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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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Dormant Argentina IPO market prepares for 2018 awakening

Bloomberg Argentina’s IPO market hasn’t had quite the jolt some investors were expecting. A year and a half after President Mauricio Macri took office, new share sales are slow to take off. Just one company has completed an international initial public offering. The delay comes as private companies wait for their valuations to rise, while taking advantage of their low ...

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