Total turnaround: French oil giant sets sights on safe bets after frontier exploration failed to produce results January 29, 2019 Total is planning its largest exploration push for years as the oil major switches focus towards safer drilling targets after it announced the biggest discovery in the North Sea for a decade. The company plans to drill 23 new wells this year, head of exploration Kevin McLachlan said. Read more: BP and Shell get green light [...]
Will 2019 be the year gold regains its shine? January 28, 2019 | City Talk Gold had a mixed year in 2018, quickly peaking around $1,366 in January, but falling as low as $1,160 by August. For a while it seemed that the correlation between risk-off appetite and gold prices had broken, with the yellow metal overlooked even in times of heightened uncertainty. But after a 7% recovery since early [...]
Shell to announce pumped up profits on high oil prices January 27, 2019 Oil giant Royal Dutch Shell is set to announce soaring annual profits this week, although fourth quarter results will be affected by a drop in oil prices at the end of last year. Net income is expected to rise 34 per cent to $21.1bn (£15.9bn) in the full year to the end of December 2018, up [...]
Ophir Energy rejects Medco’s £343m offer, saying price is too low January 14, 2019 Shares in Ophir Energy fell 2.2 per cent this morning as the company’s board rejected a takeover bid from Medco Global. The company’s directors unanimously decided to reject the 48.5p per share bid from Medco, claiming it undervalues Ophir. Although it represents a 46 per cent premium on Ophir’s share price when the bid was [...]
US inflation falls for first time since March as petrol prices drop January 11, 2019 Cheaper prices at the pumps pushed down US inflation for the first time in nine months in December. Statistics released today show the country’s consumer price index (CPI) dropped 0.1 percentage points last month to 1.9 per cent, making December’s fall the first since March. However, when stripping out changes to the price of food [...]
Virgin Atlantic and Stobart Group poised to make takeover move for Flybe January 10, 2019 Richard Branson’s Virgin Atlantic and the Stobart Group are close to securing the takeover of embattled regional airline Flybe, according to reports in Sky News this evening. Flybe, which recently reported a 54 per cent drop in half-year profits, could be acquired by a consortium led by Virgin Atlantic in an offer that would represent [...]
Oil prices head up as US and China start trade talks January 7, 2019 Oil prices have ticked up again today as markets react to Opec’s oil cuts and hopes of a thaw in US-China trade relations. International standard Brent crude had jumped over two per cent in the morning, but fell back to a 1.5 per cent rise at $57.94 in the early afternoon. Meanwhile, US standard WTI [...]
Supermarkets drop fuel prices for seventh time since October January 7, 2019 Supermarket chains Asda, Sainsbury's and Morrisons will cut prices at fuel pumps from tomorrow as a lower oil price continues to be passed on to consumers. For the seventh time since late October Asda has said it will lower the price at its 320 petrol stations. Customers will pay 1p per litre less for unleaded petrol, or no [...]
Commodity 2019 outlook: Will global growth slowdown force more OPEC production cuts? January 7, 2019 | City Talk Oil prices steadily climbed during 2018 as the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries’ (OPEC) agreed production cuts helped stem the global oversupply. The US withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal saw Washington place new sanctions on the OPEC member, and crude surged to four-year highs on expectations of a significant reduction to the global [...]
Eurozone inflation falls to its lowest rate in eight months as business output crashes January 4, 2019 A fall in oil prices saw eurozone inflation crash to an eight-month low in December as business activity fell to a four-year low, it emerged today. Inflation for the 19-country area stood at 1.6 per cent in the last month of 2018, down from 1.9 per cent in November and the lowest recorded since April, [...]