2025-10-01 07:54

More than 150 injured, hospital overwhelmed in Bogo city No tsunami threat, multiple aftershocks recorded Coat guard sends vessel with medical personnel reinforcements President mobilises cabinet, assures swift assistance CEBU, Philippines, Oct 1 (Reuters) - The death toll from a 6.9-magnitude earthquake that hit the central Philippines rose to 69 on Wednesday, a disaster official said, as authorities mounted a rescue effort to find survivors after one of the country's strongest quakes in a decade. The shallow quake struck late on Tuesday off the coast of the island of Cebu, cutting power and damaging buildings. It was not immediately clear how many people were missing. Sign up here. The death toll was 69 as of Wednesday late morning said Jane Abapo of the regional Civil Defense office, citing data from the provincial disaster agency that was subject to validation. The national disaster agency earlier said the toll could be as high as 60, with 150 reported injured. The hospital in Bogo City near the epicentre of the quake was "overwhelmed", Civil Defense official Raffy Alejandro told reporters. The Philippine coast guard deployed a vessel carrying dozens of doctors, nurses and other medical personnel bound for Bogo, while President Ferdinand Marcos Jr assured survivors of swift assistance, with cabinet secretaries on the ground directing relief operations. "We are assessing the damage, we are assessing the needs," Marcos told reporters after distributing aid in Masbate, an island recovering from the impact of Super typhoon Ragasa last week. Mariano Martinez, the mayor of San Remigio municipality close to Bogo, said there were 11 casualties in the area, with victims as young as 12 and the death toll expected to climb. "Our first main problem is finding the casualties, identifying people who needs help", he told DZMM radio, adding many homes had suffered damage. RING OF FIRE Earthquake monitoring agencies put the quake's depth at around 10 km (6.2 miles) and recorded multiple aftershocks, the strongest having a magnitude of 6. There was no tsunami threat following the quake. The Philippines lies in the Pacific "Ring of Fire," where volcanic activity and earthquakes are common. The country had two major earthquakes in January, with no casualties reported. In 2023, a 6.7 magnitude offshore earthquake killed eight people. San Remigio Vice Mayor Alfie Reynes said among those killed were people who were playing basketball in a sports complex when it partially collapsed. She appealed for food and water for evacuees, as well as heavy equipment to aid search and rescue workers. "It is raining heavily and there is no electricity so we really need help, especially in the northern part because there's a scarcity of water after supply lines were damaged by the earthquake," Reynes said. Local media posted videos of people rushing out of their homes as the ground shook and buildings collapsed, including a church that was more than 100 years old. Cebu, one of the Philippines' most popular tourist destinations, is home to 3.4 million people. It was not immediately clear the extent of the damage in other areas of the island. The Mactan-Cebu International Airport, the country's second busiest gateway, remained operational. Philippine seismology agency Phivolcs said close to 800 aftershocks have been recorded and warned affected areas to expect more tremors in the coming days, although their strength is expected to gradually diminish. It reported tremors as far south as Zamboanga del Norte, 330 km (205 miles) away. In the town of Pilar, resident Archel Coraza said most of his family were asleep when their house began to shake violently. "I woke them up and we all rushed outside into the street," he told DZMM. https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/death-toll-philippines-earthquake-rises-60-official-says-2025-10-01/

2025-10-01 07:32

LAGOS, Oct 1 (Reuters) - Nigeria's oil workers union has agreed to call off a strike after a meeting with the management of Dangote Petroleum and government officials, the country's labour ministry said. The strike was called after the Dangote refinery - Africa's largest with a crude processing capacity of 650,000 barrels per day - dismissed more than 800 unionised staff. The walkout had threatened fuel supply and trade across West Africa. Sign up here. The labour ministry said in a statement following a conciliation meeting between the PENGASSAN union and Dangote Petroleum that the dismissed workers would be given jobs in other parts of the Dangote Group with no loss of pay. The labour minister told the meeting that unionisation was a right of workers and should be respected. "PENGASSAN agreed to start the process of calling off the strike," the statement added. The workers at the privately owned Dangote refinery were dismissed on Thursday for unionising, PENGASSAN said on Friday. Dangote refinery officials said at the time that the dismissals were part of a staff reorganisation and accused those affected of acts of sabotage. https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/sustainable-finance-reporting/nigeria-oil-union-agrees-call-off-strike-after-talks-with-dangote-petroleum-2025-10-01/

2025-10-01 07:30

PARIS, Oct 1 (Reuters) - Dunkirk LNG terminal operator Fluxys (FLUX.BR) , opens new tab on Wednesday declared force majeure at the site until the early hours of October 3, as delivery capacity is expected to be affected for two days by a national trade union strike in France. The Dunkirk LNG terminal is the second largest in continental Europe and the only one directly connected to two separate markets, Belgium and France, supplying about 20% of both countries' annual gas needs. Sign up here. The delivery capacity at the Dunkirk LNG terminal will be reduced to 44 gigawatt hours on October 1 from a maximum 520 GWh per day, and 48 GWh on October 2, the operator said. The force majeure will be in place until 0359 GMT on October 3. Union representatives have said they will continue their blockade until demands are met. The national strike has affected delivery capacity at all four French LNG terminals, including the three operated by Elengy, which are under force majeure until October 2. LSEG data showed deliveries from Elengy's Fos Cavaou terminal have partially returned, while flows from its Montoir plant were slightly up. Overall, the impact on the European gas market is likely to be limited as supply into the EU remains robust, particularly now Norwegian flows are coming back online following heavy maintenance in September, Kpler analyst Ronald Pinto said. In addition, high underground gas storage levels in France provide the domestic market with sufficient cushion to absorb any potential lasting disruptions, he said. France is Europe's fourth largest gas importer, with much of its supply sent on to neighbouring countries. Its exports have jumped since 2022 when Russian piped gas to the European Union was shut off following the invasion of Ukraine. It is also Europe's largest importer of Russian LNG, buying around 4 million tons in the first eight months of the year. A significant portion goes through Elengy's Montoir terminal on the west coast. https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/sustainable-finance-reporting/fluxys-declares-force-majeure-dunkirk-lng-terminal-2025-10-01/

