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United Arab Emirates will suspend entry of valid residence visa holders who are still abroad starting at noon on Thursday for two weeks, over coronavirus concerns, state news agency WAM said on early Thursday.
The UAE has recorded 113 cases on the flu-like disease.
Emirates, the world’s biggest long-haul airline, is looking at grounding the bulk of its 115 Airbus SE superjumbos as the coronavirus undermines global travel demand, people familiar with the situation said.
Dubai-based Emirates has already idled more than 20 A380s and is seeking to delay taking the last handful due for delivery, Bloomberg reported last week. The company hasn’t made a decision on standing down the fleet, according to the people, who asked not to be named discussing a private matter.
Emirates, which also operates 155 Boeing Co. 777 wide-bodies, didn’t respond to a request for comment. The company has stopped serving about a quarter of its usual destinations, encouraged staff to take leave, and said on March 12 that deeper cuts were under consideration.
Many airlines are effectively winding up flying as the pandemic wipes out demand, with discount giant Ryanair Holdings Plc saying Wednesday it expects to ground most if not all flights from next week. Emirates’s business model is focused on inter-continental routes, and while the spread of the virus is easing in parts of Asia, it’s accelerating in its European and North American markets.
Oil is ensnared in such a crisis that Wednesday’s 24% plunge in New York wasn’t even its worst day this month.
Futures are now at the lowest level in almost two decades after Saudi Arabia signaled it’s doubling down on a price war with Russia just as demand evaporates. Prices dropped below $25 a barrel for the first time since 2003 in London and tumbled 24% in New York as the kingdom vowed to keep producing at a record high “over the coming months.”
For the last 10 days, Riyadh has issued nearly daily statements raising the stakes in its shock-and-awe battle with Moscow, first announcing massive price discounts and output.
The kingdom is now pledging to pump flat out for months to come, and prices are in free fall. Oil is now down over 45% since failed talks between members of the OPEC+ alliance to further cut output and tackle the demand fallout from the virus outbreak.
Oil prices plunged on Wednesday, with U.S. crude futures hitting an 18-year low, as governments worldwide accelerated lockdowns to counter the coronavirus pandemic that is causing global fuel demand to collapse.
Oil futures have lost more than half their value in the past 10 days, as schools have closed, businesses have shuttered and governments worldwide have urged residents to limit gatherings.
Global oil demand by the end of March could fall as much as 8 million to 9 million barrels per day (bpd), Goldman Sachs said.
Investors broadly fled risky assets again on Wednesday, after equity markets recovered on Monday. U.S. stocks slumped, with the S&P 500 dropping 7%, triggering a 15-minute halt to trading, while copper futures fell 6.9%.
U.S. crude CLc1 fell $6.58, or 24.4%, to settle at $20.37 a barrel. U.S. crude futures have lost 56% over last 10 days, in the worst 10-day trading stretch since the contract launched in 1983.
Brent crude LCOc1 settled down $3.85, or 13.4%, at $24.88 a barrel after dropping as low as $24.52, its weakest since 2003.
As coronavirus has spread across the globe markets have fallen sharply and entire industries have warned of imminent bankruptcy. Governments are trying to understand the potential scale of the economic fallout and how to mitigate it. FT experts discuss the policy options and the potential unintended consequences.
Oil prices will have to fall to the lower $20 range for Russia and Saudi Arabia to get back together and end their oil-price spat, Stewart Glickman, CFRA research analyst, says during an interview with Bloomberg's Taylor Riggs on "Bloomberg Markets." (Source: Bloomberg)
Oil prices sank below $24 a barrel for the first time in nearly 18 years as Saudi Arabia ramps up the global price war. Bloomberg’s Annmarie Hordern reports on "Bloomberg The Open." (Source: Bloomberg)
Saudi Arabia’s energy ministry said on Wednesday it has directed national oil company Aramco to continue to supply crude oil at a record rate of 12.3 million barrels per day (bpd) over the coming months.
The top oil exporter has said it will boost its crude supply in April to that level, and its oil exports are set to top 10 million bpd from May, also a record high.
On Monday, Saudi Aramco said it was likely to sustain higher oil output planned for April in May, and that it was “very comfortable” with a price of $30 a barrel, signalling the state oil company is prepared to live with low prices for a while.
Saudi Arabia said last week it would launch a programme to boost production capacity for the first time in more than a decade, signalling to Russia and other rivals it was ready for a long battle over market share.
Updated stock indexes in Europe, Middle East & Africa. Get an overview of major indexes, current values and stock market data in Europe, UK, Germany, Russia & more.
