Canada and the G20 countries agree on the need for oil price stability, but in a Friday meeting Canada did not promise any specific production cuts, Natural Resources Minister Seamus O’Regan said.
The minister also said the federal government would deliver an aid package to provide liquidity to the country’s struggling oil and gas sector “soon.”
Top oil nations pushed to finalize a deal on sweeping oil cuts at G20 talks on Friday, in which O’Regan participated, to lift prices slammed by the coronavirus crisis, with Russia and Saudi Arabia taking the lion’s share and the United States showing unusual willingness to help out.
Riyadh, Moscow and its allies, which make up the informal OPEC+ group, had forged a pact to curb crude production by the equivalent of 10 per cent of global supplies in marathon talks on Thursday, and said they wanted others to cut a further 5%.
In an interview with Russian state television channel Rossiya-24, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said that Canada was ready to cut oil output by around 1 million bpd.
“That’s news to me. I haven’t heard that figure before,” O’Regan told Reuters in a telephone interview.
Referring to curtailment figures, he said: “The exchange of numbers will come at some point, but it did not in this G20.”
The G20 call “was about finding the mechanisms to achieve price stability,” O’Regan told reporters in an earlier teleconference. “We’re not where we need to be yet.”
The western province of Alberta, Canada’s biggest oil producing region, “has already formerly curtailed 80,000 barrels per day,” O’Regan said.
He noted that he did not have the authority to promise curtailment because it is the mandate of provincial governments.
In an email, Artem Abramov, head of shale research for Rystad Energy, said, “Canada’s oil production will be down in April by more than one million bpd for economic reasons anyway.”
Canada is the world’s fourth-largest oil producer, extracting some 4.9 million barrels in February.
Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that efforts to ease the global oil glut should be done in a “concerted” way, without indicating whether the country would limit its own output.
In the interview, O’Regan also said promised aid for struggling energy companies would be coming “soon.”
“We’re going to focus on liquidity,” O’Regan said, without providing any details.
OPEC+ response
In a statement, Alberta Energy Minister Sonya Savage said the province was “cautiously pleased” to see that OPEC+ had agreed to reduce production by 10 million barrels per day.
“The agreement to implement production limits by OPEC+ brings global energy producers in line with measures that Alberta has reluctantly taken since January 2019,” Savage said.
“For our part, we have already seen Alberta producers voluntarily lower their production and cut their capital spending due to decreased demand because of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Tim McMillan, the president of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP), said it will take months for the impact of the COVID-19 crisis to be completely understood.
“While it’s encouraging that there’s an initial agreement to end the irresponsible global oil price war, much damage has been done,” McMillan said in a statement to CBC News.
“The damage to the Canadian energy sector will be longer lasting due to the liquidity crisis triggered by these market manipulations.
“Canada’s oil and natural gas industry’s focus remains on weathering this crisis and working with governments to put into place support that will save people’s jobs in the short term and create the foundation for the economic recovery.”
Speaking to CBC News Network’s Power & Politics, O’Regan said that in conversation with CAPP, he had heard their top priority five times — “liquidity, liquidity, liquidity, liquidity, liquidity.”
“It’s trying to make sure that companies and people who work for those companies are whole, so that when we get out on the other side of this our industry is intact as it can be. That is their top priority,” he said.
“It is all about the viability of those companies and ensuring some certainty for workers and their families.”
O’Regan would not commit to a timeline concerning when federal help for the oil and gas sector would arrive, only offering that it was coming “very soon.”
TOKYO (AP) — Japanese technology group SoftBank swung back to profitability in the July-September quarter, boosted by positive results in its Vision Fund investments.
Tokyo-based SoftBank Group Corp. reported Tuesday a fiscal second quarter profit of nearly 1.18 trillion yen ($7.7 billion), compared with a 931 billion yen loss in the year-earlier period.
Quarterly sales edged up about 6% to nearly 1.77 trillion yen ($11.5 billion).
SoftBank credited income from royalties and licensing related to its holdings in Arm, a computer chip-designing company, whose business spans smartphones, data centers, networking equipment, automotive, consumer electronic devices, and AI applications.
The results were also helped by the absence of losses related to SoftBank’s investment in office-space sharing venture WeWork, which hit the previous fiscal year.
WeWork, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2023, emerged from Chapter 11 in June.
