Shares of Oil and gas firms declined after drill setback

Shares in three oil and gas firms that are active in the North Sea declined following a disappointing update on drilling in an area where they have made big finds.


Nautical Petroleum, Encore Oil and Premier Oil lost ground following the Catcher North well in the Central North Sea finding a less hopeful oil and gas bearing area than expected.


The results of the well had been eagerly projected after the success of the Catcher and Catcher East wells in the last year.
Sector watchers stated that the first Catcher find was the biggest oil discovery in the North Sea for decades when it was made in the month of June.

WOLFSON Microelectronics, the manufacturer of chips for many of the world’s must-have electronic devices, sharply narrowed its 2010 losses, indicating that the Scottish firm’s drive into the fast-growing smartphone, gaming and e-book sectors has set it firmly on the road to recovery.

The chief executive, of the Edinburgh-based company, Mike Hickey yesterday also told The Herald he was quite comfortable with expectations that Wolfson would break back into a full-year profit by the end of 2011.

The company very recently has suffered from difficult times in the electronics market and could not bag a major contract of Apple. The firm, yesterday posted pre-tax losses of $11.2 million (£6.9m) for the year upto 2, January compared with a $14.8m loss for the fifty three weeks to January 3, 2009.

Issues of Health and Economy!

Earlier this month, there was a strong statement made by the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines, regarding its decision against the Reproductive health bill.

It is currently an issue for discussion by the representatives of the Lower House.

Roughly around the same time, Malacanang came out to say that it was no more supporting the RH bill to Congress, as the topmost priority. It also said that it would wait till the current talks with the Catholic Bishops came to a conclusive end.

There have been assurances made by the Palace that it would go forward with the law. It is now clear that these were mere promises and that it has yet again given into the powers of the Roman Catholic Church.

Public Appeal Against Dengue By Queensland Officials

Health officials of Queensland have sent a word of caution indicating the expected outbreak of dengue fever in cyclone-hit areas.

Reportedly there are 33 cases of people affected with dengue in Townsville itself. A sharp spur is observed in the cases, with the number doubling itself from the last week.

Though, health experts ruled out the contribution of Yasi but they emphasized that people still in cyclone devastated areas are at the higher risk of contracting the fever, and thus are advised to take special care of themselves.

Interest rates kept same despite of rising inflation

The monetary committee of the Bank of England decided to keep the interest rates at 0.5% which is a 315 year low notwithstanding the rising inflation which drew stern criticism from all quarters. The bank also decided to go on with its program of quantitative erasing, which is nothing but injecting money directly into the economy to speed up the recovery process. The current amount stands roughly at 200 billion pounds.

The decision by the Bank came even though there were great pressures that demanded the rise of the interest rates to curb the growing inflation. The bank's decision instead coincided with the mixed news from the real economy. Weaker manufacturing output was reported by the Office for National statistics for the month of December.

Disappointment regarding Rio’s proposal of buyback

The proposal made by Rio Tinto has caused dissatisfaction among the investors. It has also resulted in the decline of the shares of the miners in the stock exchanges of London and Australia. In spite of bumper profits the shares of the miners have been losing grounds. There has been a huge amount of cash which has been generated as a result of booming commodities in the markets. This allowed Rio Tinto to provide returns of about five billion US dollars to the shareholders. Rio Tinto did so by buying back the shares which were priced lower in the stock exchange of London. According to the reports of global miner there has been a rise in the net profit which has tripled in the year 2010 and has reached to 14.32 billion US dollars which is a record in itself. The net profit has increased by 194 percent in terms with the previous year.

IPOs of Russia being pulled

NORD GOLD has placed its name among the Russian firms who have scrapped plans for the London IPO i. e. Initial Public Offering. NORD GOLD is the unit of gold mining under the steel giant, Severstal. The decision of the NORD GOLD to scrap its plans for the public offering led to the dejection of the Russian issuers who were already hoping for a comeback from London. Nord gold along with its peers namely the Chelpipe and the Koks were reported to be blaming the conditions of the market. There has been a renewed interest of the country being a market that is emerging. But the cancellations made in the last minute clearly show that the investors are highly concerned about the Russian IPO (Initial public Offering). It was a few hours before the Chelpipe pulled their flotation, the chairman of Chelpipe made a statement.