Emirates is asking pilots and cabin crew to take unpaid leave and rival Qatar Airways laid off about 200 staff in Doha this week as the coronavirus outbreak hammers demand for travel.
The state-owned airlines have slashed dozens of routes crucial to their Gulf hubs dependent on millions of passengers passing through each year.
Dubai’s Emirates, one of the world’s biggest international airlines, is offering pilots and cabin crew unpaid leave, according to internal staff emails seen by Reuters.
“You are strongly encouraged to make use of this opportunity to volunteer for additional paid and unpaid leave,” an email to pilots said.
Sovereign bond restructurings are rarely smooth. Lebanon’s looks like it will be particularly rocky.
The rules underpinning the nation’s looming debt overhaul may complicate efforts to gather enough support to change the terms of its bonds. At the same time, they could protect the country from some of the issues that left Argentina with lengthy court battles.
So say Mark Weidemaier and Mitu Gulati, law professors at the University of North Carolina and Duke University, who published online reports about the nation’s $30 billion of international bonds after reviewing the detailed terms laid out in the Fiscal Agency Agreement. That document has only been available to bondholders at the office of Lebanon’s fiscal agent in Luxembourg.
“Lebanon’s FAA explicitly allows it to do what got Argentina into trouble,” they said in a post on the Creditslips academic blog. The terms make it “more difficult for holdouts to complain when the government pays restructuring participants (and everyone else) while leaving holdouts with nothing,” they said.
Gulf banks are losing out on a critical quarter for earnings with the coronavirus outbreak, as deals and lending activity come to a near standstill ahead of a lull that starts with the fasting month of Ramadan in April and extends into summer.
Several deals - such as the initial public offering (IPO) of Saudi Arabia’s Amlak International for Real Estate Finance and a sukuk, or Islamic bond, issuance by Dubai Islamic Bank - have been called off, sources close to the deals told Reuters.
Amlak and DIB did not respond to requests for comment.
“On the origination side, things have slowed down to a standstill. Nothing new is coming across,” said a Dubai-based banker who declined to be named.
International bonds issued by Gulf borrowers, including the Saudi government and its oil giant Saudi Aramco, fell sharply on Wednesday, further extending steep losses suffered since March 6.
Dollar bonds maturing in 2047 issued Abu Dhabi, seen as one of the region’s strongest credits, shed 4.6 cents, Refinitiv data showed. Saudi 30-year dollar bonds due in 2049 dropped 6 cents and similar Aramco bonds lost 3.9 cents.
Oil prices plunged below $23 a barrel for the first time in 18 years after Saudi Arabia vowed to keep producing at a record high “over the coming months,” doubling down in its price war with Russia.
For the last 10 days, Riyadh has issued nearly daily statements raising the stakes in its shock-and-awe battle with Moscow, first announcing record price discounts, then unprecedented production.The kingdom is now vowing to pump flat out for months to come. The energy market has taken these as a green light to sell, sending prices down about 45% since a failed OPEC+ meeting this month.
“What we are seeing here is essentially the atomic bomb equivalent in the oil markets,” said Louise Dickson, an analyst at Rystad Energy A/S, in an email. “With each day there seems to be yet another trap door lying beneath oil prices, and we expect to see prices continue to roil until a cost equilibrium is reached and production is shut in.”
Riyadh appears to be heading to a Darwinian survival of the fittest for the energy industry, in which the highest cost producers, including U.S. shale companies and others working Brazil’s offshore fields, will suffer enormously. The Saudi Ministry of Energy “directed Saudi Aramco to continue to supply crude oil at a level of 12.3 million barrels a day over the coming months,” according to a statement.
Major stock markets in the Gulf closed higher on Wednesday as stimulus measures by central banks eased worries about the economic impact from the coronavirus outbreak, while other indexes extended losses.
In Abu Dhabi, the index advanced 2.3%, snapping five days of losses, boosted by a 14.9% surge in teleco Etisalat. The exchange on Wednesday reduced the daily maximum decline of shares to 5% from 10% earlier.
On Tuesday, ratings agency Moody's Investor Service said the United Arab Emirates (UAE) support scheme would soften the fallout from the pandemic on the economy and banks.
The UAE last week announced a $27 billion plan to counter the outbreak's economic impact.
"Support measures will limit UAE banks likely material asset quality deterioration due to the coronavirus outbreak," Moody's said.
How long can the vicious oil-price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia last? If history is any guide, the battle will be a long one.
Riyadh has waged four price wars, including the current one, over the last 35 years. All of them lasted at least a year, and prices plunged at least 50%.
This time may be different, of course -- there’s never been a demand shock so great at the same time as the supply shock. But the last wars are at least a guide to the pain thresholds of policymakers.
