DIRS.INFO The most relevant business & tech news

☆ EU countries mull curbing Russia sanctions dodging via trade tools, access to EU market
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-21 | by ( Gabriela Baczynska | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

BRUSSELS, Feb 21 (Reuters) - Twelve EU countries are calling on the European Union to stop companies and third countries from circumventing EU sanctions on Russia by using trade and access to the European single market as leverage, a document showed on Tuesday. The provision of material support to Russia’s military and defense industrial base will have severe consequences regarding their access to the EU market," they added. "Special focus should be put on Western components that are crucial to the Russian military industry," the paper said. "These components are not easily replaced: changing an element in weapons production takes months, due to certification and design processes. A small disruption of these production chains therefore quickly has a significant impact in the Russian ability to produce weapons and military equipment," it said.

☆ Rio Tinto enters agreement with BMW to provide hydro-produced aluminum
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-21 | by ( Stephen Culp | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

[1/2] A BMW car logo is displayed during a media tour at the plant of German automaker BMW in San Luis Potosi, Mexico, February 3, 2023. REUTERS/Toya Sarno Jordan/File PhotoNEW YORK, Feb 21 (Reuters) - Rio Tinto on Tuesday said it would supply BMW with aluminum it produces in Canada using hydroelectric power, lowering the auto manufacturer's carbon footprint with respect to its procurement of the automotive metal. The UK-based mining company and the German automaker announced in separate statements that they had signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) for Rio Tinto's hydro-powered operations in Canada to provide a BMW production plant in Spartanburg, South Carolina, with an unspecified amount of aluminum starting in 2024 -- a move that "could generate a reduction of up to 70 percent in CO2 emissions compared to the BMW Group's benchmark for aluminum," according to Rio Tinto. "The agreement to supply low-carbon aluminium" is also aimed at "ramping up our use of aluminium with no direct CO2 emissions from the smelting process," wrote Joachim Post, member of the Board of Management of BMW AG, which is responsible for its purchasing and supplier network. Reporting by Stephen Culp; Additional reporting by Ernest Scheyder; Editing by Sandra MalerOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Twitter stiffed marketing firm $7,000 for a 'swag gift box' for Elon Musk that included a $689 Japanese whiskey and a branded cheese board, a lawsuit claims
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-20 | by ( Grace Dean | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

A branded-merch company claims it's owed $6,784 for a "swag gift box" Twitter ordered for Elon Musk. Canary Marketing says in a lawsuit that Twitter suddenly stopped paying its bills in September. The invoice for Musk's gift box includes a $689 bottle of whiskey and a custom-engraved cheese board. One of the payments Canary claims Twitter owes is the order from late September for a "swag gift box for Elon" worth $6,783.99, to be sent to Twitter's San Francisco headquarters. Twitter and Canary didn't immediately respond to Insider's request for comment, made outside of normal US working hours.

[1/2] A Ukrainian serviceman rides inside a truck with artillery shells, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, near a frontline in Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine January 5, 2023. EU foreign ministers are expected to discuss the idea of joint procurement of 155-millimetre artillery shells – badly needed by Kyiv – at a meeting in Brussels on Monday. DEPLETED STOCKPILESA joint procurement effort would aim to replenish the stockpiles of Kyiv's allies, badly depleted after a year of supplying munitions to help Ukraine fight Russia's invasion. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said this week Ukraine was using up artillery shells faster than its allies could currently produce them. Diplomats and officials did not specify how much the EU might spend on joint procurement.

☆ Hungary must bolster judiciary 'very soon' to recover billions from EU, official says
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-18 | by ( Gabriela Baczynska | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

BRUSSELS, Feb 18 (Reuters) - Hungary must bolster the independence of its judiciary "very soon" to stand a realistic chance of getting any of the 15.4 billion euros envisaged for Budapest from the European Union's COVID recovery stimulus, said a top official in the bloc. Hungary can get some 5.8 billion euros ($6.20 billion) in free grants and another 9.6 billion euros in cheap loans from the EU but the bloc has suspended any payments until Budapest implements reforms to improve judicial independence and tackle corruption. NO TRUSTThe EU Commission has put an end-year deadline on accessing the COVID funds, though several countries have already said they need more time to spend the large emergency aid package. "Those supermilestones for the judiciary have to be done soon" for that to be realistic, said Jourova. The bloc has also long frowned at what international watchdogs say is Orban channelling EU funds to associates to entrench himself in power.

[1/2] A Ukrainian serviceman rides inside a truck with artillery shells, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, near a frontline in Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine January 5, 2023. EU foreign ministers are expected to discuss the idea of joint procurement of 155-millimetre artillery shells – badly needed by Kyiv – at a meeting in Brussels on Monday. DEPLETED STOCKPILESA joint procurement effort would aim to replenish the stockpiles of Kyiv's allies, badly depleted after a year of supplying munitions to help Ukraine fight Russia's invasion. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said this week Ukraine was using up artillery shells faster than its allies could currently produce them. Diplomats and officials did not put a figure on how much the EU might spend on joint procurement.

