By Ernest Scheyder | HOUSTON HOUSTON Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM.N), the world’s largest publicly traded oil producer, said on Monday it would invest $20 billion through 2022 to expand its chemical and oil refining plants on the U.S. Gulf Coast. The investments at 11 sites should create 35,000 temporary construction jobs and 12,000 permanent jobs, Chief Executive Darren Woods said in a speech at CERAWeek, the world’s […]
Monday 21:56 GMT Overview Global equities sold off on Monday, encouraging flows into sovereign debt, after Asian markets were rattled by North Korea firing missiles into the Sea of Japan and the Federal Reserve’s interest rate meeting drew nearer. US President Donald Trump’s latest spat with the country’s security services may also be damping the mood somewhat as markets continue to price in a rate rise by […]
Mr. Trump signed the first ban with great fanfare, in front of reporters, at the Pentagon. “We don’t want them here,” Mr. Trump said of Islamist terrorists. “We want to ensure that we are not admitting into our country the very threats our soldiers are fighting overseas. We only want to admit those into our country who will support our country, and love deeply our people.” Video […]
Drastic cuts in oil industry investment risk creating a shortfall in supply that by 2020 will expose the market to a surge in prices, the International Energy Agency has warned. Despite a chorus of analysts predicting a decline in oil consumption in the coming years, as governments push for energy efficiencies, cleaner fuel usage and electric cars, the IEA cautioned in its five-year outlook: “We see no […]
Most entrepreneurs occasionally face unfavourable circumstances, from underperforming staff or chronic complaining customers to difficult economic conditions, mounting fees, and other often unforeseen hassles. However, there are outlier entrepreneurs, those whose decisions to persevere greatly outnumber the impediments they encounter. “I was stubborn. I had been dreaming about that project forever. I didn’t want to give up,” says Ziad Kamel, founder of Couqley UAE, a French bistro […]
TOKYO U.S. stock futures dropped and Asian shares were on the defensive on Monday as investors weighed the near-certain prospect of an interest rate hike in the United States this month against news of slower growth in China this year. Risk appetite also took a hit on rising geopolitical tensions in East Asia, as North Korea fired four ballistic missiles early in the day, while a spat […]
KUALA LUMPUR • Seven men, four of them Yemenis, have been detained in the Klang Valley for suspected links to terror groups. The seven were picked up by the Bukit Aman Special Branch Counter Terrorism Division between Feb 21 and Feb 26 following multiple raids. The suspects are a 41-year-old Malaysian factory technician, a 28-year-old Indonesian farmer, a 37-year-old East Asian man, and the four Yemenis. Inspector-General […]
Maritime security will head the agenda as Australia and other Indian Ocean nations meet in Jakarta, with Indonesia pushing governance in a bid to prevent another South China Sea. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull will meet with President Joko Widodo for the second time in less than two weeks when he attends the 20th anniversary of the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA) summit in Jakarta this week. With […]
Entrepreneur Elon Musk has an estimated current net worth of $13.4 billion from interests in transport, payments and space technology Sending tourists for a trip around the moon is the latest big idea launched by Elon Musk, a Silicon Valley star known for turning his passions into visionary enterprises. Musk has become one of the United States’ best-known innovators. He was a founder of payments company PayPal, […]
By Jessica Resnick-Ault and Lewis Krauskopf | NEW YORK NEW YORK The energy sector is the stock market’s dud so far in 2017 after a banner performance in 2016, and the rest of the year may also be rocky for investors due to the unclear path for crude oil prices. Energy outdid all other sectors last year, up nearly 24 percent thanks to a late-year rally on […]
It has been a little over a year since Ryan Reynolds graced the movie screens as the “Merc with a Mouth” antihero Deadpool and portrayed him correctly the way comic book fans know him. That means it has also been a year since the Reynolds’ solo project was validated after it became the highest grossing X-Men film in the global box office. Now, just in time for the release of his […]
By Ernest Scheyder | HOUSTON HOUSTON The biggest names in the oil world come together this week for the largest industry gathering since the end of a two-year price war that pitted Middle East exporters against the firms that drove the shale energy revolution in the United States. When OPEC in November joined with several non-OPEC producers to agree to a historic cut in output, the group […]
Mustafa Sanalla, the chairman of Libya’s National Oil Corporation, has called for “concrete steps” to protect the country’s oil assets as fresh fighting that has erupted near crucial oil facilities threatened to reverse recent increases in the Opec member’s output. Forces from eastern Libya carried out on Saturday air strikes around the oil ports of Es Sider and Ras Lanuf on the country’s Mediterranean coast in order […]
By Ayman al-Warfalli | BENGHAZI, Libya BENGHAZI, Libya East Libyan forces carried out air strikes around major oil ports on Saturday as they sought to regain control of the area from a rival faction, a military spokesman said. The eastern-based Libyan National Army (LNA) and allied forces retreated on Friday from Es Sider and Ras Lanuf, two of Libya’s largest export terminals, as a faction known as […]
Investors have poured nearly $80bn into US equity funds since November’s election as optimism over the new administration’s pro-growth agenda received a boost after President Donald Trump addressed Congress this week. Funds invested in US stocks counted $6.7bn of additions in the week to March 1, lifting flows since November 8 to $79.4bn, according to data from EPFR. The inflows have partially reversed a near constant exodus […]
Bahrain’s fiscal deficit will fall only marginally to 12.3 percent of GDP this year from 13.6 percent in 2016 as oil prices settle well below the country’s breakeven figure, according to ratings agency Fitch. The agency said it expects Brent to average $45 per barrel in 2017, nearly $40 below the breakeven price for the Gulf kingdom. Fitch Ratings affirmed Bahrain’s long-term foreign and local currency issuer […]
Most experts advise against taking prescription drugs during pregnancy, if at all possible, especially in the first three months when the baby’s important organs are still developing. Ironically, pregnancy is also a challenging time in which a woman experiences almost all sort of aches and pains in her body. There’s soreness of the breasts, nausea, cramping, and vomiting. The terrible triad of pregnancy pains, however, would arguably […]
The heads of the London Stock Exchange Group and Deutsche Börse went to Brussels at the start of February on the verge of clearing a major obstacle for their historic €29bn merger. Xavier Rolet and Carsten Kengeter thought EU regulators were set to bless the deal they had been working on for more than a year. But midway through the meeting, Mr Kengeter stepped out to take an emergency […]
Oman is now getting attention for what’s hidden underneath its craggy peaks. Majlis Al Jinn has the world’s ninth largest cave chamber, while the pools and caverns of Wadi Bani Khalid and Wadi Shab attract a growing number of visitors every year. Of the country’s many caves, Al Hootah is the only one with guided tours, and it reopened earlier this season four-years after severe floods in […]
March 3, 2017 by: Jamie Chisholm, Global Markets Commentator Friday 08:35 GMT Overview Stock markets are retreating as Wall Street equity futures dip further from this week’s record high as investors cash in some of their bullish bets on stronger growth following the election of US president Donald Trump. The pullback comes amid heightened expectations that the improving economic scenario will encourage the Federal Reserve to increase […]
SYDNEY The dollar clung to broad gains on Friday as the risk of an imminent U.S. interest rate hike slugged sovereign bonds and commodities, even managing to sour Wall Street’s party as the reality of rising borrowing costs began to sink in. Spread betters pointed to opening losses for European stocks and E-mini futures for the S&P 500 were off 0.3 percent. Asian markets were mostly lower, […]
Good news to fossil fuel companies. Bad news to advocates of the environment. The agency tasked to provide regulation and environmental protection on Thursday scrapped the order that requires oil and gas operators to report on their equipment and level of methane emissions. The order, issued in May 2016 by the Environmental Protection Agency, was one of the major actions of the Obama administration to combat climate […]
There was no mistaking the arrival of King Salman Abdulaziz Al-Saud of Saudi Arabia and his entourage in Malaysia on Sunday morning. Traffic stood still for 30 minutes as we waited for the 600-strong royal party to make their way from the airport to the centre of Kuala Lumpur — a near-endless stream of limos, lorries, outliers and ambulances, sirens screaming. This is King Salman’s first trip […]
People take part in a protest against corruption in Lima, Peru after a scandal involving bribes Brazil’s Odebrecht distributed in Peru, February 16, 2017 (Guadalupe Pardo/Reuters). A wave of corruption scandals has roiled Latin America in recent years, from Chile’s campaign finance affairs, through Mexico’s Casa Blanca revelations. Most recently, the information divulged in the December Odebrecht settlement has sent a shudder of fear across regional politics […]
