News

BEIJING / Reuters China’s March crude oil imports climbed from a month earlier to the second highest on record, calculated on a daily basis, as refiners replenished stocks on generous government quotas and ahead of peak maintenance season. March shipments came in at 39.17 million tonnes, or 9.22 million barrels per day (bpd), the General Administration of Customs said. That ...

NEW DELHI / Reuters Global oil supply remains a concern amid OPEC and Russian-led output reductions, with production falling from mature oilfields while demand growth remains strong, the International Energy Agency’s Executive Director Fatih Birol said on Wednesday. This was despite forecasts of rising oil output from non-OPEC producers, led by the United States, which is expected to be able ...

Bloomberg Oil surged to a two-week high in New York as President Donald Trump told Russia in a tweet to “get ready” for US missiles to be fired at Syria. Futures in New York rose as much as 1.3 percent after climbing the most in eight months. President Donald Trump has intensified preparations for a response to a suspected chemical ...

Bloomberg The world’s first small-scale nuclear power reactor may be just eight years away. NuScale Power LLC, which is leading global efforts to build a so-called small modular reactor, is seeking as much as $120 million in equity investment to accelerate design of a matching power generator. The company has already spent more than $700 million, and has “hundreds of ...

Reuters French oil and gas major Total on Tuesday signed a $5 billion dealwith Saudi Aramco to build a giant petrochemical complex at their 440,000 barrels-per-day Jubail Satorp refinery. Saudi Aramco holds a 62.5 percent stake in the refinery, while Total holds the other 37.5 percent. The memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed on the sidelines of a visit by ...

Bloomberg The head of China’s largest natural gas importer believes the country’s energy ties with the US are set to deepen, despite trade conflict between the world’s two largest economies that has roiled financial markets. “There is more room for cooperation than confrontation between China and the US,” China National Petroleum Corp. Chairman Wang Yilin said in an interview with ...

Bloomberg Saudi Arabia wants to get oil prices near $80 a barrel to pay for the government’s policy agenda and support the valuation of state energy giant Aramco before an initial public offering. In conversations with OPEC delegates and oil market participants, Saudi officials had been careful to avoid pinpointing an exact price target. Yet people who have spoken to ...

Abu Dhabi / Emirates Business The current MENA fintech market is estimated at $2 billion (AED7.35 billion) and expected to witness an annual growth of $125 million (AED459 million) until 2022, according to Mena Research Partners (MRP), a leading research company in the region. Increasingly compelling business models of fintech are expected to drive the market growth further. Going forward, ...

CAIRO / WAM The UAE labour market is one of the most flexible markets at the regional and global scale, securing jobs to more than five million people from different nationalities in 2017 and receiving 1.35 million highly skilled workers for the private sector, stated Nasser bin Thani Al Hamli, UAE Minister of Human Resources and Emiratisation. According to the ...

KHARTOUM / WAM Since it began operations in March 1975, the Arab Bank for Economic Development of Africa (Badea) provided over $5.8 billion in development finance for sub-Saharan African countries, according to a statement on its website. At the end of March, after just over 13 years of operations, BADEA had made commitments of $5,824.77 million, covering finance for 653 ...