☆ Exclusive: Kazakhstan will supply 100,000 tonnes of oil via Druzhba to Germany in March - sources
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-17 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

MOSCOW, Feb 17 (Reuters) - Kazakhstan will supply 100,000 tonnes of oil via Russia's Druzhba pipeline to Germany in March for the PCK Schwedt refinery after it agreed commercial and legal terms with all parties involved, two sources familiar with the talks said. Kazakhstan's Kazmunaigaz (KMG) oil company will supply the volume via the pipeline system of Russia's Transneft to the refinery, the sources said. The oil will be supplied to Rosneft Deutschland, which Germany had put under a trusteeship of the German industry regulator, the sources said. Germany stopped Russian oil imports via Druzhba from January and has been working hard to try to secure supply for Schwedt from alternative routes. Eni, which owns 8.33% in PCK Schwedt, didn't immediately answer a Reuters request for comment.

☆ Japan says 3 balloons that floated into its airspace years ago are 'strongly presumed' to have been Chinese spy balloons
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-15 | by ( David Cenciotti | The Aviationist | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Three balloon-shaped flying objects were spotted in Japanese airspace in 2019, 2020, and 2021. Japan's Defense Ministry said Tuesday that they were "strongly presumed" to have been Chinese reconnaissance balloons. "If a balloon enters Japan's airspace without permission, it constitutes an infringement of Japan's airspace. Three additional unidentified objects, later appearing to have been much smaller commercial or research balloons, were also spotted and shot down. The Chinese balloon carried "multiple antennas" capable of collecting signals intelligence, a senior State Department official said, and the balloon maker has proven ties to the Chinese military, according to a CNBC report by Abigail Williams.

☆ India's Amrutanjan Health Care sinks on whistleblower allegations
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-15 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

BENGALURU, Feb 15 (Reuters) - Shares of India's Amrutanjan Health Care Ltd (AJAN.NS) plunged as much as nearly 10% on Wednesday, a day after it said an anonymous whistleblower complaint alleged some senior management of "undue enrichment" and "conflict of interest." Amrutanjan's shares closed 1.4% lower on Tuesday after the company disclosed the allegations, and were down 8.7% as of 12.14 p.m. IST on Wednesday. The complaint alleged "lapses by certain senior management employees including undue enrichment through marketing, advertising and procurement activities, ethical concerns and conflict of interest etc," Amrutanjan said on Tuesday. Amrutanjan did not immediately respond to a Reuters' email seeking further details on the complaint, including if the company has conducted its own probe or if the managers were still employed with the company. ($1 = 82.8600 Indian rupees)Reporting by Hritam Mukherjee in Bengaluru; Editing by Janane VenkatramanOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Russia's budget deficit has surged. But economists say Moscow won't drain its war chest any time soon
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-15 | by ( Elliot Smith | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +8 min

However, both the Russian finance ministry and the central bank maintain that all of this is within their models. Christopher Granville, managing director of global political research at TS Lombard, noted two further factors distorting the most recent deficit figures. watch nowThe actual Urals price dived as a result, averaging just $46.8 per barrel during the period from mid-December to mid-January, according to the Russian finance ministry. The finance ministry also flagged massive advance payments for state procurement in January, which totaled five times those of January 2022. "Also, it has plans to issue debt, but this can only be done domestically so it's like a closed circuit — Russian banks buying debt from the Russian state, etcetera etcetera.

☆ South Africa declares national state of disaster over floods
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-13 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

JOHANNESBURG, Feb 13 (Reuters) - South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has declared a national state of disaster to enable an intensive response to widespread flooding that has affected seven of the country's nine provinces. Invoking the national disaster act gives the government additional powers, including in the procurement and delivery of goods and services and the ability to bypass restrictions under current law. The national police and defence force may be called on to help respond to the flooding, the statement said. Ramaphosa declared a national state of disaster last week over South Africa's power crisis, as daily rolling power cuts are paralyzing businesses. The national disaster act was also invoked in March 2020 to deal with the coronavirus pandemic, and last April to respond to floods in the eastern province of KwaZulu-Natal.

NATO has just completed an extraordinary survey of the remaining munition stocks, a NATO official told Reuters on condition of anonymity. "Those NATO (munitions targets) that we set, and each ally has a specific target, those were not being met for the most part (before the Ukraine war)," the official said. "I would be absolutely gobsmacked if the targets…were not increased," said the NATO official. After the Cold War, the production of ammunition had turned "quite artisanal", said the NATO official. "I don't necessarily think that within the next year our stockpile levels will increase massively," the NATO official said.

