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Paris / Bloomberg Equate Petrochemicals, a joint venture between US-based Dow Chemical and the Kuwaiti government, has commissioned a $70m carbon dioxide plant in Kuwait. The carbon dioxide-recovery facility has a capacity of 280 tonnes a day. The gas will be produced by existing Equate petrochemicals plants. It will filter and purify the carbon dioxide, then liquefy it, making it ...

Bloomberg Crude extended gains after industry data showed U.S. inventories declined, while Iran cautiously supported a proposal by Saudi Arabia and Russia to freeze production at near-record levels. Oil rose as much as 4.3 percent in New York. U.S. crude supplies fell by 3.26 million barrels last week, the industry- funded American Petroleum Institute was said to report Wednesday. However, ...

Beijing / AFP Prada’s annual sales were broadly flat for a second consecutive year in 2015 as the slowdown in China continued to weigh on the high fashion and luxury goods brand. Weak sales in Asia Pacific outside of Japan and in the United States failed to offset an improved picture in Europe, where the weak euro bolstered sales to ...

Tokyo / Bloomberg Japan Airlines Co. expects operating profit of at least 200 billion yen ($1.8 billion) in the financial year that begins in April, according to two people familiar with the situation. The profit forecast compares with 204 billion yen in operating profit expected in the fiscal year that ends in March. The country’s second-largest airline will update its ...

Cape Town / Bloomberg South African Airways (SAA) will cancel a code- sharing agreement with Etihad Airways PJSC as the unprofitable carrier prepares to end direct flights between its home base in Johannesburg and Abu Dhabi, less than a year after introducing the route. SAA and Etihad signed a route-sharing partnership in May 2013 before expanding the alliance with additional ...

Bloomberg Airlines are extending leases on gas- guzzling four-engine planes on a bet that fuel prices will stay low for as long as the next three years, the world’s biggest airplane lessor said on Thursday. “We’re getting a boost we did not think we would get,” AerCap Holdings NV Chief Executive Officer Aengus Kelly said in an interview on Thursday ...

Canberra / Bloomberg It’s tough to overstate the tide of troubles that faced Alan Joyce, the chief executive officer of Qantas Airways Ltd., just two years ago. Losses had ballooned amid a capacity war with Virgin Australia Holdings Ltd. and its foreign backers. Australia’s government wouldn’t guarantee Qantas’s debt, which was junk- rated at the time. The airline’s share price ...

ABU DHABI / WAM The UAE Ministry of Economy has said that the value of the UAE’s non-oil foreign trade reached AED1.75 trillion (US$476.4 billion) in 2015, a growth of up to 10 percent from 2014, according to its report. The figures in the first half of 2015 are positive indicators for the UAE’s foreign trade, including direct trade. In ...

Tehran / AFP Iran’s Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh said on Wednesday his country supported steps taken by other major producers that could stabilise the market and lead to price hikes for crude. But after a meeting with his Iraqi, Venezuelan and Qatari counterparts in Tehran, a day after Saudi Arabia, Russia and several other big producers agreed to freeze output, ...

Dubai / WAM The future of energy, especially in the current climate of oil price volatility, begins now, and oil producing nations must focus on strengthening the efficiency of their operations and commence energy diversification measures, said experts discussing the ‘Future Energy – After the Oil Age’ at the first Commonwealth of Independent States Global Business Forum 2016 in Dubai. ...