Opec cuts: No line in the sand for oil – CNBC Comment November 24, 2014 Not that I’m trying to do myself out of a job, but I’m a tad amazed by the furore building up about this Thursday’s Opec meeting in Vienna. I haven’t been to all the previous 165 gatherings, but I’ve been to most of the last 25 or so, and all of a sudden it’s become [...]
Standard Chartered appoints new directors in financial crime crackdown following £425m fines December 10, 2014 Embattled bank Standard Chartered yesterday appointed a new committee of directors to combat financial crime. It also hired another nine experienced execs from across the business, finance and regulatory world to beef up its compliance functions. StanChart is still hosting investigators sent by US regulators in the wake of its $667m (£425m) fines in [...]
Islamic State’s $2bn budget is much smaller than thsoe of the countries it is trying to take over January 6, 2015 Two billion dollars (£1.31bn) sounds like a lot of money, but in the context of state budgets it's small. It's 500 times smaller than the US national budget, and 50 times smaller than Iraq's. Yet this amount has sent shivers down the media's collective spine since yesterday, when the first annual budget for terrorist [...]
Barcelona star Andres Iniesta lists family vineyard on Airbnb November 28, 2014 Fancy sipping on a glass of red in the beautiful Spanish countryside with the scorer of the winning goal in a World Cup final? Barcelona star Andrés Iniesta is giving you the chance to do just that, by placing a one-off listing for a night at his family vineyard, "Bodega Iniesta", on Airbnb. All [...]
BP to restart Rhum gas field October 20, 2014 BP IS set to resume production at one of the UK’s most important North Sea gas fields, nearly four years after the company was forced to curtail output because of sanctions against Iran, which owns a 50 per cent stake in the field. The oil giant said gas had begun to flow out of the [...]
Oil prices: Brent crude falls below $60 a barrel December 16, 2014 Until recently the joke that was doing the rounds was that the rouble, the price of oil and President Putin would all reach 63 next year. Now just one of those is left waiting – and he's not likely to be in a celebratory mood. Oil prices have fallen to the lowest level in more [...]
Opec ready for oil price fall to $40 a barrel: UAE December 14, 2014 Oil prices could fall as low as $40 a barrel and the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) will still refuse to cut production, according to United Arab Emirates’ energy minister Suhail Al-Mazrouei. Speaking at the Asian Business Leadership Forum (ABLF) in Dubai, Al-Mazrouei told Bloomberg: “We are not going to change our minds [...]
Twitter chief exec Dick Costolo goes for Iranian president Hassan Rouhani – but fails “foriegn” relations September 28, 2014 Iranian president Hassan Rouhani may be enjoying thawed relations with leaders of United Nations countries thanks to his efforts to stop Islamic State militants, but Silicon Valley is rather less easy to please, it turns out. Rouhani, who is a prolific tweeter, was happily tweeting from last week’s United Nations General Assembly in New York [...]
State of the Union hints at Obama’s lame duck term January 22, 2015 There has been a growing trend in the State of the Union address the President gives each year. He stands before Congress and begins to alternate between populist appeals, personalised stories, and non-starter policy proposals. This year was no different, although there is a possibility that a couple minor changes may be made. Little of [...]
Sanctions have cost Russia billions – but Western firms are not getting off lightly November 24, 2014 WHEN the EU agreed to place new names on its Russian sanctions list last week, it added to an ever-expanding and ever vaguer body of international rules for compliance officials to navigate. While Russia’s finance minister has warned that sanctions are costing his country $40bn (£25.5bn) a year, they also pose significant challenges to businesses [...]