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Bloomberg A deal among oil-producing countries to curb production and balance an oversupplied market will achieve its objective in the first quarter of next year, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said, after prices slipped on news of a build-up in US inventories. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and other crude producers including Russia agreed on May 25 to extend ...

LONDON / Reuters OPEC’s battle against an oil glut is under threat as unsold crude from members Nigeria and Libya, which are exempt from a global production-cutting deal, is swamping the Atlantic Basin. Nigeria has more than 60 million barrels of unsold crude, traders of its oil said, surpassing the level reached when global oversupply peaked two years ago. More ...

Bloomberg Iraq, the world’s third-biggest crude exporter, plans to triple refining capacity by 2021 to shake off its reliance on refined-product imports. Processing capacity will increase to 1.5 million barrels a day from just over 500,000 now, not including Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region, Deputy Oil Minister Fayyad Al-Nima said in an interview in Baghdad. The country spends more than $2 ...

Bloomberg The oil market has all but abandoned the hope of a re-balancing any time soon, with the re-emergence of a pricing structure that signals investors expect a glut to endure into next year. The return of a deep contango — when oil prices for immediate delivery are lower than forward contracts — comes days after several Wall Street banks ...

Bloomberg Thai regulators plan to impose financial penalties on Facebook Inc. and other compa- nies with video-sharing platforms if they fail to swiftly remove what they deem to be illegal content. The new framework would give authorities the power to immediately demand the removal of offensive material without waiting for a court order, Colonel Natee Sukonrat, vice chairman of the ...

Bloomberg Chinese bike-rental startup Ofo is aiming to raise new funds at a valuation of about $3 billion, people familiar with the deal say, further inflaming an already pitched competition for capital by startups backed by the country’s largest technology firms. The company is seeking roughly $500 million, one of the people said, asking not to be named discussing an ...

Bloomberg India is scaling back expectations for power demand growth as it struggles to electrify millions of homes despite a glut in generation capacity. The world’s second-most populous nation is building more power plants than it can utilize as state-level distributors struggle to connect 50 million households, according to Ravindra Kumar Verma, head of the Central Electricity Authority, the power ...

Bloomberg Jack Ma’s net worth surged $2.8 billion overnight as Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. forecast sales growth that topped every analyst’s estimate, despite China’s decelerating economy. Ma, 52, is now the richest person in Asia and 14th wealthiest in the world, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. His net worth has climbed $8.5 billion this year to $41.8 billion. The ...

Bloomberg As European Union officials count the days before their annual vacation, Google’s lawyers and lobbyists are hunkering down in Brussels, preparing for what may be a record EU antitrust fine. A penalty in the shopping-search probe could come within weeks and many expect it to exceed a $1.2 billion fine on Intel Corp. in 2009. That would be another ...

Bloomberg Tight cobalt supplies will keep boosting the price of one of this year’s hottest commodities, according to Eurasian Resources Group S.a.r.l., which is developing an almost $1 billion project in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Cobalt jumped 71 percent this year on surging demand for the metal used in batteries for electric cars made by firms such as Tesla ...