BP Share News (BP.)

LONDON (Alliance News) - British oil major BP will sign a long-term contract worth around USD20 billion, or about GBP11.8 billion, to supply liquefied natural gas to China National Offshore Oil Corp, BP Chief Executive Bob Dudley said at a conference in Moscow Tuesday.

The two companies will sign the 20-year deal in London, where British Prime Minister David Cameron is set to announce a series of trade deals to coincide with a three-day visit by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang.

Dudley said, "It is a 20-year supply agreement on LNG. It is a fair price for them and a fair price for us. It is a good bridge between the UK and China in terms of trade.".

BP supplies CNOOC with LNG from Indonesia at present, but will source much of the LNG under the new deal from its US export plant at Freeport, Texas.

Royal Dutch Shell, which is also expected to announce a China deal with CNOOC during Li's visit, will also sell a 19% stake in Australian oil and gas producer Woodside Petroleum Ltd for about USD5 billion after tax, part of its continuing programme of selling assets it has deemed to be on-core in an effort to shore up its balance sheet. Shell is currently Woodside's largest shareholder with a 23.1% stake.

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FTSE 100: down 0.1% at 6,746.84
FTSE 250: down 0.7% at 15,601.90
AIM ALL-SHARE: down 0.1% at 785.26
GBP-USD: down at 1.6959
EUR-USD: down at 1.3543
GOLD: down at USD1,261.91 an ounce
OIL (Brent): down at USD112.73 a barrel
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Other Top UK Corporate News
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BG Group said it will sell its 62.78% stake in the Central Area Transmission System gas pipeline in the UK North Sea to Antin Infrastructure Partners for a total of up to GBP562 million, or about USD954 million, and expects to book a net profit of about USD700 million on the sale. However, it cautioned that the profit gain may be partly offset by a potential impairment of its associated UK North Sea assets after its interest in CATS was categorised as held for sale in its accounts in the second quarter. In a statement, BG Group said it will get GBP523 million when the deal is completed and a deferred payment of GBP39 million.
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Premier Oil has sold its 30% stake in the PL359 oil license offshore Norway to Lundin Norway AS for USD17.5 million after tax, and expects the net profit on the deal to be about USD10 million. Licence PL359 contains the Luno II discovery. An appraisal well will be drilled on the licence, starting this month, the cost of which will be borne by Lundin Norway, Premier said.
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Premier Inn hotels and Costa Coffee chain operator Whitbread reported strong sales growth for the first quarter of its new financial year. The hotel, restaurant and coffee chain operator has continued to invest heavily in all of its businesses, and expansion helped drive further market share gains. Sales from both businesses were up 13% in the 13 weeks to May 29, while like-for-like sales rose 6.9%. Growth at Premier Inn hotels was driven by its London hotels, while sales at Costa Coffee were aided by strong growth in system sales and in transactions per store.
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Fast-food chain group SSP Group confirmed plans for a summer stock market debut on London's main market, while IT and business services provider FDM Group Holdings priced its shares at 287 pence per share for its own initial public offering. SSP Group said it's looking to raise gross proceeds of around GBP500 million, funds it will use to reduce existing borrowings and to settle other financial obligations. A person close to the IPO process told Alliance News the flotation will give SSP an enterprise value of between GBP1.6 billion and GBP2 billion, which would make it one of the biggest companies to make an initial public offering in London so far this year.
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Equipment rental company Ashtead Group reported higher profit and revenue for the fourth quarter of its last financial year and for the year as a whole, as it invested in expanding its fleet for hire and in acquisitions. The company reported a pretax profit of GBP70.8 million for the three months to April 30, up from GBP50.0 million a year earlier, as revenue rose to GBP355.7 million, up from GBP306.8 million. For the year to end-April, pretax profit rose to GBP365.5 million, from GBP214,2 million, as revenue rose to GBP1.48 billion, from GBP1.21 billion. It said it will pay a final dividend of 9.25 pence a share, up from the 6.0p final dividend it paid for fiscal 2013, meaning the total dividend for the year will rise to 11.5p, from 7.5p.
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Engineering firm Weir Group said overall trading in April and May was in line with expectations, but it now expects 2014 profit and revenue to be more weighted towards the second half of the year after the hit from unfavourable currencies worsened over the first half of 2014. Weir Group, which is holding a capital market presentation Tuesday focusing on its oil and gas division, said its full-year constant currency revenue and margin guidance remains unchanged.
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Crest Nicholson Holdings said it will pay its first interim dividend since re-listing, as profit and revenue continued to rise on the back of the recovery in the UK housing market. The residential property developer saw pretax profit jump 37% to GBP38.4 million for the six months ended April 30, from GBP22.2 million a year earlier, as revenue rose 26% to GBP241.1 million thanks to an increase in sales, completions and average selling prices. Crest Nicholson said demand continues to be very strong and high levels of forward sales mean that production capacity is currently the most "critical factor" for volume growth.
