Total, Royal Dutch Shell and Lukoil are among the major oil companies who have selected the oil and gas fields they want to develop in Iran – a country whose oil reserves are ranked fourth in the world – after authorities in Tehran have submitted to investors 70 projects worth 30 billion dollars, according to Bloomberg.  Total and ENI want to invest in Iran, said Iranian Oil Minister, Bijan Namdar Zanganeh. Anglo-Dutch Shell and Russian company Lukoil have specified which fields will develop in Iran, added Ali Kardor, deputy director of investment and financing of the National Iranian Oil Co.  After more than a decade of negotiations, Iran and countries from the “5 + 1″ group (the US, Russia, China, Great Britain, France and Germany) reached on 14th of July a comprehensive agreement that put an end to Western concerns on Tehran’s controversial nuclear program. Following the conclusion of this agreement, a number of sanctions on Iran’s economy will be lifted.  Removing sanctions allow Iran to resume oil exports gradually. “All economic and banking sanctions will be lifted until the first week of January”, assured the Iranian oil deputy minister, Amir Hossein Zamaninia.  Stephane Michel, head of exploration and production in the Middle East for Total, said: “We are interested to return to Iran when sanctions will be lifted and if the contracts will be interesting. We worked a long time in this country, we know the fields we worked at.”

Iran will have no problem to sell additional 500,000 barrels per day after the lifting of sanctions and the amount will not have a significant impact on prices, said Zamaninia. He added that the authorities in Tehran hopes to reach an agreement with the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) so that the planned increase in production by Iran to stay within the ceiling set by OPEC, 30 million barrels per day. The Iranian oil deputy minister said that his country does not expect OPEC to change ceiling at the next meeting scheduled to take place on December 4th. Iran plans to increase its total production capacity to 5.7 million bpd by the end of 2020, and according to Bloomberg data in October the state has pumped 2.7 million barrels per day.  Iran may sign the first development contract in March or April, estimated Ali Kardor, deputy director of investment and financing of the National Iranian Oil Co. “The next step (after presenting the legal framework to investors – e.n.) will be conducting technical assessments by foreign energy companies and choosing an Iranian partner,” said Kardor.

A 7.3pc drop in energy prices remained the biggest factor weighing on price growth" Strangely enough I haven't noticed my domestic bill changing. However I digress, "Last month, Mr Draghi said the ECB would "do what we must" to lift inflation "as quickly as possible" the way he is going he may be on the receiving end of an ill thought out policy. The Weimar Republic comes to mind, wheelbarrows for euros perhaps ?...Spain’s constitutional court has struck down the Catalan parliament’s motion to begin the process of secession, ruling in record time that the legislation infringes on the constitution.  The motion, passed by separatist MPs in the regional parliament in early November, aimed to chart the process of independence for the north-eastern region. The legislation pledged a “disconnection from the Spanish state” to establish a Catalan republic, putting separatists on a collision course with the central government.  Reaction was swift from the central government, which challenged the legislation in Spain’s constitutional court within days. The central government argued that Catalan MPs from the pro-independence Together for Yes coalition and the smaller, far-left Popular Unity Candidacy (CUP) had overstepped the region’s boundaries. The legislation was automatically suspended while the court heard the challenge.

If history is any guide, there are three major issues that warrant careful monitoring in the coming months. First, the US is unlikely to stand by for long if its currency appreciates significantly and its international competitiveness deteriorates substantially. Companies are already reporting earning pressures due to the rising dollar, and some are even asking their governments to play a more forceful role in countering a stealth “currency war.” Second, because the dollar is used as a reserve currency, a rapid rise in its value could put pressure on those who have used it imprudently. At particular risk are emerging country companies that, having borrowed overwhelmingly in dollars but generating only limited dollar earnings, might have large currency mismatches in their assets and liabilities or their incomes and expenditures.And, finally, sharp movements in interest rates and exchange rates can cause volatility in other markets, most notably for equities. Because regulatory controls and market constraints have made brokers less able to play a countercyclical role by accumulating inventory on their balance sheets, the resulting price instability is likely to be large. There is a risk that some portfolios will be forced into disordered unwinding. Furthermore, the central banks’ policy of curtailing so-called “volatile volatility” is likely to be challenged.

Well, it looks like the oportunity to vote will be barred in the EU...

Denmark delivered a pointed rebuke to Brussels last night as the country rejected a government proposal to deepen the EU member's participation in the bloc's justice cooperation. After a three-week campaign when the two sides were neck-and-neck, 53 per cent voted 'no' compared to 47 per cent who voted 'yes'. The result will be a worrying reminder to David Cameron of the risk he is taking in putting the UK’s membership of the EU to a similar referendum vote. "The Danish have said 'No to more EU!'" exclaimed Kristian Thulesen Dahl, leader of the Eurosceptic Danish People's Party (DPP) at the start of his celebratory speech to party activists in Copenhagen's Christiansborg Palace. "This is a significant no. I have full respect for the Danes' decision." Mr Lokke Rasmussen said after the result. He said he would hold a series of emergency meetings with other political parties on Monday over how to move forward, before meeting Jean-Claude Juncker, the European Commission's president and EU President Donald Tusk in Brussels the following Friday. "It's my experience that parties on both the yes and the no side agree that it would be a disaster for Denmark and the Danish police if we slipped out of Europol," he said.  Soren Espersen, the DPP's vice chairman, told the Telegraph that he felt the result could aid the UK's own negotiations. "I see this as a support for David Cameron because he needs to tell Brussels that it's not only the British who have these anti-federal feelings. We've always had them and we still have them to a rather tremendous degree."

I hope this will be the downfall of this nightmare called EU...

PARIS –  Polling agency projections suggest the far right National Front took the lead in the first round of France's regional elections on Sunday, in a new boost for Marine Le Pen's anti-immigration strategy and a new blow to President Francois Hollande's Socialists.  The agencies Ifop, OpinionWay and Ipsos based their projections on actual vote count in select constituencies. They projected that the National Front won between 27 and 30 percent support nationwide, followed by former President Nicolas Sarkozy's Republicans party and the governing Socialists.  The elections Sunday took place in an unusually tense security climate just over three weeks after deadly attacks on Paris -- a climate expected to favor conservative and far right candidates.  While National Front had significant support Sunday, it's unclear whether the party can translate that into victory in the second round of voting on Dec. 13 for leadership of France's 13 newly drawn regions.  Sarkozy's Republicans party and its allies were projected to come in second place at around 27 percent.  The Socialists, who currently run nearly all of the country's regions, are projected to come in a weak third place, with between 22 and 24 percent.  The Paris attacks on Nov. 13 that killed 130 people and a Europe-wide migrant crisis this year have shaken up France's political landscape.  The National Front is hoping the two-round voting that started Sunday will consolidate political gains she has made in recent years -- and strengthen its legitimacy as she prepares to seek the presidency in 2017.  The unpopular Hollande has seen his approval ratings jump since the Paris attacks, as he intensified French airstrikes on Islamic State targets in Syria and Iraq and ordered a state of emergency at home. But his party, which currently runs nearly all of France's regions, has seen its electoral support shrivel as the government has failed to shrink 10 percent joblessness or invigorate the economy.  Many political leaders are urging apathetic voters to cast ballots as a riposte to fundamentalists targeting democracies from France to the U.S.  First-time voter Eli Hodara, an 18-year-old Paris student, expressed hope that more young people would turn out.  "I think it is important to vote even if one leaves the ballot blank," Hodara said.  It is the last election before France votes for president in 2017, and a gauge of the country's political direction.  "It's an important moment, important for the future of our regions, important also for the future of our country, important with regard to the catastrophic and dramatic events that have hit France," Le Pen said as she cast her ballot in the northern city of Henin-Beaumont.  The arrival of hundreds of thousands of migrants in Europe and the exploits of IS, which has claimed responsibility for the Paris attacks, have bolstered the discourse of the National Front. It denounces Europe's open borders, what it calls the "migratory submersion" and what it claims is the corrupting influence of Islam on French civilization.  Le Pen is campaigning to run the northern Nord-Pas-de-Calais-Picardie, which includes the port city of Calais, a flashpoint in Europe's migrant drama. Polls suggest she could win.  Her young niece, Marion Marechal-Le Pen, appears to be on even stronger footing in her race to lead the southern Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur region, including the French Riviera and part of the Alps.  A win for either would be unprecedented in France.  The party was long a pariah, and voters left and right joined together to keep Marine's father Jean-Marie Le Pen from winning a presidential runoff in 2002. However, Marine Le Pen has worked to undo its image as an anti-Semitic party under father and co-founder, Jean-Marie Le Pen, and has lured in new followers from the left, the traditional right and among young people.  Socialist Prime Minister Manuel Valls and the conservative-leaning national business lobby issued a public appeal this week to stop the National Front's march toward victory.

