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FILE PHOTO – Algerian Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia awaits the arrival of French President Emmanuel Macron at Houari Boumediene airport in Algiers, Algeria December 6, 2017. Picture taken December 6, 2017 REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra
April 20, 2019
ALGIERS (Reuters) – An Algerian court has summoned former Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia and current Finance Minister Mohamed Loukal, two associates of former President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, in a probe into wasting of public money, state TV said on Saturday.
They are being investigated over “dissipation of public money” and “illegal privilege,” state TV said.
No more details were immediately available.
The move comes after army chief, Lieutenant General Gaid Salah, said last week he expected to see members of the ruling elite in the major oil and natural gas-producing country prosecuted for corruption.
Bouteflika stepped down after 20 years in power two weeks ago, bowing to pressure from the army and weeks of demonstrations mainly by young people seeking change in the country.
But the protests, which began on Feb. 22 and have been largely peaceful, have continued as many want the removal of an elite that has governed Algeria since independence from France in 1962 and the prosecution of people they see as corrupt.
Ouyahia served several times as prime minister under Bouteflika and is also head of the RND party, the coalition partner of Bouteflika’s ruling FLN party.
Loukal was central bank governor under the former president.
Bouteflika has been replaced by Abdelkader Bensalah, head of the upper house of parliament, as interim president for 90 days until a presidential election on July 4.
Hundreds of thousands protested on Friday to demand the resignation of Bensalah and other top officials.
Bensalah appointed Ammar Haiwani as acting central bank governor, state TV earlier said. The position had been vacant since Loukal was made finance minister by Bouteflika before he had resigned.
(Reporting by Hesham Hajali, Lamine Chikhi and Hamid Ould AhmedWriting by Ulf Laessing; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
Source: OANN
About one in 10 U.S. counties grew last year because of immigration, bolstering communities amid a birth rate decline, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Citing new census figures released Thursday, the Journal reported the share of U.S. population growth attributable to immigrants hit 48% for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2018, up from 35% in fiscal 2011.
The rise comes as separate figures showing the general fertility rate in 2017 for women age 15-44 was 60.2 births per 1,000 women — the lowest since the government began tracking it more than 100 years ago, the Journal reported.
“We have a situation where U.S. fertility rates are really low and we’re not actively adding to the workforce through natural increase,” Aparna Mathur of the conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute told the Journal.
“We cannot afford to talk about immigrants as bad for the U.S. economy.”
For the last fiscal year, 298 of the nation’s 3,142 counties grew primarily because of immigration instead of a surplus of births over deaths, and from people moving around the country, according to the new Census Bureau figures.
That is up from 247 counties in 2011, the earliest data in the figures released Thursday.
These counties include parts of large metro areas as well as some of their suburban counties.
Fourteen states and the District of Columbia drew on immigration for more than half of their growth last fiscal year, including Florida, Kansas, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, the Journal reported.
In 44% of U.S. counties last fiscal year, the population fell from the year before, according to the new Census Bureau county population estimates.
Source: NewsMax America
The corner stone on the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in the financial district in New York City, U.S., March 4, 2019. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
April 18, 2019
By Luc Cohen and Corina Pons
CARACAS (Reuters) – U.S. sanctions on Venezuela have led the New York Federal Reserve to crack down on Puerto Rico’s $50 billion offshore banking industry, according to four sources and a document seen by Reuters.
The development will prevent the island’s offshore banks, several of which are owned by citizens of crisis-stricken Venezuela, from opening accounts with the Fed that give them direct access to the U.S. financial system.
Offshore banks in Puerto Rico are able to open accounts with the Fed since the island is a U.S. territory. That gives them a competitive advantage over other offshore banking jurisdictions like the British Virgin Islands, which have to access the U.S. financial system through expensive third-party correspondent banks.
But in a previously unreported Feb. 27 letter, the New York Fed said it had halted approval of new accounts for Puerto Rican offshore banks and other financial institutions “in light of recent events, including the expansion of U.S. economic sanctions relating to Venezuela.”
It plans stricter requirements for the opening of such accounts in the future, it said.
