Regional News

Bloomberg Saudi Arabia and Russia said they favour prolonging oil-output cuts by global producers through the end of the first quarter of 2018, setting a firmer timeframe for a likely extension of the curbs into next year. Crude prices jumped. Extending the curbs at already agreed-upon volumes is needed to reach the goal of reducing global inventories to the 5-year ...

SINGAPORE / Reuters The commercial start-up of Vietnam’s new $7.5 billion Nghi Son oil refinery will be delayed to 2018, from an initial expected start-up in the third quarter of this year, according to a notice on a government website. The 200,000 barrels-per-day (bpd) oil refinery is now planning to start commercial operations in the first quarter of 2018, according ...

Bloomberg Red tape, rising costs and declining crude prices are throttling exploration in Indonesia, the former OPEC member that now produces less oil than it uses. Only 20 percent of the 287 onshore rigs operated by contractors for local and foreign explorers are at work, compared with 60 percent in 2012, accor- ding to Wargono Soenarko, chairman of the Indonesian ...

Bloomberg India’s oil demand bounced back in April after falling for three consecutive months, recovering from the impact of the country’s move to withdraw high-value notes. Fuel consumption rose 3.3 percent to 16.79 million tons in April, according to the Oil Ministry’s Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell. Diesel use, which accounts for about 40 percent of the total fuel demand ...

Bloomberg America’s shale gas could soon head to China under long-term contracts for the first time, bolstered by a new trade deal that may not even change existing rules. Cheniere Energy Inc., the first exporter of natural gas from the lower 48 states, sees the agreement as “amplifying and accelerating conversations about new long-term contracts” with China, said Eben Burnham-Snyder, ...

MOSCOW / Reuters Russian state oil firm Rosneft is struggling to close its $12.9 billion acquisition of India’s Essar Oil Ltd because six of Essar’s Indian creditors have yet to approve the deal, sources close to the talks said. The state-run banks and financial institutions that are delaying Rosneft’s biggest foreign acquisition hold about $500 million of Essar’s debt, five ...

CAIRO / Reuters The International Monetary Fund said it had reached a staff-level agreement with Egypt on a second loan instalment that would make available about $1.25 billion. The IMF approved a $12-billion, three-year loan programme to Egypt in November and paid out $2.75 billion of the first $4 billion tranche of the loan. An IMF team was in Cairo ...

LONDON / Reuters Oil traders are snapping up options to protect against another steep price drop in case OPEC and its partners fail to deliver enough of a supply cut to satisfy investors of their commitment to tackle a three-year-old surplus of unused crude. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries meets on May 25 and will discuss extending its ...

DUBAI / Reuters Saudi Arabia’s Al Borg Medical Laboratories, one of the largest private medical laboratory chains in the Gulf, has agreed to buy the lab business of Anglo Arabian Healthcare, majority owned by Waha Capital, sources told Reuters. The two parties signed an agreement in December though a number of terms and conditions remain to be met before the ...

  LONDON / Reuters Royal Dutch Shell on Wednesday urged oil pricing agency S&P Global Platts to protect the dated Brent crude benchmark from declining North Sea supply by including other grades, such as Russian Urals, in its price-setting process. The suggestion marks a shift from two years ago when Shell said adding Urals would not be “worth the trouble”. ...