PETROLEUM
Schlumberger lays off 9,000
Oil services company Schlumberger Ltd on Thursday said it was firing 9,000 workers due to plunging oil prices that have forced petroleum companies to cut drilling budgets. Schlumberger disclosed the job cuts as it reported sharply lower fourth-quarter earnings in the wake of a more than 50 percent fall in oil prices since June last year. The job cuts account for about 7.5 percent of Schlumberger’s global workforce. Schlumberger’s fourth-quarter earnings came in at US$302 million, down 82 percent from the year-ago level. Revenues rose 6.2 percent to US$12.6 billion. The large drop was due to US$1.8 billion in a series of one-time charges related to the steep fall in commodity prices.
PUERTO RICO
Garcia approves oil tax hike
Puerto Rico’s governor signed a law on Thursday that will increase the excise tax on a barrel of crude oil by 68 percent to help generate funds and sell an anticipated US$2.9 billion in bonds. Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla said he plans to file additional legislation to slightly amend the new law and help the government access financial markets. Garcia called a special session on the issue late last year and legislators passed the measure. He had until today to sign it. The tax per barrel would increase from US$9.25 to US$15.50 and generate about US$178 million a year.
GERMANY
GDP growth accelerates
Germany’s economy accelerated in the final quarter of last year as consumer spending picked up, according to data published on Thursday, a sign that the largest economy in the eurozone could perform moderately better than expected this year. GDP rose 0.25 percent from the third quarter, according to a preliminary estimate by the Federal Statistical Office. For all of last year, growth was 1.5 percent, in line with analyst estimates, after expanding just 0.1 percent a year earlier. Employment rose to a high, and consumers spent more, the statistics office said.
UNITED KINGDOM
Population to grow by 14%
Britain’s population may grow by 14 percent over the next two decades, driven by immigration and a birth rate above the European average, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said yesterday in an estimate posted on its Web site. Immigration and the higher fertility rate of non-UK born women is projected to push the British population to 73.3 million in 2037 from 64.1 million in 2013, the ONS said. That could leave Britain, which has seen its population grow from 56.3 million in 1980, poised to overtake Germany as Europe’s most populous country.
RETAIL
Carrefour hits sales forecast
Carrefour SA reported fourth-quarter sales in line with analysts’ estimates, led by growth in Latin America. Revenue advanced 2 percent to 22.6 billion euros (US$26.3 billion), the French firm said yesterday in a statement. Sales climbed 3.1 percent on a like-for-like basis, excluding gasoline and calendar effects. In Brazil, where like-for-like sales rose 10 percent, excluding gasoline and calendar effects, the retailer has pledged to boost investment substantially after selling a stake in its local unit last month. Carrefour said last year’s recurring operating income will be in line with 2.38 billion euros as expected.
Nvidia Corp’s demand for advanced packaging from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) remains strong though the kind of technology it needs is changing, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said yesterday, after he was asked whether the company was cutting orders. Nvidia’s most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chip, Blackwell, consists of multiple chips glued together using a complex chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) advanced packaging technology offered by TSMC, Nvidia’s main contract chipmaker. “As we move into Blackwell, we will use largely CoWoS-L. Of course, we’re still manufacturing Hopper, and Hopper will use CowoS-S. We will also transition the CoWoS-S capacity to CoWos-L,” Huang said
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) is expected to miss the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump on Monday, bucking a trend among high-profile US technology leaders. Huang is visiting East Asia this week, as he typically does around the time of the Lunar New Year, a person familiar with the situation said. He has never previously attended a US presidential inauguration, said the person, who asked not to be identified, because the plans have not been announced. That makes Nvidia an exception among the most valuable technology companies, most of which are sending cofounders or CEOs to the event. That includes
TARIFF TRADE-OFF: Machinery exports to China dropped after Beijing ended its tariff reductions in June, while potential new tariffs fueled ‘front-loaded’ orders to the US The nation’s machinery exports to the US amounted to US$7.19 billion last year, surpassing the US$6.86 billion to China to become the largest export destination for the local machinery industry, the Taiwan Association of Machinery Industry (TAMI, 台灣機械公會) said in a report on Jan. 10. It came as some manufacturers brought forward or “front-loaded” US-bound shipments as required by customers ahead of potential tariffs imposed by the new US administration, the association said. During his campaign, US president-elect Donald Trump threatened tariffs of as high as 60 percent on Chinese goods and 10 percent to 20 percent on imports from other countries.
INDUSTRY LEADER: TSMC aims to continue outperforming the industry’s growth and makes 2025 another strong growth year, chairman and CEO C.C. Wei says Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), a major chip supplier to Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc, yesterday said it aims to grow revenue by about 25 percent this year, driven by robust demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips. That means TSMC would continue to outpace the foundry industry’s 10 percent annual growth this year based on the chipmaker’s estimate. The chipmaker expects revenue from AI-related chips to double this year, extending a three-fold increase last year. The growth would quicken over the next five years at a compound annual growth rate of 45 percent, fueled by strong demand for the high-performance computing