International oil prices, which hit 3 1/2-year highs in the aftermath of the US announcing sanctions against Iran, eased back after Saudi energy minister Khalid al-Falih and his Russian counterpart Alexander Novak said at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum in late May that they could start reducing output cuts in the second half of 2018.

Opec and 10 non-Opec producers, led by Russia, were expected to maintain the 1.8 million b/d supply cut through to the end of 2018.

The front-month ICE Brent crude futures contract, which had breached the $80/b mark on May 22, has since retreated to the $75/b level.

But the 24-country Opec and non-Opec alliance has a tough task ahead.

Questions that will need to be thrashed out in Vienna later this month will center on how much oil should be released back into the market and at what pace.

Ministers will be cautious of the need to strike the right balance.

Too significant a drop in price could thwart upstream investment, which has seen some signs of revival since the start of this year, and too high a price could impact the economies of the world’s largest oil consumers and bring demand destruction.

The volume and pace of output release is tough enough to estimate given the uncertainty around Iranian and Venezuelan supply disruptions, but tougher still will be negotiations with Iran.

Iran has already started playing hardball, having issued a warning to its OPEC counterparts not to take the market share it risks losing under US sanctions.

Iranian oil minister Bijan Zanganeh in a letter to Opec President and UAE oil minister Suhail al-Mazrouei said he wanted a separate agenda at the Vienna meeting to specifically discuss support for his sanctions-hit country.

Many of the biggest Middle Eastern Opec producers – including Saudi Arabia and Iraq – are direct competitors to Iran and so are likely to be the beneficiaries of any reduction in its output. Iran currently has 12 per cent of Opec’s market share based on S&P Global Platts survey data.

Iran is already facing the brunt of the sanctions. French major Total last month halted plans to develop Iran’s giant South Pars gas field as it sought to clarify whether the investment could avoid falling foul of US sanctions.

Separately, the country’s plans to attract international investment to upgrade its downstream sector was dealt a blow after South Korean contractor Daelim Industrial pulled out of a Eur1.83 billion deal to build new facilities at the Esfahan refinery.

Iran

Against this backdrop, Iran will go all out to protect its crude market share and has already stepped up diplomatic efforts to retain key customers.

Iran’s European customers, who lift around 700,000 b/d of Iranian crude, have slowed their buying mainly due to concerns about shipping and insurance.

The European Union has promised Tehran that it will explore all possibilities to ensure uninterrupted imports. These efforts may well take on new vigor after the US slapped tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from the EU.

But Asia is where a bulk of Iranian crude flows to, and signals from Asian customers have so far been mixed, making it hard to assess the extent of future supply disruption.

China and India, which together take a little under 1 million b/d of Iranian oil, have |said that they will maintain imports.

South Korea has said that it is trying to pare back crude shipments from Iran. Over January-April, its imports of Iranian crude fell 34.6 per cent on the year to 321,000 b/d. However, Iran still remains South Korea’s fourth-largest crude supplier.

South Korea is also not in a position to ignore US sanctions because the US is part of its key military alliance trying to resolve North Korean nuclear threat.

Japan, meanwhile, is waiting for more clarity from Washington on the sanctions before deciding on its next steps. Japan imported an average of 165,481 b/d in fiscal 2017-2018 running from April to March.

The Opec and non-Opec alliance will also have to heed supply disruption from Venezuela and tightening supply-demand fundamentals.

OECD oil stocks fell below the five-year average by 1 million barrels in March for the first time since 2014, according to the International Energy Agency.

Meanwhile, the Venezuelan supply crisis seems to have worsened with state-owned PDVSA telling its customers that it will only be able to supply 46% of the 1.495 million b/d it had committed to supply in June.

Chinese buyers of Venezuelan crude have already started exploring alternative supply options.

Contributed by MRIGANKA JAIPURIYAR, Associate Editorial Director, Asia & Middle East Energy News & Analysis, S&P Global Platts

The research, published today in the company’s “Getting to Equal 2018” report, details the most-effective actions that business leaders can take to accelerate advancement and help close the gender pay gap.

The research is based on a survey of more than 22,000 working men and women in 34 countries – including more than 1,400 in the United States – to measure their perception of factors that contribute to their workplace cultures.

The survey was supplemented with in-depth interviews and a detailed analysis of published data on a range of workforce issues.

“Our research shows that in companies with cultures that include the workplace factors that help women advance, men thrive too, and we all rise together,” said Intira Laomeepol, managing director, Resource Operating Group, Accenture in Thailand. “We see this research as a powerful reminder that building a culture of equality is essential to achieving gender equality because people, not programmes, are what make a company inclusive and diverse.”

Accenture’s research found that in companies where the 40 factors are most common, everyone benefits:

l 98 per cent of employees are satisfied with their career progression

l 90 per cent of employees aspire to get promoted

l 89 per cent aspire to become senior leaders in their organisations

And, everyone has a better opportunity to advance:

l Women are 42 per cent more likely to advance to manager or above and five times as likely to advance to senior manager/director or above.

l Men are 20 per cent more likely to advance to manager or above and twice as likely to advance to senior manager/director or above.

While both women and men advance in companies in which the 40 factors are common, women have the most to gain. If all working environments in the US were like those in which the 40 factors are most common:

For every 100 male managers, there could be as many as 87 female managers, up from the current ratio of 100 to 65.

Women’s pay could increase 52 per cent, or up to an additional $20,000 per year.

Women could earn $94 for every $100 a man earns, helping to close the pay gap and lifting women’s total earnings by $202 billion nationwide.

