BP probes traders on rigging of £3 trillion-a-day market
The TRUTH will set you FREE.
Extracts from an energyvoice.com article dated 31 Dec 2014
News service Bloomberg said it had seen copies of messages sent to the oil giant’s staff from firms whose senior forex traders belonged to a chatroom known as “The Cartel”.
Oil giant BP faces being drawn into the foreign exchange (forex) rigging scandal after it emerged that it has been investigating whether its traders were linked to the manipulation of the £3 trillion-a-day market.
The UK-based group said it had carried out a review of its activities after global regulatory probes which resulted in six banks last month being fined £2.6 billion for rigging the market.
Details emerged after reports that members of a BP trading unit were told of planned currency trades hours before they happened.
News service Bloomberg said it had seen copies of messages sent to the oil giant’s staff from firms whose senior forex traders belonged to a chatroom known as “The Cartel”.
Oil giant BP faces being drawn into the foreign exchange (forex) rigging scandal after it emerged that it has been investigating whether its traders were linked to the manipulation of the £3 trillion-a-day market.
The UK-based group said it had carried out a review of its activities after global regulatory probes which resulted in six banks last month being fined £2.6 billion for rigging the market.
Details emerged after reports that members of a BP trading unit were told of planned currency trades hours before they happened.
News service Bloomberg said it had seen copies of messages sent to the oil giant’s staff from firms whose senior forex traders belonged to a chatroom known as “The Cartel”.
Share this:
Like this:
Big Oil will get even bigger
FROM AN ARTICLE BY FIONA MAHARG-BRAVO PUBLISHED IN THE NEW YORK TIMES FRIDAY 2 JAN 2015
It’s not clear that Shell, the wallflower in the 1990s, will make a move. Exxon and other majors in the United States might be tempted. Either way, chances are Big Oil will get even bigger…
There was $383 billion in mergers and acquisitions in the oil and gas sector last year, as of Dec. 11. Yet Europe has largely missed out: About three-quarters of the targets have been in North America, according to Thomson Reuters data. Shale has played a big role. In 2015, oil and gas bankers in Europe will get a bigger slice of the action.
The last big fall in oil prices, at the end of 2008, was too short to push a big merger and acquisition wave.
BP’s former chairman, John Browne, wrote in his memoir that a merger with Shell, pondered while he was at the helm, might have delivered $9 billion in annual synergies.
BP faces big liabilities in the Gulf of Mexico and volatility in Russia. BG Group of Britain has long been a target, and the new chief executive starts in March. It’s not clear that Shell, the wallflower in the 1990s, will make a move. Exxon and other majors in the United States might be tempted. Either way, chances are Big Oil will get even bigger next year.
Oil prices down by almost 50%
From an article published by Bloomberg News Friday 2 Jan 2015
Oil dropped to the lowest in more than five and a half years amid growing supply from Russia and Iraq and signs of manufacturing weakness in Europe and China.
Oil output in Russia and Iraq surged to the highest levels in decades in December, according to data from both countries’ governments.
Prices slumped 46 percent in New York in 2014, the steepest drop in six years and second-worst since trading began in 1983…
The European oil fell 48 percent last year, the second-biggest annual loss on record behind a 51 percent tumble in the 2008 financial crisis.
RELATED NASDAQ ARTICLE – ROYAL DUTCH SHELL DOWNGRADED
On Dec 31, Zacks Investment Research downgraded the integrated energy giant, Royal Dutch Shell plc.
With a tumble in crude oil price – which fell over 50% since Jun 2014 – revenues, cash flows and earnings are likely to be negatively impacted.
In this weakly priced market, Shell may find it difficult to maintain its lofty capital spending and dividend payments.
Moreover, the company is strategically selling its non-core assets. Though this is likely to be favorable in the long term, lost reserves and production would hamper earnings in the near term.
Oil and Art Do Not Mix
On a recent cold night in Trafalgar Square, a group of 30 or so people rehearsed a new piece of musical theater in front of Britain’s National Gallery of Art. But if the venue was highbrow, the production — including sinister characters and lyrics such as “A gallery of art-wash … to benefit the oil boss” — definitely was not.
It was being staged by the environmental group Art Not Oil, and the target of their satire was a Rembrandt exhibition, sponsored by the oil and gas company Shell.
Much like institutional investments in fossil fuel companies in the US, funding from companies like Shell has become a contentious issue in the British art world. Museums and opera houses say they need the money to make ends meet these days, but groups like Art Not Oil believe sponsorship deals give fossil fuel companies a respectability they don’t deserve.
The TRUTH will set you FREE.
By John Donovan
