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Selasa, 11 Juni 2019

Saudi Aramco Offers To Buy Into Russia's Arctic LNG 2 Project - OilPrice.com

Saudi Arabia’s oil giant Aramco has offered to buy a stake in Russia’s liquefied natural gas project Arctic LNG 2 and hopes that project operator Novatek will accept the offer, Saudi Arabia’s Energy Minister and chairman at Aramco, Khalid al-Falih, told Russian news agency TASS in an interview published on Monday.

Saudi Aramco has long been rumored to be considering buying a stake in the Arctic LNG 2 project.

Asked about recent reports that Aramco has backed out of a possible deal for the Russian LNG project, al-Falih told TASS:

“No, no, this is not true. Aramco extended the offer and we hope that offer will be accepted by Novatek.”

In April, Novatek signed agreements with two Chinese companies, under which the Asian firms will become shareholders in the Arctic LNG project with 10 percent each. Earlier this year, France’s Total, a partner of Novatek in the producing Yamal LNG project, signed a deal to buy a direct 10-percent interest in Arctic LNG 2.

The final investment decision on the Arctic LNG 2 project is expected to be made in the second half of 2019, while the first liquefaction train is planned to start up in 2023.

At the end of last week, Russia and Saudi Arabia held talks about investments worth tens of billions of U.S. dollars in various energy projects.

Apart from Arctic LNG 2, Aramco is looking at other projects in Russia, including potential projects with oil giant Rosneft and with natural gas giant Gazprom, as well as in petrochemicals, al-Falih told TASS.

Aramco could also be interested in some joint projects or even equity investment in Russia’s petrochemical company Sibur, “but the interest has to be from both sides. So we will wait for Sibur and its shareholders to express their interest in future cooperation,” al-Falih told TASS.

Referring to the OPEC+ production cut deal after the talks he held with Russia’s top officials last week, the Saudi energy minister told TASS that “I am fairly confident that from the OPEC side almost everyone agrees that we need to extend the Declaration of Cooperation,” adding that “So, I think the remaining country to jump onboard now is Russia.”

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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June 11, 2019 at 04:00AM

Tilray shares up 11 per cent on deal to merge with biggest shareholder - The Globe and Mail

Housing starts slow - Business News - Castanet.net

Photo: The Canadian Press

A worker is seen working on a construction project at UBC in Vancouver.

Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. says the pace of housing starts slowed in May.

The housing agency say the seasonally adjusted annual rate of housing starts slipped to 202,337 units in May, down 13.3 per cent from 233,410 units in April.

Economists on average had expected an annual rate of 205,000, according to Thomson Reuters Eikon.

The annualized pace of urban multiple-unit projects such as condominiums, apartments and townhouses fell 18.5 per cent to 141,851 in May while the pace of single-detached urban starts rose 1.8 per cent to 45,095.

Rural starts were estimated at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 15,391 units.

The six-month moving average of the monthly seasonally adjusted annual rates was 201,983 in May compared with 205,717 in April.

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June 10, 2019 at 07:35PM

Amazon opens its second Go store in New York - Engadget

All US iPhones could be made outside of China if needed, says Foxconn - The Verge

A senior Foxconn executive says that the company could move production of all iPhones destined for the US out of China if the current trade war demands it. In comments reported by Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal, the head of Foxconn’s semiconductor business group, Young Liu, said, “25 percent of our production capacity is outside of China and we can help Apple respond to its needs in the U.S. market.”

“We have enough capacity to meet Apple’s demand,” Liu said at an investors’ conference. Apple has yet to instruct Foxconn to move production out of China according to Liu.

Apple might need to rethink manufacturing after tariffs up to 25 percent come into effect at the end of June. The new tariff is expected to apply to the wholesale cost of devices like phones, laptops, and tablets imported from China to the USA, the market where a third of Apple’s iPhone revenue comes from. It would be up to Apple to decide how much of the extra cost to pass on to US consumers. Analysts quoted by Bloomberg suggest that passing the cost of the tariffs on in their entirety could result in price increases of between nine and 16 percent, resulting in a drop in demand of anywhere between 10 and 40 percent. Alternatively, absorbing the cost entirely could hit Apple’s earnings per share by six to seven percent.

Foxconn has a big incentive to help Apple since the company is said to be responsible for as much as half of Foxconn’s revenue. A drop in demand for iPhones would lead to a drop in manufacturing demand from Foxconn. The manufacturer is already preparing to shift some iPhone production to India in an attempt to avoid India’s 20 percent import duties.

However, with China planning to retaliate to the Trump administration with a tariff increase of its own, it will be difficult for Apple to escape the impact of the trade war entirely.

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2019-06-11 11:56:26Z
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All US iPhones can be made outside China to escape trade war, says Foxconn - 9to5Mac

With US iPhones currently made in China, there has been much concern about the escalating trade war between the two countries. The worst-case scenario would be a 25% tariff on iPhones entering the US, which would either push up prices, hurt Apple’s bottom line, or both.

But Foxconn has said that the iPhone would be able to escape this fate, as the assembler has enough capacity in other countries to supply all US iPhones …

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Bloomberg quotes a senior Foxconn exec speaking at an investor briefing.