It did not give further details on why it was taking that step. But the move follows two Puerto Rican offshore banks that have accounts open with the New York Fed being mentioned in federal investigations into money laundering and sanctions evasion related to Venezuela.
“The Fed worries about its reputational exposure, just like anybody else does,” said David Murray, a vice president at the Washington-based Financial Integrity Network and a former Treasury Department official.
A spokeswoman for the New York Fed did not respond to requests for comment.
The decision will only affect Puerto Rican banks that had pending applications with the Fed and will not affect the 17 of Puerto Rico’s 80 offshore banks that the Fed’s website shows already have Fedwire accounts. Reuters was unable to determine how many banks were awaiting responses on their applications to open accounts.
The move to suspend account approvals shows how U.S. sanctions on Venezuela, which are meant to force socialist President Nicolas Maduro from office amid a political crisis and an economic meltdown, are having a ripple effect in other parts of the global financial system.
It could deal a blow to Puerto Rico, which has been using the offshore sector as an economic development strategy as it struggles with a crushing debt load and the impact of natural disasters such as 2017’s Hurricane Maria.
The island has for years nurtured its offshore banking sector by offering tax incentives to bank owners and promoting direct access to the U.S. financial system through the Fed rather than correspondent banks, which charge for their services and can end the relationship at a moment’s notice.
Offshore banking lets individuals and companies deposit money outside their countries of residence in order to legally lower tax bills, but criminal investigations and multilateral organizations have alleged it is also used for tax evasion and money laundering.
The notice also applies to U.S. Virgin Islands offshore banks. Both territories fall under the jurisdiction of the Fed’s New York branch.
‘WE SHARE IT ALL’
George Joyner, the commissioner of Puerto Rico’s banking regulator, declined to say how many of the territory’s offshore banks had applications pending with the Fed. He said the island regulator used the same standards as federal authorities including the Fed to supervise financial institutions, and that anti-money laundering was a “high focus.”
“Our office fully shares everything that we find in our examinations, and we share it with all the federal agencies,” Joyner said in a telephone interview.
He said “a number” of Puerto Rican offshore banks had been created with Venezuelan capital, without elaborating.
The Virgin Islands’ director of banking and insurance did not respond to requests for comment.
Sixteen of Puerto Rico’s 80 offshore banking and financial services firms are owned by Venezuelan individuals or companies, according to a Reuters review of their websites, corporate registry records, and directors’ LinkedIn pages and personal websites.
Several marketed directly to Venezuelan clients, or had past deals with the Venezuelan government, while twelve of the sixteen had Fedwire accounts, according to the Federal Reserve’s website.
Fedwire, a funds transfer system controlled by the Fed, allows banks, businesses and government agencies to send and receive payments in real time.
VENEZUELA CONNECTIONS
In recent years, U.S. prosecutors have examined the role Puerto Rico’s offshore banks have played in efforts to launder Venezuelan funds through the United States. It was not clear if the two cases in question contributed to the New York Fed’s decision to halt the opening of new accounts, but one source at a Puerto Rican bank and industry consultant David Nissman said they were likely an important factor. Joyner said they “certainly didn’t help.”
Federal prosecutors in a sprawling corruption probe unsealed in July of 2018 charged Uruguayan national Marcelo Gutierrez with allegedly conspiring to launder funds embezzled from Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA through a “bank in Puerto Rico” that he owned, according to criminal investigation filings in Florida federal court.
The prosecutors’ complaint does not identify the bank and says the transaction never took place.
Gutierrez’s LinkedIn profile lists him as a director at Vestin Bank International, which Puerto Rico banking regulator records show received a license to operate as an offshore operation on the island in 2015.
Vestin has since been acquired by Asia-focused Standard International Bank and Gutierrez has not been a shareholder since August of 2018, Standard said in a statement, adding that it had no links to Vestin’s prior business, no ties to Venezuela and no plans to enter the Venezuelan market.
Bruce Udolf, a Florida-based defense attorney for Gutierrez, said, “We expect to respond with a vigorous defense to those charges. We are hopeful that he will be vindicated at trial.”
In February, the FBI raided Puerto Rican offshore bank Banco San Juan International (BSJI) as part of a probe of money laundering and evasion of Venezuela-related sanctions, special agent Douglas Leff told reporters at the time. A spokesman for the FBI San Juan field office declined to provide further details.
In 2016, BSJI reached a $300 million credit agreement with PDVSA, according to PDVSA’s financial statements from that year.
BSJI also has an account with the Fed, according to Fed records.
In a statement, BSJI said it had complied with all U.S. sanctions and was cooperating with the FBI investigation.
The source at the bank in Puerto Rico, along with Joyner and Nissman, said most of the island’s offshore banks applied strict scrutiny on customers, and that the decision would punish an entire sector for the actions of a few bad actors.
“It just shuts your businesses down, and what did they do?” said Nissman, a former U.S. attorney for the U.S. Virgin Islands who drafted the territory’s offshore banking law, and now a Puerto Rico-based consultant. He said the Fed should evaluate applications on a “case-by-case basis.”
(Reporting by Luc Cohen and Corina Pons, Editing by Brian Ellsworth and Rosalba O’Brien)
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO – Steel pipe to be used in the oil pipeline construction of Kinder Morgan Canada’s Trans Mountain Expansion Project sit on rail cars at a stockpile site in Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada May 29, 2018. REUTERS/Dennis Owen
April 18, 2019
By Nia Williams
CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) – Canada has extended the deadline for a decision on whether to push forward with the expansion of the Trans Mountain oil pipeline to June 18 from mid-May, the Natural Resources Ministry said on Thursday.
The Trans Mountain expansion (TMX) project would nearly triple the amount of crude flowing from Alberta’s oil sands to British Columbia’s coast, but has been beset by regulatory delays and opposition from indigenous groups, environmentalists and the government of British Columbia.
Amarjeet Sohi, Canada’s minister of natural resources, said the delay would give the federal government more time to consult with indigenous groups impacted by the pipeline.
“The Government has consistently said that a decision would only be made on the project once we are satisfied that the duty to consult has been met,” he said.
Last August, the Canadian government bought the pipeline from Kinder Morgan Canada for C$4.5 billion ($3.37 billion) to ensure it gets built.
That came after Canada’s Federal Court of Appeal overturned the Liberal government’s 2016 approval to expand the pipeline. The court ruled Canada’s National Energy Board (NEB) regulator had not considered marine impacts and the government had not adequately consulted indigenous groups.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government ordered a new NEB review of Trans Mountain last September, and in February the regulator recommended the government approve it a second time.
The NEB also made new recommendations to mitigate harm to Pacific Ocean killer whales, which environmentalists warn will face disruption from increased oil tanker traffic.
Alberta’s Premier-designate Jason Kenney, who won a landslide election victory in the oil-rich province on Tuesday, said he had spoken with Trudeau about the delay.
“I agree with the Prime Minister that they need to make sure they cross every ‘t’ and dot every ‘i’ when it comes to discharging the federal government’s duty to consult,” Kenney told a news conference. “We certainly do not want them to go back to the drawing board a third time on this.”
RBC Capital Markets analyst Michael Tran said the short delay to the decision would not materially impact the energy sector.
“The whole aim of this now is that there are no more moving goal posts. The government is taking its time to make sure the right decision is made and it’s communicated the right way to the masses,” Tran said.
Trudeau’s Liberals face a federal election later this year in which the environment and pipelines will be major issues.
($1 = 1.3363 Canadian dollars)
(Additional reporting by Steve Scherer in Ottawa; Editing by Bernadette Baum, Marguerita Choy and Jonathan Oatis)
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO: A pump jack operates in front of a drilling rig at sunset in an oil field in Midland, Texas U.S. August 22, 2018. REUTERS/Nick Oxford
April 18, 2019
By Scott DiSavino
(Reuters) – U.S. energy firms this week reduced the number of oil rigs operating for the first time in three weeks as production growth forecasts from shale, the country’s largest oil fields, continue to shrink.
Drillers cut eight oil rigs in the week to April 18, bringing the total count down to 825, General Electric Co’s Baker Hughes energy services firm said in its closely followed report on Thursday.
Baker Hughes released the report a day early this week due to the Good Friday holiday.