Setting clear diversity targets, the research found, is a crucial step for leaders who want to strengthen their cultures.

“Culture is set from the top, so if women are to advance, gender equality must be a strategic priority for the C-suite,” said Intira. “It’s critical that companies create a truly human environment where people can be successful both professionally and personally – where they can be who they are and feel they belong, every day.”

The report, which builds on Accenture’s 2017 research on how digital fluency and technology can close the gender gap in the workplace, grouped the 14 core factors proven to influence advancement into three categories of bold leadership, comprehensive action and an empowering environment. Key US findings in the three categories include:

Bold leadership: Women are twice as likely to be on the fast track in organizations which have published a diversity target (19 per cent compared to 10 per cent).

Comprehensive action: Involvement in a women’s network correlates with women’s advancement, but the vast majority (81 per cent) of the women surveyed for the report work for organisations without such a network.

In companies that have a women’s network, six in 10 women (62 per cent) participate, with more than two-thirds (69 per cent) of those women in a women’s network that also includes men.

An empowering environment: Among the factors linked to advancement are not asking employees to conform to a dress or appearance code, and giving employees the responsibility and freedom to be innovative and creative.

The Asian LSI measures the percentage of high-yield companies with Moody’s weakest speculative-grade liquidity score of SGL-4 as a proportion of high-yield corporate family ratings.

The indicator increases when speculative-grade liquidity deteriorates.

“However, the Asian LSI remains above the 12-month average of 27.1 per cent for the third consecutive month, indicating a weakening trend in liquidity for companies with speculative-grade ratings,” said Brian Grieser, a Moody’s vice president and senior credit officer.

The move is likely to be a response to the strong economic recovery and US inflation nearly reaching its target.

The interest rate rise would stabilise the country’s economic growth, the research said.

State Enterprise Policy Office’s director-general Prapas Kong-Ied said on Monday that this was 25 per cent higher than the original estimate of Bt100bn for the period.

The highest amounts were submitted by the Governnent Lottery Office, Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand, and PTT Plc, he said.

Having thrived for more than two centuries, Lombard has learned very important lessons, which help the company provide better services to clients in asset management, said Patrick Odier, senior managing partner of Lombard Odier.

Lombard, in recent years, has launched a “Rethinking Everything” concept of private banking. “It is what we have been doing over two centuries, to make sure that our focus is to look at everything that happens around us and question it in the way that could contribute to a quality analysis, recommendation or advice to our clients,” said Odier, a descendant of the Odier family and owners of the Switzerland-based Lombard Odier.

He pointed to fast-evolving financial markets, especially in the last 40-50 years, when finance has been utilised differently from the past. The actors in the industry have moved away from the role of protecting assets, or away from depositors and credit providers, to become more active in many other activities. This phenomenon has created vast opportunities in the short term but at the same time creates large risks and weaknesses in the long term, he said.

The last global financial crisis triggered by propagating of securitisation in the United States and Europe is an example of that, he said.

Financial institutions had sold a lot financial papers to clients who did not understand the associated risks, leading to their losing their houses when they could not service the exotic mortgage packages. The financial institutions had lost a sense of responsibility, he said, recounting the 2007-2008 crisis.

He said asset and wealth managers at Lombard Odier emphasise on investment protection by looking at long-term investment rather than short-term gains in managing client assets, whether to choose equities or fixed-income assets to portfolios.

“The new things bring a lot of uncertainties and surprises, so we have to be creative, quick enough and agile enough to use opportunities to develop our conviction,” said Odier.

To focus on safe investment, Lombard has been using two important tools, digital technology and sustainability glasses, according to Odier.

The digital technology glass helps the bank to predict what kind of services clients may need in the future. The company has also built its digital technology platform and many other financial organisations have recognised it and use it to manage their information technology and back-office operations. Currently, personnel working at Lombard’s technology platform account for 25 per cent of its total staff worldwide, he said.

The sustainability glass helps Lombard to choose the best firms in the industries to its portfolios. It does not mean we choose those in the sustainability field but it could be any company that does business sustainably, he said.

The company takes into account global environmental issues, the rising ageing population, and the consumption theme for its investment strategy, he said

As Lombard is not a listed company, there is no pressure from shareholders to make short-term gains. “Independence is a privilege,” he said.

He praised KBank Private Banking as a trusted partner for serving high network clients in Thailand and helping them with wealth management

After three year of partnership, Kasikorn executives said last month that the high net worth clients had bought into its three funds – K-SGM, K-GREAT and K-APB – worth a combined Bt30 billion.

He added that the legal obstacle to the fund’s establishment was cleared following the Central Administrative Court’s ruling that the Expressway Authority of Thailand (Exat) labour union has no authority to oppose the fund’s creation. Sepo will move forward to set up the fund, Chanvit said in a media release. It will also hire a consultant to review and update some of the fund’s financial details, due to delay in planned launch. – The Nation

The 323-kilometre route has been approved by the National Economic and Social Development Board (NESDB) and would serve both tourism and goods transport in the North.

The SRT aims to call bids for the construction of the route within this year.

The SRT said it would also soon propose other double-track projects for NESDB approval, with the aim of calling bids within this year. Most of them extend the existing routes, such as the Pak Nam Po-Denchai route with an estimated price tag of Bt56 billion, Jira-Ubon Ratchathani at Bt35.839 billion and Chumphon-Surat Thani at Bt23.384 billion. It will also propose to the NESDB the Red Line Rangsit-Thammasat route at Bt7.596 billion.