It keeps getting worse for Indian billionaire BR Shetty.
His remittance business UAE Exchange is the latest victim in his empire to be investigated for financial discrepancies.
One of the oldest exchange houses in the UAE has stopped new transactions through its branches and online platforms as it struggles with liquidity, and is being investigated by the Central Bank of the UAE (CBUAE), which announced it will oversee its operations management, according to a statement.
Only its Wage Protection System will be allowed to operate until further notice.
Oman's central bank on Wednesday unveiled a $20 billion incentive package for financial institutions to combat the impact of the new coronavirus on the local economy.
The series of measures are expected to provide OR8 billion in additional liquidity to the country's financial institutions, the central bank said in a tweet.
Oman is the latest Gulf country to launch an economic stimulus package as the virus threatens to hit trade, supply chains, travel and tourism hard across the world.
Earlier, Oman announced that all restaurants will close from midday on Wednesday.
On March 4, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, the 59-year-old Saudi oil minister, was locked down in his suite at the Park Hyatt hotel in Vienna, preparing for what would turn out to be the most important meeting of his life.
A veteran negotiator, the prince is skilled in the Byzantine diplomacy and backroom deals that have characterized OPEC since its founding 60 years ago. Few others can bridge the political enmities among oil producers, who often have little in common other than their addiction to petrodollars. It’s a world where a few barrels here or there in a production deal often make all the difference. “How can we work in dividing these things?” Prince Abdulaziz told Bloomberg TV last year. “It is not going to be a science. It’s science, art, and sensibility.”
But when Prince Abdulaziz met his Russian counterpart, Alexander Novak, that day at the OPEC building in Vienna, both science and art failed. The talks were the prelude to a seismic oil price decline that’s still reverberating through the global economy—a crash that may reshape the energy industry for decades to come. And what started as a price war may turn out to be a much more important strategic rethinking of Saudioil production policy, as the kingdom seeks to monetize its giant petroleum reserves as fast as possible rather than shepherding that store of wealth through the generations. Such a shift would fundamentally change the economics of the industry, using Saudi Arabia’s ultralow cost advantages to win a race to the bottom. For Prince Abdulaziz’ younger half-brother, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, it would represent a massive gamble: the world’s preeminent oil exporter choosing to live with lower long-term oil prices.
Dubai’s hotel performance has worsened in recent months, as the coronavirus outbreak takes a toll on global and regional economies, according to preliminary data from STR Inc.
Occupancies decreased for 37 consecutive days from Feb. 1 through March 8 compared to the same period last year, STR analysts noted in the March 17 report. The steepest declines happened in the most recent of those days.
Initial data in February showed occupancy rates retreated about 9.4% in the emirate, with revenue for available rooms slipping close to 23%. Consumer prices for the hospitality sector -- including hotels and restaurants -- in the United Arab Emirates, which Dubai is a part of, dropped 1.3% in 2019.
Even before the virus eliminated most demand, Dubai was hard hit by an oversupply of newly built hotel. rooms that battered occupancy and average room rates.
Oil prices fell for a third session on Wednesday with U.S. crude futures tumbling to a 17-year low as travel and social lockdowns sparked by the coronavirus epidemic knocked the outlook for demand.
U.S. crude Clc1 was down $1.15 cents, or 4.27%, at $25.80 per barrel by 0938 GMT, having earlier fallen to $25.68, its lowest since May 2003.
Brent crude LCOc1 was trading down 78 cents, or 2.71%, at $27.95 a barrel, after dropping to $27.86, its lowest since early 2016.
“The oil demand collapse from the spreading coronavirus looks increasingly sharp,” Goldman Sachs said in a note forecasting a fall in the price of Brent to as low as $20 in the second quarter, a level not seen since early 2002.
Most Gulf bourses rose on Wednesday, underpinned by gains in financial stocks, on hopes that a hefty helping of stimulus measures from regional policymakers could limit the blow from the coronavirus.
Saudi Arabia's benchmark index .TASI advanced 1.3%, with most of the banks trading in positive territory. National Commercial Bank 1180.SE and Al Rajhi Bank 1120.SE gained 3.9% and 1.2%, respectively.
Saudi Arabia, which chairs the Group of 20 major economies, announced an extraordinary virtual leaders summit next week "to put forward a coordinated set of policies to protect people and safeguard the global economy."
In Dubai, the index .DFMGI gained as much as 3.2% in early trade, boosted by a 8.9% surge in Emirates Integrated Telecommunications DU.DU and a 1.7% rise in Emirates NBD Bank ENBD.DU.
