Gazprom Approves $320m Financing for Turkish Natural Gas Pipeline

Gazprom has approved a three-and-a-half year loan to aid construction of the upcoming Turkish Stream (TurkStream) pipeline. The project was announced on December 2014 by Vladimir Putin on a state visit to Turkey. Turkey is regarded as a strategic bridge for energy between Central Asia and Europe. The pipeline will go from Russia's Krasnodar region, on the North Eastern edge of the Black Sea, to Turkish Thrace. Geographically, the Black sea has multiple countries on its edges, including Russia, Turkey and Ukraine, and Bulgaria, Romania and Georgia.

Angolan President's Daughter Cleared to Head State Oil Company

Isabel Dos Santos was appointed to head Angolan state oil company, Sonangol, in June, but this was disputed by twelve lawyers as nepotism, since the appointment was made by her father, the President, Jose Eduardo Dos Santos. The Supreme Court has now ruled the action as lawful. The President has also appointed his son to chair Angola's $5bn sovereign wealth fund (FSDEA) which was been established in line with the "Santiago Principles" explicating good governance in the context of SWFs. The first of these principles is the legal framework of the fund should be sound, and the second, is that the policy purpose should be clearly defined and publicly disclosed.

Competition Hotting Up for Precious Metal Trading on Exchanges

A large part of the precious metals market is OTC.

A New Internally Selected CIO for Columbia Investment Management Company

Internal candidate Tim Donohue became the new CIO for the Columbia Investment Management Company replacing NP Narvekar, continuing the trend of filling the role with internal candidates. Prior to Columbia IMC, Tim was a partner at Booz Allen Hamilton (NYSE:BAH).

Monte dei Paschi di Siena Share Slide

Monte dei Paschi, one of the world's oldest banks founded in 1472 saw share prices slide after being denied more time by the European Central Bank to come up with a recapitalisation plan. Its shares had earlier risen on speculation the Italian government would take an interest in the bank.

Oil Price Rallies after OPEC decides to cut production

OPEC decided to cut oil production on 30 November 2016 at a meeting in Vienna - its first action to cut output since 2008. The cuts are to take effect from January 2017.

Saudi Arabia will have the greatest reduction in daily production, by 486 thousand barrels per day (b/d).

Indonesia suspended its membership and will not participate.

The dispute arose not over the need for cuts, but the size of the output cuts requested of Indonesia.

Negotiating for Indonesia was ex-Citi MD and Mineral and Energy Resources Minister (since October 2016) Singapore-born Ignasius Jonan (who also formerly served as Minister for Transportation).

Saudi are followed by Iraq who will cut production by 210 tb/d, followed by the next biggest producer UAE, by 139 tb/d.

OPEC plans to hold talks with non OPEC producers on December 9th.

The announcement sent oil futures as well as oil stocks rallying. Royal Dutch Shell (RDBS.L) shares were up 2.8% to 2178 on 1 December 2016. BP (BP.L) was up 2.3% to 470.  The stocks fell prior to the OPEC announcement on concerns that the cartel would fail to limit output.