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DUBAI / Reuters Oman’s state budget for 2018, approved by ruler Sultan Qaboos, boosts spending at the expense of running a large deficit, despite increasing concern among credit rating agencies about the health of the country’s finances. The budget projects spending of 12.5 billion rials ($32.5 billion) this year, up from 11.7 billion in the original budget for 2017, local ...

CHONGQING / Reuters China plans to launch a natural gas exchange in Chongqing in early 2018, aiming to create an Asian price benchmark as the nation’s use of the fuel surges amid its shift away from coal. China is the world’s third-biggest consumer of natural gas behind the United States and Russia. An exchange in its fast-growing market would be ...

Bloomberg Norway is realising it will have to do without the deep pockets of the biggest oil companies as it seeks to extend an era that has made it one of the world’s richest countries. The most recent blow came when only 11 companies applied for new blocks in the Arctic Barents Sea, touted as the country’s most promising area ...

BENGHAZI / Reuters Libya’s Arabian Gulf Oil Company (AGOCO) is hoping to resolve power problems by the end of March that are keeping production well below potential, its chairman said. In recent weeks, AGOCO’s production has been fluctuating between around 150,000 and 230,000 barrels per day (bpd), according to an oil source who asked not to be named. Production stood ...

Bloomberg Third time’s the charm, but not for Korea’s largest carmaking group. Hyundai Motor Co. and affiliate Kia Motors Corp. said they sold 7.25 million autos in 2017, a million short of the companies’ joint target and missing forecasts for the third consecutive year. Deliveries fell to the lowest level since 2012. The group is forecasting a 4.1 percent increase ...

Bloomberg China’s will end the production of 553 passenger-car models that don’t meet fuel-consumption limits amid efforts by the nation to curb pollution. The halt in production was expected to begin on January 1, the China Vehicle Technology Service Center said in a statement Thursday. Models include FAW VW’s Audi FV7145LCDBG sedan, Beijing Benz’s Benz BJ7302ETAL2 sedan and Shanghai GM’s ...

Bloomberg India is adding the least amount of coal-fired power in more than a decade as tepid demand from indebted state retailers fails to utilise the nation’s existing generation capacity. Coal-fired capacity, which accounts for more than three quarters of the nation’s electricity, rose by 809 megawatts during the April-November period, according to Bloomberg calculations based on the latest available ...

Bloomberg As automakers seal their first annual US sales decline since 2009, expectations for more interest-rate hikes are bolstering the nearly unanimous view that car demand will shrink again in 2018. Few analysts anticipate sales this year will reach 17 million vehicles, which was just achieved for a third-straight year and only the fifth time in history. The Federal Reserve ...

Bloomberg An English spa town and two coastal areas saw the biggest house-price increases in the UK in 2017, outstripping gains in London’s hotspots. Cheltenham in southwest England saw a 13 percent jump in prices in 2017, almost five times the national increase of 2.7 percent, Bank of Scotland Plc’s Halifax division said. The average house in the town, famous ...

Bloomberg UK manufacturing growth slowed more than forecast in December, retreating from a four-year high. IHS Markit’s Purchasing Managers Index for the industry slid to 56.3, below the median estimate of economists for a reading of 57.9. Still, that pace of expansion left the quarterly average at the highest since 2014. “Expansion remained comfortably above long-term trend rates,” said Rob ...