US energy stocks rise as Trump vows to unlock Venezuela’s oil
US energy stocks rose on Monday, briefly hitting an all-time high, after Donald Trump promised to unlock Venezuela’s vast crude oil reserves following the US capture of the country’s president, Nicolás Maduro.Shares in Chevron, which already operates in Venezuela under a special licence provided by the Trump administration, were up 5% on Wall Street.Exxon Mobil was up 2.2%, while Halliburton, which provides products and services to the oil and gas sector, jumped 7.8%.
The gains helped push the Dow Jones index above 49,000 for the first time,It ended the day just short of its new record,Oil prices were also up on Monday, after recovering from a brief drop,Brent crude, the international oil benchmark, rose 1,5% to $61.
76 a barrel.West Texas Intermediate was up 1.4% at $58.32.Venezuela produces only about 1% of global oil output, after years of underinvestment, US trade sanctions and a naval blockade.
However, the country holds about 17% of global crude oil reserves, according to the US Energy Information Administration.Trump’s intervention could deepen a supply glut in the market, as he has promised US oil companies would “go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country”.So far none of the biggest US oil companies have spoken about the president’s claim they are prepared to spend billions to rebuild the Venezuelan oil industry.However, a former top Chevron executive, Ali Moshiri, said he was raising $2bn (£1.49bn) for Venezuelan oil projects.
Moshiri, who was formerly the head of Chevron’s Latin American operations, told the Financial Times that his Amos Global Energy Management fund had identified Venezuelan assets and was preparing to make an investment.“We have been anticipating this breakthrough for a while and our $2bn private placement memorandum is ready to go with several investment targets identified,” he said.Kathleen Brooks, the research director at XTB, said a fall in oil prices could be “short-lived” as investors assessed how long it would take for extra Venezuelan oil to affect the global market.“The type of investments needed include upgrading old and decaying infrastructure, drilling new oil wells and building more refineries to process Venezuela’s heavy crude oil,” she said.“Optimising resource-rich Venezuela to generate the income needed to turn the country around could take until 2030 and beyond.
”Brooks noted that the country pumped nearly 3,5m barrels a day at its 1998 peak, far exceeding the 1m a day now,John Browne, a former chief executive of BP, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme it would take a “tremendous amount of skill, investment and time” to revive Venezuela’s oil production,“It is a very long-term project,” he said,“It might get a quick pickup of a little production, but equally it might go backwards while people are reorganising.
”The political disruption has also prompted a rally in the Venezuelan bond market.Its debt, which has traded well below its face value since the country defaulted in 2017, has been rising in recent weeks as some traders anticipated a regime change.A Venezuelan government bond that matures in 2027 has jumped in price from 31.5p on the dollar to more than 40p on the dollar, according to data from Deutsche Börse.A second bond that should have been repaid in 2022 has risen from 31.
5p to 34p,China’s top financial regulator, the National Financial Regulatory Administration, has asked its policy banks and other big lenders to report their exposure to Venezuela, according to Bloomberg, as the Chinese banking sector prepares for potential shocks,Despite the geopolitical upheaval over the weekend, the Opec+ oil group did not signal a shift in strategy at a scheduled update on Sunday,The group, which includes Russia, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, agreed to maintain their pause on production increases until at least April,The price of gold rose by 2% to $4,430.
27 an ounce on Monday.The metal is considered a traditional safe haven asset, and typically rises during periods of uncertainty.Silver also rose by as much as 3.9% to $75.42 an ounce.
Both metals hit record high prices last year, driven by global economic and political uncertainty, as well as expectations around interest rate cuts and large purchases of bullion by central banks.The price of bitcoin has also been rising on geopolitical uncertainty, increasing by 1.7% to $93,085 on Monday.Asian markets were buoyant, posting their strongest start to a year since 2012.In London, the FTSE 100 closed above the 10,000 mark for the first time, after mining and defence stocks helped to push the index up 0.
5%,In the US the Dow Jones also hit a new record high,The best public interest journalism relies on first-hand accounts from people in the know,If you have something to share on this subject, you can contact us confidentially using the following methods,Secure Messaging in the Guardian appThe Guardian app has a tool to send tips about stories.
