UN food chief warns Horn of Africa famine imminent, if global crises left unchecked

CALGARY – Oil producer Veren Inc. saw its share price plunge by more than 14 per cent onThursday, on news that the company is lowering its production forecast for 2024 and grappling with “under-performance” from some of its wells.

The company, which has operations in Alberta and Saskatchewan and used to be known as Crescent Point Energy Corp., said Thursday it now expects total annual average production of 191,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, down from earlier expectations for between 192,500 and 197,500 boe/d.

It also announced disappointing results from the Gold Creek area of Alberta’s Montney oil-and-gas-producing region, where it was testing a new type of well design in an effort to improve efficiencies.

The “plug and perf” well design, as it is referred to in industry terms, is used to create multiple hydraulic fractures in a horizontal well. Veren had been enthusiastic about the potential for this type of well design to produce the same output at a lower cost than single-point-entry fracturing.

But at Gold Creek, production results from its test wells failed to meet Veren’s expectations, and the company reported Thursday it will stick to single-point-entry well design in the region after all.

On a conference call with analysts, Veren CEO Craig Bryksa fielded multiple questions about the disappointing well test results and lowered production forecast. He emphasized that it is only a few well pads in one specific region that have under-performed, and said he believes the stock price impact Thursday was an “overreaction.”

“I think this will filter through in the next couple days,” Bryksa said, adding that testing the “plug and perf” design in the area was a learning experience that has served to increase the company’s understanding of the region.

“I think the market will start to see the opportunity in front of them, and I’m excited when we start to look into 2025, knowing we’re so much smarter going into that year than we were going into 2024.”

In recent years, Veren has spent significant energy and capital on the Montney region. The company has been one of the most active Canadian oil and gas companies in recent years on the mergers and acquisitions front, as it sought to restructure its portfolio of assets to focus on the Montney and the adjacent Kaybob Duvernay shale gas play.

A series of blockbuster deals — which included the 2021 purchase of Shell Canada’s Kaybob Duvernay assets for $900 million, the 2023 purchase of Spartan Delta Corp.’s Montney assets for $1.7 billion and the purchase of Hammerhead Energy Corp.’s Montney assets for $2.55 billion shortly after that — has established Veren as the dominant player in two of North America’s most important petroleum plays.

Approximately 85 per cent of the company’s 2025 budget is allocated to its Alberta Montney and Kaybob Duvernay plays.

“We continue to expect 2024/25 to be operationally focused with minimal M&A,” said RBC Capital Markets analyst Michael Harvey in a note.

Harvey called Veren’s third-quarter results “negative” and pointed out that in addition to trimming its 2024 forecast, the company also unveiled a 2025 forecast that came in five per cent below what analysts had been expecting.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 31, 2024.

Companies in this story: (TSX:VRN)

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MONTREAL – Dockworkers at the Port of Montreal started a new strike Thursday morning, forcing the indefinite shutdown of two container terminals at the country’s second biggest port.

The Port of Montreal says the Viau and Maisonneuve terminals are closed until further notice, paralyzing 40 per cent of the port’s total container-handling capacity. The union representing nearly 1,200 longshore workers began its latest strike at 11 a.m., affecting the two terminals operated by the company Termont. The latest strike involves up to 320 workers.

Thursday’s walkout is in addition to an ongoing strike on overtime shifts affecting the entire port, and comes after a three-day strike at the same two container terminals earlier this month. The union also held a 24-hour work stoppage on Sunday.

Officials with the union, which is connected to the Canadian Union of Public Employees, have said they are willing to call off the strike if a deal is reached on a portion of the dispute centred around scheduling.

Union representatives said earlier in the week that Termont is being targeted because it has made widespread use of the scheduling practices the union opposes, on the grounds they impact work-life balance.

The Maritime Employers Association denounced the strike and said it can’t grant the demand to change work schedules without formal negotiations taking place.

“The schedules used on the different docks … called into question by the union in recent days are enshrined in the collective agreement in force and cannot be used as a bargaining chip for a strike targeting a single operator, as is the case today,” the group wrote Thursday in a news release.

Workers have been without a contract since Dec. 31, 2023. Besides issues around scheduling and work-life balance, the union is also asking for a pay raise. It says it will accept the same increases that were granted to the counterparts in Halifax or Vancouver — 20 per cent over four years.

In a statement, Port of Montreal CEO Julie Gascon warned that a prolonged stoppage could have wide-ranging impacts on the economy, and urged the parties to reach a deal. She said ships were already being forced to reroute to other ports.