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Digital inkjet printing technology company Xaar saw its shares slide after it warned that revenue will fall slightly in 2014 as it struggles to expand the takeup of its technology outside ceramic tiles markets, and gross margins are expected to decline as it faces increased competition. The company had a stellar year in 2013 after its technology was taken up by the Chinese ceramic tiles market, and it had warned that growth was set to moderate as that impact wore off. However, it warned that it now expects revenue in 2014 to be about GBP130 million, down from GBP134.1 million in 2013, and its adjusted operating profit margin to drop to 28% to 29%, from 30%.
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Kazakhmys said the government of Kazakhstan has agreed to reduce mineral extraction tax rates at some of the company's mature assets, in a move worth about USD40 million a year at current metals prices. In a statement, Kazakhmys said the lower tax rate will apply to its deposits in the Zhezkazgan region of Kazakhstan, excluding its Zhomart mine, and at the Konyrat mine in the central region. The assets are among the company's most challenging, and were earmarked for sale in a restructuring the company announced in February. They have been particularly affected by declining grade and low profitability. The company said the new rates are effective retrospectively from January 1, 2014 and are applicable for a year, at which point a new application for a discount can be made.
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AIM MOVERS
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Cyan Holdings is a big gainer after it said the Brazilian pilot for its smart utility metering product had been successful and the first orders are expected later this year, and as it got its first order in India for a retrofit metering infrastructure system. Avesco Group is up after it said its full-year results are likely to exceed expectations, even though it swung to a loss in the first half of the year due largely to the costs of restructuring its German creative technology business. Signalling confidence in its outlook, it raised its interim dividend. Coral Products is also up after it finally signed a multi-million pound, 10-year supply contract with a national online retailer. It has been in talks about the deal for tote boxes since December. It said the customer has indicated that its orders could generate GBP8 million in revenue inside the first two years of the contract. Serica Energy is also doing well after it said it will buy an 18% stake in the Erskine Field in the UK central North Sea from BP for USD11.1 million in cash and up to 27 million new Serica shares. The deal will boost its cash flow, increase its proven and probable reserves, and compliment its efforts to bring the nearby Columbus field into production. Independent Resources is down after it said a mere 14.35% of its open offer shares were taken up. It was relying on the funding to meet all of its licence commitments and support operations over the next 12 months. Nostra Terra Oil And Gas is another faller after reporting mixed results from its two horizontal wells in the Chisholm Trail Prospect in Oklahoma. Software Radio Technology is down after it said it swung to a pretax loss in its last financial year, as revenue fell by more than a third due to delays to two significant contracts that forced it to carry more stock than hoped and to draw down bank facilities. AfriAg is down after it said it intends to establish a new food marketing, sales and distribution division in South Africa which will source and then market fresh and frozen African produce within the Southern African region as well as from Southern Africa to global markets. The move marks an expansion of the company's business from logistics, and seemingly away from its stated strategy. Red24 is down after saying it plans to sell its 25% stake in Linx International Ltd to Linx and its main shareholder, David Gill, who is also a director of Red24, after the companies failed to gel due to "certain cultural differences".
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Top Economics And General
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UK inflation eased to the lowest since October 2009 due to a fall in transport and food costs, the Office for National Statistics showed. Inflation fell to 1.5% in May from 1.8% in April, when it was expected to drop marginally to 1.7%. The 1.5% was the weakest since October 2009. Month-on-month, the consumer price index fell unexpectedly by 0.1%, reversing the 0.4% increase posted in April. Economists had forecast a 0.2% rise for May. Consumer price inflation excluding cost of energy, food, alcoholic beverages and tobacco, eased to 1.6% in May from 2% in April.
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Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang was to meet Prime Minister David Cameron and Queen Elizabeth II, during a visit to Britain designed to promote economic ties and improve diplomatic relations. The Chinese leader, who arrived a day earlier, is accompanied by around 200 business leaders. According to British reports, deals worth around GBP18 billion are to be signed. The visit is the first by a Chinese premier to Britain after that of Li's predecessor Wen Jiabao three years ago.
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Germany's economic confidence weakened for the sixth successive month in June, survey data from the Mannheim-based Centre for European Economic Research/ZEW showed. The economic sentiment index fell unexpectedly to 29.8 in June, the lowest reading since December 2012, from 33.1 in May. The score was forecast to rise to 35. "The German economy is currently in a very good shape, but further increases are becoming more difficult," said ZEW President Clemens Fuest. "We had a strong first quarter in 2014 due to favorable weather conditions, but signs are that the second quarter will be weaker."
