2024-05-21 12:19

LONDON, May 21 (Reuters) - The structure of the benchmark Brent crude oil futures market fell on Tuesday to its weakest since February, another indication that concern about tight supply for prompt delivery is easing. The premium of the first-month Brent contract to the six-month contract narrowed to $2.15 a barrel on Tuesday, the lowest since early February. The premium has more than halved from a 2024 high of $5.76 on April 5. The narrowing of the premium, a market structure called backwardation, indicates that a perception earlier this year of tight supply for prompt delivery has eased. Global physical crude oil markets are weakening, traders and analysts told Reuters this week, reflecting soft consumer and industrial demand and rising supply from non-OPEC producers. In a further indication, the premium of the first-month Brent contract to the second month narrowed to a premium of 10 cents, the lowest since January, on Tuesday. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/brent-oil-market-structure-weakens-tightness-concern-eases-2024-05-21/

2024-05-21 11:59

A 73-year old British man dies, dozens hurt Singapore Air says pilot declared medical emergency Flight from London forced to divert to Bangkok Passenger describes how people hit overhead lockers BANGKOK, May 21 (Reuters) - One passenger died of a suspected heart attack and 30 were injured after a Singapore Airlines (SIAL.SI) New Tab, opens new tab flight hit severe turbulence on Tuesday, flinging passengers and crew around the cabin and forcing the plane to land in Bangkok, officials and the airline said. The flight from London and bound for Singapore fell into an air pocket while cabin crew were serving breakfast before it encountered turbulence, prompting the pilots to request an emergency landing, Bangkok Suvarnabhumi airport general manager Kittipong Kittikachorn told a press conference. The sudden turbulence occurred over the Irrawaddy Basin in Myanmar about 10 hours into the flight, the airline said. The pilot declared a medical emergency and diverted the aircraft to Bangkok, it said without giving further details. Reuters was not able to confirm the sequence of events or whether the medical emergency came before the turbulence. Photographs from the interior of the plane showed large gashes in the overhead cabin panels, gas masks and panels hanging from the ceiling and items of hand luggage strewn around. A passenger said some people's heads had slammed into the lights above the seats and punctured the panels. "I saw things lying everywhere and many air crew injured" with bruising, Kittikachorn said after the most critically injured passengers and crew had been evacuated. A 73-year-old British man died during the incident, likely due to a heart attack, Kittikachorn said. Seven people were critically injured, some with head injuries. He added people were calm as they were led from the plane. "Singapore Airlines offers its deepest condolences to the family of the deceased. We deeply apologise for the traumatic experience that our passengers and crew members suffered on this flight," the airline said. Some tallies of the injured out of the 211 passengers and 18 crew differed. The airline said 18 were hospitalised and 12 being treated in hospitals. Samitivej Hospital said it was treating 71 passengers. It was not immediately possible to reconstruct the incident from publicly available tracking data, but a spokesperson for FlightRadar 24 said it was analysing data at around 0749 GMT which showed the plane tilting upwards and return to its cruising altitude over the space of a minute. A passenger who was on the Boeing 777-300ER plane told Reuters that the incident involved the sensation of rising then falling. "Suddenly the aircraft starts tilting up and there was shaking so I started bracing for what was happening, and very suddenly there was a very dramatic drop so everyone seated and not wearing a seatbelt was launched immediately into the ceiling," Dzafran Azmir, a 28-year-old student on board the flight told Reuters. "Some people hit their heads on the baggage cabins overhead and dented it, they hit the places where lights and masks are and broke straight through it," he said. Kittikachorn said most of the passengers he had spoken to had been wearing their seatbelts. The spokesperson for FlightRadar 24 said regarding data showing a drop in height, "our initial thinking is the turbulence event is prior to the standard descent from 37,000 to 31,000 feet. That appears to just be a flight level change in preparation for landing." Suvarnabhumi airport said the plane requested an emergency landing at 3:35 p.m. local time (0835 GMT) and landed at 3:51 p.m. where uninjured passengers disembarked to board another aircraft. Singapore's Transport Safety Investigation Bureau (TSIB) will deploy investigators to Bangkok to look into the incident. TURBULENCE Turbulence-related airline accidents are the most common type, according to a 2021 study by the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board. From 2009 through 2018, the U.S. agency found that turbulence accounted for more than a third of reported airline accidents and most resulted in one or more serious injuries, but no aircraft damage. The NTSB is sending representatives to support Singapore's investigation into the incident, it said. Singapore Airlines, which is widely recognized as one of world's leading airlines and is a benchmark for much of the industry, has not had any major incidents in recent years. Its last accident resulting in casualties was a flight from Singapore to Los Angeles via Taipei, where it crashed on Oct. 31, 2000, into construction equipment on the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport after attempting to take off from the wrong runway. The crash killed 83 of the 179 people on board. Singapore Airlines has had seven accidents according to records by the Aviation Safety Network. Boeing (BA.N) New Tab, opens new tab said it was in touch with Singapore Airlines and was ready to provide support. It referred further questions to the airline and local authorities. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/singapore-airlines-flight-makes-emergency-landing-bangkok-30-injured-thai-media-2024-05-21/