The U.S. rig count, an early indicator of future output, is still a bit higher than a year ago when 820 rigs were active.
The rig count fell for the past four months and production growth in the Permian and other key shale basins have slowed as oil prices fell in the fourth quarter and many independent shale companies cut spending in the face of investor pressure to focus on earnings growth instead of increased output.
Major oil companies, like Exxon Mobil Corp and Chevron Corp, however, are boosting their presence, particularly in the Permian, the largest U.S. shale oil field.
U.S. crude oil output from seven major shale formations is expected to rise by about 80,000 barrels per day (bpd) in May to a record 8.46 million bpd, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said in its monthly drilling productivity report on Monday.
Although May’s total, if accurate, would be a record high, the increase continues a pattern of shrinking growth since February.
Since the start of the year, several independent producers have announced job cuts, including Encana Corp and Pioneer Natural Resources Co, while oilfield service company Schlumberger NV projected onshore domestic exploration and production investments will fall by 10 percent in 2019.
“Collectively, these are all signs that U.S. crude and natural gas production growth should moderate in the months ahead, following the trend of slowing rig activity that is starting to build,” said Trey Cowan, senior analyst at S&P Global Platts Analytics.
U.S. crude futures, meanwhile, traded near a five-month high of almost $65 per barrel for a second week in a row this week as a drop in crude exports from OPEC’s defacto leader Saudi Arabia and a draw in U.S. oil inventories supported prices. [O/R]
Looking ahead, crude futures were trading around $64 a barrel for the balance of 2019 and $61 in calendar 2020.
Year-to-date, the total number of oil and gas rigs active in the United States has averaged 1,039. That keeps the total count for 2019 on track to be the highest since 2014, which averaged 1,862 rigs. Most rigs produce both oil and gas.
Analysts at Simmons & Co, energy specialists at U.S. investment bank Piper Jaffray, however, forecast the average combined oil and gas rig count will slide from 1,032 in 2018 to 1,019 in 2019 before rising to 1,097 in 2020.
That is the same as Simmons predictions last week.
(Reporting by Scott DiSavino; Editing by Marguerita Choy)
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO: Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., April 8, 2019. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
April 18, 2019
By Amy Caren Daniel
(Reuters) – U.S. stock index futures were muted on Thursday, as weak manufacturing data out of Europe underscored concerns of a global slowdown, while investors stayed on the sidelines ahead of the release of a long-awaited Mueller report.
French and German surveys of purchasing managers for April showed that manufacturing activity in euro zone’s two biggest economies continued to contract.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russia’s role in the 2016 U.S. election will be released on Thursday, providing the first public look at the findings of an inquiry that has cast a shadow over Donald Trump’s presidency.
Attorney General William Barr will hold a news conference at 9:30 a.m. to discuss the report, ahead of the release.
At 6:59 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were down 27 points, or 0.1%. S&P 500 e-minis were down 1.75 points, or 0.06%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were down 4.25 points, or 0.06%.
On trade, Washington and Beijing set a tentative timeline for a fresh round of face-to-face meetings ahead of a possible signing ceremony in late May or early June, according to a Wall Street Journal report.
Honeywell International Inc shares rose 1.9% after reporting a better-than-expected quarterly profit and raising its full-year financial forecast.
Of the 54 S&P 500 companies that have posted earnings so far, 79.6% have beaten consensus, according to Refinitiv data.
Analysts now expect first-quarter profits for S&P 500 companies to have dropped 1.8% year-on-year, an improvement from recent estimates, but would still be the first earnings decline since 2016.
Honeywell International Inc shares rose 1.9% after reporting a better-than-expected quarterly profit and raising its full-year financial forecast.
Kinder Morgan Inc rose 1.3 percent after Chief Executive Steven Kean said the company has begun internal discussions about building a third natural gas pipeline in the Permian Basin.
Investors are also awaiting the hotly-anticipated debut of online scrapbook company Pinterest Inc, the first high-profile initial public offering of a “tech unicorn” after Lyft Inc’s struggles.
Commerce Department report, due at 8:30 a.m. ET, is likely to show U.S. retail sales rebounded 0.9 percent in March after a 0.2 percent decline in February.