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New car sales in Europe rose in May for the ninth month in a row, data released showed, though they were still sluggish compared to previous years. Registrations in the EU increased by 4.5% year-on-year to just under 1.1 million, according to the Brussels-based European Automobile Manufacturers Association. But the total figure was the second-lowest recorded for a month of May in the last decade.
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British Foreign Secretary William Hague is set to announce plans to re-open his country's embassy in Iran, British media reported. Diplomatic relations between the two countries were broken off in 2011, after an Islamist mob attacked the British embassy in Tehran. Relations however have slowly warmed since the election of President Hassan Rowhani last year, with both countries appointing non-resident charges d'affaires and officials paying each other a series of visits.
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Iraqi officials said security forces had fought off attacks by jihadist militants in several areas north of the capital Baghdad, as the US revealed that it was sending 270 troops to the conflict-ridden country to help secure its embassy. Security forces in the disputed Kirkuk province prevented an attack on a Shiite shrine by Sunni radicals of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the Alsumaria News website reported, quoting a member of the provincial council. Troops reportedly changed out of their uniforms and joined fleeing civilians as the jihadists advanced last week, while Kurdish defence forces moved into abandoned army positions in Kirkuk city.
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Iraq's Sunnis would be advised to form their own autonomous areas, Nechirvan Barzani, the prime minister of northern Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region, told the BBC. "The best way is to have a Sunni region, like what we have in Kurdistan," he said after slamming the Shiite-led government of Iraq Prime Minister Nuri al-Malkiki for exclusionary policies which are making Sunnis "feel neglected." "There is no trust right now," Barzani said about Maliki's relations with the country's key ethnic and religious groups, while stressing the need for a political solution to the crisis. "If we think Iraq will go back like to before Mosul, then it is almost impossible," he said, adding that his Kurdish Peshmerga military forces would not aim to retake the country's second city.
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Jihadists from the radical Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant clashed with rebels and Kurdish militias overnight and into Tuesday in the north and east of the war-torn Syria, a watchdog said. ISIL engaged in fierce clashes with rival Islamist rebels in eastern Deir al Zour province as it tried to advance on their positions, the opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
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Ukraine's new President Petro Poroshenko has appointed a lawmaker as his representative for talks with pro-Russian insurgents in the country's east. Irina Gerashchenko, a former spokeswoman to Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko and a deputy for the Udar party of boxer-turned politician Vitali Klitschko, was however quickly rejected by rebel representatives, who said that they would talk to the Ukrainian government only through mediators.
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More than 2,000 civilians have fled the Pakistani military's offensive against the Taliban stronghold in the north-west of the country, pouring over the border into Afghanistan, officials said. The army on Sunday launched an offensive in the tribal region of North Waziristan, after years of international pressure to move against militants. "At first we were suspicious that they might be insurgents in civilian clothes that could post a threat to us," said Sahira Sharif, an Afghan parliamentarian from the eastern province of Khost. "But when we visited them, we were sure now that they are genuine refugees," she told dpa.
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A fresh attack in the Kenyan coastal settlement of Mpeketoni has killed at least 15 people, following an earlier onslaught that left 49 dead, the newspaper Daily Nation said. The victims included two police officers, Daily Nation quoted police as saying. Two houses were torched in the same area. There was no immediate confirmation of the report.
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Afternoon Watchlist (all times British Summer Time)
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13:55 US Redbook index

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Wednesday's Key UK Corporate Events
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Berkeley Group Full Year Results
N Brown Interim Management Statement

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Wednesday's Key Economic Events (all times British Summer Time)
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00:50 Japan BoJ Monetary Policy Meeting Minutes
00:50 Japan Exports, Imports
02:30 China House Price Index
09:30 UK Bank of England Minutes
10:00 EU Construction Output
12:00 US MBA Mortgage Applications
13:30 US Current Account
15:30 US EIA Crude Oil Stocks change
18:45 US Fed's Bernanke Speech
19:00 US Fed Interest Rate Decision
19:00 US Fed Pace of MBS Purchase Program
19:00 US FOMC Economic Projections
19:30 US Fed's Monetary Policy Statement and press conference

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