Only 1.6% of oil production at risk at $40

    ONLY 1.6 percent of global oil supplies would be loss-making if crude prices fall to US$40 a barrel, but even this level would not necessarily spark shutdowns, analysts at Wood Mackenzie said Friday.

    Benchmark Brent crude oil prices LCOc1 have more than halved over the past six months to US$50 a barrel due to a growing supply glut. At US$40 a barrel, around 1.5 million barrels per day are cash-negative, located mostly in oil sands projects in Canada, WoodMackenzie said after analyzing 2,222 oil fields which account for the majority of global production.

    ECB capital requests feed uncertainty

    THE European Central Bank (ECB) may push Italian banks to shrink lending by asking those it sees as riskier to further boost their capital ratios, a senior official at national banking association ABI said.

    Similar requests feed uncertainty because capital requirements keep changing and the criteria being used are not entirely clear, ABI Director General Giovanni Sabatini told Reuters on Friday.

    Canada loses jobs for second month in a row

    CANADA’S job market continued to gently cool off in December, shedding 4,300 positions after a loss of 10,700 jobs in November, while the hot housing market showed signs of decline.

    Statistics Canada said Friday that the unemployment rate had remained unchanged at 6.6 percent. Market analysts had expected an increase of 15,000 jobs.