December, 2019

• 9 December

  Tullow oil plunges again on worse forecast for 2020

  

  Bloomberg Tullow Oil Plc shares had their biggest ever drop after a forecast for 2020 production that analysts said leaves dark clouds hanging over the company’s outlook. The stock sank as much as 62% after London-based Tullow also said it would suspend dividend payments, while its chief executive officer and exploration director are to leave. It’s the second plunge in ...

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• 9 December

  PG&E soars on $13.5b deal with fire victims

  Bloomberg PG&E Corp surged to a two-month high after reaching a $13.5 billion settlement with the victims of wildfires ignited by its power lines — a major step towards resolving the biggest utility bankruptcy in US history. The agreement, will cover claims stemming from some of the worst blazes to ever hit Northern California, including the 2017 wine country and ...

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• 9 December

  China sets up national pipeline firm in major energy revamp

  

  Bloomberg China announced the creation of its long-planned national oil and gas pipeline company, officially kicking off one of its biggest energy revamps aimed at helping supply keep pace with swelling demand. The move marks a “key step” in China’s efforts to deepen reforms of its oil and gas sector, the official Xinhua News Agency said. The government will merge ...

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• 9 December

  Eskom warns of more blackouts in S Africa

  

  Bloomberg South Africa’s struggling power utility warned rolling blackouts may continue throughout the week as electricity cuts extended to a fifth day. Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd announced it will cut 4,000 megawatts from the grid on Monday, double the initial prognosis, after losing additional generating units at its power stations. While most of the utility’s problems emanate from plant failures, ...

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• 9 December

  Climate change hangs over China’s embrace of markets

  

  For all the good intentions of the governments gathered in Madrid, a humbling reality hangs over the latest climate change conference. The effectiveness of what is agreed and done will ultimately stand or fall on the actions of just one country: China. It was the rise of China and to a lesser extent India, with their associated energy demands, that ...

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• 9 December

  It’s not easy being a green oil firm

  

  The oil industry knows the dirty business of extracting fossil fuels is likely to gush cash for the foreseeable future. But it also knows it needs to be a central part of the solution to the climate crisis. Trying to keep both ideas in mind, Repsol SA made an eye-catching commitment: to become carbon neutral by 2050. Unfortunately, achieving that ...

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• 9 December

  Uber’s assault report erodes power of trust

  What to make of the alarming data on assaults, murders and other unsafe incidents reported by Uber Technologies Inc.? More than 3,000 assault allegations were made in 2018 by Uber drivers and passengers in the US, the company said in a first-of-its-kind safety report. We can’t know from the data if Uber is statistically safer than other forms of transportation, ...

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• 9 December

  Singapore keeps building until buyers are coming

  You’ll build and they’ll come? Well, don’t bet on it. That’s what Singapore’s authorities seem to be telling property developers, who are flooding the market with new homes. The builders themselves are getting nervous about the glut. But everyone — the prospective homeowner, the seller and the government — is actually lucky. A minor bubble got pricked in time, with ...

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• 9 December

  The US economy keeps defying recession odds

  

  It’s impressive how well the US economy has held up during the past year. As early as 2018, leading indicators were suggesting a heightened risk of recession in 2019 or 2020. Then early this year the yield curve inverted, a traditional signal that recession is imminent (the inversion has since reversed, but this typically happens before growth actually goes negative). ...

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• 9 December

  Time to stop taking investors hostage

  

  More than three years after the Brexit referendum left investors with $23 billion trapped in seven UK real estate funds, holders of another property portfolio have discovered that when their right to daily redemptions meets the reality of hard-to-sell assets, their money can become a hostage to illiquidity. M&G Plc last week said it’s freezing a 2.5 billion-pound ($3.3 billion) ...

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