SoftBank has benefitted in recent months from rising share prices in some investment, such as U.S.-based e-commerce company Coupang, Chinese mobility provider DiDi Global and Bytedance, the Chinese developer of TikTok.
SoftBank’s financial results tend to swing wildly, partly because of its sprawling investment portfolio that includes search engine Yahoo, Chinese retailer Alibaba, and artificial intelligence company Nvidia.
SoftBank makes investments in a variety of companies that it groups together in a series of Vision Funds.
The company’s founder, Masayoshi Son, is a pioneer in technology investment in Japan. SoftBank Group does not give earnings forecasts.
Shopify Inc. executives brushed off concerns that incoming U.S. President Donald Trump will be a major detriment to many of the company’s merchants.
“There’s nothing in what we’ve heard from Trump, nor would there have been anything from (Democratic candidate) Kamala (Harris), which we think impacts the overall state of new business formation and entrepreneurship,” Shopify’s chief financial officer Jeff Hoffmeister told analysts on a call Tuesday.
“We still feel really good about all the merchants out there, all the entrepreneurs that want to start new businesses and that’s obviously not going to change with the administration.”
Hoffmeister’s comments come a week after Trump, a Republican businessman, trounced Harris in an election that will soon return him to the Oval Office.
On the campaign trail, he threatened to impose tariffs of 60 per cent on imports from China and roughly 10 per cent to 20 per cent on goods from all other countries.
If the president-elect makes good on the promise, many worry the cost of operating will soar for companies, including customers of Shopify, which sells e-commerce software to small businesses but also brands as big as Kylie Cosmetics and Victoria’s Secret.
These merchants may feel they have no choice but to pass on the increases to customers, perhaps sparking more inflation.
If Trump’s tariffs do come to fruition, Shopify’s president Harley Finkelstein pointed out China is “not a huge area” for Shopify.
However, “we can’t anticipate what every presidential administration is going to do,” he cautioned.
He likened the uncertainty facing the business community to the COVID-19 pandemic where Shopify had to help companies migrate online.
“Our job is no matter what comes the way of our merchants, we provide them with tools and service and support for them to navigate it really well,” he said.
Finkelstein was questioned about the forthcoming U.S. leadership change on a call meant to delve into Shopify’s latest earnings, which sent shares soaring 27 per cent to $158.63 shortly after Tuesday’s market open.
The Ottawa-based company, which keeps its books in U.S. dollars, reported US$828 million in net income for its third quarter, up from US$718 million in the same quarter last year, as its revenue rose 26 per cent.
Revenue for the period ended Sept. 30 totalled US$2.16 billion, up from US$1.71 billion a year earlier.
Subscription solutions revenue reached US$610 million, up from US$486 million in the same quarter last year.
Merchant solutions revenue amounted to US$1.55 billion, up from US$1.23 billion.
Shopify’s net income excluding the impact of equity investments totalled US$344 million for the quarter, up from US$173 million in the same quarter last year.
Daniel Chan, a TD Cowen analyst, said the results show Shopify has a leadership position in the e-commerce world and “a continued ability to gain market share.”
In its outlook for its fourth quarter of 2024, the company said it expects revenue to grow at a mid-to-high-twenties percentage rate on a year-over-year basis.
“Q4 guidance suggests Shopify will finish the year strong, with better-than-expected revenue growth and operating margin,” Chan pointed out in a note to investors.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
TORONTO – RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust says it has cut almost 10 per cent of its staff as it deals with a slowdown in the condo market and overall pushes for greater efficiency.
The company says the cuts, which amount to around 60 employees based on its last annual filing, will mean about $9 million in restructuring charges and should translate to about $8 million in annualized cash savings.
The job cuts come as RioCan and others scale back condo development plans as the market softens, but chief executive Jonathan Gitlin says the reductions were from a companywide efficiency effort.
RioCan says it doesn’t plan to start any new construction of mixed-use properties this year and well into 2025 as it adjusts to the shifting market demand.
The company reported a net income of $96.9 million in the third quarter, up from a loss of $73.5 million last year, as it saw a $159 million boost from a favourable change in the fair value of investment properties.
RioCan reported what it says is a record-breaking 97.8 per cent occupancy rate in the quarter including retail committed occupancy of 98.6 per cent.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
