Economy
Have Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton escaped the super tax? |
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| Economy | |
| Written by Roberta Murray | |
| Friday, 11 June 2010 | |
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Morning Business News, Friday 11 June: Rio Tinto Plc, BHP Billiton Plc, BP, Cameron and Prudential to discuss chief exec's future.
Rio Tinto Plc (LON:RIO) and BHP Billiton Plc (LON:BLT) may have kicked up enough of a fuss to force the Australian Government to back down on its proposed mining super tax. Analysts immediately pointed to the pressure brought on the Government by major miners including BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto and Fortescue. Among ideas flagged in McCrann's article are that the government will dump a 40% underwriting of losses and lift the threshold profit rate at which the tax kicks in from the long-term bond rate of around 6% to something above 10%. Rio Tinto shares are lower 0.63% this morning at 3243 while BHP Billiton is higher 0.08% at 1877. BP underestimates oil spillA new calculation of the amount of oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico from the fractured BP oil rig have dramatically increased the estimate, suggesting an amount equivalent to the Exxon Valdez disaster could be pouring into the ocean every eight to 10 days. The fresh estimate from a US government panel is 25,000 to 30,000 barrels of oil a day - significantly above the previous estimate of 12,000 to 19,000 barrels a day, the Times reports. Cameron refuses to back BPDavid Cameron has refused to bow to City demands to intervene in the increasingly bitter transatlantic row over the BP oil spill, as fears grow for the company’s future. In the first test of the “special relationship” since the Coalition took power, the Prime Minister is under growing pressure to try to stop Barack Obama’s fierce criticism of the company, the Telegaph reports. Leaders of the world’s biggest oil and gas companies have held crisis talks to determine the cause of BP’s deadly accident in the Gulf of Mexico, the chairman of Gazprom told The Times. Alexei Miller, who leads the Kremlin-controlled gas export monopoly that supplies almost 20% of Europe’s gas supplies, said: “After the accident, of course, the leaders of the top oil and gas companies have been communicating and asking why and how this happened. These are people with a lot of gravitas and authority.” PrudentialThe Prudential’s leading institutional shareholders have frozen the chief executive out of crunch talks to debate his own future. It emerged last night that despite being in London, Tidjane Thiam has held no formal talks with shareholders this week about the future management of the UK’s biggest insurer. Instead, shareholders have specifically called for meetings with the chairman Harvey McGrath and James Ross, the senior independent director, the Times reports.
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