filing. Consequently, the merger has “lapsed with mutual consent,†it ...
Read More »Indonesia’s Go-Jek to expand abroad, on track to clash with Grab
Bloomberg Go-Jek, Indonesia’s first billion-dollar startup, is looking to expand its ride-hailing services to three to four countries in Southeast Asia, escalating its rivalry with Grab and Uber Technologies Inc. Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Nadiem Makarim didn’t specify the countries or services that Go-Jek will target, but said in an interview they will be places with a large population ...
Read More »N Korea gets second route to internet via Russia
Bloomberg North Korea now has two ways to get on the internet, thanks to a new connection from Russia, according to cybersecurity outfit FireEye Inc. Russian telecommunications company TransTeleCom opened a new link for users in North Korea, Bryce Boland, chief technology officer for the Asia-Pacific region at FireEye, said in an interview on Monday. Until now, state-owned China United ...
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