(Reporting by Amy Caren Daniel in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila)
Source: OANN
A cyclist rides past the Bank of Canada building in Ottawa July 17, 2012. The Bank of Canada left interest rates unchanged on Tuesday, but made clear it was still weighing an eventual move higher, even as other central banks ease monetary policy to cope with damaging economic slowdowns. REUTERS/Chris Wattie (CANADA – Tags: BUSINESS POLITICS)
April 18, 2019
By Mumal Rathore
BENGALURU (Reuters) – The Bank of Canada is expected to hold policy steady for the rest of this year, with calls for the next hike in early 2020 resting on a knife’s edge, a Reuters poll showed, the latest dulling of rate expectations for a major central bank.
Just last month, a majority of economists said the overnight rate would rise to 2.0 percent in the third quarter of this year, followed by another rise next year.
The findings from the April 12-16 poll of over 40 economists brings expectations for the BoC in line with those for the U.S. Federal Reserve and other major central banks, which are now forecast to stay on the sidelines this year.
The Canadian economy has taken a hit from the mandatory production cut of oil – its biggest export – a slowdown in the housing market and wilting business sentiment over worries surrounding the U.S.-China trade war.
“Although the Bank of Canada still sports a directional bias in its forward-looking language, referring to ‘future rate increases’ in the March announcement, this likely reflects the fact that policy rates are still negative in real terms,” noted Douglas Porter, chief economist at BMO Capital Markets.
“However, this doesn’t preclude a Fed-comparable desire to stand pat given the substantial risks posed by higher interest rates – given a record-high household debt-to-income ratio – along with global economic headwinds and trade uncertainties.”
All economists polled said the BoC will hold rates at 1.75 percent at its April 24 meeting and about 60 percent of them say they will stay there through to the end of this year.
The median forecast shows the central bank will hike in the first quarter of next year to 2.0 percent, but the sample was split. The rates are forecast to stay put after that through to end-2020.
Almost 90 percent of economists who answered an additional question said a rate cut was unlikely by end-2020 as they remain hopeful the economy will muddle through its current rough patch.
“Those that think the softness will continue will point to signs of slowing growth in the U.S. and Europe, declines in global trade volumes, an inversion of the yield curve, and declines in business and consumer confidence,” noted Jean-François Perrault, chief economist at Scotiabank.
“While these factors are acting to hold back growth to some extent, fundamentals remain generally solid and our models continue to suggest that the probability of a recession in Canada is very low.”
The recent rise in oil prices contributed to a Canadian inflation increase to 1.9 percent in March, just below the central bank’s 2 percent target. A separate Reuters poll showed oil prices are expected to rise over the coming year.
While that may help underpin the economy, a major oil and natural resources exporter, the growth outlook was cut in the latest poll.
Gross domestic product (GDP) growth was forecast to average 1.6 percent this year and 1.7 percent next, a downgrade from 1.8 percent predicted for both those years in the January poll.
The median probability of a recession in the next 12 months was 20 percent, and 27.5 percent in the next two years. That compares with a 25 percent probability of a U.S. recession in the next 12 months and 40 percent chance in the next two years.
(Reporting and polling by Mumal Rathore; Editing by Ross Finley and Chris Reese)
Source: OANN
If you’re an organ donor, you might have chosen that status out of a sense of goodwill, thinking that medical personnel don’t harvest your organs until after you’re dead and unconscious. But a new scientific study reveals that organ harvesting is very likely taking place even while patients are still conscious, even though their hearts have stopped beating.
This means that patients are fully aware — and experience all the pain — of doctors rapidly cutting into their bodies and slicing away their organs in order to generate “transplant profits” for the corrupt medical system.
Even when your heart stops beating, you’re still alive and conscious for several minutes
You’re not really dead when your heart merely stops beating, even though that’s what doctors use to pronounce you dead. “[P]eople who have survived cardiac arrest later accurately described what was happening around them after their hearts stopped beating,” said Dr. Sam Parnia, a researcher who studies consciousness after death. His comments were reported by Fox News:
He said: “They’ll describe watching doctors and nurses working, they’ll describe having awareness of full conversations, of visual things that were going on, that would otherwise not be known to them.”