2025-10-01 07:19

ABU DHABI, Oct 1 (Reuters) - Global investment firm KKR (KKR.N) , opens new tab has acquired a minority stake in the entity that leases Abu Dhabi National Oil Company's gas pipeline assets, it said on Wednesday, without disclosing financial details. KKR is acquiring the minority stake in ADNOC Gas Pipeline Assets through its managed accounts, matching the type and tenure of the investment with long-duration capital, according to a company statement. Sign up here. The transaction follows KKR's 2019 investment in ADNOC's oil pipeline network, a first for a foreign asset manager in Gulf energy infrastructure. Together with BlackRock, KKR divested the holding last year, transferring it to Abu Dhabi-based Lunate. GULF COUNTRIES TAP FOREIGN CAPITAL FOR INFRASTRUCTURE ADNOC retains ownership and operational management of the pipelines. The United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain have sought such partnerships to tap new pools of foreign institutional capital, while maintaining operational control over critical infrastructure. Saudi Aramco in August signed an $11 billion lease and leaseback agreement involving its Jafurah gas processing facilities with a consortium led by Global Infrastructure Partners, part of BlackRock. Last month, Kuwait's national oil company said it was seeking to revive a project to lease out and then lease back its crude oil pipelines. KKR, which manages over $90 billion in infrastructure assets globally, appointed General David Petraeus as its Middle East chairman earlier this year as part of efforts to grow its regional business and team. The company acquired a stake earlier this year in Dubai-based Gulf Data Hub, one of the biggest data centre companies in the region, with KKR and the company committing to support over $5 billion of total investment to build out data centre capacity. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/kkr-invests-adnoc-gas-pipeline-infrastructure-middle-east-push-2025-10-01/

2025-10-01 07:18

World Liberty Financial plans to launch debit card Firm 'actively working' on tokenising commodities like real estate, oil and gas World Liberty Financial '100% not a political organisation': Trump Jr. SINGAPORE, Oct 1 (Reuters) - World Liberty Financial, a crypto venture backed by the family of U.S. President Donald Trump, plans to launch a debit card as early as this year, CEO Zach Witkoff told a crypto conference on Wednesday. "We are definitely rolling out a debit card that'll bridge ... crypto assets with everyday spending ... we'll be rolling out a pilot program here in the next quarter, and that debit card will either be live (in) Q4 or Q1 26," he said. Sign up here. Witkoff was speaking on a panel at the TOKEN2049 crypto conference in Singapore alongside World Liberty co-founder Donald Trump Jr. Speaking to a full audience, Witkoff and Trump reiterated their bullish stance on cryptocurrencies and spoke at length about the progress the industry has made under the Trump administration. Their comments were at times met with cheers from the floor. Launched last fall, World Liberty's goal is to allow people to access financial services using cryptocurrencies - without intermediaries like banks - in what is called decentralised finance, or DeFi. In September, it launched a digital token, known as $WLFI, which allowed holders the right to vote on some changes to the business. The token last traded 0.5% higher at $0.2011, according to data from CoinGecko. In response to a question about tokenisation, Witkoff said the company is "working on it." "Whether it comes to tokenising some of these asset classes like real estate, oil and gas, etc., we're looking at actively tokenising that ourselves," he said. "But we also want USD1 to be the base pair for these assets, because we view it as the most trustworthy and the most transparent and the most cultured stablecoin on Earth," Witkoff said, referring to World Liberty's dollar-pegged stablecoin. 'NOT A POLITICAL ORGANISATION' Critics have said that the Trump family is profiting from crypto as the president eases regulations and enforcement on the industry. On Wednesday, Donald Trump Jr. said it was "100% true" World Liberty is not a political organisation. Since the company's launch, the Trump family has made around $500 million from the project, according to Reuters calculations based on the company's terms and conditions, transactions traced by crypto analysis firms and publicly disclosed deals. The U.S. president's name was invoked a number of times during Wednesday's panel discussion. "My father was the first guy to run as sort of a pro-crypto president," Donald Trump Jr. said. Witkoff said "nobody really believed in us in the beginning." He said that last year, during a panel discussion at TOKEN2049 that featured blockchain platform Aptos, "the old leadership ... sat up here and they called us a joke, they called us a memecoin." "They said we would never amount to anything," he said, before saying World Liberty met with the new leadership of Aptos and they "will be bringing USD1 to Aptos." https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/world-liberty-financial-launch-debit-card-early-this-year-2025-10-01/

2025-10-01 07:00

MOSCOW, Oct 1 (Reuters) - Russian firefighters have brought under control a fire at a major oil refinery in the Yaroslavl region northeast of Moscow, the local emergencies ministry said on Wednesday. The fire at what is one of Russia's largest refineries broke out earlier on Wednesday, Mikhail Yevrayev, the regional governor said. Sign up here. He said the blaze had not started as the result of a Ukrainian drone attack even though Kyiv has been systematically targeting refineries to try to disrupt petrol supplies and deprive Moscow of revenue. "Residents were concerned it might have been the result of an enemy drone attack," Yevrayev said on the Telegram messaging app. "But what happened has nothing to do with that...The fire is of a technological nature." He did not elaborate. https://www.reuters.com/world/fire-breaks-out-refinery-russias-yaroslavl-region-governor-says-2025-10-01/