SembGas, Pertamina deal

SembGas, Pertamina deal

SINGAPORE (Dow Jones): SembGas, the consortium led by Singapore's SembCorp Engineering, has finally sewn up the long overdue US$8 billion deal with Indonesian state oil company Pertamina to buy natural gas from West Natuna and pipe it to here, a local daily reported Thursday.

The final gas sales agreement, which both sides had said they would sign by end-October, is now expected to be signed in mid- January, two-and-a-half months behind schedule, the Straits Times cited unidentified sources as saying.

Under the deal, Singapore will import 325 million standard cubic feet of natural gas daily for 22 years through a 640- kilometer pipeline from the West Natuna Sea to supply the power stations and petrochemical complexes here.

The deal was delayed because "several issues thought to have been resolved earlier had been dragged onto the negotiating table again," a source was quoted as saying.

Among the issues that had to be ironed out after the deal was initialed in mid-July were a payment guarantee by the Singapore parties, a supply agreement with the production sharing operators, the pipeline operators' and offtake agreements, the daily said.

SembGas comprises SembCorp Industries' SembCorp Engineering & Construction, Tuas Power, Belgium's Tractabel S.A. and Singapore's Economic Development Board.

;DJ; ANPAf..r.. Bizbrief-Total-gas Total sells field to Clough JP/9/BOX

Total sells field to Clough

PERTH (Dow Jones): Clough Ltd., an Australian engineering and construction company, said Thursday it has won an A$82 million contract at the Tunu gas and condensate field in Indonesia for a unit of France's Total SA.

PT Petrosea Tbk, a Clough subsidiary, will engineer, procure, construct and install offshore platforms and pipelines for phase seven of the Tunu field. The project is in east Kalimantan.

Clough said in a statement that work will start "immediately," and is due for completion in 20 months.

Shares in Clough closed steady at 71 cents after a shortened trading session on the Australian Stock Exchange.

;AFP; ANPAf..r.. Bizbrief-SKorea-Kia Ford to buy Kia shares JP/SKOREA

Ford to buy Kia shares

SEOUL (AFP): U.S. automaker Ford Motor Co. is likely to acquire new shares of South Korea's Kia Motors Co. and take part in its management, a senior official of Hyundai Motor Co. said Thursday.

"Ford is likely to take over a certain portion of the 51 percent (holding) of new Kia shares Hyundai will acquire. Hyundai and Ford are in talks over the possible equity participation," a senior Hyundai Motor official said.

"But, at this stage, it is too early to say how much Ford will buy into Kia Motors," he told AFX, an AFP affiliate.

The official also said Hyundai is talking with several other foreign automakers on possible equity participation.

Ford Motor, along with its subsidiary Mazda, held a 17.7 percent stake in Kia Motors. This stake is expected to fall below two percent after Kia Motors' capital write-down is carried out, the official said.

;AFP; ANPAf..r.. Bizbrief-Mexico-IMF Mexico increases IMF quota JP/MEXICO

Mexico increases IMF quota

MEXICO CITY (AFP): Mexico's Senate approval to increase the country's contributions to the International Monetary Fund by US$946 million, will improve Mexico's access to potential credit, the Secretary of the Treasury said Wednesday.

Rodolfo Becerril said the higher quota would give Mexico "better access to potential credit" of some $10.2 billion over the next three years.

Mexico's quota will now go from $2.45 billion to $3.4 billion, or from 1.19 percent to 1.21 percent of all member country contributions.

The Senate approved the vote 93 to four Tuesday, with six abstentions.

;DJ; ANPAf..r.. Bizbrief-airlines-Qantas Aussie airlines cut airfares JP/9/BOX

Aussie airlines cut airfares

SYDNEY (Dow Jones): Australia's two dominant airlines, Qantas Airways Ltd. and Ansett Australia Holdings Ltd., Thursday announced airfare cuts of up to nearly 70 percent on several domestic routes, seeking to offset a slowdown in business travel after the Christmas and New Year holiday period.

Peter Young, an Ansett spokesman, told Dow Jones Newswires that the price cuts are a "damage minimization" exercise.

"One of the issues we face is fairly soft demand in January and February. Business travel tends to dry up, so what we're seeking to do is stimulate demand for travel," he said.

The third and fourth quarters of the calendar year tend to be the most profitable for the domestic airline industry, while January and February are particularly weak because of the slackening in business travel, he said.

Ansett's discounted fares are for travel between Jan. 7 and March 25. Qantas' fares run from Jan. 7 to March 25.