Euro hit hard by sovereign debt fear

The inability of Portugal to follow Ireland and Greece and ask for a bailout from its euro zone partners to improve its finances made the investors worried about the economy of the euro zone and that in turn put the Euro under a lot of pressure as it fell against other currencies. In New York at the closing the euro fell 1% to $1.3598 when compared to the dollar and was weaker against the pound by 0.9% at 0.8447 pounds. The yen on the other hand was weaker against the euro at y113.24.
Kathleen Brooks who is associated with Ferox. com said that when the market thought that the officials of the euro zone had the problem under control and that the euro would soon resume its upward trend the sovereign debt problem had once again came up to smash any such recovery chances. The return on the ten year Portuguese bonds rose to great heights which actually forced the European Central Bank, which temporarily stopped the bond buying policy in the last month, back to the money market to buy the Lisbon papers.

Chief of Blacks, Gills decide to step down

The chief executive officer of the Blacks Leisure, Neil Gills, is known to be resigning from the group of outdoor retail. The decision of resignation came just 2 weeks after the termination of the process of selling the company. Gills will resign from the retail chains of the Blacks & Millets within the next six months thus dropping the curtains on what has been tenure full of events. Neil Gills joined the company in the month of November in the year 2007. It has been under the leadership of Gills that the Blacks and Millets were the target of many approaches of a takeover. The critical financial situation of the Blacks & Millets compelled it to carry out the CVA which means company voluntary arrangement. The company voluntary arrangement i. e. CVA is a procedure of insolvency which allowed the company to reduce the number of shops by 101 and also helped the company to avoid the collapse in the year 2009.

WASHINGTON -- A judge has denied a Chinese-Mexican businessman's attempts to block extradition from the United States to face drug charges in Mexico.

Zhenli Ye Gon has been jailed in the United States since July 2007 when authorities seized more than US$205 million from his Mexico City mansion. At the time, U.S. authorities said it was the largest drug-related cash seizure in world history.
He had been charged with importing methamphetamine into the United States, but the U.S. charges were dismissed after a witness recanted and another refused to testify.
Ye Gon claimed chemicals he imported were for use in legitimate prescription drugs. He fought to stay in the United States because he said he cannot receive a fair trial in Mexico. U.S. Magistrate Judge John Facciola denied his request Wednesday.source

US corn reserves hit lowest level in 15 years

LOUIS U.S. reserves of corn have hit their lowest level in more than 15 years, reflecting tighter supplies that will lead to higher food prices in 2011. Increasing demand for corn from the ethanol industry is a major reason for the decline.


The United States' Department of Agriculture (USDA) reported Wednesday that the ethanol industry's projected orders this year rose 8.4 percent, to 13.01 billion bushels, after record-high production in December and January.
That means the United States will have about 675 million bushels of corn left over at the end of year. That's roughly 5 percent of all corn that will be consumed, the lowest surplus level since 1996.
One bushel of corn equals 25.4 kilograms, or 56 pounds.

SAN FRANCISCO, Hewlett-Packard on Wednesday announced that it is adding its own operating software to personal computers to augment the capabilities of Microsoft's Windows.

HP executives said webOS software from freshly-acquired Palm would complement Windows in machines designed to synch with the computer giant's smart phones, printers and a new TouchPad tablet computer built on the platform.
“It indicates, at least somewhat, a HP rejection of Microsoft,” said Gartner analyst Michael Gartenberg.
“The fact that they said webOS is coming to PCs (personal computers) is indicative that there is something they are not getting from Microsoft right now.”
HP bought Palm last year in a US$1.2-billion deal evidently driven by a desire to get its hands on Palm's webOS software platform.