DUBAI / WAM HH Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, Chairman of the Dubai Supreme Council of Energy, has directed all district cooling companies to reduce the fuel surcharge for electricity from 6.5 to 5 fils for kilowatt hour and for water from 0.6 to 0.4 fils for Imperial Gallon, and to fully implement this reduction in their customers’ bills ...

Bloomberg The Finance Ministry of the world’s biggest energy exporter has started preparing for the possibility of lower budget revenues in case global oil demand declines sooner than expected. “The peak of consumption may have already passed,” Deputy Finance Minister Vladimir Kolychev said in an interview in Moscow. “The risk is rising in the longer term” that hydrocarbon revenues could ...

Bloomberg HitecVision is emerging as the frontrunner to acquire Exxon Mobil Corp’s oil assets in the UK North Sea, according to people familiar with the matter. The private equity firm is in advanced talks with Exxon about a potential deal, the people said, asking not to be identified discussing confidential information. A sale could fetch around $1 billion for Exxon, ...

Bloomberg UK power prices rose to a four-year high after the UK grid operator warned that its safety buffer of supplies was almost eroded for Sunday. National Grid Plc said it’s “monitoring the situation closely” in a warning published on Twitter. The network operator stopped short of issuing an official alert called an Electricity Margin Notice, which is published when ...

Presidential transitions, even when they are less fraught than this one, prompt more apprehension among America’s allies than among its enemies. This is especially true of the British. The British government is exerting itself to show the incoming Joe Biden administration that the UK remains a useful ally. Last month, Prime Minister Boris Johnson agreed to a remarkably generous supplementary ...

The presidential election seemed to mark a revival in American civic engagement. A record two-thirds of the electorate voted. Candidates raised at least $3 billion in small-dollar donations, and historic get-out-the-vote efforts had an impact in Nevada, Georgia and elsewhere. Yet large numbers of Americans appear to believe President Donald Trump’s baseless charges of election fraud. Civic life and discourse ...

Emerging from nearly a year of battling an economy dragged down by Covid-19 and a rickety financial system, Beijing is realising what the most important collateral damage has been: consumers. Without their wallets and balance sheets, China’s economic blueprint for the next five years won’t work. That explains why authorities have been talking up consumer protection, household leverage and the ...

President-elect Joe Biden has pledged to end many of Trump’s harsh new immigration policies. But his choice of Alejandro Mayorkas to lead his Department of Homeland Security indicates the new administration won’t be embracing open borders, or even crafting especially welcoming policies towards migrants arriving over the Mexican border. President Donald Trump’s harsh treatment of immigrants was one of the ...

Bloomberg Southwest Airlines dramatically expanded its furlough warnings, telling employees that 6,828 jobs are at risk as the company and its labour unions have failed so far to agree on how to cut $500 million in costs. Pilots, flight attendants, baggage handlers and other workers got notices that they may be furloughed, Southwest said. The new warnings boost the number ...

Bloomberg Deutsche Lufthansa AG will expand its Christmas flight schedule after a surge in bookings from German tourists, a rare piece of good news for the carrier as it battles to recover from the coronavirus crisis. Lufthansa will add flights to southern European destinations including in Greece, Italy and Spain to meet the rising demand, the company said in a ...