The government plans to auction 171 blocks in Round 10 on Dec. 18, Lobao said. The country’s national petroleum agency, known as ANP, will sell another 13 onshore fields as part of the third round of mature fields auctions on Dec. 2.

Brazil’s has recently discovered deep-water finds off the Rio de Janeiro coast. Analysts say the fields could hold up to 55 billion barrels of oil and transform Brazil into a big oil exporter.

In 2006, Brazil was the world’s 13th-largest oil producer, according to the most recent data available from the U.S. Department of Energy.

Deutsche Post’s supervisory board is to meet on September 12, the business daily Handelsblatt reported.

Deutsche Post owns 50 percent plus one share of Postbank, but has made it known that it would like to sell the unit, which has 14.5 million clients.

The auction of 5.8m tonnes of carbon was over-subscribed four times as oil companies and utilities bid for the equivalent of almost 24m tonnes to avoid breaching EU greenhouse gas emission regulations and facing fines.

The auction is the first of its kind in Oman, where CD auctions are reserved for the central bank will be open to local and foreign investors, Bank Muscat Chief Executive Abdulrazak Ali Issa said at a news conference.

Director of geothermal utilization at the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry Sugiharto Harsoprayitno said Monday IP would exploit geothermal reserves in Cisolok Sukarame and Tangkuban Perahu concessions, which have capacities of 45 and 220 MW respectively.

WIKA won the bidding for the Tampomas concession, which has a capacity 20 MW.

“The two companies won tenders for the lowest geothermal electricity price they offered to state power firm PT PLN. They are the first companies to win geothermal tenders held by the regional government,” Sugiharto said. thejakartapost.com

As part of our ongoing commitment to our clients, Morgan Stanley is announcing the following buy-back program:

Commencing no later than September 30, 2008, Morgan Stanley will offer to repurchase at par ARS held by all individuals, all charities and those small to medium sized businesses with accounts of $10 million or less (collectively, “retail clients”) that were purchased through the Firm prior to February 13, 2008, with the exception of those ARS where auctions are clearing or there is a scheduled redemption. The Firm will keep this offer open until November 30, 2008. The Firm anticipates that this buy-back program will result in repurchases from retail clients of approximately $4.5 billion.
Morgan Stanley will make whole any losses sustained by retail clients who purchased ARS through Morgan Stanley before Feb. 12, 2008, and sold such securities at a loss between that date and the date of this announcement.
Consistent with applicable regulatory rules, until Morgan Stanley actually provides for the liquidation of the securities on the schedule set forth above, on request, Morgan Stanley will provide no-cost loans to retail clients that will remain outstanding until the ARS are repurchased, and will reimburse retail clients for any interest costs incurred under any prior loan programs the Firm provided to its ARS customers.
To the extent that a retail client has incurred consequential damages beyond the loss of liquidity in the retail client’s holdings of ARS, Morgan Stanley will participate in a special arbitration process that the retail client may elect, and that will be overseen by FINRA, whereby Morgan Stanley will not contest liability for any alleged misrepresentations and omissions concerning the ARS, but may challenge the existence or amount of any consequential damages; the arbitration claim will be heard by a single, non-industry arbitrator.
Morgan Stanley will use its best efforts to provide liquidity solutions for its institutional investor base, including continuing to work with issuers and other interested parties on capital markets solutions, financing options and market liquidity, with the goal of resolving institutional investor clients’ liquidity concerns no later than the end of 2009. Institutional clients who purchased ARS after February 13, 2008, as well as institutional clients who hold ARS where the auctions are clearing will be excluded from the program.
Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) is a leading global financial services firm providing a wide range of investment banking, securities, investment management and wealth management services. The Firm’s employees serve clients worldwide including corporations, governments, institutions and individuals from more than 600 offices in 33 countries. For further information about Morgan Stanley, please visit www.morganstanley.com.

The results of Monday’s auction were revealed on Tuesday and showed the auction was oversubscribed with 64 bidders seeking $54.8bn from the bank.

This latest auction involved lending firms money for 84 days - rather than the 25 days of previous auctions.

The case, brought by the state’s top securities regulator, William Galvin, charged Merrill with fraud and “dishonest and unethical” conduct for creating and implementing a sales and marketing scheme that authorities said significantly misstated the nature and stability of the auction-rate market.

As a result, thousands of investors were left with illiquid investments, the complaint said.

Galvin’s spokesman, Brian McNiff, said Merrill, UBS and Bank of America Corp. were subpoenaed earlier this year over their sales of auction-rate securities. The investigation against Bank of America is ongoing, Mr. McNiff said.

The complaint charged Merrill with arranging for its “supposedly independent” research department to write favourable reports on the market for the securities in order to “assist in sales efforts geared towards reducing its inventory of auction-rate securities.”

Merrill dispute the charges.

“We are disappointed that Massachusetts filed this action because it ignores the only reason our advisers sold auction rate securities - they believed they were good investments for clients willing to trade some liquidity for higher return,” spokesman Mark Herr said in an e-mailed statement.

“Our research reflected the honest belief that auction-rate securities offered higher returns in exchange for less liquidity and noted that market changes had begun to occur,” Mr. Herr said.