If the British public were to vote to leave the European Union it would be the modern equivalent of the toppling of the Berlin Wall and herald the beginning of the end for the bloc, says Marine Le Pen, the leader of France’s National Front. In a week when Denmark rejected “more Europe” in their latest EU referendum, and David Cameron was rebuffed in Brussels over his demands to cut welfare benefits to newly arrived EU workers, the new, softer face of France’s far-Right is clearly dreaming big. “Brexit would be marvelous - extraordinary - for all European peoples who long for freedom,” she told The Telegraph on Friday on a frantic last day of campaigning ahead of Sunday's regional elections in France where the polls put her party on the cusp of a new electoral breakthrough. “Objectively, it will be the beginning of the end of the European Union,” she adds, “I compare Brussels to the Berlin Wall. If Great Britain knocks down part of the wall, it’s finished, it’s over.”  And if Britain did knock a hole in the European project, then Ms Le Pen, with her hardline anti-immigrant, anti-Europe, anti-globalisation mantra wants to be there in 2017, leading France through the breach. For her, that real road to power begins on Sunday when, if polls are correct, Ms Le Pen’s party could emerge as the first-round winners in as many as six of France’s 13 new “super-regions”, a showing that she is already touting as a launch-pad for a serious run at the French presidency in 2017. In round two, she is widely expected to clinch control of the northern Nord-Pas de Calais-Picardie region. Down South, her niece, Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, 25, stands a high chance of clinching France’s second largest region, Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur. The FN could also triumph in Alsace-Lorraine-Champagne-Ardenne, Burgundy-Franche Comté and Normandy.

The International Monetary Fund has  given the yuan a historic vote of confidence when it included the Chinese currency in its elite club of major currencies. The yuan, also known as the renminbi, is widely expected to be added to the IMF’s group of international reserve currencies after an IMF meeting held by its managing director Christine Lagarde.   It comes after lengthy efforts by Chinese officials to legitimise the yuan, which critics say has been kept artificially cheap to artificially boost exports in the world’s second-largest economy. China has lobbied hard for the currency to be included in the list, which at present is made up of just the dollar, the euro, the pound and the Japanese yen. The list has not been altered since 2000, when the euro replace the franc and deutschmark. While being a part of the club carries no particular conditions, and is largely symbolic, the yuan will contribute to the value of the special drawing right – a weighted average of the currencies – which the IMF uses to price its emergency loans...More significant is the diplomatic legitimacy that inclusion will grant the yuan, whose value is carefully managed by Chinese authorities. Officials devalued it over the summer in a shock move to respond to slowing growth, but it is still seen as tightly controlled with the country’s central bank lacking transparency. Being included in the IMF basket will draw additional scrutiny and see officials encouraged to open up the currency at the same time that China faces economic slowdown, which could put the brakes on reform.  Although the decision is expected to be announced today, the yuan will not officially become a reserve currency until September 2016.