GENEVA (Reuters) – The Swiss cabinet has no plans to extend its reporting requirements on transactions with Iran to cover offshore branches of oil trading firms, it said, rejecting proposals from leftist parliamentarians.

A group of seven members of the Swiss Social Democrats Party raised the issue in September after Reuters revealed that the Bahraini branch of top Geneva-based oil trader Vitol was buying and selling Iranian fuel oil.

GENEVA, Nov 16 (Reuters) – The Swiss cabinet has no plans to
extend its reporting requirements on transactions with Iran to
cover offshore branches of oil trading firms, it said, rejecting
proposals from leftist parliamentarians.

A group of seven members of the Swiss Social Democrats Party
raised the issue in September after Reuters revealed that the
Bahraini branch of top Geneva-based oil trader Vitol was buying
and selling Iranian fuel oil.

ABUJA/GENEVA, Nov 16 (Reuters) – Nigerian crude oil export
delays have lengthened, traders said on Friday, a sign that a
raft of recent output problems caused by oil theft and flooding
are increasingly holding back supplies from Africa’s biggest
producer.

Nigerian authorities said last month major oil theft
incidents and the country’s worst floods in 50 years caused oil
output to drop by a fifth, but days later said things were back
to normal.

GENEVA, Nov 15 (Reuters) – Egypt, the world’s biggest
importer of wheat, will remove Ukraine from its list of
suppliers in 2013 after Kiev said it would halt exports from
Dec. 1, the government’s main buyer said on Thursday.

The decision is bad news for Ukraine, which has angered some
of its foreign buyers by sending mixed messages on exports since
a drought that decimated this year’s crop, and may mean it
struggles to sell to Egypt in the future even when it has
available stocks.

GENEVA, Nov 15 (Reuters) – Rothschild’s $20 million
commodities fund is pulling out of livestock and soft
commodities and reviewing its grains investments after criticism
that speculative trading by banks has helped drive food prices
to record highs.

Banks like Commerzbank and Austria’s Volksbanken have
already cut investment in agriculture as surging corn and
soybeans prices this summer spurred fresh debate on the role of
financial investors.

GENEVA, Nov 14 (Reuters) – Major commodity traders are
replacing banks by offering trade finance directly to producers
as new liquidity requirements hobble traditional lenders,
bankers said on Wednesday.

Commodity exporters require letters of credit and other
loans to arrange for the shipment and delivery of their goods on
international spot markets.

VIENNA/ABU DHABI, Nov 8 (Reuters) – Royal Dutch Shell
, RWE and TransGlobe Energy have won
concessions in Egypt’s first licensing round since the 2011
revolution in a sign that international oil firms are undeterred
by a payment backlog of billions of dollars.

The biggest winners were Canada’s TransGlobe with four
concessions and Shell with three concessions in the western
desert including one via an Egyptian joint venture, the
companies said this week.

VIENNA, Nov 7 (Reuters) – Libya’s National Oil Corporation
(NOC) aims to boost oil output to 1.72 million barrels per day
(bpd) by the end of March next year, its chairman said on
Wednesday, but warned of the risk that strikes could interrupt
production.

OPEC member Libya has lifted production much faster than
analysts had expected after last year’s civil war to a current
level of around 1.6 million barrels per day.

GENEVA (Reuters) – Switzerland’s neutrality is being tested as Brussels and Washington raise pressure over gaps in sanctions against Iran, in particular measures against its oil industry.

While Switzerland has replicated the western line on Libyan and Syrian economic sanctions, it has reasserted its traditional neutrality over Iran and opted out of some of the measures passed by Europe and the United States.

GENEVA, Nov 5 (Reuters) – Switzerland’s neutrality is being
tested as Brussels and Washington raise pressure over gaps in
sanctions against Iran, in particular measures against its oil
industry.

While Switzerland has replicated the western line on Libyan
and Syrian economic sanctions, it has reasserted its traditional
neutrality over Iran and opted out of some of the measures
passed by Europe and the United States.