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Business Matters: Oil price climbs above $50 a barrel

News

Oil price climbs above $50 a barrel

27/05/2016 GMT

BBC World Service - Business Matters, Oil price climbs above $50 a barrel

The price of a barrel of Brent crude is above $50 a barrel for the first time this year.

The reasons for the rally include the wild fires in Alberta, Canada, which are disrupting production at the tar sands.

The price of a barrel of Brent crude on international markets is above $50 a barrel for the first time this year, having fallen to 13 year lows of $28 dollars in January. The reasons for the rally include the wild fires in Alberta, Canada, which are disrupting production at the tar sands.  That's leading some people to suggest that prices may soon fall back, causing fresh financial trouble in countries with economies that depend on oil including Russia, Saudi Arabia and Nigeria. Our correspondent in the South American republic of Venezuela reports on how the collapse in oil revenues has caused desperate shortages for the population.

Workers at 16 of France's nuclear power stations are the latest to go out on strike in protest at President Holland's planned labour market reforms.  Industrial action has already shut down most of the country's oil refineries.  We'll be getting a view from the streets of Toulouse, where demonstrators occupied the city's Opera House.

Researchers in the United States claim to have found traces of the world's most widely used weedkiller in the urine of nine out of ten Americans.  The makers of glyphosate insist the product is safe, and that view is supported by regulators in both Europe and the United States.  However, advisors to the World Health Organisation warned two years ago that the chemical probably causes cancer in humans. We hear from scientist Doug Gurian-Sherman, as well as the politically charged fashion designer Katherine Hamnett.

And the British military on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus are appealing for the owners of 400 vehicles abandoned in the military conflict of 1974 to come forward.  

Roger Hearing joined throughout the programme by two guests on opposite sides of the Pacific - Wayne Pacelle president of The Humane Society of the United States- who's in Washington, and David Kuo, of the Motley Fool in Singapore.

(Picture: A fisherman sails his boat in front of oil towers in western Caracas, Venezuela. Credit: AFP/Getty Images)

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