2025-07-11 21:29

Both parties claim victory after 213-page ruling Ecuador, Chile state miners had planned to partner on mine Ecuador to pay $25 mln of $568 mln claim, retain ownership Codelco says it is analyzing next steps QUITO/SANTIAGO, July 11 (Reuters) - The Ecuador attorney general's office and Chilean state miner Codelco both claimed victory on Friday after an international arbitration court ordered Ecuador to pay some $25 million of a $568 million claim regarding a major copper project. Codelco and Ecuadorean state miner Enami EP had in 2016 signed agreements to jointly develop the Llurimagua mining project in northern Ecuador, but Codelco in 2021 launched an arbitration process with the International Chamber of Commerce, accusing Ecuador of failing to fulfill its obligations. Sign up here. This included not finalizing a plan to form a joint venture to operate the project, in which Codelco would have held 49% to Enami's 51%. "Of a claim of $567.7 million, the Court only ordered the reimbursement (to Codelco) of $25.3 million," Ecuador's attorney general's office said in a statement, adding that the ruling would save the state some $540 million. "All of this constitutes a resounding legal victory for Ecuador." Under the ruling, Enami is set to retain full ownership and control of the project. Codelco, however, said in its own statement that the court had ruled against Ecuador, citing the payment ordered to cover costs incurred by Codelco during the project's exploration phase, as well as maintenance costs and interest payments. "The court determined that Ecuador incurred a civil responsibility for failing to comply with several agreements," Codelco said, adding that the ruling said Ecuador had also failed to negotiate with shareholders in good faith. "The court also rejected Ecuador and Enami EP's request that Codelco hand over the geological information Codelco generated in Llurimagua, which is the property of the corporation," it added. "Codelco is reviewing this judgment and analyzing the next steps it will take." Codelco in 2022 launched a separate arbitration procedure against Ecuador regarding the project with the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes. This process remains ongoing. The ICC did not immediately respond to a request for comment. https://www.reuters.com/en/ecuador-wins-llurimagua-arbitration-case-against-chiles-codelco-2025-07-11/

2025-07-11 20:57

Mars challenges add to tightening gulf coast oil supply Exxon to borrow crude from US emergency stash Chevron sees no impact to current production guidance HOUSTON, July 11 (Reuters) - The start-up of an offshore well caused zinc contamination in Mars crude, Chevron (CVX.N) , opens new tab said on Friday, leading to the tightening crude oil supply in the key Gulf Coast refining hub and the government releasing barrels from its emergency stockpile. Inventories of crude oil along the U.S. Gulf Coast had fallen to their lowest seasonally in seven years at the end of last week, thanks to recent wildfires in Canada that cut supplies and cancellations of licenses that allowed for U.S. import of Venezuelan crude. Sign up here. The U.S. Department of Energy on Friday said it would provide up to 1 million barrels of crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to Exxon Mobil's (XOM.N) , opens new tab Baton Rouge refinery in Louisiana, citing an offshore supply disruption. Exxon told its trading counterparts that it will not buy the Mars crude oil grade until the zinc contamination issue is fixed, Reuters reported on Thursday. The oil major requested the barrels from the SPR after the zinc contamination was identifiecrud in Mars crude, two sources familiar with the matter said. Mars, a medium sour crude produced off the coast of Louisiana, is preferred by refineries along the Gulf Coast because of its properties and proximity. Refiners are typically configured to run certain grades of oil for ideal yields of different types of fuels. Switching to other crude grades can be operationally challenging and limit production, shrinking margins. The exchange of oil was authorized to help maintain stable regional supply of transportation fuels across Louisiana and the broader Gulf Coast, the DOE said, adding that the exchange will not impact or delay the department's ongoing efforts to refill the reserve. Exxon will resupply the crude, along with additional barrels to the SPR, the department added. Exxon declined to provide additional details. Zinc does not typically occur naturally in crude oil and industry sources said they worried that running crude with zinc could cause damage to refining units and to catalysts used in processing oil. TIGHT SUPPLY, STRONG DEMAND The Mars crude stream is a mix of oil from various platforms off the Gulf Coast. About 575,000 barrels per day of oil move on the Mars system to the coast, according to research firm Energy Aspects. Prices for Mars traded on Friday at a 15-cent a barrel premium to U.S. crude at the Cushing, Oklahoma, hub. It had eased to as little as a 10-cent discount earlier in the week, compared with a $1 premium at the end of June. Chevron said it was working to resolve issues and it does not expect an impact to current production guidance. Supplies of medium and heavy crude oil along the U.S. Gulf have tightened in recent months as Washington in late May terminated a group of licenses that had authorized partners of oil company PDVSA to take Venezuelan crude bound for U.S. and European refineries. Declining oil production in Mexico has also reduced exports to the U.S., while the recent wildfires in Canada also cut supplies that are usually imported. The opening of the expanded Trans Mountain pipeline last year has also redirected some Canadian oil flows to China and the U.S. West Coast, rather than the U.S. Gulf Coast. Meanwhile, demand for refined products, including gasoline and distillates, rose to 20.9 million bpd last week, the highest seasonally in five years thanks to strong driving demand. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-oks-exchange-with-exxon-mobil-aid-gulf-coast-supplies-2025-07-11/

