4 October 2016 | Jamie Harris The BIFM and Quadrilect Ltd have today announced that the current ‘BIFM Training’ joint agreement will come to an end in September 2017.  Quadrilect will continue to offer training courses without the BIFM Training brand but will remain a BIFM Recognised Centre delivering the BIFM qualifications. BIFM will be launching a new training programme centrally as part of the institute’s new ‘BIFM Academy’ with a range of courses to be delivered nationally beyond September 2017. Ray Perry, CEO, BIFM said: “This is an exciting opportunity for BIFM, as we aim to increase our professional development options in order to support FM professionals. The BIFM Academy will become the central Professional Development hub for disseminating Continuing Professional Development (CPD) content and training. “We will offer a mix of face to face courses, online materials and we will further develop BIFM Direct, our successful online learning portal for the BIFM qualifications. Face to face courses will also be developed and provided in-house for businesses as part of our growing business development strategy. “Our strategic aim is to support and professionally develop our members and the wider industry generally. It is therefore important that we create the Academy and develop our own training courses which are aligned to the FM Professional Standards centrally and this will sit at the heart of the BIFM CPD provision for our members. “BIFM has already worked alongside employers to create the world’s most extensive and rigorous FM qualifications programme which have been embedded worldwide.” Perry explained that the creation of the BIFM Academy will “further strengthen and harness those employer relationships” through evolving its training provision to “fit the new ways professionals learn”. He said that the BIFM Academy will complement the existing professional development suite the institute currently offers. Perry said: “We have enjoyed working with Quadrilect and would like to thank Rachel Hiscox, and wish her and the team all the best beyond September 2017.  The termination of the BIFM Training agreement does not affect the agreement in place between BIFM and Quadrilect in relation to the delivery of the BIFM Qualifications; we look forward to continuing to work with Quadrilect in its capacity as a BIFM Recognised Centre.” Rachel Hiscox, managing director, Quadrilect said: “Quadrilect has enjoyed working with BIFM and the team are proud to have been part of professionalising FM over the past 20 years as well as contributing to building the BIFM Training programme into a leading FM Learning and Development brand.  “We see a great future for Quadrilect in growing our range of our accredited courses and building a comprehensive online resource for FMs and are delighted to continue our relationship with BIFM as a recognised centre delivering the BIFM qualifications.”  For BIFM learners who are currently registered through Quadrilect to study a BIFM qualification via the BIFM Training programme, they should see no difference in content or delivery, only the removal of the ‘BIFM Training’ brand after September 2017.  Both parties are committed to minimising any potential impact to affected individuals. Source link

©Bloomberg Saudi Arabia has set out its terms to join the first co-ordinated Opec production cut since the financial crisis. The only problem for an oversupplied oil market is few think it will be achieved. As the world’s largest oil producers descend on Algeria this week for crunch talks on ending a two-year old supply glut, Opec’s biggest members remain far apart. More On this topic IN Commodities Several Opec delegates have sought to manage expectations saying the meeting would be informal and would only lay the groundwork for the next official Opec meeting in November, or perhaps a follow-up gathering next month. With Brent crude, the international benchmark, dropping back towards $45 a barrel on Friday, almost $5 below its high of earlier this month, some in the industry see renewed downward pressure focusing the minds of Opec members. The Saudi delegation is only seen playing ball if arch rival Iran agrees to cap its own output at 3.6m barrels a day — a level seen as anathema to Tehran as the country chases its goal of restoring production to the 4m b/d level it pumped before western sanctions were imposed five years ago. Jan Stuart, an analyst at Credit Suisse, said that while he remains “sceptical” that a deal could be reached in Algiers this week he believes the risk was “no longer negligible”. “As we see it, producers could at the very least announce next week in Algiers the specifics of the key proposal on the table, if they can agree to keep negotiations about the nuts and bolts of a deal alive.” Market watchers also see signs that this week’s gathering in Algiers is about more than just jawboning the market higher after it threatened to drop back below $40 a barrel during the summer. For one, Saudi Arabia and Iranian delegates sat down together last week to discuss the outline of a deal. Getting officials from two countries at loggerheads over Syria’s civil war and the conflict in Yemen together is no small feat, even as disagreements remain. Saudi Arabia is also for the first time discussing not only a collective cut, also a specific range — between 700,000 and 1m b/d — that it believes producers need for a deal to have any credibility. While Opec sources say reaching a formal agreement may be a bridge too far this week, both Saudi Arabia and Iran’s stance is seen slowing softening. “They are a lot more flexible, a lot more willing to talk,” says one Opec delegate from an African nation. Using the average output level for July and August as a base and ensuring countries — bar Libya, Nigeria and Iran — each slice up to 4 per cent off their production is the preferred scenario for the kingdom, said one person familiar with Saudi policymaking. In April Riyadh scuppered talks in Doha after Iran refused to attend. Tehran cited the impossibility of freezing its own production when sanctions had only been lifted three months earlier. Since then Saudi Arabia’s production has accelerated to a record 10.6m b/d, while Russia, the largest exporter outside Opec, says its output has risen above 11m b/d. Iran’s output has also increased, with country officials pegging it near 3.8m b/d — not far shy of its target. There is greater urgency than five months ago. The