Archives for November 2016

“I believe there will come a moment in time where I would say we have sufficient adoption of these alternative products… to start envisaging, together with governments, a phase-out period for cigarettes,” CEO Andre Calantzopoulos said in an interview with the BBC.

Philip Morris invests in cigarette alternative as smoking rates decline

“I hope this time will come soon,” he added.

As the world’s biggest cigarette maker Phillip Morris gets most of its profits from selling traditional cigarettes. While the number of regular smokers is falling, by 2025 there will be still a billion of them, said Calantzopoulos.

Phillip Morris is now selling smokeless cigarettes in more than ten markets, including Japan, Switzerland, and Italy. The company says their electronic cigarette heats up tobacco enough to produce vapor without burning it. Its competitors Japan Tobacco International and British American Tobacco are also investing in similar products.

Phillip Morris has invested over $2 billion into cigarettes with “reduced risk.”

Smoking kills about 6 million people globally every year, according to the World Health Organization.

“If smokers switch to electronic cigarettes or other products that can be shown to cut the risks to their health, this could lead to a big improvement in public health,” said Deborah Arnott, chief executive of UK health charity Action on Smoking and Health, as quoted by Reuters.

However, such claims from cigarette makers need a double-check, she warned.

“We need independent evidence to support any claims made by the tobacco industry,” said Arnott.

Article source: https://www.rt.com/business/368708-philip-morris-cigarettes-phase-out/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS

Uber suspends operations in Abu Dhabi after driver arrests

If the court determines Uber is a transportation service, the company will be subject to stricter regulations on licensing, insurance and safety across the 28 countries of the EU.

The ruling is not expected until next year, but it may have broader implications for other tech companies such as the online home rental company Airbnb and the food delivery company Deliveroo.

Uber defended its business model at the court on Tuesday, saying its service has made it easier for people to get around while “linking drivers and passengers more efficiently.” It also pointed to lower pollution and easier access to parking.

“Uber is part of a wave of technology which radically changes the way we shop, obtain information,” said Uber’s lawyer Cani Fernandez.

The ride-hailing app which entered Europe five years ago has been facing resistance from taxi companies and local authorities throughout the EU. They argue that Uber has raised more than $11 billion in capital while crushing local competition and ignoring rules aimed at protecting passengers and drivers.

Uber takes to Brazilian skies with helicopter service

The case against Uber, which has been banned in Spain, was initiated by the Barcelona-based association of independent taxi drivers.

“Uber is a company that is building a new model for transportation service at no cost, using third parties. It’s unfair competition,” Ivan Sesma, a member of the association’s management board, told the Wall Street Journal.

The service provider also has local or national bans on some of its services in Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Hungary.

Last month, a UK employment court ruled that Uber drivers are not self-employed and should be paid the national living wage.

Uber is valued at more than $60 billion. Its investors include Goldman Sachs and GV (formerly Google Ventures).

Article source: https://www.rt.com/business/368705-uber-taxi-eu-trial/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS

Ahead of the official announcement, Bloomberg broke the news, quoting an unnamed delegate in Vienna. Crude prices soared more than 7 percent on the report.

As of 16:29 GMT, Brent crude was trading at nearly $50 per barrel, while US crude benchmark WTI was above $48.

Calling the decision “historic,” the organization said the output cut would be in effect from January 1, 2017.

The deal was reached after weeks of negotiations, as Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran fought for the very last barrel of production. This is the first coordinated cut from OPEC in eight years.

According to the new agreement, Saudi Arabia will reduce its production by 486,000 bpd, the official announced.

Ministers of Iraq and Kuwait said their countries would reduce supplies by 209,000 bpd and 130,000 bpd respectively.

Freezing oil production will be Russia’s only contribution to stem global glut

Meanwhile, Indonesia has suspended its OPEC membership and is not taking part in the reduction.

The agreement also expects non-OPEC countries to cut about 600,000 bpd. 

Russian Energy Minister Aleksandr Novak welcomed the OPEC decision, saying Moscow would contribute its part if the organization keeps to its commitments.

“The voluntary restriction of production on the part of Russia is linked to the level of OPEC compliance with 32.5 million barrels a day, with adjustment for Indonesia, as well as the maximum participation of the countries who are not members of OPEC,” Novak said.

Russia, the biggest non-OPEC producer, was not participating in the Wednesday meeting, but also committed to cut oil production by 300,000 bpd, President of the OPEC Conference Mohammed bin Saleh al-Sada announced.

In October, Russia pumped 11.2 million bpd, the highest volume since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

According to Bloomberg estimates, the deal allows Iran to increase production by 200,000 bpd from the current 3.7 million.

“The issue about Iran is how far can they get their production levels back to the 4 million barrels a day that they were producing pre-sanctions. They need to invest a great deal in their industry, which is why a lot of companies from Western Europe have been flying over to Iran, because they see a lot of good business there for them,” Keith Boyfield, a research fellow at the Center for Policy Studies, told RT.

OPEC has been under increasing pressure to curb output for the first time since 2008. Growing global oversupply has more than halved crude prices over the last two years.

The production cut will be applied for six months, with a review scheduled for an OPEC meeting in May of next year.

WATCH MORE:

#opec reaches first output deal in 8 years. Tag someone affected by this.

Видео опубликовано RT (@rt) Ноя 30 2016 в 9:20 PST

Article source: https://www.rt.com/business/368698-opec-reaches-production-cut-deal/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS

The 53-years old financier with no government experience – but a broad background on Wall Street and in Hollywood – served as national finance chairman for Trump’s presidential campaign.

Trump taps Michigan philanthropist Betsy DeVos to be secretary of education

He was picked from among some other high-profile candidates, including JPMorgan chairman Jamie Dimon and Representative Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee.

Before starting his own hedge fund, called Dune Capital Management, in 2002, Mnuchin spent 17 years at Goldman Sachs. He also funded a film production company, bankrolling blockbusters like the X-Men franchise and Avatar.

Mnuchin reportedly earned about $40 million while working at Goldman.

The selection would still require Senate confirmation and marks the first major economic post filled by Trump.

If confirmed, Mnuchin would become the first person with Wall Street experience to lead the Treasury since Henry Paulson, the former Goldman Sachs CEO who served under President George W. Bush. Paulson ran the Treasury during the turbulent initial stages of the financial crisis of 2008.

Trump campaigned on a promise to dismantle the banking regulations introduced by the Obama administration in 2010. The rules should be re-examined, according to Mnuchin.

“We’re not taking a position on whether we support that or don’t support it. We’re saying a lot of things need to be looked at. We think Dodd-Frank needs to be looked at. Obviously, there is an important concern of protecting depositors,” Mnuchin said in a July interview with CNBC.

The financier has previously backed Hillary Clinton Senate campaign and Barack Obama’s presidential run.

READ MORE: Trump pledges to dump Pacific trade deal on first day in office

Trump has confirmed on Wednesday that he offered the job of heading the Department of Commerce to 78-year-old billionaire Wilbur Ross. The chairman of WL Ross Co is known for his investment in distressed industries. Ross advised the President-elect on economic policy during the campaign.

The billionaire investor has repeatedly criticized the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement as well as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Canada and Mexico. Ross blamed NAFTA along with the entry of China into the World Trade Organization for causing massive US factory job losses.

“I think there’s a big difference between the impact of trade agreements on corporate America and the impact on Mr. and Mrs. America. Corporate America has adjusted to them by investing lots of capital offshore,” Ross said in an interview with CNBC earlier this year.

Article source: https://www.rt.com/business/368674-trump-goldman-banker-mnuchin-treasury/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS

Royal Bank of Scotland crushed British businesses for profit – leak claims

RBS was the worst performer and is still 73 percent owned by the government after its bailout in 2008.

The bank said it had “agreed a revised capital plan… to improve its stress resilience” after running its own internal tests and finding its balance sheet would fall short.

“We are committed to creating a stronger, simpler and safer bank for our customers and shareholders,” said RBS Chief Financial Officer Ewen Stevenson. “We have taken further important steps in 2016 to enhance our capital strength, but we recognize that have more to do to restore the bank’s stress resilience including resolving outstanding legacy issues.”

RBS added its plan includes further cutting costs, reduction in risk-weighted assets and the sale of personal and commercial loan portfolios.

The Bank of England’s (BOE) Prudential Regulation Authority said the revised plan has been accepted and that it will monitor the lender’s progress in its implementation.

The BOE’s annual stress test also covered Lloyds Banking Group, HSBC, Barclays, Santander, Standard Chartered and Nationwide Building Society. In addition to economic forecasts, all the lenders have been requested to provide stress projections of their fines and settlements.

The stress test has also revealed some “capital inadequacies” at Barclays and Standard Chartered, but they were not asked to take any action.

Overall, the test showed that the UK banking system is “capitalized to support the real economy in a severe, broad and synchronized stress scenario,” the BOE said.

Regulators started conducting stress tests in 2014 to restore confidence in the financial system after taxpayers were forced to bail out banks such as RBS during the financial crisis. This year’s doomsday scenario was the most severe yet, combining shocks to the global and domestic economies worse than that seen in 2008.

Article source: https://www.rt.com/business/368668-rbs-fails-stress-tests/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS

A marathon meeting of OPEC experts on Monday failed to reach an agreement for OPEC ministers to discuss on Wednesday.

For two months OPEC officials and non-OPEC producers such as Russia have been vague on details and grand on hollow comments, hints, suggestions, and optimism that a deal will be reached.

Analysts are a bit more optimistic now than they were in late September. However, it seems that the rift between OPEC’s biggest three – Saudi Arabia on the one hand, and Iran and Iraq on the other hand – is just as wide as it was two months ago.

The chances of OPEC ministers reaching a deal on Wednesday are still pretty much 50/50, Amrita Sen, chief oil analyst at Energy Aspects, said in an interview with Bloomberg on Monday. Should a deal fail, however, the oil market will see a “sharp correction” and oil prices may plunge to US$20, Sen noted. A no-deal would be met with a very negative perception by the market, and the impression OPEC would be leaving is that this is the end of the cartel, the analyst said.

Essentially, all want to cut but there are no details, the analyst went on to comment on OPEC’s bumpy road to the Vienna meeting.

Essentially, the showdown (again) comes down to the Saudi vs. Iran-Iraq positions.

More on Oilprice.com: Iran Won’t Cut, Boldly Ask Saudis To Cut 1 Million Bpd

The Saudis would like to see oil at US$60, but this time around, they seem firm in their stance that they won’t do all the cutting, as they have traditionally done, and as Iran and Iraq are probably expecting them to do again. Saudi Arabia needs higher oil prices to shore up the budget gap that has opened with the oil price crash. Iran and Iraq are digging in their heels and are pleading exemptions, hoping to put the Saudis in a corner and expecting them to do the cuts, again.

The Saudis, on the other hand, are not having their bitter regional rival Iran staying exempt from OPEC actions and reaching pre-sanction levels.

According to a ZeroHedge tweet from Monday, the Saudis have reportedly offered Iran to freeze at 3.7 million bpd, below Tehran’s ask of 3.97 million bpd.

Iraq, for its part, is seeking a freeze at 4.546 million bpd, according to Dow Jones. Other OPEC members, especially the Saudis, are not too benevolent to let such Iraqi proposal for just a freeze pass.

More on Oilprice.com: Shell Considering Dumping Its Iraqi Oil Fields

The internal OPEC discord is not that there isn’t lack of will, or lack of logic, it’s about the “political baggage of those countries”, according to Energy Aspects’ analyst Sen.

Saudi Arabia, which has been trying to get all OPEC members on board on a collective action, changed the rhetoric two days ago, with its oil minister Khalid al-Falih saying that OPEC does not actually need to cut production to rebalance the markets.

The Saudis, however, need higher oil prices, with their budget revenues shrinking due to lower prices. The question is: will they be able to overcome regional and political differences in the name of the higher oil price? Will an OPEC-only cut (if member countries agree to and stick to it, that is) help rebalance the oil market? Will the cartel need a little helping hand from Russia, for example, to tip the supply-demand fundamentals? Will Russia go beyond just ‘joining efforts’ to reduce supply only after it sees a real OPEC deal?

The bad news is that there are too many conundrums left to solve less than 24 hours before Wednesday’s meeting. The good news is that we’ll only have to wait for one day – not two months – to see if OPEC can get things done this time around.

This article was originally published on Oilprice.com

Article source: https://www.rt.com/business/368659-oilprice-opec-oil-price-plunge/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS

OPEC optimistic on output deal with new offer to Iran

Brent crude was down 3.21 percent, trading at $46.69 per barrel as of 2:50pm GMT. West Texas Intermediate dropped by 3.29 percent to $45.53 a barrel.

According to Reuters sources, key OPEC members continue to disagree over details of the agreement. Iran and Iraq are reportedly still resisting pressure from Saudi Arabia to curtail oil production.

Earlier this month, OPEC’s biggest producer Saudi Arabia offered to cut its output by 500,000 barrels per day (bpd). The cartel offered Iran a compromise to cap output at current production of around 3.6-3.7 million bpd. Tehran, however, insists on restoring production hit by sanctions and would accept a freeze at between 4.0 and 4.2 million bpd.

“The revival of Iran’s lost share in the oil market is the national will and demand of the Iranian people,” the Iranian Shana news agency quoted the country’s oil minister Bijan Zanganeh as saying. The minister is expected in Vienna later on Tuesday.

Iraq has also been pressing for higher output limits, claiming it needs more money to fight Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIL/ISIS). Experts say Baghdad would have to compensate international oil companies for restrictions placed on their production if the OPEC deal is agreed.

In September OPEC decided to cut output to around 32.5 to 33 million barrels per day versus the current 33.64 million barrels. The move aims to buck up oil prices that have more than halved since 2014.

Analysts say oil prices will stay volatile this week, no matter what the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries decides at the meeting.

“Volatility is set to be high in the oil market in the days ahead,” analysts at Barclays said.

Oil prices will quickly move above $50 per barrel if the output deal is agreed, according to analysts, or may fall to $40 if it’s not.

Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih said oil markets would rebalance even without an output limiting pact.

Article source: https://www.rt.com/business/368570-oil-falls-opec-deal/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS

Trump demands ‘better deal’ from Cuba, threatens Obama’s thaw

On Monday, three days after the death of Fidel Castro, Trump tweeted that “if Cuba is unwilling to make a better deal for the Cuban people, the Cuban/American people and the US as a whole, I will terminate [the] deal.”

However, Trump did not promise to scrap the thaw in US-Cuban relations, and it could be regarded as a positive sign that as a businessman, the incoming president will not sever business ties profitable for American companies.

“He has said things that are frankly hopeful to folks on both sides of the debate,” US Representative Mark Sanford told Reuters. Sanford was one of a handful of Republicans who accompanied President Obama on his March trip to Cuba.

Trump’s Twitter post comes at a time when US companies resumed commercial flights to Cuba after 54 years. American Airlines flew the first flight from Miami to Havana on Monday, and JetBlue is due to start daily flights from Orlando on Tuesday with many other airlines ready to follow suit.

Starwood Hotels Resorts signed a contract to manage a Cuban hotel, and Carnival Corp has begun selling cruises to the country, Reuters reports.

“If the US continues to limit trade (with Cuba), and the European Union, China, and Russia continue to expand trade, there will be a smaller piece of cake left for US companies,” said Jose Maria Vinales Camallonga, who works for a Spanish law firm that represents large corporations in their business with Cuba.

According to John Kavulich, president of the US-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, American Airlines will lose millions of dollars, if Trump realizes his threat.

The US Department of Transportation has authorized 1.2 million seats for trips to Cuba, well below the demand of 3.4 million.

Article source: https://www.rt.com/business/368563-trump-business-cuba-ban/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS

Heckler Koch will seal deals only with ‘green’ states that are democratic and free from corruption and are members of NATO or partners of NATO members the company said as quoted by the agency.

Germany should review arms sales to Saudi Arabia – vice chancellor

The move will rule out defense contracts with Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Brazil, India and even NATO member Turkey. The gun maker has reportedly assessed those countries as ‘yellow.’

Company products like the G36 assault rifle are standard issue for armies worldwide. However, sanctions imposed on arms exports to the Middle East had a huge negative impact on the weapons maker’s business with a 90 percent collapse in operating earnings last year.

Last year, Heckler Koch sued the German government over a dispute concerning exports of components needed to manufacture the G36 assault rifle to Saudi Arabia. The company had to wait more than two years for approval.

Despite concerns over human rights abuse in the Gulf kingdom, the deal was approved in 2008, but two years ago the German authorities changed its approach to arms exports.

Since taking office in late 2013, German Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel has been looking to discourage selling tanks and small arms, in particular, saying that assault rifles are weapons of choice in civil wars across the globe.

Heckler Koch is currently awaiting German government approval on dozens of other weapons export deals.

Germany is the world’s fifth-biggest arms exporter, according to the SIPRI research institute with 80,000 people employed in the industry.

Last year, Heckler Koch was accused of illegally exporting assault rifles to Mexico. The company had also shipped nearly 4,800 guns to countries where exports are banned due to suspected police corruption and human rights abuses, according to a report from the Cologne-based Customs Criminal Office.

Article source: https://www.rt.com/business/368548-heckler-koch-no-supply-non/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS

The country has become a net exporter of natural gas for the first time in nearly six decades, according to the US Energy Department.

US firm inks first crude export deal in four decades

Gas exports totaled 7.4 billion cubic feet per day this month, compared to the 7 billion cubic feet per day the country imported, according to data from SP Global Platts.

The record numbers were reached less than a year after the US Congress lifted a 40-year ban on crude oil exports.

Global producers are having to deal with the growing impact of the US energy sector that is rapidly expanding its market share to recoup losses after an extended period of low prices.

READ MORE: Washington lifts ban on oil exports

“It’s indicative of things to come. Natural gas is going to be taking on the characteristics of a global-macro market, like crude, where global factors will influence what happens to gas,” said Sid Perkins, managing partner at the brokerage Ion Energy Group, as quoted by the Wall Street Journal.

According to analysts, the US could become a net importer again due to the wave of cold weather that may trigger demand for liquefied natural gas on the domestic market. At the same time, the surge in overseas sales benefits the growth of the industry that produces more than the local market can consume.

US natural gas exports grew by more than 50 percent in the last six years. According to Citigroup estimates, the US will sell abroad gas equal to as much as a fifth of its annual consumption within four years. The country will reportedly become the world’s third-largest producer of liquefied natural gas for export by 2020.

The buyers of US gas are Canada and Mexico, the country’s North American Free Trade Agreement partners. Exports to Mexico in August reached a record six percent of total US gas production, according to the Energy lnformation Administration (EIA). Canada purchased 2.5 percent of production in the same period, a figure which has been relatively steady in recent years.

Article source: https://www.rt.com/business/368537-us-natural-gas-net-exporter/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS