IRELAND WILL SUPPORT UK TO STAY IN EU BUT NOT 'AT ANY COST' - The Government does not support the United Kingdom's continued membership of the European Union "at any cost", Minister for European Affairs Dara Murphy has said.
Meanwhile, in a sign of growing concern within Government about a British referendum on whether or not to remain in the EU, Mr Murphy also said officials were working on contingency plans for "various potential outcomes". His comments are the strongest indication yet of Dublin's core position in advance of a summit on British demands for EU reforms, says the Irish Times. As preparations intensify in advance of the key European summit next month, where leaders hope to sign off on a reform package sought by British prime minister David Cameron, Mr Murphy said Ireland supported many of the arguments made by London on issues such as competitiveness and economic governance. However, he said some British demands concerning welfare and immigration were "tricky" and had attracted "widespread opposition" from member states. The most contentious demand is for a requirement that workers from other EU countries should wait four years after moving to Britain before they can claim benefits, although London has indicated it would be willing to consider alternative proposals as long as they helped to deter migrants.
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NORWAY'S STATOIL INJECTS €150m INTO IRISH UNIT BEHIND CORRIB GAS FIELD - Norway's Statoil has injected €150m into its Irish unit that's a partner in the Corrib gas field, which started flowing last month.
New filings at the Companies Registration Office show that the Norwegian parent stumped up the money last month for Statoil Exploration (Ireland). Statoil owns a 36.5% stake in the Corrib field off the west of Ireland, says the Irish Independent. Shell owns 45% and Canadian firm Vermilion owns 18.5%. The debut gas flow from Corrib was 11 years later than originally anticipated, after the field was discovered in 1996. Its development was dogged by planning delays and protests. Over €3.5 billion has been spent on the project. The field is expected to produce the equivalent of 45,000 barrels of oil per day and has a projected lifespan of between 15 and 20 years. It contains about one trillion cubic feet of gas. "There have been several challenges for the operator and its partners to overcome on the road to this important milestone," said Tove Stuhr Sjoblom, senior vice president for Statoil's development and production activities in the UK and Ireland last month.
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JD WETHERSPOON '100% COMMITTED' TO IRISH EXPANSION - British pub operator JD Wetherspoon said its Irish bars are continuing to trade well and it remains "100%" committed to continually expanding its presence here, says the Irish Examiner.
Speaking on the back of an upbeat second quarter trading update, company spokesperson Eddie Gershon yesterday said the group's five Irish pubs - four of which are in the Greater Dublin area while the other is in Cork city - are doing "very well" and are proving very popular with customers. "We're very happy with that," he added. Mr Gershon added that Wetherspoon's four new already identified sites - in Dublin, Cork, Carlow and Waterford - are in varying stages of development, with some awaiting planning permission and others having received approval. He gave no date as to new openings saying they are yet to be included in the group's schedule. However, he said management still plans to open numerous new outlets in Ireland and is "100%" still looking for new site opportunities around the country.
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BIG US BANK REVENUE GROWTH IS FLAT AS A PANCAKE - The six biggest US banks produced the same revenue in 2015 as they did the year before, underscoring how the industry is struggling to expand in an era of ultra-low interest rates and toughened regulations.
The six - JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo - generated combined revenues of $413 billion last year, according to Mike Mayo, analyst at CLSA. That was the same total as 2014, he said. "You can’t get more flat than that,” he said. “We’ll call 2015 the year of the pancake.” The financial results, disclosed over the past week, indicate that business at the big US banks is stagnating - even as the US Federal Reserve has started raising interest rates and demand has remained resilient for products such as mortgages and car loans. Since the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the big lenders have sharply increased their capital stocks, under pressure from banking regulators. They have also improved their liquidity positions, stockpiling easy-to-sell assets that would give them better chances of continuing to trade if there were another severe shock to the system. Now investors are finally getting a better look at what those changes mean for the top and bottom lines because a lot of the big post-crisis costs - legal settlements, expenses for reshuffling portfolios - have finally dropped away. In many cases, the figures are underwhelming.
