Bloomberg The stage has been set for a European natural gas price war that will help boost demand and enable both Russia and the US to increase sales to the region. The battle won’t brutalize earnings too much because gas supply is just so profitable in Europe, where prices are more than double the prevailing level in the US. And ...
Read More »Venezuelan oil finds home in India amid US curbs
Bloomberg India is feasting on Venezuelan oil, after the US imposed a de facto ban on crude imports from the Latin American nation. While flows to the US came to a halt, India became the No. 1 buyer of Venezuelan crude in the first half of February, with imports jumping 66 percent to 620,000 barrels a day. Indian refiners Reliance ...
Read More »Berkshire wades into Canadian oil industry
Bloomberg Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. is wading into the struggling Canadian energy industry, taking a stake in oil-sands producer Suncor Energy Inc. The purchase of 10.8 million shares, disclosed in a filing, was valued at $300.9 million. That marks at least the second time the Omaha-based firm has owned Suncor’s stock; Berkshire previously held a 22.3 million-share stake, which ...
Read More »Saudi signs $20bn deals with Pakistan
Bloomberg Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said his country plans to invest a whopping $20 billion in Pakistan as he began a swing through Asia at a time when Saudi Arabia’s ties with the west have waned. The two nations signed memorandums of understanding in the energy and agriculture sectors, including one for a $10 billion oil refinery in southwestern ...
Read More »Thailand GDP grows faster in fourth quarter
Bloomberg Thailand’s economy grew at a faster pace in the fourth quarter than the previous three months, as local demand helped to offset a slide in exports. Gross domestic product rose 3.7 percent from a year ago, up from a revised 3.2 percent in the third quarter, the National Economic and Social Development Council said on Monday. The median estimate ...
Read More »Singapore boosts spending, curbs foreign-worker rules
Bloomberg Singapore will boost spending on health care for its aging population, give some citizens a tax rebate and tighten restrictions on foreign workers ahead of an election that could come as early as this year. The government is projecting an overall budget deficit of 0.7 percent of gross domestic product in the year ending March 2020, compared with a ...
Read More »China plans to build first power station in space
Bloomberg China’s space ambitions are shifting into a higher orbit. Following its successful and world-beating trip to the far side of the moon, China is preparing to build a solar power station in space, as the world’s No. 2 economy strives to burnish its superpower credentials. With an $8 billion annual budget for its space program, second only to the ...
Read More »Indian tycoon accuses brother, ‘guru’ of fraud
Bloomberg Former Indian billionaire Malvinder Singh has filed a criminal complaint accusing his younger brother of siphoning funds from their family holding company and fraudulently diverting them to a renowned spiritual guru, the latest twist in the unraveling of a $2 billion empire. Shivinder Singh allegedly directed the holding company to acquire debt-ridden firms which collectively lent 10 billion rupees ...
Read More »India’s rupee goes from first to last
Bloomberg India’s rupee has gone from being the best-performing Asian currency last quarter to the worst this year as rising crude prices and tensions over Kashmir weigh on sentiment. The currency has slumped 2.4 percent since the end of December, missing the rally in its regional peers on optimism over US-China trade talks. It slid to 71.515 per dollar on ...
Read More »Germany bans Wirecard short sales in unprecedented move
Bloomberg Germany’s financial regulator took the unprecedented step of banning short sales of Wirecard AG shares for two months, saying recent price volatility risks undermining the broader stock market. The shares surged. Investors globally are prohibited with immediate effect from taking new short positions or increasing existing ones through April 18, according to watchdog BaFin. That’s the first time it ...
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