;AFP; ANPAf..r.. Bizbrief-India-aviation Indian Airlines suffers huge loss due to fog JP/9/Colbox

Fog hits Indian Airlines

NEW DELHI (AFP): Indian Airlines has been suffering a daily loss of 10 million rupees (US$250,000) since blanket fog forced it to start canceling flights in and out of New Delhi last week, the Press Trust of India (PTI) said Thursday.

The loss-making, state-run domestic carrier has so far canceled 65 flights, including 44 from New Delhi, since the annual winter fog started playing havoc with flights to and from the capital.

PTI said the flight disruption in New Delhi had led to delays and cancellations in other cities as well.

The disruption is especially serious for Indian Airlines, which made a 380 million rupee (US$9 million) loss in the six months to October.

New Delhi's airport, which caters to both domestic and international flights, has been shut almost every evening since December 18 and flights the next morning resume only around 11 a.m. (0530 GMT).

The airport handles 40 percent of India's aviation traffic.

The cancellations and delays have left hundreds of passengers stranded.

;AP; ANPAf ..r.. Bizbrief-China-Reserves China's foreign reserves up

China's foreign reserves up

BEIJING (AP): China's foreign exchange reserves grew 0.6 percent to US$144.59 billion at the end of November from a month earlier as the government stepped up efforts to stop illegal outflows of hard currency, central bank officials said on Thursday.

A Beijing-based spokesman for the People's Bank of China, the central bank, said reserves are steadily building again. They plateaued earlier this year and then started declining this summer as $10 billion left the country through illicit channels from July to September, Shanghai's central bank chief, Wu Xiaoling, told reporters.

At the end of October, China's foreign reserves reached $143.7 billion, 1.8 percent higher than in September.

Chinese bank officials are anxious to show that reserves are not sliding, a trend that could lead to a weakening of the currency, the yuan. The government has made a stable yuan the foundation of policies to counter the economic turmoil that has afflicted the rest of Asia.

;DPA; ANPAf..r.. Bizbrief-aerospace Pan-European aerospace giant JP/9/BOX

Pan-European aerospace giant

PARIS (DPA): Germany's Daimler-Chrysler Aerospace AG (Dasa), Britain's GEC, France's Lagardere and Italy's Finmeccanica Wednesday announced plans to merge their aerospace sectors on the road to a pan-European aerospace giant.

The companies involved signed agreements in principle cementing the plans at their respective headquarters on Wednesday.

No agreement has been reached on a name or on where it will have its headquarters.

The envisioned European aerospace concern - currently called only NEWCO - will have a projected turnover of more than 5 billion marks (3.2 billion dollars), Dasa said in Munich.

This would put it in third place worldwide behind U.S. aerospace rivals Lockheed Martin and Boeing-Rockwell. It would take second place in satellite technology, according to Dasa.

"This will be the first truly multinational, European concern in this area," a Dasa spokesman said in Munich.

;REUTERS; ANPAf..r.. Bizbrief-US-economy U.S. consumers spent less JP/9/BOX

U.S. consumers spent less

WASHINGTON (Reuters): U.S. consumers spent cautiously in November ahead of the vital Christmas sales season, despite the strongest surge in incomes in nine months, the Commerce Department said on Thursday.

In a potentially worrisome sign for retailers, total spending edged up just 0.1 percent in November to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of US$5.924 trillion. Spending growth was slower than the 0.2 percent forecast by Wall Street economists, and significantly slower than October's 0.7 percent increase.

Total incomes from wages, salaries and all other sources climbed solidly by 0.5 percent to an annual rate of $7.249 trillion following a 0.4-percent gain in October.

The 0.5-percent rise in November incomes exceeded Wall Street forecasts for a 0.3 percent rise, and the department said it was the strongest since an identical 0.5-percent gain in February.

The November spending rise, on the other hand, was the smallest since July, when spending was flat.

;REUTERS; ANPAf..r.. Bizbrief-trade-banana WTO sets Jan. 12 for banana JP/9/BOX

WTO sets Jan. 12 for banana

GENEVA (Reuters): A key World Trade Organization (WTO) meeting on the banana dispute involving the European Union, the United States, Latin American and Caribbean states will be held on January 12, diplomats said on Wednesday.

Both the EU and Ecuador, on opposite sides of the squabble, have agreed on the date for a special session of the WTO's Dispute Settlement Body (DSB) at which requests from both for a panel on Brussels' incoming banana regime will be on the agenda, according to the diplomats.

A WTO spokesman confirmed the date, but gave no further information.

The diplomats said there was still no sign that the United States might itself formally challenge the EU's new regulations on banana imports and marketing, which go into effect on January 1, before the meeting.

The incoming regime replaces a previous one which a WTO panel in 1997, backed by an appeals board in 1998, found to be in violation of open trading rules.