2025-03-03 19:48

OPEC+ to boost output by 138,000 bpd in April Sanctions, tariffs uncertainty made decision harder, sources say Trump wants OPEC to produce more oil LONDON, March 3 (Reuters) - OPEC+ has decided to proceed with a planned April oil output increase, the group said on Monday, a move that follows U.S. President Donald Trump renewing pressure on OPEC and Saudi Arabia to bring down prices. The increase is the first since 2022 from OPEC+, which includes the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, plus Russia and other allies. Oil was trading 2% lower towards $71 a barrel at 1900 GMT. Eight OPEC+ members that are making the group's most recent layer of output cuts held a virtual meeting on Monday and agreed to proceed with the April increase, OPEC said. The increase is 138,000 barrels per day according to Reuters calculations. "This gradual increase may be paused or reversed subject to market conditions," OPEC said in a statement. "This flexibility will allow the group to continue to support oil market stability." Oil has been trading in a range of $70-$82 a barrel in recent weeks in anticipation of major changes to U.S. sanctions on large oil producers Iran, Russia and Venezuela as well as U.S. tariffs on China that could reduce demand. Trump has renewed pressure on OPEC to bring down prices, which rallied to multi-month highs above $82 a barrel in January after Trump's predecessor Joe Biden slapped new sanctions on Russia. Since then prices have fallen on hopes Trump would help clinch a peace deal in the war between Russia and Ukraine and boost Russian oil flows. However, his plans to cut Iran's oil exports to zero and the cancellation last week of a Chevron license to operate in Venezuela prevented prices from falling further. The combination of those bullish and bearish factors made decision-making for April extremely complex, OPEC+ sources have said. They added that Trump's plans for global tariffs could complicate the outlook even further. OPEC+ has been cutting output by 5.85 million barrels per day, equal to about 5.7% of global supply, agreed in a series of steps since 2022 to support the market. In December, OPEC+ extended its latest layer of cuts through the first quarter of 2025, pushing back the plan to begin raising output to April. The extension was the latest of several delays last year. Based on the plan, the gradual unwinding of 2.2 million bpd of cuts - the most recent layer - begins in April with a monthly rise of 138,000 bpd. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/opec-proceed-with-planned-april-oil-output-hike-sources-say-2025-03-03/

2025-03-03 19:40

JOHANNESBURG, March 3 (Reuters) - The United Nations World Food Programme, which relies on the U.S. for nearly half its budget, is closing its Southern Africa bureau due to funding constraints, the agency said on Monday as the region struggles to withstand a severe drought. President Donald Trump's administration has slashed foreign aid contracts around the world as part of its "America First" agenda, including funding to life-saving U.N. programmes. The WFP did not quantify how much it would lose from Trump's aid cuts, but regional spokesperson Tomson Phiri said that the donor funding outlook had become "constrained". The United States is the single largest donor to the WFP - which gives food and cash assistance to people suffering from hunger due to crop shortages, conflict and climate change worldwide - providing $4.5 billion of its $9.8 billion budget last year. An El Nino-induced drought last year caused Lesotho, Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Namibia to declare a national disaster. The agency would consolidate its eastern and southern African operations and run both from Nairobi, Phiri said. "The goal is to stretch every dollar and target maximum resources to our frontline teams," he said, adding that the closure would not affect country operations in Southern Africa. The WFP says that overall, more than 60% of the food it procures is used in operations in the region in which it was purchased. The agency was already short on funding, having raised just one-fifth of what it needed for the drought response last year. Trump's administration is cutting more than 90% of the U.S. Agency for International Development's foreign aid contracts and more than $58 billion in overall U.S. assistance around the world. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/uns-food-agency-wfp-closes-southern-african-bureau-bloomberg-news-reports-2025-03-03/

2025-03-03 17:04

Kraken says no penalties, no admission of wrongdoing SEC pulling back on crypto oversight, ended Coinbase case SEC declined to comment NEW YORK, March 3 (Reuters) - Kraken, one of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchanges, said on Monday the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission agreed in principle to dismiss a civil lawsuit accusing it of operating illegally as an unregistered securities exchange. In a statement on its blog, Kraken called the dismissal a turning point for cryptocurrency that ended a "wasteful, politically motivated campaign" begun during the Biden administration, and which stifled innovation and investment. Kraken said the dismissal includes no admission of wrongdoing, no penalties, and no changes to its business. It also said the dismissal is with prejudice, meaning the SEC cannot bring the case again. "This case was never about protecting investors," Kraken said. "It undermined a nascent industry that repeatedly urged clear rules of the road. "We appreciate the new leadership both at the White House and the Commission that led to this change," Kraken added. The SEC declined to comment. Kraken had been sued in November 2023, as part of former SEC Chair Gary Gensler's push to bring cryptocurrency under the regulator's purview. But the SEC has pulled back on crypto oversight since U.S. President Donald Trump began his second White House term in January. Last week, the SEC ended a similar lawsuit against Coinbase (COIN.O) , opens new tab, the largest U.S. cryptocurrency exchange, and said it may resolve its civil fraud case against Justin Sun, the Chinese entrepreneur and adviser to a Trump-backed crypto project. Trump, meanwhile, nominated Paul Atkins, a Washington lawyer seen as supportive of digital assets, to succeed Gensler as SEC chair. The SEC had accused Payward and Payward Ventures, which operate as Kraken, of having since 2018 made hundreds of millions of dollars arranging purchases and sales of 11 crypto assets while turning a "blind eye" to securities laws. Kraken was also accused of having deficient internal controls and record keeping. Like the vast majority of the cryptocurrency industry, Kraken argued that crypto assets, unlike stocks and bonds, did not qualify as investment contracts subject to SEC oversight. A federal judge in San Francisco denied Kraken's bid to dismiss the case last August. Kraken is the world's 10th-ranked cryptocurrency spot exchange based on traffic, liquidity, trading volumes, and confidence in the legitimacy of reported trading volumes, according to CoinMarketCap. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/legal/kraken-says-sec-dismiss-lawsuit-2025-03-03/

2025-03-03 13:57

LONDON, March 3 (Reuters) - Speculators have mounted their biggest ever wager that the Japanese yen will continue to rise as they position for further Bank of Japan interest rate hikes, an abrupt reversal from huge bets against the currency last year. The yen has strengthened by 4% this year as stronger inflation data has pointed to more rate hikes, calling into question the once hugely popular yen carry trade, which drove investors to position heavily against the currency over the last two years. Net long positions in yen futures among non-commercial traders - such as hedge funds and other speculators - soared to 96,000 contracts in the week ended February 25. That was up from 61,000 a week earlier, data from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission showed on Friday, and was a record on data stretching back more than 30 years. In cash terms, the long position - a bet the currency will rise - amounts to around $8 billion, LSEG data shows . The yen rose to an almost five-month high of 148.56 per dollar last week as a fall in U.S. Treasury yields and a rise in Japanese bond yields dented the attractiveness of the U.S. currency. Growing expectations that the Bank of Japan will keep hiking interest rates have been boosted by stronger-than-expected inflation data and comments from BOJ officials. "The BOJ has definitely been more hawkish than people had anticipated at the start this year, hiking rates again and strongly signaling that they're likely to continue to hike rates going forward," said Lee Hardman, senior currency analyst at Japanese bank MUFG. The BOJ has been going in the opposite direction to other major central banks, hiking interest rates to a 17-year high of 0.5% in January. Rates were negative for eight years until 2024 as Japan battled low growth and deflation. Speculators built their biggest bet against the Japanese currency in 17 years last July, as U.S. bond yields soared compared to those in Japan. The difference in yields made it highly profitable to borrow in Japanese yen to invest in dollar assets, in a so-called carry trade, effectively shorting the currency. Hardman said higher volatility, along with a rising yen and Japanese yields have made such a trade less attractive. "The yen is still a low-yielder, but it's more risky now to go short the yen," he said. Analysts at JPMorgan said in a note that the yen rally was part of a "broader carry-to-value rotation" in currency markets. However, Kamal Sharma, senior FX strategist at Bank of America, said he expects the yen's gains to be limited and for it to fall back to around 160 per dollar, in part because of foreign direct investment outflows. "We're still bearish on the yen, and a large part of this has been the idea that the structural outflow that we've seen from the Japanese economy continues at pace," he said. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/markets/currencies/traders-place-record-bet-rising-japanese-yen-eyeing-further-rate-hikes-2025-03-03/

2025-03-03 12:47

March 3 (Reuters) - JP Morgan expects the global deficit in refined to grow to 160,000 metric tons in 2026 and continues to forecast copper prices averaging around $11,000 per metric ton next year, the bank said in a note dated Friday. Following U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to order a national security probe into potential new tariffs on copper imports, the bank said it expects a tariff rate of at least 10% on refined copper and copper product imports to be enacted by late in the third quarter, with a significant risk of a higher tariff rate of 25%. "Likely excess inventory builds in the U.S. in the coming months ahead of a tariff on copper sets up the potential to leave the rest of the world shorter of copper ... setting the stage for our forecast bullish push higher over 2H25 towards $10,400/mt," JP Morgan noted. The bank also forecast China's demand growth would slow from 4% last year to 2.5% this year, and added "this remains the greatest downside risk to our forecasted tightening in copper markets". However, the bank predicted only a modest deceleration in global copper demand growth from 3.2% in 2024 to 2.9% in 2025. The global refined copper market showed a 22,000 metric ton deficit in December, compared with a 124,000 metric ton deficit in November, the International Copper Study Group (ICSG) report showed. Meanwhile, Citi last week said in a note it anticipated the eventual implementation of a 25% copper-specific tariff by the fourth quarter of 2025 following Trump's executive order. London copper rose on Monday, supported by a weaker dollar and improving manufacturing activity in top metals consumer China. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/jp-morgan-sees-copper-prices-11000mt-2026-10-tariffs-by-late-3q25-2025-03-03/

2025-03-03 12:42

BRUSSELS, March 3 (Reuters) - The European Commission yielded to pressure from European automakers on Monday by giving them three years, rather than just one, to meet CO2 emission targets in 2025 for their cars and vans. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told a news conference that the EU executive would make the proposal this month to allow compliance over three years, rather than one. Meeting the targets relies on selling more electric vehicles, a segment where European carmakers lag Chinese and U.S. rivals. "The targets stay the same. They have to fulfill the targets, but it means more breathing space for industry," she said, adding that the proposal will still require approval from EU governments and the European Parliament. Shares in Volkswagen, BMW and Mercedes-Benz rose after von der Leyen's comments Industry sources said compliance would be based on the average of the period 2025-2027. EU carmakers, hit by factory closures and now bracing for U.S. tariffs, have urged the Commission to grant relief from fines they say could rise to 15 billion euros ($15.7 billion) if their fleets do not meet the limits in 2025. The EU executive intends to publish its automotive action plan on Wednesday to ensure EU car producers can electrify their fleets and compete with more advanced rivals like Tesla and Chinese producers. ($1 = 0.9559 euros) Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/eu-propose-giving-automakers-three-years-meet-co2-emission-targets-2025-03-03/