BP returns to Gulf of Mexico well drilling April 3, 2011 BP PLANS to return to deepwater oil production in the Gulf of Mexico this summer – just over a year after the Transocean oil spill disaster, sources told City A.M. yesterday. It reached a deal with US regulators to enable the oil major to resume drilling work on ten wells halted since the explosion and [...]
Rusal trebles profits after bumper year March 31, 2011 RUSAL, the world’s top aluminium maker, said its 2010 net profit more than tripled, beating forecasts, and expects strong global demand for the light metal to continue this year. RUSAL shares rose more than four per cent to their highest level in more than a month, outperforming a 0.4 per cent rise in the broader [...]
Russia’s deputy premier to leave Rosneft chair March 31, 2011 Russian president Dmitry Medvedev has ordered top ministers to quit the boards of major state firms, launching a drive to separate politics from business less than a year before a presidential election. The most prominent target of the shakeout was Igor Sechin, a deputy premier with sweeping control over energy policy who as chairman of [...]
Populist tax on oil firms has backfired March 30, 2011 IF George Osborne is to be believed, Britain is open for business once again. Some senior executives clearly agree: Sir Martin Sorrell, WPP’s boss, wants to move his firm’s legal base back to Britain if all of the proposals in the Budget are voted through. But if you are an oil and gas company, or [...]
June IPO planned for SUEK March 30, 2011 RUSSIAN coal giant SUEK is planning a $1bn (£623m) float in London by the end of June, City A.M. has learned. The float is being shopped around some of the world’s biggest investors in commodities during pre-marketing meetings in London, with BlackRock and Renaissance Capital having been approached. The deal, which is being led by [...]
The insurance man turns to banking March 30, 2011 AFTER nine years at the helm of London’s insurance market Lloyd’s, its chairman Lord Levene is singularly unshockable even in the face of disasters on the unprecedented scale that struck Japan. The earthquake and tsunami which hit the northeastern coast of Japan on 10 March will cost insurers $20bn-30bn (£12.5bn-18.8bn), but Levene doesn’t think the [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING March 28, 2011 FINANCIAL TIMES ICBC HEAD PLAYS DOWN POST-CRISIS LOAN RISK China’s largest bank lent Rmb640bn ($61bn) to local governments in the post-crisis credit boom, but insists these loans do not pose a danger to the country’s banking system. In an interview with the Financial Times, Jiang Jianqing, chairman of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the [...]
Waterstone keen on HMV March 28, 2011 TIM Waterstone may be poised to buy back the bookshop chain that bears his name after he and his business partners entered into exclusive talks with its owner, HMV Group. Waterstone, 71, has teamed up with Russian millionaire Alexander Mamut in a a bid to seize control of the debt-laden chain. HMV Group issued a [...]
Rosneft to push ahead with BP pact March 25, 2011 Russia’s Rosneft has vowed to push ahead with a strategic alliance with BP, despite a block on the deal by the British oil company’s partners in joint venture TNK-BP. Rosneft Chairman Igor Sechin said an arbitration panel ruling preventing BP and the state-controlled energy giant from jointly exploring Russia’s Arctic region and from executing a [...]
BP’s $16bn Russia deal is scuppered March 24, 2011 BP’S historic plans to search for oil in the Arctic were blocked yesterday by its billionaire partners in Russia. The embattled oil giant’s deal with Russian explorer Rosneft has been left hanging by a thread by an international tribunal, which thwarted the pairing at the request of Alfa Access Renova, a group of oligarchs who [...]