Archives for July 2021

According to the monthly Reuters poll, $70 per barrel looks to be a more realistic projection for Brent Crude prices for the rest of 2021, rather than the previously predicted $80 per barrel.

The survey of 38 analysts suggests Brent might hover at around $68.76 per barrel – up slightly from June’s $67.48 estimate. So far this year, the global benchmark averaged around $66.57.

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“The wax and wane of Covid-19 waves will have more of an influence on sentiment than supply-and-demand fundamentals during the rest of the year, as we do not expect politicians to impose hard and broad-based lockdown measures anymore,” Julius Baer analyst Carsten Menke said, as cited by the agency.

The expert added that oil politics is expected to remain another source of volatility, especially if prices do overshoot this summer, raising the pressure on producers to react.

Earlier, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting countries and allies (OPEC+) struck another deal to raise oil production by two million barrels per day (bpd) from August till December 2021, after prices hit nearly 2.5-year highs.

“With rising OPEC+ output, a possible comeback of US production in the second half of 2021, and Covid-19 still threatening to cool down oil demand once again, I think $70 is a more realistic level for oil,” LBBW analyst Frank Schallenberger told Reuters.

Also on rt.com OPEC+ members agree to ramp up output by 400,000 barrels per day amid soaring oil prices

Although OPEC+ and the International Energy Agency have predicted demand will reach pre-pandemic levels as soon as next year, China and other Asian nations are still imposing restrictive measures against rising coronavirus cases.

Global prices for crude will also be affected by a delay in the return of ‘wildcard’ oil supplies from Iran, which is currently awaiting the lifting of US sanctions.

“It looks likely that Iran will be a 2022 story now, boosting oil market prospects in the near-term but possibly dampening the trajectory in 1H-2022,” said DBS Bank analyst Suvro Sarkar.

For more stories on economy finance visit RT’s business section

Article source: https://www.rt.com/business/530787-oil-price-forecast-covid-iran/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS

The Nasdaq Golden Dragon China Index – which follows US-listed Chinese tech – tumbled 22% in July, marking the biggest one-month drop since the financial crisis. Meanwhile, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng plunged 1.35%, for a monthly loss of 9.9%, with the Shanghai Composite also falling, by 0.4%, bringing the July decline to 5.4%.

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The abrupt declines in Asian stocks have reportedly wiped out over $730 billion in value from the Golden Dragon gauge, with $354 billion of that occurring in June alone. Last month, the index, which had hit a record in February, was up 25% in the 12 month-period until end of June.

The downward spiral came as China’s regulators target companies across such sectors as tech, finance, education, and healthcare, intensifying scrutiny that mostly focused on shares of the US-listed tech firms over the past month.
Shares of New Oriental Education Education Technology and TAL Education have taken the hardest hit, dropping over 70% in July.  The heavy losses came after Chinese regulators barred the companies concerned with teaching school subjects from raising capital, going public and making profits. Shares of Alibaba and Baidu were also down, by 14% and 20%, respectively.

Also on rt.com Chinese stocks gain on reports Beijing will continue to allow US listings

At the same time, the country’s transport ministry pledged to ramp up supervision over ride-hailing and on-demand trucking firms. The news dragged down the shares of Didi Global and Full Truck Alliance, both of which held initial public offerings in the US last month. The companies are currently the subject of a different probe, by China’s Cybersecurity Administration, over data-security concerns.

Earlier this week, the WSJ cited one of China’s top regulators as stating that the country was not planning to decouple from capital markets, and that the government would assess market impacts before introducing future policies.

For more stories on economy finance visit RT’s business section

Article source: https://www.rt.com/business/530769-chinese-tech-stocks-worst-selloff/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS

These deals will invariably involve Indian energy players, Singhal said, as quoted by Bloomberg in a report that mentioned SoftBank Group Corp.’s renewables business sale to Adani Green Energy at an enterprise value of $3.5 billion. The deal, Adani said, would help it achieve its renewable energy portfolio target of 25 GW ahead of schedule.

The interesting thing about this deal, according to Bloomberg and BofA’s Singhal, was that Adani Green Energy joined the group of prospective buyers for SoftBank’s 80-percent stake in SB Energy at a late stage. However, it had the advantage of being an Indian company, Singhal noted, and that its own assets were in close proximity to SB Energy assets.

