January, 2017

• 30 January

  Japan energy producers look to partnerships to tap $21 billion gas market

    Bloomberg In the increasingly competitive world of Japan’s energy market, there may be safety in numbers. Gas sellers from the nation’s smaller utilities to even its biggest oil refiner are considering clubbing together to get cheaper fuel from their suppliers and help them undercut competitors in the 2.4 trillion yen ($21 billion) retail gas market, which the country is ...

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• 30 January

  Aramco weighs $5bn of renewable deals

  

      Bloomberg Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest oil company, is considering as much as $5 billion of investments in renewable energy firms as part of plans to diversify from crude production, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Banks including HSBC Holdings Plc, JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Credit Suisse Group AG have been invited to pitch for ...

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• 30 January

  Lukoil seeks Middle East crude projects for growth as Iran opens

  

    Bloomberg Lukoil PJSC is seeking opportunities for growth in the Middle East as Iran opens more of its oil fields to international partners, according to the Russian energy company’s regional head. The Moscow-based company plans to add output from the region to existing operations in Iraq and Egypt as long as it finds projects with production costs as low ...

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• 30 January

  Saudi money supply growth picks up as economy strengthens

  

    Reuters Saudi Arabian money supply growth picked up in December in a sign that the economy is regaining strength after a slump last year caused by low oil prices and government austerity measures, central bank data showed on Sunday. Annual growth in M3 money supply, the broadest money supply measure, rose to 0.7 percent in December, its highest level ...

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• 30 January

  Toshiba looks to sell more assets after chips spinoff

  

    Bloomberg Toshiba Corp. is looking to sell more assets to repair a balance sheet facing multibillion-dollar writedowns. The conglomerate happens to have more than 600 different businesses, but raising cash from the firesale will be far from simple. While Toshiba’s two biggest enterprises are nuclear reactors and semiconductors, the Tokyo-based company also has its hands in a wide range ...

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• 30 January

  Philippines to see 6% growth expansion

    Bloomberg After years spent languishing behind its neighbors, the Philippines is finally catching up with its fellow Asian tiger economies as it posts some of the fastest growth rates in the world. With the World Bank forecasting expansion of more than 6 percent for eight years until 2019 — unparalleled in the nation’s history — the Philippines is mimicking ...

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• 30 January

  Alphabet’s Verily preps for China entry with Temasek funds

    Bloomberg Alphabet Inc.’s medical arm Verily Life Sciences LLC is getting a major influx of cash from a Singapore-based investment company, boosting the odds of taking their futuristic approach to healthcare into Asian markets. Temasek Holdings Pte Ltd, a state-owned firm, is investing $800 million in Verily, according to a statement from the company Thursday. In exchange, Temasek will ...

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• 30 January

  China cotton lust spurs fiber’s best rally in 6 months

  

    Bloomberg China’s voracious demand for cotton is sparking the fiber’s best rally in six months. Chinese buyers have committed to purchasing almost five times more American cotton than at this time last year, the US government said in a report this month. The price of the commodity is heading for its biggest monthly advance since July. Hedge funds are ...

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• 30 January

  Trump’s dangerous trade obsession

  

    Trade wars, encouraged by President Trump, are inching closer. The White House has rejected the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), an agreement involving 12 Asian-Pacific countries, including the United States, Japan, Malaysia and Vietnam. It is threatening to do the same with the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) by slapping a 20 percent duty on Mexican exports to the United ...

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• 30 January

  Google’s high-powered ad juggernaut has a weak spot

  

    It’s hard to quibble with the continued success of Google’s advertising business. Already the dominant company in the $200 billion annual market for web and mobile commercials, Google parent company Alphabet Inc. padded its advertising revenue by about $12 billion from 2015 to 2016. That means in a single year, Google found new business that was equivalent to half ...

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