Latest news with #SOMO
Zawya
26-05-2025
- Business
- Zawya
Iraq may invest in overseas oil refineries
Iraq is exploring investments in high-capacity overseas oil refineries to secure steady crude sales and maximise revenues, with a particular focus on fast-growing Asian markets, a senior oil official has said. Nizar Al-Shatri, Director General of the State Oil Marketing Organization (SOMO), said, "Nearly 75 percent of Iraq's oil exports are directed to Asia, citing the region's accelerating demand and expanding refining capacities, especially when compared to European and North American markets." China, India, South Korea, Indonesia, and Malaysia remain Iraq's top crude buyers, he said, quoted by the Saudi Asharq news agency on Sunday. Al-Shatri explained that investing in foreign refineries would allow Iraq to secure fixed refining quotas, shielding exports from market volatility. 'We aim to work with reputable clients who operate high-capacity refineries in various markets to absorb price fluctuations without affecting export volumes,' he said. SOMO is currently pursuing long-term partnerships with major refiners across Asia, Europe, the Americas, and several African markets, he noted. These deals typically allow Iraq to sell crude at official prices, while benefiting from price differentials during market surges—taking 65 percent of the profit, with partners retaining 35 percent. In case of losses, the foreign partner bears the cost. Al-Shatri reaffirmed Iraq's commitment to OPEC+ quotas, stating that the country respects its production ceiling—currently set near 4 million barrels per day (bpd), though Iraq's full production capacity is closer to 5.5 million bpd. He revealed that in 2024, Iraq exported approximately 1.2 billion barrels of oil, generating $97 billion, nearly 90 per cent of the country's total budget revenues. (Writing by Nadim Kawach; Editing by Anoop Menon)
Shafaq News
25-05-2025
- Business
- Shafaq News
Iraq targets overseas refineries to boost oil revenue
Shafaq News/ Iraq is exploring investments in high-capacity overseas refineries to secure steady crude sales and maximize revenues, with a particular focus on fast-growing Asian markets, according to Nizar Al-Shatri, Director General of the State Oil Marketing Organization (SOMO). In an interview with Asharq, Al-Shatri said 75% of Iraq's oil exports are directed to Asia, citing the region's accelerating demand and expanding refining capacities, especially when compared to European and North American markets. China, India, South Korea, Indonesia, and Malaysia remain Iraq's top crude buyers. Al-Shatri explained that investing in foreign refineries would allow Iraq to secure fixed refining quotas, shielding exports from market volatility. 'We aim to work with reputable clients who operate high-capacity refineries in various markets to absorb price fluctuations without affecting export volumes,' he said. SOMO is currently pursuing long-term partnerships with major refiners across Asia, Europe, the Americas, and several African markets. These deals typically allow Iraq to sell crude at official prices, while benefiting from price differentials during market surges—taking 65% of the profit, with partners retaining 35%. In case of losses, the foreign partner bears the cost. Al-Shatri reaffirmed Iraq's commitment to OPEC+ quotas, stating that the country respects its production ceiling—currently set near 4M barrels per day (bpd), though Iraq's full production capacity is closer to 5.5M bpd. 'This discipline has helped stabilize the global oil market,' he said. Iraq has, however, expressed past concerns over OPEC+ restrictions, as it seeks to rebuild its economy and expand trade following decades of conflict and sanctions. Al-Shatri also clarified that condensates and associated gas are included in production figures for some fields to enhance crude quality, but stressed these should be reported separately as they are not technically crude oil. In 2024, Iraq exported approximately 1.2B barrels of oil, generating nearly $95B—accounting for over 90% of the country's total budget revenues. SOMO also utilizes the spot market to generate additional profits. Al-Shatri noted that in one recent year, this strategy brought in $80 million in bonus revenue. According to the International Monetary Fund, Iraq needs oil prices around $92 per barrel to balance its 2025 budget. Meanwhile, global oil benchmarks such as Brent crude are trading significantly lower, hovering near $65 per barrel—intensifying pressure on public finances. Founded in 1998, SOMO oversees Iraq's oil sales and has managed domestic fuel imports since 2003 to fill gaps in gasoline, diesel, kerosene, and liquefied gas supplies.
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
World's Largest Meat Producer Gains Access to U.S. Capital Markets While Avoiding Millions in Taxes
New report by World Animal Protection exposes how JBS, the major supplier to brands including KFC, McDonald's, and Walmart, has created a web of offshore companies to avoid paying corporate taxes to the U.S. and other jurisdictions Last week, the SEC greenlit JBS' request to list on the New York Stock Exchange using one of these offshore companies, located in a known tax haven, as its holding company NEW YORK, May 22, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- New research conducted exclusively on behalf of World Animal Protection, as well as a separate report by the Netherlands based Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO), reveals a calculated, aggressive and unethical tax avoidance scheme by Brazilian meat giant, JBS (B3 S.A.: JBS SA). According to the SOMO report, between 2019-2022, JBS is estimated to have avoided paying between $221 and $442 million in corporate taxes to the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and other countries. The tax avoidance scheme involves a web of subsidiary companies registered in low-tax or no-tax jurisdictions like Luxembourg and Malta. While JBS goes to inordinate lengths to pay as little tax as possible to the U.S. and other countries in which it operates, shifting greater financial burden onto the very consumers it is profiting from, the company also recently gained access to U.S. equity markets and investors. On April 23, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved JBS' request to move its primary stock exchange listing from Brazil's main B3 stock exchange to the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). As part of the listing proposal, JBS has created a new holding company, JBS N.V., which will be the entity listed on the NYSE. The entity is registered in the Netherlands, ranked 7th in the Tax Justice Network's Corporate Tax Haven Index. The World Animal Protection and SOMO report looked at JBS' Luxembourg-based subsidiary companies, which own many of JBS' most profitable operations in key markets like the U.S., Australia, Canada, Europe, and Mexico. As of 2022, only one of JBS' 17 Luxembourg-based subsidiary companies reported having any employees, while the other 16 companies reported having none. The creation of artificial structures including intercompany loans and intercompany dividends allows taxable profit to be shifted from the U.S. and other areas of operation to Luxembourg and other tax haven jurisdictions, where those profits are taxed at very low rates (if at all). During the period 2019-2022 researched in the reports by World Animal Protection and SOMO, these Luxembourg-based subsidiary companies recorded approximately $2.8 billion in pre-tax profits, largely consisting of the intercompany dividends and interest payments owed by the profitable operations in other countries. Because of the favorable tax treatment of this kind of income within Luxembourg's tax regime, these same companies only paid net corporate income tax of $0.5 million for that same 2019-2022 period. Meanwhile, almost $11 billion in intercompany dividends flowed through JBS' group of Luxembourg subsidiary companies during this period. At the end of 2022, JBS' Luxembourg-based subsidiary companies had intercompany loan balances in excess of $21.7 billion. As the world's largest meat producer, JBS owns brands including Pilgrim's Pride, Just Bare and Swift, which are widely sold at U.S. grocery stores like Walmart, Safeway, H.E.B., Weis, Kroger, Albertson's, Giant, and on Amazon. Currently, JBS slaughters a staggering 8 million lambs, 27 million cows, 53 million pigs and 5 billion chickens per year. The company is infamous for its inhumane and sometimes illegal factory farming and deforestation practices, which led to a 50% increase in JBS' emissions in recent years. The tax avoidance scheme should be especially concerning to American consumers, as the U.S. market accounts for over half of JBS' revenue. The SEC approval for JBS to list on the NYSE came despite World Animal Protection and dozens of other organizations delayed the SEC's decision for nearly two years by exposing material gaps in the information the company provided to investors and forcing JBS to continually disclose the risks in its supply chain, including deforestation in biodiversity hotspots, animal suffering, and zoonotic disease. In the U.S., in the past year alone, JBS has been fined $8 million for child labor violations related to relying on migrant children to do dangerous work in their slaughterhouses, $100 million for conspiring with rivals to underpay American chicken farmers, and $83 million for conspiring with rivals to curb beef supply in the U.S. in order to artificially inflate prices. In 2020 the holding company of JBS' controlling shareholder Batista family was fined $256 million by the SEC in relation to a conspiracy to violate the anti-bribery provisions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Tim Vasudeva, Head of Private and Public Sector Finance at World Animal Protection, said: "Instead of contributing its fair and reasonable share of tax to the countries where it is most profitable, multinationals like JBS use expensive lawyers and consultants to take advantage of tax loopholes and pass the buck to the everyday taxpayers who make them profitable in the first place. Beyond holding JBS accountable for its blatant tax avoidance, the U.S. government – and American consumers -- also need to understand that JBS is a company that has been continually convicted and fined over many years for exploiting child labor, bribery, antitrust violations and illegal deforestation." Vincent Kiezebrink, Senior Researcher at The Centre for Research on Multinationals (SOMO), said: "JBS is exploiting the global financial system with surgical precision, using complex offshore structures to avoid taxes. It also poses a risk to investors, whom the company has not informed of its tax avoidance practices, and the potential costs should EU or US regulators take action. Allowing JBS access to US capital markets will only strengthen the monopolistic position it's acquired there. It's time for financial institutions to stop looking the other way. Tax authorities should ensure JBS pays its fair share in tax." About World Animal ProtectionWorld Animal Protection is a global organization working to end animal exploitation. We expose cruel systems, promote animal-friendly alternatives, and influence policy change. For 75 years, we've been rewriting the story for animals. Working across almost 50 countries with offices in 12, we prioritize animals in farming and wild animals exploited for use in entertainment, as pets, and in fashion. About SOMO The Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO), an Amsterdam-based research organisation, investigates multinationals. Independent, factual, and critical, SOMO has a clear goal—a fair and sustainable world in which public interests outweigh corporate interests. SOMO conducts action-oriented research to expose the impact of multinationals and unprecedented power and reveal the underlying structures underpinning them. View original content to download multimedia: SOURCE World Animal Protection Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Tom's Guide
11-05-2025
- Health
- Tom's Guide
I took a 20-minute coffee nap to prevent the afternoon slump — and the effect surprised me
A nappuccino is the current -ccino trend having a moment across social media with sleep physicians, TikTokkers and professional athletes touting about its benefits. This trend involves drinking a coffee and then immediately taking a 20 minute nap to get over the afternoon energy dip many people experience thanks to our circadian rhythms. As with all the latest sleep trends, our team wanted to try it out. So, after busy bank holiday weekends, our sleep writers Eve and Becky decided to try it out. Feeling low on energy, their lunch breaks provided the perfect opportunity to test whether an afternoon coffee nap could help them power through the day. Here's what happened... A nappuccino simply means to nap after drinking a coffee. So, if you usually reach for a cup of coffee or take a power nap when you need that quick boost of energy, why not combine the benefits of both with a coffee nap? According to Dr Cheri Mah, a sleep scientist and professor at Stanford University of Medicine, the effects of caffeine take about 15 minutes to kick in. If you manage to doze off within 5 to 10 minutes after drinking your coffee, it has the potential to increase alertness and productivity, with the perks of a quick rest and the energy from the coffee kicking in as you wake up. Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips. I often find myself in the clutch of a post-lunch energy slump, and was excited to test whether a coffee nap could help me through. So, this Thursday after lunch, I drank a cup of coffee, set an alarm for 20 minutes, put on my SOMO sleep mask and took to the sofa for my very first nappucino. I don't usually tend to have a problem drifting off, nor am I sensitive to caffeine. I often enjoy a Sunday nap and fall asleep quickly at night, even when I drink coffee after 2pm. By the time I logged back on to work, my brain was feeling less foggy But nodding off during the work day seemed a harder task. Granted, that may have been because I found it difficult to switch off while thinking about what I would write in this article about my nap, or because I wasn't sleeping on the best mattress for my body. I didn't fully drift off before my alarm buzzed. Nevertheless, it was nice to take the time to lay down and relax. By the time I logged back on to work, my brain was feeling less foggy than it did just before lunch. I wondered if the mid-day half-snooze would wreak havoc with my bedtime, but by the time 10pm rolled around I was feeling tired again and, like Becky, didn't have trouble sleeping. Although the coffee nap helped me over my afternoon energy dip, I'll be sticking to my usual tactic of a lunch break walk as I find movement and fresh air better clears my mind. I was sceptical about the potential benefits of a nappuccino since I find it difficult to fall asleep quickly, so 20 minutes didn't feel like enough time. Nevertheless I tried to squeeze it in on my lunch break. Being a coffee lover, I consider caffeine as an indulgence, any part of the day. However, over the last couple of years I've had to lay off the coffee as it's been wreaking havoc on my sleep if I drink it in the afternoon, so this was right on the edge. I had my favorite cup of instant coffee, set my alarm for 20 minutes and got right into bed. As expected, I couldn't fall asleep but remained in a state of rest, leaving the stresses of the day behind temporarily and allowing myself to relax. "Are my 20 minutes already up?" was the first thing that came across my mind when I heard the alarm go off. I got up, stretched for a bit and logged back into work. I sensed that the veil of grogginess in my head had lifted, giving me better mental clarity and energy to finish my day. But, this is where trying the nappuccino really took me by surprise. I expected myself to remain active and awake at night (because of the extra rest and caffeine), but I was able to drift off into peaceful slumber at my usual bedtime. It's safe to say, I had a well rested and restorative sleep all night. While it's true that we didn't fully drift off during our 20-minute nappuccino, the mental clarity it followed was clearly noticeable. We felt alert, focused and ready to power on through the rest of our day The combination of a power nap and caffeine worked well for us in terms of shaking off the sluggishness we often feel after lunch — without disrupting our nighttime sleep. We felt alert, focused and ready to power on through the rest of our day. The only drawback? The timing needs to be just right. Nap any more than 30 minutes and your efforts will be in vain. Forcing yourself to go to sleep within 5 to 10 minutes after having your coffee can be a tricky task too. But overall, we were impressed by its benefits and think it's definitely a trend worth trying. Want to hop on the trend and try a 'nappuccino' yourself? Here are three steps you can follow to get the most of a coffee nap: The first step is to pick your favorite coffee beverage. It can be anything from an espresso shot to an iced latte. The key is to sleep immediately— within 5 to 10 minutes, before the caffeine enters your system and you start to feel the effects of it. Depending on time, you can set your alarm for 20-30 minutes. However, if this goes up to 45 minutes or longer, a nappuccino might turn out to be counterproductive. This is because you can fall into a deeper sleep by then and might struggle with sleep inertia when you wake up — a state of feeling groggy and sluggish. By the time you wake up, the caffeine has kicked in, boosting your mental clarity and energy levels. Give yourself a few minutes to reset, breathe and stretch before jumping back to your day. Done right, a nappuccino can become a nifty tool in your sleep arsenal which can leave you feeling calmer, refreshed and ready to take on the rest of your day. The short answer is yes. Studies show that naps not only improve your mood and energy levels but also lower blood pressure, thereby reducing the risk of cardiovascular diseases. Napping is an effective way to get over the afternoon slump when there is a natural dip in your circadian rhythms (the body's internal sleep and wake cycle) and pay back your sleep debt which occurs due to lifestyle factors like shift work or caregiving or any health conditions. However, excessive napping during the day will just take away your sleep hunger. The result? A vicious cycle of sleep deprivation at night and exhaustion during the day due to lack of enough rest. Keeping your naps short (20 to 30 minutes) is the best way to maximize the benefits without disrupting your sleep pattern. If taking a nap or opting for caffeine isn't for you, these other tried-and-tested steps will help reduce the post-lunch slump... As your body's fuel source, the food you get determines both how energised you feel and how well you sleep. Making healthy food choices at breakfast and lunch time can help you avoid sugar crashes in the afternoon. Complex carbs like whole wheat bread, brown rice and oats, break down more slowly in the body, offering more sustained energy release than simple carbs like sugary sweets which offer quick energy peaks. Therefore, packing your meals with complex carbs alongside other nutrients will help you feel your best. Your energy peaks and troughs through the day are governed by your circadian rhythm, or internal body clock. Exposing yourself to natural sunlight early in the morning, shortly after waking up, suppresses the sleepy hormone melatonin. This helps regulate your sleep-wake hormone cycle so you have sustained energy through the day and feel sleepy come evening, helping you fall asleep fast and bag good quality sleep through the night. Ultimately, sleeping well at night will give you sustained energy through the day. Taking a lunch break walk outdoors can energise you just as well as a coffee nap, especially if you work at a computer. The natural daylight and fresh air can blow away the cobwebs so you can back to work feeling refreshed to tick off your afternoon tasks. Plus gentle exercise like walking is associated with a number of sleep benefits including reducing the risk of sleep apnea by 10% and promoting deep sleep. Therefore, walking plenty during the day contributes to better sleep hygiene and improved sleep quality so you feel more energised throughout the day.
Shafaq News
09-05-2025
- Business
- Shafaq News
Billions down the drain: The cost of Iraq's Kurdistan oil export ban
Shafaq News/ Iraq has lost more than $20 billion in potential revenue due to the prolonged suspension of crude exports from the Kurdistan Region, amid ongoing political and legal disputes. Exports from the Region, estimated at around 450,000 barrels per day, have been offline since March 2023, when the International Chamber of Commerce ruled that Turkiye must stop transporting oil through the Kirkuk–Ceyhan pipeline without Baghdad's consent. At the center of the dispute is Article 112 of the Iraqi Constitution, which calls for joint management of oil resources. The federal government insists it holds exclusive rights over oil exports, while the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) argues the article permits the Region to manage its natural resources in cooperation with Baghdad. This disagreement has undermined contracts signed by the KRG with international oil firms. Federal authorities have deemed these production-sharing agreements "incompatible with national law," claiming they bypass oversight institutions such as the State Oil Marketing Organization (SOMO) and the Federal Board of Supreme Audit. A source from the Oil Ministry, speaking on condition of anonymity, claimed the core issue is, in fact, national sovereignty. "These exports must be regulated under federal frameworks. Otherwise, Iraq's position within OPEC is weakened." No Progress Despite ongoing negotiations between the two governments, no breakthrough has been achieved. Baghdad demands legal compliance, while the KRG and its foreign partners continue to seek assurances that existing contracts will be honored. In public statements, the Association of the Petroleum Industry of Kurdistan (APIKUR) has urged Baghdad to settle unpaid revenues and recognize the legal framework under which companies operate in Kurdistan, warning that sustained uncertainty may lead companies to scale back or exit operations. A KRG official, in comments to Shafaq News, defended the Region's policies. 'We operate within our constitutional rights and have built a viable investment environment—without relying on federal funding.' Exports Ready, Risks Remain Technically, oil exports could resume at short notice. A source at the North Oil Company (NOC) confirmed that the Kirkuk–Ceyhan pipeline is functional, awaiting only federal authorization to restart shipments. Oil Minister Hayan Abdul Ghani has publicly stated that Iraq intends to resume exports of at least 300,000 barrels per day from the north, under a unified marketing approach managed by SOMO. However, restarting flows could complicate Iraq's obligations to OPEC+, as bringing Kurdish oil back online may push production above its assigned quota. The export freeze has removed nearly 500,000 barrels per day from global markets, limiting Iraq's ability to benefit from high oil prices. Analysts note that the impasse is damaging Iraq's credibility among international investors and within the energy industry.
