$2bn
Isabel dos Santos, Africa’s richest woman and daughter of former Angolan strongman says the country’s oil corporation, Sonangol will have a cash reserve of $2 billion after she was fired as chair of the state-owned oil company.
Her sacking Wednesday marks the first time Angolan President Joao Lourenco has directly targeted the family of his predecessor, Jose Eduardo dos Santos, who ruled Africa’s second-biggest oil producer for 38 years and who appointed his eldest daughter to the helm of Sonangol last year. Isabel dos Santos also claimed the board of directors she led reduced the company’s debt to $7 billion from $13 billion, and cut the production cost of a barrel of oil by half to $7.
2.4%
Oil price is down 2.4% as it suffered its first weekly decline since the start of October after the International Energy Agency trimmed demand estimates and as U.S. crude production continued its record run. Oil has eased after reaching a two-year high on signs the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies will extend supply cuts past the end of March. With all eyes on an OPEC meeting later this month, the outcome of the gathering has become uncertain as Russia is said to be hesitant to commit to a decision so soon, while Saudi Arabia pushes for longer curbs.
$39.4bn
The U.S. will pay an economic cost after it became clear it will lose its status as the top destination for international students in the not-so-distant future if new enrollments continue to recede. For the first time in 12 years, the Institute of International Education reported a 10,000-plus person decline in the number of new international students enrolled in U.S. universities for the 2016-2017 school year.
International students contributed $39.4 billion to the U.S. economy in the 2016-2017 academic year, with $12.5 billion from China and $6.5 billion from India.
$40bn
For oil and the countries which have made fortunes from producing and exporting The over $1 trillion fund that Norway has amassed pumping oil and gas over the past two decades wants out of petroleum stocks. Norway, which relies on oil and gas for about a fifth of economic output, would be less vulnerable to declining crude prices without its fund investing in the industry, the central bank said Thursday. The divestment would mark the second major step in scrubbing the world’s biggest wealth fund of climate risk, after it sold most of its coal stocks. The plan would entail the fund, which controls about 1.5 percent of global stocks, dumping as much as $40 billion of shares in international giants such as Exxon Mobil Corp. and Royal Dutch Shell Plc.
$300bn
Saudi authorities are negotiating settlements with princes and businessmen held over allegations of corruption, offering deals for the detainees to pay for their freedom, say people briefed on the discussions. In some cases the government is seeking to appropriate as much as 70 per cent of suspects’ wealth, two of the people said, in a bid to channel hundreds of billions of dollars into depleted state coffers. The arrangements, which have already seen some assets and funds handed over to the state, provide an insight into the strategy behind Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s dramatic corruption purge. The attorney-general has said he is investigating allegations of corruption amounting to at least $100bn. People briefed on the negotiations say the government wants to take back at least that figure, though the target may rise to as much as $300bn.