“This new work stoppage at the Viau and Maisonneuve terminals, at the very hub of our supply chain, can only have a deeply negative impact on thousands of local businesses, as well as on the economy of Quebec and Canada as a whole,” she wrote. “This shutdown affects half of our international container terminals and heightens a climate of uncertainty that undermines the reliability and image of our logistics sector, key elements in the confidence that businesses place in the greater Montreal ecosystem.”

The Canadian Chamber of Commerce published a letter on its website urging the government of Canada to use “every tool at its disposal” to facilitate a return to the negotiating table, warning an indefinite strike risks accelerating inflation, increasing costs for businesses and consumers, and damaging Canada’s reputation as a reliable trading partner.

“Canadians expect swift, decisive action from our elected officials to facilitate the resolution of this labour dispute and secure our economic future,” read the letter, which was signed by dozens of business groups and boards of trade.

The Maritime Employers Association repeated its call for the federal labour minister to intervene to bring the parties back to the negotiating table. It said it had already made some cuts in response to the labour conflict, and warned that “difficult but necessary decisions may have to be made to cope with the many impacts of this new strike.”

Earlier this month federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon proposed a special mediator so the parties can resume negotiations without a lockout or strike for 90 days, but that offer was rejected.

In a statement Thursday, MacKinnon’s office said the parties “must find a process leading to a negotiated agreement as quickly as possible.”

“Federal mediators and Minister MacKinnon remain available to assist them, and we continue to monitor the situation closely.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 31, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Apple snapped out of a recent iPhone sales slump during its summer quarter, an early sign that its recent efforts to revive demand for its marquee product with an infusion of artificial intelligence are paying off.

Sales of the iPhone totaled $46.22 billion for the July-September period, a 6% increase from the same time last year, according to Apple’s fiscal fourth-quarter report released Thursday. That improvement reversed two consecutive year-over-year declines in the iPhone’s quarterly sales.

The iPhone boost helped Apple deliver total quarterly revenue and profit that exceeded the analyst projections that sway investors, excluding a one-time charge of $10.2 billion to account for a recent European Union court decision that lumped the Cupertino, California, company with a huge bill for back taxes.

Apple earned $14.74 billion, or 97 cents per share, a 36% decrease from the same time last year. If not for the one-time tax hit, Apple said it would have earned $1.64 per share — topping the $1.60 per share predicted by analysts, according to FactSet Research. Revenue rose 6% from last year to $94.93 billion, about $400 million more than analysts forecast.

But investors evidently were hoping for an even better quarter. Apple’s stock price slipped slightly in extended trading after the numbers came out.

The results captured the first few days that consumers were able to buy a new iPhone 16 line-up that included four different models designed to handle a variety of AI wizardry that the company is marketing as “Apple Intelligence.” The branding is part of Apple’s effort to distinguish its approach to AI from rivals such as Samsung and Google that got a head start on bringing the technology to smartphones.

Even though the iPhone 16 was specifically built with AI in mind, the technology didn’t become available until Apple released a free software update earlier this week that activated its first batch of technological tricks, including a feature designed to make its virtual assistant Siri smarter, more versatile and more colorful. And those improvements are only available in the U.S. for now.

“This is just the beginning of what we believe generative AI can do,” Apple CEO Tim Cook told analysts during a Thursday conference call.

Cook said plans to expand the AI iPhone features into other countries in December, as well as roll out other software updates that will inject even more of the technology in the iPhone 16 and two high-end iPhone 15 models that are also equipped with the special computer chips needed for the slick new features. The December expansion will include an option to connect with OpenAI’s ChatGPT to take advantage of technology that Apple isn’t making on its own.

Investors are betting that as Apple’s AI becomes more broadly available, it will prompt the hundreds of millions of consumers who are using older iPhones to upgrade to newer models in order to get their hands on the latest technology.

Although the iPhone sales bounced back, another key part of Apple’s operations — its services division — didn’t fare quite as well as analysts anticipated amid regulatory efforts in Europe and U.S. to force the company to allow more payment options within its app store. That crackdown threatens to undercut a lucrative fee system that enables Apple to exclusively collect a 15% to 30% commission on many of the digital commerce transactions completed within iPhone apps.

The revenue in Apple’s service division climbed 12% from a year ago to nearly $25 billion, but that figure was about $200 million below analyst projections.

Apple’s revenue also dipped slightly from a year ago in China, where the company has been facing stiffer competition in the smartphone market.

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