- The dollar volume of homes purchased by foreigners from April 2018 through March 2019 dropped 36% from the previous year, according to the National Association of Realtors.
- Foreigners bought 183,100 properties with a total value of about $77.9 billion, down from 266,800 properties valued at $121 billion a year earlier.
- “The magnitude of the decline is quite striking, implying less confidence in owning a property in the U.S.,” the Realtors’ chief economist says.
Exxon Mobil erased almost every drop of oil-sands crude from its books in a sweeping revision of worldwide reserves to depths never before seen in the company’s modern history.
Exxon counted the equivalent of 15.2 billion barrels of reserves as of Dec. 31, down from 22.44 billion a year earlier, according to a regulatory filing on Wednesday. The company’s reserves of the dense, heavy crude extracted from Western Canada’s sandy bogs dropped by 98%. Source World OIl
German construction and engineering group Bilfinger has withdrawn from work related to the construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, German tabloid Bild reported, citing letters it has obtained. Source World Pipelines
Spain’s public debt ended 2020 at 117.1% of gross domestic product as the coronavirus pandemic and the measures imposed to curb it lifted borrowing and led to a deep economic contraction, the Bank of Spain said on Wednesday. Source Reuters