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UK housebuilding in deepest slump since 2020 lockdowns; stock market rally falters amid geopolitical tensions – business live
Newsflash: Britain’s construction sector continued to shrink in December, as housing, commercial and civil engineering activity suffered sharp falls again.Data provider S&P Global has reported that activity across the UK construction sector, and new orders, both fell again last month.Housebuilding and commercial construction work both decreased at the fastest rate since May 2020, when the Covid-19 lockdown forced building sites to close, S&P Global’s survey of purchasing managers at UK construction firms shows.That highlights the government’s struggle to hit its housebuilding targets.Civil engineering was the weakest-performing category of construction activity in December; it also shrank, but not by as much as in November
FCA fines two former Carillion directors for misleading investors before collapse
The UK’s financial regulator has fined two former executives at the government contractor Carillion for misleading investors before the construction company’s collapse eight years ago.Richard Adam and Zafar Khan knew about serious problems in the business but failed to alert investors, the board or the audit committee, the Financial Conduct Authority found.Adam and Khan have been fined £232,800 and £138,900 respectively, after both former directors dropped their appeal against the FCA findings.The fines come eight years after the demise of the major government contractor, which was one of the biggest construction and facilities management companies in the country.Carillion entered liquidation with £7bn of debts in January 2018, resulting in 3,000 job losses and causing chaos across 450 projects and public-sector schemes, including schools, roads, prisons and the expansion of Liverpool Football Club’s stadium
Grok’s deepfake images which ‘digitally undress’ women investigated by Australia’s online safety watchdog
Australia’s online safety watchdog is investigating sexualised deepfake images posted on X by its AI chatbot, Grok.Elon Musk’s X has faced a global backlash since Grok began generating sexualised images of women and girls without their consent in response to requests for it to undress them.Ashley St Clair, the estranged mother of one of Musk’s children, said she had no response to her complaints about being digitally undressed.“I felt horrified, I felt violated, especially seeing my toddler’s backpack in the back of it,” she said this week.The fake images included one of a 12-year-old girl in a bikini
Elon Musk’s xAI announces it has raised $20bn amid backlash over Grok deepfakes
Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company has raised $20bn in its latest funding round, the startup announced Tuesday, even as its marquee chatbot Grok faces backlash over generating sexualized, nonconsensual images of women and underage girls.xAI’s Series E funding round featured big-name investors, including Nvidia, Fidelity Management and Resource Company, Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund, and Valor Equity Partners – the private investment firm of Musk’s longtime friend and former Doge member Antonio Gracias. The funding round exceeded its initial $15bn target, according to xAI’s press release. The company touted Grok’s image-generation abilities in the announcement of its latest funding round.xAI lacks the prominence of its rival OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, and has continually drawn criticism for generating misinformation, antisemitic content and now potentially illegal sexual material
Injured Stokes to spend final day of Ashes tour watching from SCG pavilion
Ben Stokes is set to spend the final day of this Ashes tour watching on from the old pavilion at the SCG and hoping for a miracle in his absence after seeing yet another Test series cut short by injury.The all-rounder had worked hard to get through all five Tests in Australia only to fall at the final hurdle, limping off 10 balls into his opening spell on the fourth morning and appearing in distress. An England spokesperson later confirmed it was an issue with his right abductor (groin).Stokes did bat later in the day, emerging at No 8 but falling for one after struggling to move at the crease. The upshot is that when England come to defend a target on the final day – their lead was 119 overnight, eight wickets down – they will do so without their seam-bowling captain
The Spin | Revealed after 100 years: how a corrupt official robbed Percy Fender of the England captaincy
After a mere 100 years the Spin, always first with the news, is finally able to reveal the details of one of the more extraordinary secrets in the history of English cricket. The story comes from the private family archives of the former Surrey captain Percy Fender, which are being compiled into a fascinating new documentary film. It has always been a mystery that Fender, who was described by Wisden as “the shrewdest county captain of his generation” was never picked to lead England. After all these years, it now appears he was blackmailed out of the job by a corrupt cricket official.In a private audio recording made shortly before his death in 1985, Fender explains that in May 1924 he was approached “by a gentleman who was very well known in the cricket world” who, during the course of a conversation over two half-bottles of champagne in Fender’s flat at the Adelphi, offered him the England captaincy for the 1924-25 Ashes tour
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