2025-04-24 18:43
NEW YORK, April 24 (Reuters) - Valero Energy (VLO.N) , opens new tab on Thursday said it would cease operations at its 170,000-barrel-per-day San Francisco-area oil refinery next year amid worries about California's declining fuel supplies and high gasoline prices. The decision clarifies plans for the Benicia refinery after the San Antonio, Texas-based refiner last week announced its intent to "idle, restructure, or cease operations" there by the end of April 2026. Valero also said it had recorded a $1.1 billion pre-tax impairment related to its California refineries. Sign up here. Valero CEO Lane Riggs cited challenging regulatory and enforcement environment for the decision to cease operations. Benicia's closure is the latest in a series of planned refinery shutdowns in the state. In October, Phillips 66 (PSX.N) , opens new tab said it would shutter its Los Angeles-area refinery by the end of this year. Phillips 66 last year converted its Rodeo refinery into a renewables production facility. Gasoline prices in California are among the highest in the country due to the state's reliance on imports to offset declining supplies. California Governor Gavin Newsom this week told state officials to step up efforts to guarantee reliable fuel supplies for the state. "California has been pursuing policies to move away from fossil fuels for the past 20 years, and the consequence of that is the regulatory and enforcement environment is the most stringent and difficult of anywhere else in North America," Riggs said on Thursday during a call with analysts. The Benicia refinery costs considerably more to maintain compared to Valero's 135,000-bpd Wilmington refinery near Los Angeles, Riggs added. The Benicia refinery accounts for about 9% of the state's crude oil refining capacity. The facility processes feedstocks into products including gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and asphalt. "Our current intent is to close the refinery," Rich Walsh, executive vice president at Valero, said during a call with analysts. "We've already had meetings with the CEC (California Energy Commission) and are working with them to minimize the impacts that would result from the loss of the refinery." https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/valero-shut-benicia-refinery-due-tough-regulatory-environment-high-costs-2025-04-24/
2025-04-24 18:11
MEXICO CITY, April 24 (Reuters) - Mexican bottler Arca Continental (AC.MX) , opens new tab reported a rise in first-quarter earnings on Thursday, as price hikes helped to offset a drop in beverage volumes across its markets. The company, which sells Coca-Cola products and snacks throughout the Americas, posted a 10% increase in core earnings, slightly below analysts' expectations. Sign up here. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) rose to 10.65 billion pesos ($520.6 million), up from 9.66 billion pesos a year earlier and less than the 10.89 billion pesos forecast by analysts polled by LSEG. Total beverage volumes fell by 3.1%, with revenue growth driven by higher prices rather than increased demand. Volumes of water jugs and sports drinks showed resilience, while carbonated drinks saw steeper declines. In the United States, sales volumes also slipped driven by lower consumer traffic, economic uncertainty and Easter holiday timing. But higher prices and a focus on premium, high-margin products helped to lift profits, the company said. Revenues climbed 12.4% at 57.04 billion pesos, while net profit grew around 10% to 4.14 billion pesos. Arca also cited a recovery in Argentina as helping to offset currency pressures and rising costs in the region. Volume recovery in Argentina is expected to continue, supported by lower inflation and rising consumer demand, executives from the company said in a conference call. The company reported an EBITDA margin of 15.4% for the country in the first quarter and said it sees further improvement for the full year. "While challenges persist, we remain cautiously optimistic about South America's outlook in 2025," CEO Arturo Gutierrez Hernandez said in a call with analysts, pointing to signs of macroeconomic stabilization. In Ecuador and Peru, volumes dropped due to economic weakness and security concerns. Ecuador saw a 7.4% decline, while Peru's fell 4.4. However, both countries are expected to see volume growth in the year, driven by a moderate economic recovery. ($1 = 20.4604 pesos at end-March) https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/mexican-bottler-arca-continentals-q1-earnings-rise-volumes-drop-2025-04-24/
2025-04-24 18:02
WASHINGTON, April 24 (Reuters) - European Central Bank policymaker Olli Rehn on Thursday played up the chance of an interest rate cut in June as the ECB's new forecasts "may well" point to inflation falling too far. The ECB cut rates for the seventh time in a year last week and warned that economic growth will take a big hit from U.S. tariffs, bolstering bets for even more monetary policy easing. Sign up here. Rehn, who is Finland's central bank governor, raised the prospect of a further cut in June and joined a chorus of policymakers warning about the dampening impact of trade snags on inflation, including a stronger euro and weaker economic activity. "It is quite possible that the projections for medium-term inflation under the current circumstances may well be below our (2%) target," he told a conference organized by the Reinventing Bretton Woods Committee in Washington during the spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. Rehn said earlier on Thursday that this scenario would justify a rate cut, which would take the rate that the ECB pays on bank deposits to 2%. Speaking earlier at the same event, Lithuanian central banker Gediminas Simkus even raised the spectre of a "deflationary environment" in Europe. ECB President Christine Lagarde refused to provide guidance about future moves in her press conference last week, saying they would depend on incoming data and policymakers would act with "readiness and agility" given the elevated uncertainty. Philip Lane, the ECB's chief economist, said there was no single right way of dealing with uncertainty, and the euro zone's central bank might cut rates more slowly or quickly depending on the circumstances. "If you say, uncertainty means ... you go more slowly or you go in smaller steps, (that's) sometimes true," Lane told a conference at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington. "In other configurations ... to grapple with the uncertainty, you go big. So I think to be able to say that baseline is not the only guidance, I think it's super important." Lane dismissed, however, the prospect of resuming bond purchases or other extraordinary stimulus measures because the ECB still has room to cut rates. Klaas Knot, the Dutch central bank's president, and his French peer Francois Villeroy de Galhau said earlier this week that inflation may fall initially as a result of tariffs and the associated uncertainty. But they were less sanguine about the medium-term implications. https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/ecbs-lane-says-now-is-not-time-talk-about-bond-purchases-2025-04-24/
