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Bloomberg Oil held gains near $51 a barrel as OPEC Secretary-General Mohammad Barkindo reiterated a rapid market re-balancing is under way, and as US production was again disrupted by a storm. Futures added 0.8 percent in New York after advancing 3.3 percent in the previous two sessions. The global economic recovery has gained traction and oil de-stocking gathered momentum over ...

Bloomberg South Africa plans to engage with traders who acquired strategic oil reserves two years ago, even as it prepares legal action to try to cancel the deal. The Strategic Fuel Fund, responsible for managing the reserves, sold 10 million barrels of oil in December 2015 to Taleveras Group and joint ventures of Vitol Group and Glencore Plc. A probe ...

Bloomberg Italy is looking to shed its status as one of Europe’s most expensive gas markets, but the way it plans to do so has riled traders. Lawmakers will likely discuss a proposed national energy strategy that would overhaul the country’s gas sector and may cut prices by 5 percent. Economic Development Minister Carlo Calenda seeks to turn the plan, ...

SINGAPORE / Reuters Spot prices for October-loading Iraqi Basra Light crude in Asia have slipped to discounts against its official selling price and could stay weak for another month after the producer did not cut prices for November, four trade sources said. Iraq kept the November official selling price for Basra Light to Asia unchanged even as Saudi Arabia trimmed ...

ALGIERSE / Reuters Algeria’s state energy company Sonatrach is facing difficulties meeting clients’ demands for gas exports, its chief executive said, citing unwieldy beaucracy and the need to attract more foreign expertise. Sonatrach, Algeria’s cash cow and a major gas supplier to Europe, has been shaken by corruption scandals, the frequent departure of top executives and bureaucratic inefficiencies that have ...

Bloomberg Steel demand in India is gathering speed amid an infrastructure building boom that’s set to more than double capacity of the nation’s mills, according to the government. “We’re expecting domestic consumption to accelerate in the decade between 2020-2030,” Steel Secretary Aruna Sharma said in New Delhi. Annual capacity stands at 126 million metric tons and is forecast to rise ...

Bloomberg Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. will more than double research and development spending to $15 billion over the next three years to develop next-generation technology, drive its sprawling business and explore moonshot projects that could upend industries. The e-commerce giant plans to set up seven research labs and hire 100 scientists around the world to delve into artificial intelligence, the ...

Bloomberg When Infosys set out to remake its internal training programme, instructors visited flight schools to see how professional pilots are taught to deal with fast-changing situations. That led India’s outsourcing giant to model classes on flight simulators that teach recruits to work faster, think for themselves and anticipate corporate customers’ needs. They’re put through multiple scenarios, and no two ...

Bloomberg Coal India Ltd. signed an agreement with workers unions to raise salaries of its non-executive staff, ending months of negotiations over the increase that affects pay until 2021. The state-run miner will incur an average annual cost of $868 million because of the rise, it said in a stock exchange filing. The increase will be effective for five years ...

Bloomberg At the height of the dot-com bubble in late 1999 and early 2000, Masayoshi Son’s net worth was surging by $10 billion a week. For three days, he was the richest person in the world, Son said. But before Son had a chance to tell anyone, SoftBank Group Corp. crashed. The company’s shares plunged 75 percent in two months ...