2024-05-21 11:35

BENGALURU, May 21 (Reuters) - India's state-owned Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (BHEL) (BHEL.NS) New Tab, opens new tab reported a fall in fourth-quarter profit on Tuesday, as higher expenses outpaced soaring domestic demand for power and industrial products. The company, which makes power and industrial equipment, reported a 25% fall in profit for the three months ended March 31 to 4.84 billion rupees (about $58 million). It had reported three straight quarters of losses till the December quarter. The company's total expenses rose more than 5% to 77.94 billion rupees. Income from operations, however, rose around 1% as India experienced heightened temperatures in the quarter, helping domestic electricity generation grow at an average of about 8% annually, following the pandemic year of 2020/21. BHEL accounts for 53% of the country's total installed power generation capacity, according to government data New Tab, opens new tab. In addition, industrial activity in the country also soared on higher government spending ahead of the ongoing national elections. Rival Tata Power (TTPW.NS) New Tab, opens new tab reported a rise in fourth-quarter profit on strong demand, while peer Siemens (SIEM.NS) New Tab, opens new tab also posted a rise in its profit on strong energy and smart infrastructure sectors. ($1 = 83.2860 Indian rupees) Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/indias-bhel-posts-q4-profit-fall-higher-expenses-2024-05-21/

2024-05-21 11:20

HAMBURG, May 21 (Reuters) - An international court said on Tuesday greenhouse gas emissions absorbed by the ocean were considered marine pollution, and nations are obliged to protect marine environments by going further than the requirements of the Paris climate agreement. The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) in Hamburg, Germany, gave its advisory opinion on whether countries have a responsibility to reduce emissions and fight climate change - a judgement that could give legal leverage to future climate cases. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/paris-climate-accord-is-not-enough-protect-oceans-court-says-2024-05-21/

2024-05-21 11:18

MUMBAI, May 21 (Reuters) - The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) bought a net $13.25 billion in the spot foreign exchange market in March, data released on Tuesday as part of the central bank's monthly bulletin showed. The RBI said it purchased $14.84 billion and sold $1.59 billion during the month. In the previous month, it had bought a net $8.56 billion in the spot market. The Indian rupee weakened by 0.6% against the dollar in March, and had traded in a range of 82.64 to 83.45. The RBI's net outstanding forward sales stood at $541 million as of end-March, compared to net purchases of $9.69 billion at the end of February, the data showed. The central bank intervenes in the spot and forwards market to curb exchange rate volatility. The currency closed at 83.3050 against the dollar on Tuesday. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/markets/currencies/india-cenbank-net-bought-1325-bln-spot-forex-market-march-bulletin-shows-2024-05-21/

2024-05-21 11:18

SINGAPORE, May 21 (Reuters) - Half the world's natural pasture land has been degraded by overexploitation and the impact of climate change, putting food supplies and livelihoods in peril, the United Nations body in charge of fighting desertification said on Tuesday. The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) warned that a sixth of the world's food supplies were at risk from the deterioration of the world's rangelands - which include savannas, wetlands and deserts as well as grassland. Population growth, urbanisation and rising food demand have encouraged herders to rear more animals than the land can support, and have also driven the conversion of natural pastures into intensive cropland, leading to declines in soil fertility and worsening droughts, it said. Barron Joseph Orr, UNCCD's chief scientist, said that while the situation was bleak, there was a growing recognition that land restoration is part of the solution to climate change - with rangelands accounting for a third of the world's carbon reservoir capacity. "Emissions are the big issue for sure, but where do we want to put the carbon - where does it naturally belong? In our soils and in our vegetation, and if you keep undermining that, you undermine your solution," he said. Rangelands constitute about 54% of the world's total land and support two billion farmers, herders and ranchers, the UNCCD report said. The previous estimate of degradation was 25%, but UNCCD said it severely undercounted the damage done, with its new figure based on surveys from experts in more than 40 countries. The report identified Central Asia, China and Mongolia as the most badly hit, with agricultural industrialisation displacing traditional herding communities and putting more pressure on resources. Africa, the Middle East and South America have also seen widespread degradation, it said. Orr said governments needed to take a more joined-up approach to the protection of land rather than focusing on individual restoration projects. He also said that traditional herding practices could help rangelands recover. "In general, the way things were done in the past, traditionally, can go a long way towards the solutions that we're trying to achieve today," he said. "They worked for a long, long time and they can work again, given the right circumstances." Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/half-worlds-pastures-degraded-by-overuse-climate-change-un-report-says-2024-05-21/