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Royal Dutch Shell Plc will this week reveal how deep the oil rout goes as energy companies reel from the worst market crisis in decades. Shell will on Wednesday become the first major oil producer to announce annual earnings as it enters the final stages of its plan to buy BG Group Plc in the... Continue Reading →
Oil prices dove below $30 a barrel on Friday, dragging major equity indices around the world sharply lower, as fears of a global slowdown amid a crude supply glut roiled markets and unsettled investors who snapped up gold and other safe-haven assets. Major stock indices in Europe and on Wall Street tumbled more than... Continue Reading →
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff's left-leaning administration is worried a possible interest rate hike next week will foil its efforts to revive a battered economy while failing to curb inflation, government sources said on Thursday. The ruling Workers Party, unions and businesses are pressuring the central bank to keep its Selic rate BRCBMP=ECI unchanged to avoid... Continue Reading →
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff on Thursday signed a bill that gives amnesty to holders of undeclared offshore assets in exchange for a fine, part of efforts to cut a swelling budget gap and revive investment in the recession-hit economy. The law offers amnesty from prosecution to Brazilians if they bring unreported foreign funds home... Continue Reading →
Brazil's state-controlled oil producer Petrobras is seeking to sell its 5.8 billion Brazilian real ($1.4 billion) stake in petrochemical producer Braskem SA, newspaper Folha de S. Paulo reported on Wednesday. Petróleo Brasileiro SA (Petrobras) has hired Brazilian bank Banco Bradesco SA as a financial adviser and has started to pitch the sale to foreign investors,... Continue Reading →
Why does Brazil's inflation stay so stubbornly high despite even more interest-rate hikes in the horizon? The one-word answer is indexation. A vestige of the country's hyperinflation period in the 1990's, when annual price gains reached heights above 6,000 percent, indexation was meant to protect Brazilian companies and citizens from depreciating purchasing power by linking costs such as... Continue Reading →
BP Plc plans to cut 4,000 jobs in its crude-oil production division this year as prices trade near a 12-year low. The company will reduce its worldwide upstream workforce to less than 20,000, London-based spokesman David Nicholas said by phone. The cuts include 600 people working at North Sea projects: they’ll lose their positions over the... Continue Reading →
Mon Jan 11, 2016 Reuters A flag of Brazil's state-run Petrobras oil company is pictured at a gas station in Mariana, Brazil, November 11, 2015. REUTERS/RICARDO MORAES Brazil's government-run oil company Petrobras got a waiver of pollution control requirements from the state of Pernambuco for its RNEST refinery, allowing it to boost output to 100,000... Continue Reading →
Brazil’s stint as the most lucrative emerging-market bond investment may be short-lived, according to Aberdeen Asset Management Plc and Commerzbank AG. The country’s dollar-denominated notes returned 1.9 percent last week, the best performance among 60 developing nations tracked by Bloomberg. Still, the gains are just a reprieve from a rout last year that saddled bondholders with losses... Continue Reading →
For investors in Brazil battered by a terrible 2015, there was reason to believe January would provide a respite. With summer holidays in full gear and Congress in recess, developments in the political scandals that had roiled markets were put on hold. And then came China. Read more
Brazil Energy Insight 