July, 2017

• 16 July

  First phase of Saudi energy industrial city to be complete in 2021

  

  KHOBAR / Reuters State oil firm Saudi Aramco said the first phase of a new Energy Industrial City in Saudi Arabia will be completed in 2021. Last week, the Saudi government said it approved Saudi Aramco’s plans to set up two new companies that will develop and operate the new Energy Industrial City as the kingdom seeks to expand its ...

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• 16 July

  A solar eclipse can wipe out 9,000 MW power supplies

  

  Bloomberg The eclipse set to darken skies next month threatens to sideline solar farms and rooftop panels in a wide swath of the US, wiping out enough power generation to supply about 7 million homes. This rare event, during which the moon will completely obscure the sun, will cast a shadow along a 70-mile-wide (113-kilometer) corridor stretching from Oregon to ...

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• 16 July

  Texas oil market with spare pipeline space shrugs off shutdown

  Bloomberg Oil markets shrugged off a spill that shut a pipeline crossing Texas, signaling no immediate shortage of space to haul crude from the region’s prolific Permian Basin to Houston-area refineries. The 1,200-barrel release on Magellan Midstream Partners LP’s 275,000 barrel-a-day Longhorn system near Austin started after a contractor struck the pipeline while doing maintenance, according to a company statement. ...

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• 16 July

  Cash from shale without a dime spent on drilling

  

  Bloomberg Bob Ravnaas raised a paddle in a Houston auction house to secure his first block of mineral rights 19 years ago, when oil prices were swooning below $20 a barrel. A generation later, that same West Texas oilfield is still spinning off royalties, part of a mineral-rights empire amassed by Ravnaas that stretches across 20 states and delivers millions ...

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• 16 July

  Canadian oil patch loses Loonie’s cushion

  Bloomberg Add costlier debt and thinner profit margins to the list of woes for Canada’s oil patch. The Bank of Canada’s decision to increase its benchmark interest rate by a quarter point to 0.75 percent will raise borrowing costs for oil producers already grappling with prices stuck near $45 a barrel. The rate hike also sent the Canadian dollar to ...

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• 16 July

  China’s clean up pits old economy against new

  

  Bloomberg Xie Shuijuan, a lifelong textile seller in Shaoxing, eastern China, says a clampdown by zealous officials on pollution caused by the local dyeing industry has boosted prices, squeezed her margins, and bankrupted some of her friends. Yet she’s not opposed. “This river used to smell in the summer and garbage floated on the surface,” Xie said, sitting in her ...

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• 16 July

  Chinese investors buy Kyoto luxury sports car maker in EV deal

  

  Bloomberg China’s drive to dominate the electric-vehicle market has claimed another overseas target. When Japanese electric-vehicle startup GLM Co. needed more funding to put its high-end sports car into production, domestic backers couldn’t muster the financing. The search for an investor ended this week, when a Hong Kong-based investment company called O Luxe Holdings agreed to purchase the firm for ...

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• 16 July

  Toshiba to hold chip unit deal until court hearing

  

  Bloomberg Toshiba Corp., whose sale of its chip unit is being challenged in court by manufacturing partner Western Digital Corp., agreed to hold off closing the deal until a hearing on July 28. Toshiba will proceed with negotiations and contract signing in the meantime, the Tokyo-based company said in a statement. The two companies were in court in the US ...

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• 16 July

  Beijing keeps deals coming to sustain Trump’s focus on trade discussions

  Bloomberg Chinese officials and executives have been roaming the farmland of Iowa and doing what might appeal to US President Donald Trump most: deals. Contracts signed— for the import of 12.5 million tons of US soybeans and tons of beef — can be seen as another result of the renewed economic-diplomacy push started by Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping ...

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• 16 July

  UK’s worst property market Aberdeen braces for Brexit

  

  Bloomberg First it was the collapsing oil price. Now it’s Britain’s quest to leave the European Union. There’s little respite for the country’s worst-performing property market. Home prices in Aberdeen, Britain’s oil hub on Scotland’s northeast coast, have fallen more than 10 percent over the past three years as the North Sea energy industry slumped. Now it’s the political backdrop ...

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