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Beijing / Reuters China will become the world’s second-biggest importer of liquefied natural gas (LNG) as it overtakes South Korea, shipping data in Thomson Reuters Eikon showed. This is a huge boost to Asia’s emerging spot market as Chinese buyers rely much more on short-term purchases to meet their needs than their counterparts in Japan and South Korea. Shipping data ...

Bloomberg Oil retreated from its highest close in more than two years amid low volume, even as a pipeline carrying crude to Libya’s export terminal was said to need a week for repairs following an explosion. Brent and West Texas Intermediate crude futures both slipped after the US benchmark rose 2.7 percent, breaching $60 a barrel for the first time ...

Bloomberg Kuwait struck a 15-year deal with Royal Dutch Shell Plc for liquefied natural gas, locking in supplies as neighbours in the oil rich Gulf consider their own import strategies. The United Arab Emirates and Kuwait are the only importers of LNG in the region, with Bahrain joining the club in 2019. Saudi Arabia is looking at natural gas assets ...

Bloomberg Iraqi Oil Minister Jabar al-Luaibi said he was optimistic there would be a balance between supply and demand by the first quarter of 2018, leading to a boost in oil prices. Global oil inventories have decreased to an acceptable level and there were positive signs that oil market prices would improve significantly in 2018, Luaibi told journalists. A slight ...

Bloomberg Three years after causing an oil-price crash, the shale boom may not be enough to meet rising global demand because the industry has cut back so sharply on higher-risk mega-projects. Discoveries of new reserves were the fewest on record and replaced just 11 percent of what was produced, according to a Dec. 21 report by consultant Rystad Energy. While ...

Bloomberg Hyundai Heavy Industries Co., the world’s second-biggest shipbuilder, fell by a record following its plan to raise about $1.2 billion selling new shares for working capital. Hyundai Heavy intends to sell 12.5 million new shares before the end of March at an estimated price of 103,000 won each, a discount of about 24 percent to the closing level. The ...

Bloomberg Prosecutors asked a South Korean court to extend the prison term for Samsung Electronics heir-apparent Lee Jae-yong to 12 years, in an appeal of his five-year sentence for allegedly bribing his way to greater control of the country’s biggest company. Lee, 49, is the highest-profile business figure to be embroiled in an influence-peddling scandal that led to the ouster ...

Bloomberg From mobile phones to furniture, Vietnam’s export boom shows no signs of losing steam, defying a gloomy outlook at the beginning of the year when US President Donald Trump persisted with his trade threats. Furniture maker Xuan Hoa Viet Nam Co. is planning for a 20 percent increase in export orders next year by investing $3 million on equipment ...

Bloomberg Huawei Technologies Co., China’s biggest maker of smartphones, said the head of sales for its domestic consumer business has been detained in a corruption investigation. Police have taken immediate action on Teng Hongfei on “suspicion of taking bribes,” the Shenzhen-based company said. Teng ran Chinese consumer sales for the company, which over the past year rose to No 1 ...

Bloomberg Global investors are snapping up small-cap stocks in South Korea as they rotate out of big companies listed on the main Kospi index after 2017’s 20 percent rally and amid optimism about the government’s plan to stimulate the tech-savvy market next year. Foreigners bought $88 million of shares in the Kosdaq gauge, helping push up the index 3.9 percent. ...