surge in Opec output has offset declines from elsewhere and contained prices. This has prompted all the major forecasting agencies to push back the timeline for when they expect supply and demand to come back into balance. Another year of sub-$50 prices rippling through Opec members which can no longer finance state-spending predicated on the era of $100 crude has duly intensified pressure on budgets. The path to any production deal likely entails Saudi Arabia finding a way to be more flexible over Iran’s output. Russia, which agreed to work with Riyadh to stabilise the market, has said it thinks Iran’s position is understandable after it saw its exports slump under sanctions. But Opec members say they recognise the need to agree a deal among themselves before asking Russia and others outside the cartel to join. Still, Russian energy minister Alexander Novak will be in Algiers this week. For Iran the sticking point seems to be the use of secondary estimates for calculating production — such as data from consultants and analysts that is reported to Opec — which they believe underestimates their output, according to two people familiar with Gulf Opec sources. Opec’s last monthly report pegged Iran’s output at 3.6m b/d. Officials have recently suggested they believe it is closer to 3.8m b/d. “Unless all the big producers are on board, there will be no agreement,” says an Opec delegate. “If there is no agreement on methodology there is no freeze, no cut, no anything.” Any cut also cannot be so great that it risks pushing prices too high. The US shale industry that first pushed Opec to open the taps in November 2014 is waiting in the wings should prices recover beyond $60 a barrel. Shale companies have cut costs to a level where they can survive and largely maintain output at $50 a barrel and it may not take prices climbing much higher to flip them out of their defensive posture. Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2016. You may share using our article tools. Please don’t cut articles from FT.com and redistribute by email or post to the web. Source link

China’s “One Belt, One Road” project aims to make central Asia more connected to the world, yet even before the initiative was formally announced China had helped to redraw the energy map of the region. It had built an oil pipeline from Kazakhstan, a gas pipeline that allowed Turkmenistan to break its dependence on dealings with Russia and another pipeline that has increased the flow of Russian oil to China. Chinese companies have funded and built roads, bridges and tunnels across the region. A ribbon of fresh projects, such as the Khorgos “dry port” on the Kazakh-Chinese border and a railway link connecting Kazakhstan with Iran, is helping increase trade across central Asia. China is not the only investor in central Asian connectivity. Multilateral financial institutions, such as the Asian Development Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the World Bank have long been investing in the region’s infrastructure. The Kazakh government has its own $9bn stimulus plan, directing money from its sovereign wealth fund to infrastructure investment. Other countries, including Turkey, the US, and the EU have also made improving Eurasian connectivity a part of their foreign policy. Moscow-Kazan high-speed railway A China-led consortium last year won a $375m contract to build a 770km high-speed railway line between Moscow and Kazan. Total investment in the project — set to cut journey time between the cities from 12 hours to 3.5 hours — is some $16.7bn. Khorgos-Aktau railway In May last year, Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev announced a plan to build — with China — a railway from Khorgos on the Chinese border to the Caspian Sea port of Aktau. The scheme dovetails with a $2.7bn Kazakh project to modernise its locomotives and freight and passenger cars and repair 450 miles of rail. Central Asia-China gas pipeline The 3,666km Central Asia-China gas pipeline predated the new Silk Road but forms the backbone of infrastructure connections between Turkmenistan and China. Chinese-built, it runs from the Turkmenistan/Uzbekistan border to Jingbian in China and cost $7.3bn. Central Asia-China gas pipeline, line D China signed agreements with Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan to build a fourth line of the central Asia-China gas pipeline in September 2013. Line D is expected to raise Turkmenistan’s gas export capacity to China from 55bn cu m per year to 85bn cu m. China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway Kyrgyzstan’s prime minister Temir Sariev has said that the construction of the delayed Kyrgyz leg of the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway would start in 2016. In September 2015, Uzbekistan said it had finished 104km of the 129km Uzbek stretch of the railway. Khorgos Gateway Khorgos Gateway, a dry port on the China-Kazakh border that is seen as a key cargo hub on the new Silk Road, began operations in August 2015. China’s Jiangsu province has agreed to invest more than $600m over five years to build logistics and industrial zones around Khorgos. Trans-Asian railways Whether transporting frozen poultry or electronic equipment, subsidies from China are making new overland train routes across central Asia an increasingly attractive proposition for logistics businesses. Cheaper than by air, and faster than by sea, increased overland rail networks could help the region capture valuable business and capitalise on increased trade from China to Europe through overland routes across Belarus, Russia and Kazakhstan. Rail connection to Tehran The first freight train from China arrived in Tehran in February 2016 in the wake of China’s One Belt One Road project which has seen ongoing investment in overland rail across central Asia. This, plus Iran’s landmark nuclear agreement with the west in 2015, has paved the way for deals with France and Germany for a much-needed modernisation of the country’s railway network and provided a boost to Chinese-Iranian trade. China-Pakistan highway Concerns over what China’s new Silk Road project will mean for India are concentrated around Chinese plans to invest $46bn in a new “economic corridor” between China and Pakistan. The initiative will pass through the disputed region of Kashmir and Indian policy analysts remain divided on whether the project is a strategic threat or an economic opportunity for their country. Source link