News Highlights Tuesday 4 March 2008

The Business Times, P2




PetroChina eyeing refinery in S’pore
PetroChina, the world’s largest listed company by market capitalization, is looking at building a world-scale refinery “of at least 400,000 to 500,000 barrels per day” in Singapore. The project will easily run into billions of dollars, sources said. It will also be comparable to the biggies here – ExxonMobil’s 605,000 bpd refinery on Jurong Island and Shell’s 500,000 bpd one on Pulau Bukon.






The Business Times, P28




SHK results may not reflect HK property frenzy
An upswing in Hong Kong home sales and prices is boosting big developers but will hardly register in earnings to be reported by Sun Hung Kai Properties this week, as the firm held back on project launches. Analysts forecasts for underlying earnings for the six months up to Dec 2007 are spread between HK$4.7 billion (S$841 million) and HK$6.1 billion. In that period, SHK had only one new launch – Harbour Place. JP Morgan expects full-year net profit to rise 35.7 per cent to HK$15.16 billion.






The Straits Times, P8


Coming Up: ‘City’ to honour Chinese culture
China plans to spend billions of dollars to build a city-size monument celebrating traditional Chinese culture and centred on the birthplace of Confucius. The “Chinese Cultural Symbolic City” will cost at least US$4.2 billion and span more than 300 sq km in the eastern province of Shandong.