☆ A subsidy arms race is kicking off between Europe and America
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-10 | by ( Julia Horowitz | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +10 min

This premium is expected to shrink as clean energy technologies become more advanced and infrastructure to produce them is scaled up. Most of the money the IRA has earmarked for clean energy initiatives comes in the form of tax credits. In the meantime, government officials are lobbying the United States to rethink parts of the IRA. “Europe and other allied countries have nothing to fear from the Inflation Reduction Act and quite a bit to gain,” said Brian Deese, Biden’s top economic adviser. The fight over green subsidies also comes as geopolitical tensions are pushing countries to focus on greater localization of production — not just for green energy, but also for sensitive technologies like computer chips.

Companies Exxon Mobil Corp FollowFeb 9 (Reuters) - Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM.N) said on Thursday it is merging some smaller business units as part of an effort to cut annual costs by $9 billion by 2023 from 2019 levels. The changes follow the restructuring of Exxon's top businesses disclosed last year, and address a second layer of management. Exxon now says it will combine smaller units to concentrate decisions related to supply chain, procurement and the acquisition of raw materials, among others. The change is aimed at giving more negotiating power to Exxon on deals with third parties, for instance by removing the possibility of more than one Exxon unit negotiating separate deals with the same supplier. Exxon has been on a major cost-cutting drive after suffering a historic loss in 2020.

☆ Exxon Plans to Cut Costs, Reorganize Units After Record Profit
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-09 | by ( Collin Eaton | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Exxon is trying to save $9 billion in annual costs by the end of this year, compared with 2019. Exxon Mobil Corp. is combining business units as part of a continuing corporate reorganization that will cut costs and trim some jobs. The U.S. oil company, which posted a record profit in 2022, plans to form three new organizations under which it will wed several smaller units later this year such as its financial-services, procurement and customer-service groups, according to a memo that was sent to employees and viewed by The Wall Street Journal.

☆ Airbus urges suppliers to carry extra stocks amid output snags
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-09 | by ( Valerie Insinna | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Airbus currently has an ultimate goal of producing 75 of its best-selling family of A320neo single-aisle jets a month by the middle of the decade. Charbonneau also suggested that suppliers would bear the burden of carrying extra inventory to smooth any disruption, saying it was "very important" that suppliers create "buffer stocks" of critical items. "Ultimately, working capital in sub-tier suppliers could actually determine how many airplanes are going to get built," he said. Industry sources have said earlier plans for a sharp increase in output rattled suppliers worried about being left with surplus inventory and reluctant to carry surplus stock. The United States is Airbus' single largest supplier, with more than 2,000 U.S. companies located in about 40 states.

☆ Toyota's Q3 profit jumps 22% as weak yen helps
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-09 | by ( Daniel Leussink | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Operating profit for the three months ended Dec. 31 was 956.7 billion yen ($7.28 billion). That beat the average 764.54 billion yen profit estimated by 10 analysts, according to Refinitiv data. In the same period a year earlier, Toyota reported a 784.4 billion yen profit. While it trimmed its annual production target by about 1%, to around 9.1 million vehicles, it stuck to its forecast for annual profit of 2.4 trillion yen for the year to end-March. The automaker is likely to comfortably exceed that forecast, given that it has now delivered 2.1 trillion yen in the first nine months of the year, said Koji Endo, senior analyst at SBI Securities.

[1/4] South African President Cyril Ramaphosa speaks during his 2023 state of the nation address in Cape Town, South Africa, February 9, 2023. "We are in the grip of a profound energy crisis," Ramaphosa said in his annual State of the Nation Address to parliament. State electricity utility Eskom is implementing the worst rolling blackouts on record, leaving households in the dark, disrupting manufacturing and hurting businesses of all sizes. Declaring a national state of disaster gives the government additional powers to respond to a crisis, including by permitting emergency procurement procedures with fewer bureaucratic delays and less oversight. Ramaphosa said on Thursday he would appoint a minister of electricity within the presidency to focus solely on the crisis.

☆ Chinese spy balloon carried 'multiple antennas' for collecting signals intelligence, State Dept. says
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-09 | by ( Abigail Williams | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

The Chinese balloon that flew above the U.S. for eight days included "multiple antennas" capable of collecting signals intelligence, a senior State Department official said Thursday, and the balloon maker has proven ties to the Chinese military. While China condemned the U.S. for destroying what it said was a weather balloon, the State Department official described the balloon as carrying equipment designed to collect communications and threatened action against Beijing. Gen. Pat Ryder said that the U.S. has gathered extensive information about the Chinese surveillance balloons over time and will be able to detect them in the future. U.S. officials said previously that there were had been multiple Chinese balloon flights over American territory during the former Trump administration and another during the Biden administration. "What we do know is that in some cases, whereas some of these balloons previously had not been identified, subsequent analysis, subsequent intelligence analysis did enable us to indicate that these were Chinese balloons," Ryder said.

