Bloomberg Utility earnings are belying the slowdown in the USA oil patch. Power suppliers are reporting increasing sales to oil and natural gas companies, even in the midst of an unprecedented drop in exploration. FirstEnergy Corp., Entergy Corp. and American Electric Power Co. Inc. have all said their revenue from energy customers such as pipeline operators and fuel manufacturers is ...

Bloomberg Russia’s Rosneft OJSC agreed to pay $500 million to Petroleos de Venezuela SA to increase its stake in their Petromonagas crude-processing joint venture. The deal will increase Rosneft’s stake in the upgrader that converts heavy oil into synthetic crude to 40 percent, PDVSA, as the Venezuelan state-owned company is known, said in an e-mailed statement, confirming earlier comments by ...

Bloomberg Venezuela’s state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA is said to be looking into leasing the Aruba refinery, where it would ship tar-like oil to be upgraded into higher value synthetic crude rather than produce fuels like gasoline. PDVSA, through its U.S. subsidiary Citgo Petroleum Corp., is in talks with the Aruba government to lease the refinery, according to ...

Bloomberg SunEdison Inc.is burning through its cash. The world’s biggest clean-power developer was expected to have about $1.2 billion at the start of the year, an amount that may drop to $270 million if a pending court case doesn’t go its way, according to an estimate by Patrick Jobin, an analyst at Credit Suisse Group AG. The company spent billions ...

Bloomberg American International Group Inc. suffered losses last year in investment portfolios tied to death-benefits bets and energy bonds. Impairments on so-called life settlements surged to $540 million in 2015 from $201 million a year earlier, according to a regulatory filing. The contracts involve insurance policies that are purchased on the secondary market; AIG pays premiums until the covered person ...

Beijing / Bloomberg The head of China’s securities regulator has been removed from his post after last year’s $5 trillion stock-market bust, an unprecedented government rescue and a renewed crisis as plunging Chinese equities last month reverberated around the world. Xiao Gang, 57, a former head of Bank of China Ltd., had been chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission ...

MADRID / AFP Six officials of Chinese megabank ICBC have been placed in detention by Spanish authorities on suspicion of laundering tens of millions of euros, judicial sources said. They were detained overnight and while three of them can be freed if they post bail of 100,000 euros ($111,000) each, the others will remain in custody for the time being, ...

New Delhi / AP The yen rose, posting its longest run of weekly gains since September, as investors look past signs of improvement in the US economy and instead channeled their cash into haven assets. Japan’s currency strengthened against all its 16 major peers even after a U.S. report showed inflation rose the most in more than four years last ...

New Delhi / Bloomberg India’s government will provide 40 billion rupees ($580 million) to upgrade the infrastructure of the first 20 cities selected under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s smart cities program, according to a statement from the Ministry of Urban Development on Saturday. Six cities — Jabalpur, Indore and Bhopal in the central state of Madhya Pradesh, and Jaipur and ...

Tokyo / Bloomberg Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said that he’s not considering a snap general election this summer to coincide with a scheduled upper house poll, and that he has no intention of delaying a planned increase in the nation’s consumption tax. Speaking in an interview on Nippon Hoso radio, Abe said he would raise the levy to 10 ...