In other words, you’re still alive, conscious and aware for several minutes after your heart stops beating. Just because the heart stops doesn’t instantly disconnect the activity of the brain. (This should be obvious, but the corrupt, evil medical system has whitewashed this issue for years, pretending that death is instantaneous, taking place the moment the heart stops beating.)
“This means you are essentially ‘trapped’ inside your dead body with your brain still working,” reports Fox News. If you’re an organ donor, that’s the moment in which doctors slice into your body without using anesthesia (since they assume you’re dead) and start rapidly harvesting your organs. You feel every bit of it, but you’re trapped inside your body and can’t move or even scream.
If you’re an organ donor, greedy hospitals and unethical doctors may start harvesting your organs BEFORE you’re dead
Doctors are pushed by the medical industry to harvest as many organs as possible, since organs are free to the hospital, yet that same hospital can generate millions of dollars in revenue from an organ transplant. The organ trade is steeped in unethical medical crimes and horrifying realities that almost no one dares acknowledge. Over the years, there have been many reports that claim some doctors dishonestly declare patients to be deceased even when they aren’t, in order to start harvesting their organs before their heart stops beating.
A shocking investigative book called The Red Market (by Scott Carney) documents the unethical practices of the organ trade industry. The book’s subtitle is, “On the trail of the world’s organ brokers, bone thieves, blood farmers and child traffickers,” and it lays out the horrifying truth about the organ harvesting industry that the medical establishment has successfully covered up for decades.
The corrupt medical system pushes you to donate your organs for THEIR benefit, not yours
In summary, the entire push for you to become an organ donor is based on medical system profits. They need your organs in order to charge patients for organ transplant procedures, drugs and a lifetime of repeat doctor visits. In seeking to capture these profits, they falsely imply that somehow organ transplants are free to everyone, as if hospitals and doctors are volunteering their time and resources to save lives.
That’s a big lie.
In truth, organ transplants are a huge profit center for many hospitals, and while hospitals and doctors reap enormous profits on these procedures, they pay no money whatsoever to the family of the deceased person whose organs made the entire thing possible in the first place.
Why should organ donors give up their organs for free while doctors, hospitals and drug companies reap huge profits from those organs? If “saving lives” is the real goal, then why don’t hospitals the doctors offer all organ transplants for free?
The answer is obvious: It’s big business. It’s a profit center for the corrupt, evil medical industry.
And if you are an organ donor, you are perpetuating this great evil and possibly subjecting yourself to horrifying torture as surgeons rip your organs from your body while you’re still alive and conscious.
If you really want to help others, teach people how to protect their own organs through healthy living, nutrition and avoidance of toxins. By teaching people how to keeps their own organs healthy, you reduce the need for fresh organ transplants, thereby making more of those organs available to those who are waiting for them.
You can start by teaching people to avoid toxic vaccines, since vaccines damage the kidneys. Chemotherapy damages the heart, liver and brain. Exposure to glyphosate herbicide and other agricultural chemicals damages all your organs. If you really want to save lives and help others, encourage them to read Natural News where they can learn how to avoid disease and protect the organs God gave them.
Also read MedicalViolence.com for more stories about the extreme violence carried out against human beings by the medical system.
Source: InfoWars
FILE PHOTO: The logo of Brazil’s state-run Petrobras oil company is seen on a tank in at Petrobras Paulinia refinery in Paulinia, Brazil July 1, 2017. REUTERS/Paulo Whitaker/File Photo
April 17, 2019
By Marta Nogueira, Rodrigo Viga Gaier and Luciano Costa
RIO DE JANEIRO/SAO PAULO (Reuters) – Brazilian state-run oil firm Petroleo Brasileiro SA is completely free of political interference and is examining divesting a wide range of assets, including its fuel distribution unit, executives said on Wednesday.
In an impromptu press conference at the Rio de Janeiro headquarters of Petrobras, as the firm is known, Chief Executive Roberto Castello Branco announced a diesel price hike of 10 cents per liter and said the company has complete control over its pricing strategy.