2025-07-11 20:46

July 11 (Reuters) - Canada's main stock index pulled back on Friday from a record high as investors weighed the prospect of increased U.S. tariffs on Canadian goods and after domestic jobs data clipped expectations the Bank of Canada would resume its easing campaign. The S&P/TSX composite index (.GSPTSE) , opens new tab ended down 59.05 points, or 0.22%, at 27,023.25, after notching a record closing high on Thursday. For the week, the index was barely changed, posting a decline of 0.05%. Sign up here. U.S. President Donald Trump ramped up his tariff assault on Canada on Thursday, saying the U.S. would impose a 35% tariff on imports next month, up from the current 25% rate. An exclusion for goods covered by the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement on trade was expected to stay in place. "Clearly, the U.S. is pushing for more concessions," said Ian Chong, a portfolio manager at First Avenue Investment Counsel. "They're playing a little bit of hardball here, so not good for Canada and the TSX." The Canadian economy added 83,100 jobs in June and the unemployment rate surprisingly dipped to a level of 6.9% from 7% in May. Money markets see a 13% chance the BoC cuts its benchmark interest rate at the next policy decision on July 30, down from 27% before the jobs data. The technology sector fell 1.6%, with shares of software company Open Text Corp (OTEX.TO) , opens new tab down 4.0%. Consumer staples lost 0.9% and heavily weighted financials ended 0.6% lower. Four of the 10 major sectors ended higher. Energy added 1.2% as the price of oil settled up 2.8% at $68.45 a barrel. The price of gold also rose, climbing 1%. The materials group, which includes metal mining shares, gained 0.9%. Aritzia Inc (ATZ.TO) , opens new tab reported first-quarter results that beat expectations. Shares of the fashion retailer ended 1.5% higher. https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/tsx-futures-dip-after-trump-slaps-tariffs-canada-2025-07-11/

2025-07-11 20:28

Farm worker dead from injuries sustained during raid, worker group says Some 200 unauthorized workers arrested, says Department of Homeland Security Judge orders temporary halt to some administration tactics WASHINGTON, July 11 (Reuters) - A California farm worker died on Friday after U.S. immigration agents raided a cannabis nursery and arrested hundreds of workers, a worker advocacy group said, while a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to temporarily halt some of its most aggressive tactics in rounding up undocumented immigrants. Dozens of migrant-rights activists faced off with federal agents in rural Southern California on Thursday during the operation, the latest escalation of President Donald Trump's campaign for mass deportations of immigrants in the U.S. illegally. Sign up here. A California judge on Friday blocked the Trump administration from racially profiling immigrants as it seeks deportation targets and from denying immigrants' right to access to lawyers during their detention. The Trump administration has made conflicting statements about whether immigration agents will target the farm labor workforce, about half of which is unauthorized to work in the U.S., according to government estimates. The Department of Homeland Security said approximately 200 people in the country illegally were arrested in the raid, which targeted two locations of the cannabis operation Glass House Farms. Agents also found 10 migrant minors at the farm, the department said in an emailed statement. The facility is under investigation for child labor violations, Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott posted on X. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The scene at the farm on Thursday was chaotic, with federal agents in helmets and face masks using tear gas and smoke canisters on angry protesters, according to photos and videos of the scene. Several farm workers were injured and one died on Friday from injuries sustained after a 30-foot (9-meter) fall from a building during the raid, said Elizabeth Strater, national vice president of the United Farm Workers. The worker who died was identified as Jaime Alanis on a verified GoFundMe page created by his family, who said they were raising money to help his family and for his burial in Mexico. "He was his family's provider. They took one of our family members. We need justice," Alanis' family wrote on the GoFundMe page. U.S. citizens were detained during the raid and some are still unaccounted for, Strater said. DHS said its agents were not responsible for the man's death, saying that "although he was not being pursued by law enforcement, this individual climbed up to the roof of a green house and fell 30 feet." Agents immediately called for a medical evacuation, DHS said. "MOUNTAIN OF EVIDENCE" HALTS AGGRESSIVE TACTICS The melee in southern California came as the Trump administration faces dozens of lawsuits across the country over its controversial tactics in tracking down undocumented immigrants for deportation. U.S. District Court Judge Maame Frimpong granted two temporary restraining orders blocking the administration from detaining immigrants suspected of being in the country illegally based on racial profiling and from denying detained people the right to speak with a lawyer. The ruling, made in response to a lawsuit from immigration advocacy groups, says the administration is violating the Fourth and Fifth Amendments to the Constitution by conducting "roving patrols" to sweep up suspected undocumented immigrants based on their being Latinos, and then denying them access to lawyers. "What the federal government would have this Court believe -in the face of a mountain of evidence presented in this case - is that none of this is actually happening," Frimpong wrote in her ruling. WARNINGS ON FOOD SUPPLY California Rural Legal Assistance, which provides legal services and other support to farm workers, is working on picking up checks for detained Glass House workers, said directing attorney Angelica Preciado. Some Glass House workers detained during the raid were only able to call family members after they signed voluntary deportation orders, and were told they could be jailed for life because they worked at a cannabis facility, Preciado said. DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin rejected those allegations, saying in an emailed statement that "allegations that ICE or CBP agents denied detainees from calling legal assistance are unequivocally false." Some citizen workers who were detained reported only being released from custody after deleting photos and videos of the raid from their phones, UFW President Teresa Romero said in a statement. "These violent and cruel federal actions terrorize American communities, disrupt the American food supply chain, threaten lives and separate families," Romero said. Farm groups have warned that mass deportation of farm workers would cripple the country's food supply chain. In her most recent comments, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said there would be "no amnesty" for farm workers from deportation. Trump, though, has said migrant workers should be permitted to stay on farms. https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/one-california-worker-dead-hundreds-arrested-after-cannabis-farm-raid-2025-07-11/