2025-04-24 16:39
Steps taken on property woes in right direction but insufficient IMF urges more action on property sector, social safety nets Stimulus must be offset by medium-term consolidation WASHINGTON, April 24 (Reuters) - China needs to do more to address its property-sector problems and has scope to provide more stimulus to boost consumption, Krishna Srinivasan, director of the International Monetary Fund's Asia and Pacific Department, said on Thursday. Srinivasan welcomed measures taken by Beijing so far to fix its property sector as "steps in the right direction" but "not sufficient." Sign up here. He said measures taken so far do not come close to the IMF’s recommendation to offer support for indebted developers worth 5% of China’s gross domestic product (GDP) over three to five years, to enable them to finish apartments and protect homebuyers. "More needs to be done on the property sector and on strengthening social safety nets," Srinivasan told a news conference. "Some efforts have been made on pension reform," though they have been small steps, he said. "We need much more," he added. "We believe they have space in the near term," Srinivasan said when asked whether China has room to ramp up stimulus, though he said any steps must be offset by fiscal consolidation measures in the medium term. China's economy grew 5.4% in the first quarter, beating expectations, but markets fear a sharp downturn in the year ahead as U.S. tariff policies pose the biggest risk to the Asian powerhouse in decades. The IMF downgraded its forecast for China's economic growth to 4% in both this year and next by 0.6 percentage point and 0.5 point, respectively, from its January outlook as higher tariffs and prolonged trade policy uncertainty weigh on exports and investment. The fiscal expansion in China's 2025 budget, however, partially offsets the pressure from external headwinds, the IMF said. https://www.reuters.com/markets/asia/china-has-scope-ramp-up-stimulus-fix-property-woes-imf-says-2025-04-24/
2025-04-24 16:37
April 24 (Reuters) - CME Group (CME.O) , opens new tab will launch futures contracts tied to the XRP cryptocurrency next month, the derivatives exchange said on Thursday, aiming to tap into the growing interest in tokens other than bitcoin and ether. The cash-settled futures are set to launch on May 19, pending regulators' approval. Sign up here. Futures contracts let traders bet on or hedge against the future price movements of an asset, without owning it. CME's move highlights a push to offer sophisticated trading tools for altcoins — which typically refer to tokens smaller than bitcoin and ether. Initially viewed as speculative assets, these coins are fast becoming a vital component of investors' portfolios and can be a safe haven at a time when tariff-driven volatility has rattled equities. XRP has gained 5.3% in 2025, while bitcoin is marginally down and ether has lost about half of its value. The benchmark S&P 500 (.SPX) , opens new tab index has fallen 8.6% during the period. Last month, CME also rolled out futures related to solana, another major crypto token. Both solana and XRP have attracted a wave of institutional interest in recent months, with asset managers filing for exchange-traded funds tied to the tokens. A Kaiko Research report earlier this month showed XRP's trading volume on U.S. exchanges was steadily increasing. The new product could help CME strengthen its presence in the retail trading space, an area it has been focusing on. XRP is the native token of crypto firm Ripple Labs, which last month settled a civil lawsuit brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission over the alleged sale of unregistered securities. "While overdue in a bunch of ways, this is an incredibly important and exciting step in the continued growth of the XRP market," Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse posted on X, referring to the planned futures by CME. https://www.reuters.com/business/derivatives-exchange-cme-set-launch-xrp-futures-crypto-push-2025-04-24/
2025-04-24 16:29
WASHINGTON, April 24 (Reuters) - Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey said on Thursday he was focused on an expected shock to economic growth from U.S. President Donald Trump's import tariffs and retaliatory measures by other countries, but did not foresee a recession in Britain. "We are certainly quite focused on the growth shock," Bailey told CNBC television on the sidelines of the International Monetary Fund's Spring Meetings in Washington. Sign up here. The BoE has long been trying to balance Britain's weak economic growth against a tight labour market and other factors pushing up on inflation. "I think the trade issue is the new part of that story," Bailey said. Weak surveys of businesses published this week reflected uncertainty among companies although recent official gross domestic product data had been quite encouraging, he said. "I don't think UK economy is close to recession at the moment," he said in response to a question by CNBC. The IMF this week cut its forecast for British economic growth in 2025 to 1.1% from a previous estimate of 1.6%. But that remains stronger than the Fund's projections for France, Germany and Italy. Bailey said he hoped that an expected rise in inflation later this year - which could touch 3.7% under the BoE's most recent forecasts, or almost double the central bank's 2% target - would prove transitory. Investors on Thursday assigned an almost 100% probability to the BoE cutting rates by a quarter of a percentage point to 4.25% on May 8 after the next scheduled Monetary Policy Committee meeting and see rates falling to 3.5% or 3.75% by the end of this year. On Wednesday, Bailey said the BoE had to take "very seriously the risk to growth" from the global trade tensions, given Britain's reliance on foreign trade and investment. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/bank-englands-bailey-says-he-is-focused-growth-hit-tariffs-2025-04-24/
