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Red Sea crisis boosts shipping costs, delays – and inflation worries

The Maersk Sentosa container ship sails southbound to exit the Suez Canal in Suez, Egypt, on Thursday, Dec. 21, 2023. Stringer | Bloomberg | Getty Images Attacks on ships in the Red Sea continue to push ocean freight rates higher, triggering warnings of inflation and delayed goods. To avoid strikes by Iran-backed Houthi militants based in Yemen, carriers have already diverted more than $200 billion in trade over the past several weeks away from the crucial Middle East trade route, which, along with the Suez Canal, connects the Mediterranean Sea to the Indian Ocean. This has created a multiple-front storm for global trade, according…

Equinor, BP Cancel Offtake Deal with New York for Giant Empire Wind 2

European energy giants Equinor and BP have scrapped a deal to sell power to the state of New York from the Empire Wind 2 offshore wind farm in the Atlantic Ocean, saying the project is no longer commercially feasible. Citing higher inflation and borrowing costs, along with various supply chain issues, Equinor and BP said they would exit the agreement with the state of New York and would instead look for better offtake deals after the state’s regulators in October had rejected a request from BP and Equinor to seek higher rates for delivering offshore wind power, Bloomberg reports . if(window.innerWidthADVERTISEMENTfreestar.config…

Beijing's Bid For Influence in the Global South

For Chinese Ambassador to the EU Fu Cong, the Israel-Hamas war laid bare the West’s double standards and how Beijing sees it falling out of touch with the rest of the world. Speaking in Brussels in mid-November, shortly after the October 7 outbreak of hostilities in Israel and Gaza, Fu railed against the bloc’s labeling of China as a “rival” on the global stage, saying that if having different foreign policy views makes Beijing a rival then Brussels will find it has many other competitors. if(window.innerWidthADVERTISEMENTfreestar.config.enabled_slots.push({ placementName: "oilprice_medrec_atf", slotId: "oilprice_medrec_atf" });'…

A Sick Market Benefits Healthcare Stocks

The healthcare industry, known for its resilience during economic downturns and its essential services, has traditionally been considered a defensive sector. Investors tend to flock to healthcare stocks in times of uncertainty, looking for stability and predictable returns. If you didn’t notice the stock market’s performance yesterday, we started 2024 off with ALL the defensive sectors rocketing. Healthcare was the biggest standout. Could investors be positioning into healthcare stocks because of fear that the stock market is going to have a challenging year overall? Why Healthcare Stocks Thrive in Tough Times Healthcare, utilities…

Meet the shrewdest operators in today’s oil markets

A lmost a decade ago, a price war broke out between petrostates in the Persian Gulf and the frackers in America, whose innovative drilling techniques gave rise to the shale revolution. In December 2014 The Economist put a picture on its cover of both antagonists standing back to back, frowns on their faces and petrol pumps at the ready. It called the new economics of oil “Sheikhs v shale”. Missing from that picture were two companies that until then had been the biggest stalwarts of America’s oil industry, ExxonMobil and Chevron. Had they been pictured, the two crusty supermajors would probably be standing awkwardly on the…