简体中文
"As countries ease the lockdown, we expect demand to increase."
That was Amin Nasser, CEO of the world's biggest oil exporter, Saudi Aramco, with an optimistic outlook, despite the company's profits plunging for the first half of this year.
Aramco said it still plans to pay $75 billion in dividends this year, as Nasser said he sees oil prices rebounding in Asia, with economies gradually reopening.
Oil prices climbed on Monday, supported by this Saudi confidence, as well as an improvement in Chinese factory data and rising energy demand.
In other less positive oil news, Mauritius is calling for urgent international help to stop the ecological and economic devastation caused by an oil spill from a stranded Japanese tanker.
The island nation, which declared a state of emergency, fears the already heavy damage will get worse as the tanker breaks up, spilling more polluting fuel into the coral reefs and white-sand beaches of the country.
Elsewhere, things are not looking good for employment in the UK, as a newly released survey has shown that as many as a third of employers expect to cut jobs by October, despite businesses gradually reopening to recover from COVID-19.
And finally, yes, the coronavirus still has not gone away, so for our graphic, we look at today's new cases across Europe per 100,000 of the population.
Enjoy reading,
Arij Limam
Digital correspondent
**P.S. Did you know we send this briefing by email, too? **
Sign up here
Saudi Arabian oil company, Saudi Aramco's net income plunged by 50 percent in the first half of the year, offering a revealing glimpse into the impact of the pandemic on the world's biggest oil exporter . The results were announced as the oil giant's second-quarter profits plunged a staggering 73 percent.
One in three UK employers expect to slash jobs by October, according to a survey of more than 2,000 companies, charities and public-sector bodies, suggesting that the economic impact of the pandemic will get worse in the coming weeks.
American multinational technology company Microsoft has emerged as the most likely buyer of the U.S. operations of TikTok , the popular Chinese short-video app that U.S. President Donald Trump is preparing to effectively ban on national security grounds.
U.S. social networking giant Twitter is also throwing its hat in the ring as reports say the company has approached TikTok's Chinese owner ByteDance expressing an interest to buy. But sources quoted in the
Wall Street Journal
say it's not clear if Twitter can afford to make a deal in time.
Norwegian petroleum refining company** Equinor **has appointed Anders Opedal as its new CEO as it looks to join European oil companies in moving into renewable energy . Equinor is maintaining a target of expanding its oil and gas output by three percent a year until 2026, Opedal told Reuters. After that, things could change.
British oil and gas company BP will need to invest tens of billions of dollars over the next decade and may have to accept lower returns than it can get from oil if it is to meet its target of becoming one of the world's largest renewable power generators .
Mauritians are making floating booms of human hair and leaves in a round-the-clock scramble to mop up oil from a grounded Japanese ship, which is onto their pristine Indian Ocean beaches. At least 1,000 tons of oil is estimated to have leaked , with 500 tons salvaged.
A bipartisan group of 13 U.S. senators has asked the U.S. Trade Representative's Office (USTR) to remove 25 percent tariffs imposed in October 2019 on European Union food, wine and spirits, according to a letter seen by Reuters.
Shares in American technology and pharmaceutical company Eastman Kodak fell about 40 percent and were on track for their worst single-day decline after the U.S. government blocked a $765 million loan to the company because of "alleged wrongdoing" by executives. Kodak was planning to make drug ingredients for use in possible COVID-19 vaccines.
European shares rose on Monday as industrial activity in China gained strength, another sign of recovery from the coronavirus pandemic that added to hopes the global economy would also return to health .
Economic activity in France ran at seven percent below normal levels in July, a two-percentage-point improvement on June , as the construction sector neared pre-pandemic levels of activity and industrial capacity usage nudged higher, the Bank of France said.
German companies expect public life will be restricted for a further eight-and-a-half months due to COVID-19, a survey by the Ifo economic institute has shown, as Europe's largest economy battles to recover from the pandemic downturn.
South Korean auto maker, Hyundai , is creating a family of electric vehicles it will sell under the Ioniq brand as part of its drive to become the world's third-largest seller of EVs by 2025, the company has said.
WATCH: Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk's SpaceX succeeded in sending NASA astronauts to space and back on a privately built vehicle. But why was this mission so important, are we seeing the dawn of a new space race and will space travel be the new air travel?
**CGTN Europe's **
RAZOR
** program spoke to private astronaut Per Wimmer, who answered all these questions about SpaceX's "taxi service" to space.**
05:25
**Russia's ambassador to the UK, Andrei Kelin, sat down with CGTN Europe's **
**The Agenda with Stephen Cole **
and spoke about the U.S. State Department decision to call for financial penalties on investors and other business participants in the undersea pipeline that will carry natural gas from Russia to Germany, known as the Nord Stream Two project.
What is the Russian view towards what is effectively a threat, a financial threat?
It is not a threat to us. But it is more a threat to European investors and allies. This is a commercial project, which we did not even initiate, it has been initiated by Germany.
And imposing sanctions, albeit extraterritorial sanctions, or what is now going on, threatening companies that are involved in these, this is unscrupulous really. This is an inappropriate means of economic competition in the economic field.
It's a sign, isn't it, of the U.S. worrying that Germany is going to be over-reliant on Russian energy?
Well, it depends. This is a matter for Germany, of course, and other countries that do believe this gas will be cheaper for them than the liquid gas imported from the United States.
Source(s): Reuters ,AP