2025-07-11 20:10

Visit comes as government response faces scrutiny Texas flooding is deadliest disaster of second Trump term Dozens of people still unaccounted for KERRVILLE, Texas, July 11 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump defended the state and federal response to deadly flash flooding in Texas on Friday as he visited the stricken Hill Country region, where at least 120 people, including dozens of children, perished a week ago. During a roundtable discussion after touring Kerr County, the epicenter of the disaster, Trump praised both Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem for their response, saying they both did an "incredible job." Sign up here. The Trump administration, as well as local and state officials, has faced mounting questions over whether more could have been done to protect and warn residents ahead of the flooding, which struck with astonishing speed in the pre-dawn hours on July 4, the U.S. Independence Day holiday. Trump reacted with anger when a reporter said some families affected by the floods had expressed frustration that warnings did not go out sooner. "I think everyone did an incredible job under the circumstances," he said. "I don't know who you are, but only a very evil person would ask a question like that." Some critics have questioned whether the administration's spending cuts at the National Weather Service and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which coordinates the U.S. government's disaster response efforts, might have exacerbated the calamity. Trump officials have said that cuts had no impact on the NWS's ability to forecast the storms, despite some vacancies in local offices. But the president has largely sidestepped questions about his plans to shrink or abolish FEMA and reassign many of its key functions to state and local governments. "I'll tell you some other time," Trump said on Tuesday, when asked by a reporter about FEMA. Before the most recent flooding, Kerr County declined to install an early-warning system after failing to secure state money to cover the cost. Lawrence Walker, 67, and a nearly three-decade veteran resident of Kerrville, said the county and state had not spent enough on disaster prevention, including an early-warning system. Asked about the quality of the government response, he said, "It's been fine since the water was at 8 feet." The Texas state legislature will convene in a special session later this month to investigate the flooding and provide disaster relief funding. Abbott has dismissed questions about whether anyone was to blame, calling that the "word choice of losers." DOZENS STILL UNACCOUNTED FOR Search teams on Friday were still combing through muddy debris littering parts of the Hill Country in central Texas, looking for the dozens still listed as missing, but no survivors have been found since the day of the floods. Heavy rains sent a wall of water raging down the Guadalupe River early on July 4, causing the deadliest disaster of the Republican president's nearly six-month term in office. As sun poked through dark clouds on Friday morning, search crews in hard hats painstakingly walked inch-by-inch along the ruined banks of the river, marking damage and looking through wreckage. After the president arrived in Kerr County in the early afternoon, Trump, first lady Melania Trump and Texas Governor Greg Abbott drove to an area near the river, where Trump received a briefing from first responders amid debris left in the wake of the flood. The county is located in what is known as "flash flood alley," a region that has seen some of the country's deadliest floods. More than a foot of rain fell in less than an hour on July 4. Flood gauges showed the river's height rose from about a foot to 34 feet (10.4 meters) in a matter of hours, cascading over its banks and sweeping away trees and structures in its path. Kerr County officials say more than 160 people remain unaccounted for, although experts say that the number of people reported missing in the wake of disasters is often inflated. The dead in the county include 67 adults and at least 36 children, many of whom were campers at the nearly century-old Camp Mystic, an all-girls Christian summer retreat on the banks of the river. Jon Moreno, 71, a longtime Kerrville resident whose property on high ground was spared, praised the government response - local and federal. He has heard the debate about what more could have been done - including sirens - but said he did not think it would have made much difference, given people's desire to build along the flood-prone riverbanks. "It's unavoidable," he said. "All those people along the river - I wouldn't want to live there ... It's too dangerous." At Stripes, a gas station in Kerrville, the building was tagged in large white letters, accusing "Trump's Big Beautiful Bill" of cutting "our emergency funding." The president's massive legislative package, which cut taxes and spending, won approval from the Republican-controlled Congress last week and was signed into law by Trump on the same day that the flooding hit Texas. https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/trump-visit-texas-flood-site-amid-questions-about-disaster-response-2025-07-11/

