Noble Invests In Grain-Sugar Export Terminal In Brazil
Noble Group announces its commencement of construction of the company’s first grain and sugar export terminal in Brazil, located in Santos, South America’s largest port. This new terminal further bolsters Noble’s pipeline strategy to establish a well structured and modern supply chain. This enables the company to gain greater control of the trade flows from the production fields to destination markets such as China, Europe and Middle East. Noble Group CEO said, “The new Santos terminal offers improved efficiencies over other local ports and allows Noble to generate greater economies of scale and important synergies for both our grain and sugar businesses. An increasing part of our revenue stream is derived from industrial processes.”

Rotary Engineering Secures $37.9m EPC Contract
Mainboard-Listed Rotary Engineering has secured a $37.9m Engineering, Procurement & Construction (EPC) contract, from Technip Italy S.p.A, in relation to Neste Oil’s new generation biofuel plant in Tuas. The contract involves the erection of 11 storage tanks: five feedstock tanks and two bio-naphtha tanks, with the remaining four tanks being in the process and utility area. The tanks will have a combined storage capacity of 141,000 cubic metres. Work on this project is underway and is expected to be completed by the end of 2009.

HLN Introduces New Initiatives To Focus On Profit-Making Businesses
Mainboard listed HLN Technologies, a manufacturer of a diverse range of customised precision metallic, elastomeric, and polymeric components, has disposed its assets in HLN Metal Centre for US$2.4m and incorporated a wholly-owned subsidiary, Process Innovation Technology in Suzhou, China for US$0.7m. CEO Leslie Wa explained, “After re-assessing our business structure, we have decided to exit the metals service centre business in Singapore and focus on our profit-making and cash generating polymeric and elastomeric businesses.”

Sunpower Secures Rmb21.2m Contract From PRC Supplier
Mainboard-listed Sunpower Group, a China-based heat transfer technology specialist engaged in the design, R&D and manufacture of customized energysaving and environmental protection products for diverse industries, announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary, Jiangsu Sunpower Technology, has been awarded the third contract worth Rmb21.2m to supply pressure vessels equipment consisting of reactors to PRC’s leading polysilicon manufacturer Jiangsu Zhongneng Polysilicon Technology Development. The work is expected to be delivered by 1H09 and contribute positively to FY09’s performance.

Panic Grips Credit Markets
The panic in world credit markets reached historic intensity on Wednesday, prompting a flight to safety of the kind not seen since the second world war. Barometers of financial stress hit record peaks across the world. Yields on short-term US Treasuries hit their lowest level since the London Blitz, while gold had its biggest one-day gain ever in dollar terms. Lending between banks, in effect, stopped. Speculation mounted that the Federal Reserve, which refused to cut rates on Tuesday, could be forced into an embarrassing U-turn or might further expand its market liquidity operations. The US$85b emergency Fed loan for the troubled insurance group AIG, announced on Tuesday night, failed to curb the surge in risk aversion. Instead, markets were hit by a fresh wave of anxiety. All thought of profit was abandoned as traders piled in to the safety of short-term Treasuries, with the yield on three-month bills falling as low as 0.02% – rates that characterised the “lost decade” in Japan. The last time US Treasuries were this low was January 1941.