■OIL
Total must sell refinery: chief
Total needs to sell its Lindsey refinery in Britain, the oil company’s chief told French radio Europe 1 yesterday. Industry sources had said in February that Total intended to sell the UK refinery, which combined with the closure of the Dunkirk refinery in France would allow the French company to meet a key target to cut production by 500,000 barrels per day by next year. “We need to sell it, yes one can put it like that,” Christophe de Margerie told Europe 1. De Margerie repeated that Total, Europe’s biggest refiner, had no plans to shut or sell any plants apart from its Dunkirk site in France.
■BANKS
Citigroup Q1 profit US$4.43bn
Citigroup Inc posted a US$4.43 billion first-quarter profit, its best result in nearly three years, as the economic recovery reduced the bank’s credit losses and increased prices on even its worst assets. The third-largest US bank posted first-quarter net income to shareholders of US$0.15 a share, compared with a shareholder loss of US$0.18 a share, or US$966 million, for the first quarter of last year.
■AUTOMOBILES
Toyota to update stability
Toyota will offer the same fix for stability control programming it has announced for the Lexus GX 460 in North America to vehicles in other regions, affecting 34,000 vehicles worldwide, the Japanese automaker said yesterday. Toyota Motor Co will update the stability-control software program to reduce the risk of vehicles sliding in some Land Cruiser Prado vehicles, as well as the Lexus GX 460, sold in other regions, the company said in a statement.
■OIL
CNPC to boost Iraq output
China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC, 中石油) aims to boost output at a giant Iraqi oilfield by 10 percent this year, a newspaper owned by the company said yesterday. CNPC and Britain’s BP in November signed a deal with Iraq to nearly triple production from the current one million barrels a day to 2.85 million barrels at the Rumaila field over the next six to seven years. The consortium will fully take over work on the oilfield by June 30 and plans to increase its output by 10 percent by the end of this year, said a report in the China Petroleum Daily, a newspaper owned by CNPC.
■AUTOMOBILES
Daimler AG makes profit
Car maker Daimler AG is reporting a pretax profit of 1.2 billion euros (US$1.6 billion) for the first quarter — compared with a loss a year earlier. The Stuttgart, Germany-based company said on Monday that its first-quarter performance was bolstered by “very solid results” from its core Mercedes-Benz Cars unit. In last year’s first quarter, it had a loss before earnings and taxes of 1.4 billion euros. The company did not give net profit figures in a brief preliminary report. However, it said that its group revenue for the first quarter was 21.2 billion euros.
■RETAIL
Tesco annual profit soars
Britain’s biggest retailer, Tesco, announced soaring annual net profits yesterday, aided by a strong performance in Asia, and said it would create 16,000 jobs after emerging strongly from the recession. Net profits jumped by 9.3 percent to £2.327 billion (US$3.57 billion) in the group’s financial year, which ran until the end of February, Tesco said in a results statement. That compared with £2.133 billion in the previous year.
NO HUMAN ERROR: After the incident, the Coast Guard Administration said it would obtain uncrewed aerial vehicles and vessels to boost its detection capacity Authorities would improve border control to prevent unlawful entry into Taiwan’s waters and safeguard national security, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday after a Chinese man reached the nation’s coast on an inflatable boat, saying he “defected to freedom.” The man was found on a rubber boat when he was about to set foot on Taiwan at the estuary of Houkeng River (後坑溪) near Taiping Borough (太平) in New Taipei City’s Linkou District (林口), authorities said. The Coast Guard Administration’s (CGA) northern branch said it received a report at 6:30am yesterday morning from the New Taipei City Fire Department about a
IN BEIJING’S FAVOR: A China Coast Guard spokesperson said that the Chinese maritime police would continue to carry out law enforcement activities in waters it claims The Philippines withdrew its coast guard vessel from a South China Sea shoal that has recently been at the center of tensions with Beijing. BRP Teresa Magbanua “was compelled to return to port” from Sabina Shoal (Xianbin Shoal, 仙濱暗沙) due to bad weather, depleted supplies and the need to evacuate personnel requiring medical care, the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) spokesman Jay Tarriela said yesterday in a post on X. The Philippine vessel “will be in tiptop shape to resume her mission” after it has been resupplied and repaired, Philippine Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin, who heads the nation’s maritime council, said
REGIONAL STABILITY: Taipei thanked the Biden administration for authorizing its 16th sale of military goods and services to uphold Taiwan’s defense and safety The US Department of State has approved the sale of US$228 million of military goods and services to Taiwan, the US Department of Defense said on Monday. The state department “made a determination approving a possible Foreign Military Sale” to the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the US for “return, repair and reshipment of spare parts and related equipment,” the defense department’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency said in a news release. Taiwan had requested the purchase of items and services which include the “return, repair and reshipment of classified and unclassified spare parts for aircraft and related equipment; US Government
More than 500 people on Saturday marched in New York in support of Taiwan’s entry to the UN, significantly more people than previous years. The march, coinciding with the ongoing 79th session of the UN General Assembly, comes close on the heels of growing international discourse regarding the meaning of UN Resolution 2758. Resolution 2758, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1971, recognizes the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as the “only lawful representative of China.” It resulted in the Republic of China (ROC) losing its seat at the UN to the PRC. Taiwan has since been excluded from