Bloomberg Hedge funds have gone all-in on lower oil prices, counting on seasonal weakness to play out again this year. Money managers increased wagers on declining crude prices to a record as futures dropped to the lowest in more than three months. US crude inventories climbed for a second week as imports arrived at the fastest pace since 2012. ...

  Bloomberg Centrica Plc’s Rough, the UK’s largest natural gas storage facility 9,000 feet below the North Sea bed, unexpectedly closed for the summer and will probably remain unavailable for most of the winter. The shutdown whipsawed prices in Europe’s biggest market. Here’s what you should know. WHY DOES GAS STORAGE MATTER? Natural gas is used to heat more than ...

  Bloomberg Libya has started maintenance work at Es Sider port, the nation’s largest oil export terminal, as part of plans to increase output from Africa’s biggest holder of crude reserves. Exports should resume in a month once official orders are received to reopen the port, Galal Mohamed, head of operations at Waha Oil Co. , said in a phone ...

  AFP Imagine one of the largest solar farms ever at the site of the world’s worst man-made nuclear disaster that struck Chernobyl in modern-day Ukraine and sowed panic across Europe. That is the grand vision of Ukrainian Environment Minister Ostap Semerak, backed up by big-time investors such as the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). The Chernobyl catastrophe ...

  Beijing / AFP China’s economy, the world’s second largest, struggled in July with a worse-than-expected trade performance as imports plunged 12.5 percent year-on-year, Customs said. Imports fell to $132.4 billion, data showed, as weaker global commodity prices and lacklustre domestic demand weighed on purchases. The drop in imports was significantly larger than expectations for a 7.0 percent fall, the ...

  Bloomberg South Korea’s credit rating was increased one level by Standard & Poor’s, which cited the nation’s steady economic performance, sound fiscal position and flexible fiscal and monetary policies for the improvement. S&P said it raised the long-term credit rating for South Korea to AA from AA- with a stable outlook, the agency’s third-highest rating. This follows an upgrade ...

  Bloomberg There’s a river of steel flooding from China despite the best efforts of governments around the world to dam the flow from the top producer, with data on Monday showing that overseas shipments held above 10 million tons in July. Sales increased 5.8 percent on-year to 10.3 million metric tons last month, compared with 10.9 million tons in ...

  BLOOMBERG India said it could raise as much as a record 5.56 trillion rupees ($83 billion) by auctioning mobile-phone airwaves later this year, about four times last year’s proceeds. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government plans to sell spectrum across seven wavelengths starting Sept. 29, India’s telecom Secretary J.S. Deepak told reporters in New Delhi on Monday. The estimates of ...

  AFP China’s wall of cotton is coming down. Once the world’s biggest grower of the crop, the country lost that crown to India in the season that just ended in July after depressed prices discouraged plantings. China’s sowings are set to drop again in the 12 months that started on Aug. 1, with harvested acres poised for the lowest ...

  Bloomberg British Columbia’s decision to impose a 15 percent tax on foreign buyers to cool Vancouver’s scorching housing market is poised to derail more than 400 deals worth millions of dollars and may prompt calls for legal action. At least 427 deals are likely to collapse due to the new measure, according to Dan Morrison, president of the Real ...