Speaking at an event in Sao Paulo only minutes before, Chief Financial Officer Rafael Grisolia said the firm was looking at selling off assets such as deepwater pipelines and Petrobras Distribuidora SA, which includes a gas station chain stretching across the country.
The comments come as executives scramble to contain the fallout of a Friday incident, in which the firm canceled a diesel price hike at the behest of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, stirring fears of political interference and tanking Petrobras shares.
While Bolsonaro´s government has promised a hands-off approach to Petrobras, investors are wary of a return to policies enacted under past administrations, in which the company was forced to sell fuel at a discount to international rates.
On Tuesday, Bolsonaro´s spokesman and Economy Minister Paulo Guedes sought to characterize the canceled price hike as a one-time error that would not be repeated.
PIPES AND PUMPS
Petrobras is analyzing the best model for selling three offshore natural gas pipelines, CFO Grisolia said, including whether they will be sold individually or in a package.
Grisolia also said the oil company would “probably” reduce its stake in Petrobras Distribuidora to below 50 percent from the current 71 percent, effectively privatizing the unit through a secondary share offering.
Investors have cheered the firm’s recent push to cut debt and refocus on oil exploration and production via an aggressive divestment program.
Reuters reported earlier this month that Petrobras was preparing to sell three more gas pipelines after successfully selling its larger TAG unit to France’s Engie for $8.6 billion.
Reuters reported on Tuesday the company had hired nine banks to manage Petrobras Distribuidora’s share offering.
(Reporting by Marta Nogueira and Rodrigo Viga Gaier in Rio de Janeiro and Luciano Costa in Sao Paulo; Writing by Gram Slattery and Tatiana Bautzer; Editing by Peter Cooney and Cynthia Osterman)
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO: The logo of Brazil’s state-run Petrobras oil company is seen on a tank in at Petrobras Paulinia refinery in Paulinia, Brazil July 1, 2017. REUTERS/Paulo Whitaker/File Photo
April 17, 2019
By Marta Nogueira, Rodrigo Viga Gaier and Luciano Costa
RIO DE JANEIRO/SAO PAULO (Reuters) – Brazilian state-run oil firm Petroleo Brasileiro SA is completely free of political interference and is examining divesting a wide range of assets, including its fuel distribution unit, executives said on Wednesday.
In an impromptu press conference at the Rio de Janeiro headquarters of Petrobras, as the firm is known, Chief Executive Roberto Castello Branco announced a diesel price hike of 10 cents per liter and said the company has complete control over its pricing strategy.
Speaking at an event in Sao Paulo only minutes before, Chief Financial Officer Rafael Grisolia said the firm was looking at selling off assets such as deepwater pipelines and Petrobras Distribuidora SA, which includes a gas station chain stretching across the country.
The comments come as executives scramble to contain the fallout of a Friday incident, in which the firm canceled a diesel price hike at the behest of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, stirring fears of political interference and tanking Petrobras shares.
While Bolsonaro´s government has promised a hands-off approach to Petrobras, investors are wary of a return to policies enacted under past administrations, in which the company was forced to sell fuel at a discount to international rates.
On Tuesday, Bolsonaro´s spokesman and Economy Minister Paulo Guedes sought to characterize the canceled price hike as a one-time error that would not be repeated.
PIPES AND PUMPS
Petrobras is analyzing the best model for selling three offshore natural gas pipelines, CFO Grisolia said, including whether they will be sold individually or in a package.
Grisolia also said the oil company would “probably” reduce its stake in Petrobras Distribuidora to below 50 percent from the current 71 percent, effectively privatizing the unit through a secondary share offering.
Investors have cheered the firm’s recent push to cut debt and refocus on oil exploration and production via an aggressive divestment program.
Reuters reported earlier this month that Petrobras was preparing to sell three more gas pipelines after successfully selling its larger TAG unit to France’s Engie for $8.6 billion.
Reuters reported on Tuesday the company had hired nine banks to manage Petrobras Distribuidora’s share offering.
(Reporting by Marta Nogueira and Rodrigo Viga Gaier in Rio de Janeiro and Luciano Costa in Sao Paulo; Writing by Gram Slattery and Tatiana Bautzer; Editing by Peter Cooney and Cynthia Osterman)
Source: OANN
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