MANAMA / Reuters A new discovery off the coast of Bahrain is estimated to contain at least 80 billion barrels of tight oil, the kingdom’s biggest ever find, Bahrain’s oil minister said. Bahrain said it had discovered extensive tight oil and deep gas resources off the west coast of the kingdom. Independent appraisals by US-based oil consultants DeGolyer and MacNaughton …

Reuters Italian energy group Edison, part of French utility EDF, is preparing the sale of its oil and gas unit, the latest power producer to abandon fossil fuels to focus on its retail business, four industry sources said. Edison has selected investment banks Rothschild and Perella Weinberg to organise an auction for the exploration and production division, which could be …

TOKYO / Reuters The Bank of Japan (BOJ) bought the largest amount of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) on record in March as the central bank supported a market hit by a rising yen and fears of a global trade war. The central bank, which usually buys ETFs to support the market when shares fall in morning trade, said it bought a …

BRUSSELS / Reuters An early Easter helped drive a pick-up in euro zone inflation in March, keeping the European Central Bank on track with preparations to wind down its huge stimulus programme in coming months. Inflation in the 19 countries sharing the euro was 1.4 percent year-on-year, European Union statistics office Eurostat estimated on Wednesday — in line with market …

Bloomberg Oman has the means to maintain its currency peg and has no plans to change it even though the decline in oil prices has hurt its finances, central bank Governor Tahir Al Amri said. Oman’s gross foreign currency reserves, which stood at $19.6 billion at the end of January, are enough to cover nearly nine months’ worth of imports, …

BUCHAREST / Reuters Romania’s central bank kept its benchmark interest rate on hold at 2.25 percent on Wednesday, it said, likely waiting to assess the impact of two consecutive hikes it delivered earlier this year on rising inflation. Nine of ten analysts polled by Reuters last month had expected the bank to hike interest rates by a quarter point. A …

Bloomberg India’s government kicked off a party in the bond market last week. And the central bank won’t want to spoil that. While Governor Urjit Patel and his monetary policy committee have turned more hawkish on inflation recently, they are set to hold the benchmark interest rate at 6 percent, according to all 26 economists in a Bloomberg survey. That …

Bloomberg Deutsche Bank AG needs to scale back its US operations and focus on serving European companies to unlock capital and improve returns, according to analysts at JPMorgan Chase & Co. The US business “consumes material balance sheet resources” while suffering from “persistently low profitability,” Kian Abouhossein and Amit Ranjan wrote in a note to clients on Wednesday. The alternative …

Bloomberg Boeing Co., the biggest US exporter, suffered a setback in China after the country proposed an additional 25 percent tariff on US aircraft in a retaliatory move, giving rival Airbus SE a leg-up in a market set to the become the world’s biggest. In a tit-for-tat response to tariffs by President Donald Trump, China announced the planned levy on …

Bloomberg Hershey Co. is spending $500 million in the hopes of producing its iconic chocolate Kisses from more sustainable cocoa. Through its so-called Cocoa for Good programme, the company will invest the funds through 2030 to support four key areas: nourishing children, empowering youth, building prosperous communities and preserving natural ecosystems. The initiative’s goals include eliminating child labor and increasing …