Headlines

Royal Dutch Shell PLC said Tuesday it would abandon the construction of a major oil-sands project in Western Canada and take a $2 billion write-down, a stark reflection of the challenging economics for unconventional oil projects amid a sharp slump in crude prices, The Wall Street Journal reported. The energy giant said it would discontinue its 80,000 barrel-a-day Carmen Creek oil-sands project, citing an uncertain business environment and highlighting concerns about sufficient pipeline capacity to ship oil-sands crude to markets.

The Swiss banker Josef Ackermann played a role in the events that nearly destroyed the Cyprus banking system in 2013. Now he was back in this sleepy capital, toiling to fix one of the very banks he helped undermine, the International New York Times DealBook blog reported. Redemption, said Mr. Ackermann, the former Deutsche Bank chief, would be too strong a word to describe why he, once one of the most powerful bankers in the world, agreed to be chairman of the Bank of Cyprus — the Mediterranean island’s largest lender, but puny in global terms.

Greek banks are racing to pre-emptively boost their capital amid hopes that they will come through stress tests in better shape than was thought, potentially sparing existing investors the pain of large losses, the Financial Times reported. Piraeus Bank, Greece’s second-largest lender by assets, moved last week to offer junior bondholders the chance to swap their credit claims for ordinary shares, a step which boosts the bank’s core Tier one capital ratio, a key measure of financial strength.

The fate of emerging market currencies is looming ever larger in the outlook for interest rates in The House of Lords, Parliament’s upper chamber, issued a rare rebuke to the government Monday over plans to cut tax rebates for working families, a widely unpopular part of a budget-cutting strategy that would affect thousands of British householdsm The Wall Street Journal reported.

Standard Chartered, the Asia-focused bank based in London, said on Monday that it planned to exit its equity derivatives and convertible bonds units as its new chief executive, William T. Winters, reshapes the company, the International New York Times reported. The decision to wind down those businesses followed the bank’s decision to close its institutional cash equities, equity research and equity capital markets operations in January.

Canada’s government-owned postal agency said Monday it has put a temporary halt to plans to phase out door-to-door mail delivery in urban areas, about a week before a new Liberal government that promised to restore regular mail service comes to power, The Wall Street Journal reported. Canada Post Corp. said it is prepared to work with the government to determine how best to address challenges the postal system faces. “We remain focused on maintaining reliable postal service to all Canadians without disruption,” the agency said in a statement.

Hamilton steelworkers will get a chance to tear away the veil of secrecy surrounding a controversial deal between U.S. Steel and the Harper government on Nov. 19, The Hamilton Spectator reported. In a 12-minute hearing Monday morning the Ontario Court of Appeal agreed to a motion by active and retired salaried workers and others to hear their appeal of a lower court decision not to order the curtain listed. Monday's motion was a request for an expedited hearing of the workers' motion. The request was not opposed and a lawyer for U.S. Steel Canada did not attend the hearing.

The European Central Bank says it wants euro zone countries to stir up growth with structural reforms, but its own money printing plans have taken the pressure off politicians for action, leaving European Union rules to drive often unpopular change, Reuters reported. And although the EU toughened up those rules during the sovereign debt crisis, the European Commission has been weak in enforcing them in the teeth of opposition from governments reluctant to coordinate their fiscal policies.

China’s moves to ease mortgage restrictions and cut interest rates are bearing fruit in the nation’s smaller cities, where home prices have staged a recovery. Now comes the bigger challenge: Clearing a supply glut to spur investment by developers, Bloomberg News reported. Lower borrowing costs are helping a residential market recovery spread from the economic hubs such as Shanghai and Shenzhen to smaller and less-prosperous cities. New-home prices rose in September from August in more than half of the 70 major cities monitored by the government for the first time in 17 months.

The fate of emerging market currencies is looming ever larger in the outlook for interest rates in the advanced world, promising that their central banks will keep policies super loose for some time to come, Reuters reported. Ever since China sprang a surprise depreciation of the yuan in August, the resulting decline of a whole host of emerging market (EM) currencies has produced a disinflationary pulse that the world is ill prepared to withstand.