Category:

China turmoil divides Fed over inflation

Sign up for quick access to a wealth of global business news, including: China turmoil divides Fed over inflation Newspaper + Premium online Newspaper + Premium online Premium Full FT.com subscription Premium Full FT.com subscription Standard Full news & archive Standard Full news & archive Trial Try Premium online Trial Try Premium online Price Monthly Annual $66.30 $11.77 per week $53.00 $9.25 per week $36.00 $6.45 per week $1.00 for 4 weeks $1.00 for 4 weeks FT Alphaville plus selected FT blogs yes yes yes yes Unlimited FT.com article access yes yes yes yes Unlimited mobile and tablet access yes yes yes yes Unlimited fast FT yes yes yes yes 5 year company financials archive yes yes yes yes The LEX column yes yes no yes ePaper access yes yes no yes Three exclusive weekly emails yes yes no yes Daily newspaper delivery yes no no For 4 weeks […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Behind Deadly Tianjin Blast, Shortcuts and Lax Rules

Continue reading the main story Slide Show Slide Show|7 Photos Tianjin Explosion Reveals Company That Exploited Weak Governance Tianjin Explosion Reveals Company That Exploited Weak Governance CreditChina Stringer Network/Reuters TIANJIN, China — One partner was the son of a local police chief, the other an executive at a state-run chemicals firm. After meeting at a dinner party, they started a company here to handle the export of the most dangerous chemicals made in China , promising “outstanding service” and “good results.” Within two years, Rui Hai International Logistics had built a reputation as the go-to place for businesses looking to ship hazardous materials to customers abroad, a niche market that had been dominated by sluggish state enterprises. Rui Hai offered lower prices, a no-hassle approach to paperwork and quick government approvals. Business was brisk. It seemed like another success story for the Binhai New Area, a thriving economic development […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

China in crackdown on spreading online ‘rumours’

A financial journalist ‘confessed’ to causing ‘panic and disorder’ on China’s stock market, state media reported [AP] China has punished 197 people in a special campaign by police targeting online rumours about China’s stock market, the recent fatal explosions in Tianjin and "other key events", state media reported. No details of the punishments were given, but according to the report, the crimes punished included claiming a man had jumped to his death in Beijing due to the stock market slump and falsifying the number of people who had died in the Tianjin blasts. Another alleged crime involved circulating "seditious" rumours about China’s upcoming commemorations of the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II. A financial journalist "confessed" to causing "panic and disorder" on China’s stock market and inflicting "huge losses on the country", state media reported on Sunday. Wang Xiaolu, a journalist with Caijing magazine, was detained […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Challenged on Left and Right, the Fed Faces a Decision on Rates

Photo Janet L. Yellen, the Federal Reserve chairwoman. Credit Stephen Crowley/The New York Times JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. — Conservative activists who want the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates distributed chocolate coins in golden wrappers at the local airport last week as Fed officials arrived for their annual policy retreat. Liberal activists in green “Whose Recovery?” T-shirts formed a receiving line at the resort hotel in the heart of Grand Teton National Park where the meeting was held, to personalize their argument that the Fed should wait. Sometime soon — possibly as early as mid-September and probably no later than the end of the year — the Fed plans to raise its benchmark interest rate one-quarter of one percentage point, a mathematically minor move that has become a very big deal. Investors, who always pay attention to the Fed, are paying particular attention now. The central bank has held […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Canadian Oil Sands Halts Crude Production at Oil-Sands Giant Syncrude

A dump truck is loaded with oil sands at the Syncrude Canada Ltd. mine. CALGARY, Alberta— Canadian Oil Sands Ltd. COSWF 2.60 % , the largest owner of the giant Syncrude oil-sands project, said on Sunday that it has halted production after a fire damaged equipment at its synthetic crude oil processing facility in northern Alberta. The company said the fire, which occurred early Saturday and was extinguished without any injuries, affected pipes connected to a water treatment unit at Syncrude’s heavy oil upgrader on the site of its Mildred Lake oil-sands surface mine. The cause of the blaze is under investigation, it said. While the upgrader’s core machinery wasn’t damaged and the strip mine continues to operate, Canadian Oil Sands said in a statement issued late Sunday that “synthetic crude oil production has been temporarily suspended while a recovery and repair strategy are being developed.” Canadian Oil Sands […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