Also on rt.com Why India is the most exciting renewable market in the world

Yet, there is another reason why prospective investors would want to team up with local companies in the push for India’s renewable energy sector.

“Some of the issues of dealing with the federal government can be handled by only the local partners,” Sighal explained, as quoted by Bloomberg. “Foreign investors cannot take that call solo.”

India’s renewable power capacity has grown enormously over the past decade, from less than 20 GW in solar farms to over 96 GW of solar, wind, biomass, and small hydropower. With utility-scale hydropower plants, renewable capacity stands at 142 GW or 37 percent of India’s total power capacity.

Also on rt.com VC firms are pouring billions of dollars into green tech

At the same time, India accounts for 9 percent of emerging market electricity demand and as much as 20 percent of expected demand growth.

“While fossil fuel demand might again increase in the near-term to meet latent electricity demand, India has demonstrated how a double leapfrog — connecting nearly all households to electricity and its renewable energy rollout — can be driven with policy priorities and market design,” a report by Carbon Tracker and the Council on Energy, Environment and Water said earlier this year.

This article was originally published on Oilprice.com

Article source: https://www.rt.com/business/530648-indias-renewable-industry-investment/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS

China bought some 3.7 thousand tons of Russian beef in the first quarter of 2021, 20 times more than during the same period last year, the industry department of the agricultural bank reported.

Over 55% of Russia’s total cattle meat exports go to the Chinese market. Overall, Russia sent about 6.5 thousand tons of cattle meat abroad in January-March, nearly two and a half times more than a comparable period in 2020.

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The CIE explains the export growth as “the effect of a low base and a competitive price,” which makes Russian beef popular among Chinese consumers. Also, China’s own meat production was damaged by the African swine fever in 2018-2019, which forced the country to increase meat imports. Experts say this trend will continue for at least five more years.

“The need to keep meat imports at a high level will remain for at least the next five years, while the effects of the African swine fever outbreak are felt. Therefore, in the coming years, imports of Russian beef to China will continue to grow at a high rate,” the head of the CIE, Andrei Dalnov, predicts.

China’s former major suppliers have had problems of their own, with Australia and Argentina both cutting their exports due to the pandemic. Brazilian companies were compromised back in 2017, when several dozen of the country’s agricultural enterprises were shut down due to non-compliance with sanitary conditions.

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Cattle meat production in Russia has been growing since 2018, with experts stating that its dynamics remained positive, even amid the pandemic. Russia produced a total of 314,000 tons of cattle meat in the first quarter of 2021.

Experts say the high demand from the Chinese market will not affect beef prices in Russia, While the annual demand for beef reaches 1.94 million tons, the country exports just 20,000 tons, which is a little more than one percent. Also, unlike consumers in China, Russians prefer to buy cheaper meats like chicken and pork, with only about 17% choosing beef. 

For more stories on economy finance visit RT’s business section

Article source: https://www.rt.com/business/530562-china-russia-beef-supply/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS

The ban announced by the regulator earlier this month came amid concerns over the US credit card company’s handling of data processed abroad. The company had reportedly breached the 2018 law banning financial service firms from storing payments data on Indian customers outside of the country.

The RBI introduced the penalties, saying that a “system audit report” submitted by Mastercard’s auditor Deloitte in April was unsatisfactory. The ban applies to both debit and credit card issues to new customers, and doesn’t affect existing Mastercard clients in India.

Also on rt.com India bans Mastercard from adding new customers over data storage breach

According to Mastercard, a “supplemental audit” had been performed by Deloitte, and a new report was submitted on July 20, six days after the central bank announced the ban.

“We look forward to continuing our conversations with the RBI and reinforcing how seriously we take our obligations. We are hopeful that this latest filing provides the assurances required to address their concerns,” Mastercard said in a statement to Reuters.

Back in 2018, the company said that it had begun storing data at its facility in the Indian western city of Pune to comply with the data storage rules. But an unnamed source told the agency that Mastercard still processes a part of each Indian transaction through data centers abroad, and later transfers and stores that data in Pune.

American Express, whose presence in India is much more insignificant than that of Mastercard or Visa, has also been banned from issuing new cards since April for violating the same rules.

For more stories on economy finance visit RT’s business section

Article source: https://www.rt.com/business/530704-mastercard-india-ban-new-audit/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS