News

HOUSTON / DUBAI / Reuters As Venezuela’s dilapidated energy sector struggles to pump enough crude oil to meet the country’s OPEC output target, rival producers within the exporters group have started to plug the gap, OPEC and industry sources said. The South American country’s oil output hit a 28-year low in October as state-owned oil giant PDVSA struggled to find ...

Bloomberg A bid for Santos Ltd. may trigger counter offers for the Australian oil and gas producer that has stakes in some of the world’s cheapest liquefied natural gas. The Adelaide-based company surged the most in a year after saying it received and rejected a A$9.5 billion ($7.2 billion) takeover approach from Harbour Energy Ltd. led by former Royal Dutch ...

Bloomberg Mexico is scouring the earth to stock up on diesel fuel before market-liberalization measures take effect. Petroleos Mexicanos, the country’s state-run oil company, has been on a buying spree of about a tanker load of diesel a day from the US alone this year and recently purchased it as far afield as the United Arab Emirates and China. Mexico ...

Bloomberg Oil held near $56 a barrel as markets digested political uncertainty from Germany to the Middle East and anticipation about OPEC’s next move kept traders on the defensive. Futures slipped as much as 1.7 percent in New York after rising 2.6 percent. In Germany, the breakdown of talks to form a new government coalition raised questions about the future ...

Bloomberg Mom-and-pop investors haven’t been this crazy for Hong Kong initial public offerings since 2009. Hong Kong retail stock buyers placed orders for $163 billion worth of equity in this year’s major deals, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That’s equal to more than three quarters of the territory’s monetary base. The most popular was China Literature Ltd., a local ...

Bloomberg Reliance Communications (RCom) Ltd., the Indian mobile phone operator that defaulted on dollar bonds in the highest-profile debt failure since the country’s new bankruptcy code was passed, faces risks of insolvency if it can’t sell its assets at high enough valuations, according to SC Lowy Financial HK Ltd. “We think the valuations they have provided are optimistic,” said Mihir ...

Bloomberg Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has invited Chinese companies to take a role in the country’s wireless communications industry to add a third carrier to compete with PLDT Inc. and Globe Telecom Inc. Duterte offered China the right to operate in the Philippines during his bilateral talks with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, Duterte spokesman Harry Roque told reporters in Manila ...

Bloomberg Singapore’s beleaguered rail system can’t catch a break. Days after a software glitch caused a train collision that injured more than 30 people, lightning struck a train on the same line. Literally. A mass rapid transit train on the East-West Line was struck by lightning on Monday afternoon, causing delays in journey times, The Straits Times reported. The lightning ...

Bloomberg Britain’s productivity malaise may find a solution from the unlikeliest of places—Brexit. Poor productivity has long been the bane of the UK, with output per worker far below the Group-of-Seven average and successive predictions for a recovery since the financial crisis failing to materialise. Still, according to UBS Wealth Management economist Dean Turner, Britain’s exit from the European Union ...

Bloomberg Qualcomm Inc. investors want at least $10 more than the $70-a-share Broadcom Ltd. is offering. If history is any guide, they might get partway there. “We would be very interested in evaluating an offer that begins with an 8,” said Daniel O’Keefe, a fund manager of the $3.1 billion Artisan Global Value Fund, which owns Qualcomm stock. The board ...