US Oil Production Nears Previous Peak

The EIA’s Monthly Energy Review came out a couple of days ago. The data is in thousand barrels per day and the last data point is July 2015. US consumption of total liquids, or as the EIA calls it, petroleum products supplied, reached 20,000,000 barrels per day for the first time since February of 2008. Something I never noticed before, consumption started to drop in January 2008, seven months before the price, along with world production, started to drop in August 2008. This had to be a price driven decline. Could the current June and July increase in consumption be price driven also? US Recent US Production was down 96,000 barrels per day in July to 9,503,000 bpd. That is 190,000 bpd below the March level of 9,693,000 bpd. US Crude Oil Production Here is what the last 50 years of US production looks like. The peak was in […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Why $40 oil is killing Iraq, Venezuela and others, but not Russia

Tags: Iraq | oil | Russia | Scotland | vladimir putin Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with journalists after submerging into the waters of the Black Sea inside a research bathyscaphe in Sevastopol, Crimea, August 18, 2015. REUTERS/Alexei Druzhinin/RIA Novosti/Kremlin It’s not the economy, stupid. At least it isn’t where hearts are warmed by the fiercer flame of nationalism, rather than rising living standards. Oil prices as low as $40 a barrel are separating the oil haves from the oil have-nots. The oil producers happily rode a wave of high oil prices for years, buying popularity with increased state spending while excusing themselves from the hard pounding of legitimate economic reform. The oil-buyers — like India and Egypt — now enjoy prices as low as a third of those they paid as recently as two years ago and can cut fuel subsidies, saving spending or redirecting it to broader […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

U.S. Is Seen as Laggard as Russia Asserts Itself in Warming Arctic

Continue reading the main story Slide Show Slide Show|9 Photos A New Race for the Arctic A New Race for the Arctic CreditRuth Fremson/The New York Times ABOARD COAST GUARD CUTTER ALEX HALEY, in the Chukchi Sea — With warming seas creating new opportunities at the top of the world, nations are scrambling over the Arctic — its territorial waters, transit routes and especially its natural resources — in a rivalry some already call a new Cold War. When President Obama travels to Alaska on Monday, becoming the first president to venture above the Arctic Circle while in office, he hopes to focus attention on the effects of climate change on the Arctic. Some lawmakers in Congress, analysts, and even some government officials say the United States is lagging behind other nations, chief among them Russia , in preparing for the new environmental, economic and geopolitical realities facing the […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Ruble Rebound Beating World Has Bondholders Waiting to Sell

The biggest recovery in emerging-market bonds and currencies has Russian investors poised to sell, even with oil prices bouncing back. The ruble’s 5.7 percent rally last week was surpassed only by Ukraine’s hryvnia while top gains for Russia’s bonds pared this month’s declines as five-year yields tumbled 51 basis points in three days to 11.88 percent. “Pressure on the markets is only rising,” Andres Vallejo, who helps manage the equivalent of $2.6 billion at Kapital Asset Management in Moscow, said by phone on Friday. He’s getting ready to short-sell local bonds known as OFZs if yields fall to 11.25 percent. The investor skepticism underscores doubts the central bank has much more scope to reduce interest rates after 6 percentage points of cuts since January aimed at rescuing Russia from its worst recession since 2009. “It’s unlikely that yields will fall below 11 percent,” Igor Kozak, the head of fixed-income […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Maersk Gets Approval for $4.5 Billion U.K. North Sea Gas Field

A.P. Moeller-Maersk A/S won U.K. approval for a $4.5 billion development plan for the Culzean natural gas field as the Danish company tries to ramp up output at its energy division. The field, located in the central part of the British area of the North Sea, is expected to produce enough natural gas to meet 5 percent of the U.K.’s total demand in 2020 or 2021, Maersk said in a statement on Monday. Maersk Oil will be the operator of the field with a 49.99 percent stake, while JX Nippon Oil & Energy Corp. has 34.01 percent and BP Plc 16 percent. Nils Smedegaard Andersen, chief executive officer of the Maersk group, said earlier this month the company is actively searching for North Sea oil acquisitions as the drop in energy prices makes takeovers attractive. The company wants to return focus to its North Sea waters, where it first […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple