2025-02-13 08:01
JOHANNESBURG, Feb 13 (Reuters) - South Africa's rand recouped some losses against a weaker dollar early on Thursday, after news of Washington's aim to begin talks on ending the Russia-Ukraine war. At 0714 GMT, the rand traded at 18.455 against the dollar , about 0.4% stronger than its previous close. U.S. President Donald Trump said late on Wednesday that both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy expressed a desire for peace in separate phone calls with him. The announcement overshadowed higher than expected U.S. consumer prices in January, and pushed the dollar lower. "While the USD is back on the defensive, the ZAR enjoys some respite and will trade in a rangebound fashion until investors decide what clear direction they have to work with," said ETM Analytics in a research note. Some support for the rand also came from stronger gold prices, analysts said, as South Africa is a major producer of the precious metal. On Thursday, domestic investors will turn their attention towards December mining production data and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa's address to parliament. South Africa's benchmark 2030 government bond was stronger, with the yield down 2 basis points at 9.185%. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/markets/currencies/south-african-rand-gains-against-weaker-dollar-ukraine-peace-talks-2025-02-13/
2025-02-13 07:51
Feb 13 (Reuters) - Finnish oil refiner and biofuel maker Neste (NESTE.HE) , opens new tab will slash around 600 positions, it said on Thursday, after posting fourth-quarter core profit below expectations. "Our current financial performance is weak and not sustainable", CEO Heikki Malinen said in a statement. Falling prices of renewable fuel, hit by weak demand and a supply glut, have caused the Finnish group to cut its guidance on the renewable sales margin three times in 2024. The company's comparable earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) in the fourth quarter slumped 78% to 168 million euros ($175 million), missing analysts' average estimate of 308 million euros in a company-provided poll. Neste said it expects its sales volume for the renewable business in 2025 to be higher than in 2024, when it stood at 3.7 million tons, but provided no specific range. It will push back the scheduled start of commercial operations in its renewable refinery in Rotterdam, Netherlands, the company said. The total investment costs for the site had risen to 2.5 billion euros from 1.9 billion euros, it said. In November, the company had to temporarily shut down its Rotterdam refinery due to a fire and the accident was expected to hit deliveries of renewable diesel for several weeks. Neste on Thursday proposed a dividend payout of 0.20 euro per share for 2024, down from 1.20 euro it distributed a year ago. ($1 = 0.9586 euros) Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/finlands-neste-cut-around-600-jobs-2025-02-13/
2025-02-13 07:49
Potential Russia-Ukraine peace deal pressures oil prices Trump says reciprocal tariffs coming on Thursday Russia may develop oil sanctions workarounds as global supply rises -IEA HOUSTON, Feb 13 (Reuters) - Oil prices settled flat on Thursday, paring early losses of more than 1% as U.S. tariff announcements were delayed until at least April, feeding hope that the world could avoid a trade war that would pressure economies and energy demand. Brent crude futures settled at $75.02 a barrel, down 16 cents, or 0.21%. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude (WTI) finished down 8 cents, or 0.11%, at $71.29 a barrel. Prices had tumbled earlier as a potential peace deal between Russia and Ukraine kept traders concerned that an end of sanctions on Moscow could boost global energy supplies. U.S. President Donald Trump ordered commerce and economics officials to study reciprocal tariffs against countries that place tariffs on U.S. goods. Their recommendations are not due until April 1, allowing more time for negotiations with trading partners, market participants said. "We saw a big recovery in prices on tariffs not going into effect until April," said Phil Flynn, senior analyst with Price Futures Group. "That will allow time for negotiation." On Wednesday, Brent and WTI fell more than 2% after Trump said Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy expressed a desire for peace in separate phone calls with him. Trump ordered U.S. officials to begin talks on ending the war in Ukraine. The oil price decline over the past 24 hours looks to be driven by a change from worries about tight supplies to concern about sufficient supply, said UBS analyst Giovanni Staunovo, adding that some expect an increase in Russian energy exports. Russian oil exports could be sustained if workarounds to the latest U.S. sanctions package are found, after Russian crude production rose slightly last month, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in its latest oil market report. The Ukraine news and Wednesday's U.S. oil inventories data offset higher U.S. inflation numbers that could drive the Federal Reserve to take a cautious approach to interest rate cuts in 2025, said PVM analyst John Evans. Russia is the world's third-largest oil producer and sanctions imposed on its crude exports after its invasion of Ukraine nearly three years ago have supported higher prices. ANZ analysts said on Thursday that oil prices declined on news of the potential peace talks because of "optimism that risks to crude oil supplies would ease", pointing to the U.S. and EU sanctions. A build in crude oil inventories in the United States, the world's biggest crude consumer, also weighed on the market. U.S. crude stocks rose more than expected last week, data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) showed on Wednesday. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/oil-falls-potential-ukraine-peace-deal-may-ease-supply-disruptions-2025-02-13/
2025-02-13 07:45
Musk says OpenAI 'going too far' in deleting non-profit segment Tells Middle East audience that US should mind its own business US government spending could be cut by $1 trillion and reduce inflation to zero, Musk says DUBAI, Feb 13 (Reuters) - Elon Musk said on Thursday his AI chatbot, and ChatGPT challenger, Grok 3, is in the final stages of development and will be released in about a week or two. "Grok 3 has very powerful reasoning capabilities, so in the tests that we've done thus far, Grok 3 is outperforming anything that's been released, that we're aware of, so that's a good sign," he said in a video call addressing the World Governments Summit in Dubai. The billionaire tech mogul founded xAI as a challenger to Microsoft-backed OpenAI and Alphabet's Google. Musk also co-founded OpenAI. On Monday, a consortium of investors led by Musk said it had offered $97.4 billion to buy the assets of OpenAI's nonprofit, in another salvo from the world's richest man against the artificial intelligence startup. OpenAI has said it wants to become a for-profit organization to secure the capital needed for developing the best AI models. Musk sued OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and others in August and has asked a U.S. district judge to block OpenAI's attempt to transition to a for-profit entity. OpenAI said this week Musk's bid clashes with his lawsuit. "I think the evidence is there in that OpenAI has gotten this far while having at least a sort of dual profit, non-profit role. What they're trying to do now is to completely delete the non-profit, and that seems really going too far." Musk, who was appointed by U.S. President Donald Trump to oversee the so-called Department of Government Efficiency aimed at dramatically reducing the size of the federal workforce, said government spending could be reduced by $1 trillion or more. "Maybe the economy could grow at 4 or 5% potentially, in terms of real useful goods and services output, and government spending can be reduced by about 3 or 4% of the economy, about maybe a trillion dollars or more, and the net effect of that would be no inflation from 2025 to 2026 so that would be quite remarkable," Musk said. UAE AI Minister Omar Al Olama, who was interviewing Musk at the conference, said they would partner on "Dubai Loop", an underground high-speed transport system that Musk likened to a wormhole. Al Olama did not give details. Turning to international affairs, Musk told the Middle East audience the United States has been "pushy" in the past and it should "mind its own business". "I think we should, in general leave other countries to their own business," he said. Trump has enraged the Arab world by saying the U.S. would take over the Gaza strip, resettle its Palestinian inhabitants and turn it into the "Riviera of the Middle East". Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/technology/artificial-intelligence/elon-musk-says-grok-3-final-stages-outperforming-all-chatbots-2025-02-13/
2025-02-13 07:38
JAKARTA, Feb 16 (Reuters) - Emirates Global Aluminium plans to explore alternative clean energy development in Indonesia, Jakarta said, amending a statement denied by the company that EGA planned to build a nuclear power plant in the Southeast Asian country. Indonesia's economic affairs ministry issued a statement late on Saturday, replacing one that had said EGA planned to build a nuclear plant of up to 5 gigawatts in an attempt to remedy a shortage of low-carbon power bedevilling efforts to boost capacity at an aluminium smelter in North Sumatra. An EGA spokesperson said in an email on Thursday that the company "is not in the nuclear power business so, with all respect, the account of this aspect... is inaccurate". EGA reiterated it was "interested in Indonesia". Indonesia has no nuclear power capacity. The company agreed , opens new tab in 2022 to help expand production capacity by up to 400,000 tons a year at the smelter owned by state-owned Indonesia Asahan Aluminium. Indonesia has been trying to develop its mineral processing industry by attracting investment on the basis of its rich reserves of minerals such as nickel, copper and bauxite. Senior Economic Minister Airlangga Hartarto and EGA CEO Abdulnasser Ibrahim Saif Bin Kalban met in Dubai on Wednesday to discuss development of the aluminium industry. Airlangga, in Dubai to attend the World Government Summit, also met Mohamed Jameel Al Ramahi, the chief executive of UAE state-owned renewable energy firm Masdar. The two discussed their projects in Indonesia, including a 145-megawatt floating solar power plant on a reservoir in the province of West Java and development of a gas pipeline from Aceh to East Java. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/indonesia-says-uaes-emirates-global-aluminium-plans-nuclear-power-plant-2025-02-13/
2025-02-13 07:16
Feb 13 (Reuters) - Sterling jumped on Thursday after data showed the British economy unexpectedly grew in the final quarter of last year, offering a brief respite from an otherwise downbeat economic outlook. The pound rose to $1.25155 against the dollar after the data, its highest in over a week. It was last up 0.42% at $1.24975. Britain's economy grew by 0.1% in the fourth quarter, figures from the Office for National Statistics showed. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast that British gross domestic product would shrink by 0.1% in the period. Despite the beat, analysts said the data still showed a lacklustre story about the British economy. James Smith, economist at ING, noted that the GDP growth was due to a surge in inventories. "These are a notoriously volatile accounting fixture which, unlike other parts of the GDP breakdown, don't tell us much about the underlying health of the economy," Smith said. "The areas that do – household consumption, exports, and business investment – were all flat, or negative." Sterling, last year's best performing G10 currency against the dollar, has fallen about 0.1% since the start of the year, while markets have moved to price in more easing from the Bank of England this year as the economy slows. "Risks are still firmly tilted to the downside in the UK," said Michael Brown, senior research strategist at Pepperstone. Markets price in 54 basis points of further central bank easing this year from the BoE. The pound was largely flat against the euro , with one euro at 83.39 pence. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/markets/currencies/sterling-rises-after-data-shows-surprise-growth-uk-economy-2025-02-13/