Navy photo/Handout via REUTERSWASHINGTON, Feb 9 (Reuters) - The United States will explore taking action against entities connected to the Chinese military that supported the incursion by a Chinese spy balloon into U.S. airspace last week, a senior State Department official said on Thursday. Sherman also said the United States would continue to prevent China’s exploitation of U.S. technology to enable its own military modernization. China's foreign ministry has said it was a weather balloon that had blown off course and accused the United States of overreacting. The public spectacle of a Chinese balloon drifting slowly across the United States has brought into sharp focus the challenge posed by China to the United States and its allies. An Asia diplomat told Reuters there was a free flow of information about the balloon, with the United States passing on additional details to allies and partner as they became available.

☆ A Mexico soccer icon entered politics. Prosecutors say narcos followed
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-03 | by ( Cuernavaca | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +27 min

Regional politicians, officials and military officers gathered in the Morelos state capital of Cuernavaca for breakfast in February 2022 to mark Mexico’s annual Army day. Mexican drug lords have a long tradition of buying off politicians in exchange for government protection of their illicit trade. Attempts to reach two of the alleged drug traffickers in the photo – Figueroa and Irving Solano Vera – were unsuccessful. Prosecutors in April asked the Morelos state congress to impeach Blanco so that he could be stripped of that shield. “He likes me very much because I’m not a politician,” Blanco told Reuters, in reference to the president.

☆ Exclusive: Iran to start revamp at Venezuela's largest refining complex within weeks - sources
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-03 | by ( Mircely Guanipa | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

The companies are now expected to sign in the coming weeks a 460-million-euro contract to revamp the 955,000-bpd Paraguana refinery complex on the coast of western Venezuela, according to the sources. Iran's Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian arrived in Caracas on Friday and met Venezuela's oil minister Tareck El Aissami, according to tweets from the Iranian embassy in Caracas and Venezuela's oil ministry. PDVSA, NIORDC and Venezuela's oil ministry did not reply to requests for comment. A QUARTER OF CAPACITYA project to restore the complex's dilapidated power supply is also planned as part of the revamp, according to the sources. During the El Palito revamp, PDVSA sent home hundreds of Venezuelan workers to make way for the Iranian technicians, which triggered protests.

The company, which nearly collapsed after Moscow cut and then stopped gas supplies to Germany, now sees a net loss of 19.1 billion euros ($21 billion) for 2022, it said on Wednesday. It said on Wednesday that losses caused by costs to replace Russian gas volumes reached 13.2 billion euros in 2022. "The development of the gas price has a major impact on Uniper's losses for realized and future gas replacement procurement. She said the significant decrease in gas prices at the end of 2022 meant expected losses for future gas replacement costs were reduced to 5.9 billion euros from 30 billion euros. "The actual losses and anticipation of losses from gas replacement cost in the future will continue to significantly fluctuate with changing gas prices," Uniper said.

☆ Why Ukraine Hasn’t Been a Boon to U.S. Defense Companies
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-31 | by ( Doug Cameron | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Despite the importance of Lockheed Martin’s Himars rocket launchers to Ukraine’s defense against Russia, the company expects annual sales to fall. The quantities of arms the U.S. is sending to Ukraine are eye-catching: thousands of artillery shells and missiles, and hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammunition, just to name a few. The total security assistance package, now worth more than $27 billion, should in theory mean a big payday for major weapons producers. Yet the largest ground war in Europe since World War II isn’t translating into boom times for U.S. defense contractors. Hobbled by supply chain disruptions, a tight labor market and a Pentagon procurement process that can take years, arms makers have been struggling to respond to the soaring demand.

☆ Japan's JERA raises FY22/23 earnings estimate on lower LNG procurement cost
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-30 | by ( Yuka Obayashi | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Higher-than-expected profit from its trading unit, JERAGM, and stronger contribution from reselling some of the super-chilled fuel by JERA, one of the world's biggest LNG buyers, when its demand was lower, also boosted its earnings, Yoshida said. The revised guideline is based on an assumption that JERA will not receive the fuel from Freeport LNG, the second-biggest U.S. LNG exporter, by the end of March, according to Yoshida. The LNG company's plant shut after a pipeline explosion on June 8, 2022 and the restart has been delayed. In November, JERA President Satoshi Onoda predicted Freeport would resume a partial operation in mid-December and its shipments to be fully back by March. Despite the delay of Freeport's restart, JERA stuck to its 110 billion loss estimate from the fire, saying lower spot LNG prices are helping to offset an impact from the delay, Yoshida said.

Search resuls for: "Procurement"

25 mentions found