January, 2018

• 27 January

  Clever apps that help in breaking many of your worst habits

  

  Bloomberg After Erin Hiscock’s mother and brother passed away, she resolved to tackle her own weight problem. “I was maybe 310 pounds at my heaviest and severely addicted to sugar,” she says. “Instead of a normal meal, I’d just eat carbs, sugar, nothing nutritious.” Hiscock, a 35-year insurance agent in Virginia, didn’t turn to diet books, Weight Watchers, or even …

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• 27 January

  Aramco swapping Saudi oil for fuel to tap new markets

  

  Bloomberg Saudi Aramco’s trading unit started swapping the kingdom’s crude oil for products refined in other countries, allowing the company to tap new markets, according to its chief executive officer. The company has supplied crude to refiners in the Mediterranean region and gotten fuel in return, Ibrahim Al-Buainain, chief executive officer of Saudi Aramco Products Trading Co., said by phone. …

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• 27 January

  US: Shale won’t be oil market ‘spoiler’

  

  DAVOS / Reuters US Energy Secretary Rick Perry told oil super-powers Russia and Saudi Arabia he believed US shale oil boom would not become a spoiler for oil markets because new production would be absorbed by fast rising global demand. Perry, a former governor of Texas, the heartland of the US shale oil boom, was speaking at a rare joint …

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• 27 January

  Russia remains China’s top oil supplier

  

  BEIJING / Reuters Russia held firm as China’s top crude oil supplier in December for the 10th month and racked up its second year as the largest supplier in 2017, customs data showed, leaving rival exporter Saudi Arabia in second place on both fronts. Exports from Russia hit 5.03 million tonnes in December, down 0.2 percent from a year earlier, …

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• 27 January

  Weakening dollar helps propel oil to 3-year high

  Bloomberg Oil just got an extra tailwind from a weakening dollar as this month is shaping up to be the best January for black gold in 12 years. That’s because when the greenback is losing value, investors tend to flock to commodities as a store of value, and this is coming on the back of a record streak of declines …

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• 27 January

  Kuwait cuts oil, gas output target

  

  Bloomberg Kuwait Foreign Petroleum Exploration Co. reduced its output target for oil and natural gas due to the drop in crude prices that started in 2014, Chief Executive Officer Sheikh Nawaf Saud Al-Sabah said. Kufpec, a unit of state-run Kuwait Petroleum Corp., revised its production goal for 2020 to 150,000 barrels a day of oil equivalent from 200,000 barrels a …

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• 27 January

  Genel Energy expects drop in production for third year

  

  Bloomberg Iraqi Kurdistan-focussed Genel Energy expects oil and gas production to fall for a third year in 2018, it said, as it shifts its focus to two new gas fields. The decline in production is due to a continuing slide in output from the Taq Taq field, once considered Genel’s flagship field, after the well hit water in 2016. Genel’s …

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• 27 January

  Banks prepare for battle as Europe plans rules to cut risk

  

  Bloomberg European banks may have scored a victory in having the Basel III capital standards toned down, but that doesn’t mean they can rest on their laurels. There are more battles to come in 2018, in particular lobbying lawmakers on a series of measures designed to reduce risk in the system. The regulations are deemed a vital step towards the …

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• 27 January

  IFSB to develop detailed guidance on safety nets in Islamic finance

  

  SYDNEY/ Reuters The Islamic Financial Services Board (IFSB) plans to develop more detailed guidance on financial safety nets to help harmonise Islamic principles with existing legal systems, as the industry body strengthens ties with financial regulators. The Malaysia-based IFSB, one of the main standard-setting bodies in Islamic finance, is seeking to shed light on issues relating to sharia-compliant transactions in …

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• 27 January

  ‘Bitcoin ban by banks not surprising’

  

  Bloomberg As Nordea Bank AB’s Bitcoin ban for staff has unions questioning the legality of the move, Sweden’s minister in charge of financial legislation says it’s understandable that the industry is resorting to such measures. “If banks have rules on what investments they or their employees are trading in, it is up to them,” Financial Markets Minister Per Bolund told …

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