2025-07-11 20:09

US Treasury reports small budget surplus for June Gross customs duties reach $27 billion in June Bessent says US 'reaping the rewards' of Trump's tariff agenda Treasury chief says US tariff revenue could reach $300 billion in 2025 WASHINGTON, July 11 (Reuters) - U.S. customs duty collections surged again in June as President Donald Trump's tariffs gained steam, topping $100 billion for the first time during a fiscal year and helping to produce a surprise $27 billion budget surplus for the month, the Treasury Department reported on Friday. The budget data showed that tariffs are starting to build into a significant revenue contributor for the federal government, with customs duties in June hitting new records, quadrupling to $27.2 billion on a gross basis and $26.6 billion on a net basis after refunds. Sign up here. The budget results are likely to reinforce Trump's view of tariffs as a lucrative revenue source and as a hammer to enforce non-trade foreign policy. He said on Tuesday that "the big money" would start to flow in after he imposes higher "reciprocal" tariffs on U.S. trading partners on August 1. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on X that the results show the U.S. "reaping the rewards" from Trump's tariff agenda. "As President Trump works hard to take back our nation’s economic sovereignty, today’s Monthly Treasury Statement is demonstrating record customs duties – and with no inflation!" Bessent said. For the first nine months of fiscal 2025, the customs take reached records of $113.3 billion on a gross basis and $108 billion on a net basis, nearly double the prior-year collections. The government's fiscal year ends on Sept. 30. Based on those results, tariffs have now grown into the fourth-largest revenue source for the federal government, behind individual withheld receipts at $2.683 trillion for the fiscal year, non-withheld individual receipts at $965 billion and corporate taxes at $392 billion. In the space of roughly four months, tariffs as a share of federal revenue have more than doubled to around 5% from about 2% historically. The June budget surplus represented a turnaround from the $71 billion deficit in June 2024. The new tariff-related revenue helped boost total budget receipts last month by 13%, or $60 billion, to $526 billion, a record for that month, the Treasury said. Outlays in June fell 7%, or $38 billion, to $499 billion. But adjusting for calendar shifts of some revenue and benefit payments, it said there would have been a budget deficit of $70 billion in June along with a year-ago adjusted deficit of $143 billion. The overall year-to-date deficit, however, increased 5%, or $64 billion, to $1.337 trillion, as outlays rose for health care programs, Social Security retirement benefits, defense spending, debt interest and the Department of Homeland Security, the Treasury said. Receipts for the first nine months of the fiscal year rose 7%, or $254 billion, to a record $4.008 trillion, driven in part by withheld taxes from higher employment and wages, while outlays grew 6%, or $318 billion, to a record $5.346 trillion. The Treasury's interest costs on the national debt continued to grow, exceeding all other individual outlays at $921 billion for the first nine months of the fiscal year, up 6%, or $53 billion, from the year-ago period. But the Treasury's weighted average interest rate largely had stabilized at 3.3% at the end of June, up two basis points from a year ago, a Treasury official said. BIGGER FLOW Bessent earlier this week suggested a steeper ramp-up in tariff collections, telling a cabinet meeting that calendar-year 2025 collections could grow to $300 billion by the end of December. At the June run rate, gross customs collections would hit $276.5 billion in six months' time, which means reaching Bessent's target would require some increases. Ernie Tedeschi, economics director of the Budget Lab at Yale University, said it may take more time for the tariff revenue to fully ramp up because businesses and consumers have sought to front run the duties by buying ahead. Once that effect fades and Trump implements higher "reciprocal tariff" rates after an August 1 deadline, the Treasury may collect an extra $10 billion in tariffs per month, bringing the total to $37 billion, he said. "I think there's a significant risk...that we get addicted to tariff revenue," said Tedeschi, who served as a White House economic adviser during the Biden administration. He added that tariff income could fade over time as businesses and consumers adjust their behavior. But Trump this week has ratcheted up his tariff actions, announcing 50% levies on copper imports and goods from Brazil and a 35% tariff on Canadian goods, all due to start on August 1. The Trump administration is preparing more sector-based tariffs on semiconductors and pharmaceuticals. https://www.reuters.com/business/trumps-tariff-collections-expected-grow-june-us-budget-data-2025-07-11/