The Cupertino, Calif.-based company’s primary manufacturing partner has enough capacity to make all iPhones bound for the U.S. outside of China if necessary, according to a senior executive at Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. The Taiwanese contract manufacturer now makes most of the smartphones in the Chinese mainland […]

Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn, is the American giant’s most important manufacturing partner. It will fully support Apple if it needs to adjust its production as the U.S.-Chinese trade spat gets grimmer and more unpredictable, board nominee and semiconductor division chief Young Liu told an investor briefing in Taipei on Tuesday.

“Twenty-five percent of our production capacity is outside of China and we can help Apple respond to its needs in the U.S. market,” said Liu, adding that investments are now being made in India for Apple. “We have enough capacity to meet Apple’s demand.”

Liu even hinted that the as-yet fictitious Wisconsin plant could be a potential future option.

The company will respond swiftly and rely on localized manufacturing in response to the trade war, just as it foresaw the need to build a base in the U.S. state of Wisconsin two years ago, he said.

Back in April, Foxconn confirmed reports that it will begin mass-production of iPhones in India this year. This is believed to be primarily geared to serving the local market, avoiding Indian import tariffs, but it sounds like Foxconn would be in a position to boost capacity sufficiently to assemble US iPhones too.

Rival Apple product assembler Pegatron is also believed to be moving some production of MacBooks and iPads out of China this month.

Some Apple accessories are already taxed at 25% as they enter the US from China, with Apple absorbing this cost.

If Foxconn is right, it doesn’t solve all of Apple’s trade war related threats. There has been a growing movement in China to boycott Apple products in retaliation for US policy, as well as talk of the Chinese government making life difficult for Apple.

Goldman Sachs recently warned that the worst-case hit to Apple’s bottom line could be a 29% drop in global profits. That is, however, based on an extreme scenario of China banning the sale of iPhones within the country. Apple CEO Tim Cook recently said that he considers it unlikely that China would target Apple.

Photo: Shutterstock

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2019-06-11 11:12:00Z
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European shares gain on Trump tariff relief, carmakers shine - Investing.com

© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Signage is seen outside the entrance of the London Stock Exchange in London

By Tom Wilson

LONDON (Reuters) - European shares gained ground on Tuesday, with Germany's carmakers outperforming, as risk appetite held firm after the United States stepped back from imposing tariffs on Mexico.

The pan-European climbed 0.62%, on course for a sixth day of gains in the last seven, with Frankfurt's racing up 1.2% as German investors returned from a one-day holiday.

There, BMW, Daimler and VW - seen as sensitive to trade tariffs - all gained between 1.8%-2%, mirroring a 1.9% gain for the auto sector.

Investors have breathed easier this week after the United States and Mexico reached a deal on Friday to avert tariffs threatened by U.S. President Donald Trump if steps were not taken to curb the flow of mostly Central American migrants.

That eased - for now at least - fears that the United States would find itself in a trade war with another of its largest commercial partners, adding to the dispute with China.

Trump said on Monday he may impose more tariffs on Chinese imports if he cannot make progress in talks with President Xi Jingping at a Group of 20 summit in Japan later this month.

Market participants said that investors would have to wait until the G20 summit, scheduled for June 28-29, for clear signs of how the spat would play out.

In the meantime, stocks are likely to be buoyed by expectations of a cut in rates by the U.S. Federal Reserve. Markets have priced in a cut by July.

"It looks like we will have to wait to see at the end of the month, to see what the next move will be," said David Madden, an analyst at CMC Markets. "In that time, if nothing is said, stocks could press on higher – the belief that the Fed will all of a sudden become dovish is really driving markets."

The MSCI world equity index, which tracks shares in 47 countries, advanced 0.24%. Wall Street futures were also seen opening higher, with S&P500 mini futures up 0.26%.

In Asia, MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan gained 0.9%, with Shanghai's bourse climbing 2% after China tweaked policy on major investment projects in an attempt to support its slowing economy.

Bourses in Australia, South Korea and Japan also gained.

FED EXPECTATIONS

The dollar held steady above a 2-1/2 month low against a basket of currencies, with rising expectations for a Fed rate cut tempered by a reluctance to close positions before the G20.

The nudged down 0.03% to 96.747 after advancing 0.2% on Monday.

"The markets are pricing in a 25-basis-point rate cut in July," said Peter Schaffrik, head of European rates strategy at RBC Capital Markets, adding that expectations of looser policy would likely continue.

"When you see the narrative that the market is painting, that it is all down to the negative implications from the trade war and the reduction of global trade," he said. "It's difficult to see how any one data point will change the entire picture."

Amid the cautious optimism, a rally in longer-dated euro zone government bonds stalled as the pick-up in risk sentiment globally sparked a sell-off in the bloc.

Germany's 10-year bond yield, seen as a benchmark for government debt, was up 3 basis points at minus 0.23% - still a smidgeon away from last week's record lows.

Thirty-year bond yields in Germany and France were up as much as 8 basis points in early trade.

In commodities, oil prices rose, bolstered by firmer financial markets and expectations that producer group OPEC and its allies will keep withholding supply. futures were at $62.67 at 0741 GMT, up 0.4%.

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2019-06-11 08:40:00Z
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Selasa, 11 Juni 2019

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