LONDON / REUTERS Global demand for oil is finally close to outstripping supply after nearly three years of surplus production, despite growth in the overhang of unused crude, the International Energy Agency said on Thursday. The agency said oil stocks across the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) fell by 17.2 million barrels in March. Over the first ...

  Beijing / Reuters China’s crude oil imports surged to an all-time high in March to nearly 9.2 million barrels per day (bpd), customs data showed on Thursday, far surpassing expectations and overtaking the United States as independent refiners ramped up their purchases. The March imports came in at 38.95 million tonnes, or 9.17 million bpd, according to the General ...

  Bloomberg Drawn to India by an explosion in metro-rail projects, Alstom SA and Bombardier Inc are now poised to use the nation known for being the world’s back-office as a manufacturing export hub. The French and Canadian multinationals set up manufacturing and engineering operations between 2008 and 2010 to tap into India’s rapidly-growing urban transportation market and will now ...

  Bloomberg PetroVietnam Power Corp., Vietnam’s second-largest power producer, said the sale of a 49 percent stake to strategic investors and through an initial public offering could fetch about $600 million. PV Power, as it is better known, is open to selling as much as 60 percent of the company, contingent on government approval, according to a document posted on ...

  Bloomberg The UK is eyeing a deal with the US to give London-based banks free access to Wall Street, International Trade Secretary Liam Fox said as he predicted Britain’s economy would thrive even without a Brexit deal. In an interview with Bloomberg, Fox said he wanted to open up commerce with the US “in every sector” including financial services, ...

  Bloomberg Europe is likely to end the wheat season with the smallest stockpiles in 13 years. Inventories of wheat held in the European Union will probably plunge 37 percent to 10.1 million metric tons at the end of June, according to Tallage SAS, publisher of the Strategie Grains report. The combination of a poor harvest, strong consumption and higher-than-expected ...

  Bloomberg London’s housing market is in its worst slump since the depths of the financial crisis eight years ago, part of a broader slowdown that may continue. The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors said its price balance for the city fell to the lowest since February 2009 last month. It declined to minus 49, indicating that a greater percentage ...

  If you’re a middle-class American baby boomer or Gen Xer, you might have spent much of the past decade wondering what went wrong. If you’re a boomer, there’s a good chance you’re still working well after you thought you’d retire: And if you’re part of Generation X, you’re probably less wealthy than your parents were at the same age. ...

  “Putting American Workers First,” reads the bold headline on the home page of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, proclaiming: “New Measures to Detect H-1B Visa Fraud and Abuse.” A click through to the April 3 statement outlines steps the agency will take to clamp down on the use of temporary visas for foreign workers in specialty occupations. Among ...

  Greece and its creditors say they’ve made progress in their endless negotiations over the country’s debts — enough to avoid a default on payments worth more than 7 billion euros in July. That’s good, but it was the easy part. The definitive settlement that Greece and the European Union both need still isn’t in sight. For the past seven ...