Turkey seals LNG deal with Total

ISTANBUL: Turkey’s energy minister announced Wednesday a 10-year deal to receive liquefied natural gas from French firm TotalEnergies as the country, heavily dependent on Russia, seeks to diversify its source of supplies. The minister, Alparslan Bayraktar, said the deal between Turkish state oil and gas company BOTAS and TotalEnergies was signed at Gastech, an industry conference in Houston, Texas. “The 10-year-deal will start in 2027, and will deliver 16 LNG cargoes of up to 1.6 billion cubic meters per year,” he wrote on social media platform X. — AFP

Danish bank to pay $7m fine in France

PARIS: Danske Bank, Denmark’s largest, has agreed to pay 6.3 million euros ($7 million) to end legal pursuits in France linked to alleged money laundering in its Estonian subsidiary that resulted in heavy US penalties. The fine was agreed on August 27 with France’s national financial crime prosecutors and validated by a court Wednesday. The agreement does not involve any admission of guilt. The bank’s Estonian unit allegedly laundering some 200 billion euros through some 15,000 accounts from 2007 to 2015, according to an independent auditor’s report published in 2018. — AFP

China sanctions 9 US firms

BEIJING: China imposed sanctions on nine US defense firms on Wednesday, the foreign ministry said, describing the measures as retaliation for Washington’s approval of military equipment sales to Taiwan this week. “Weapons sales by the United States to China’s Taiwan region have seriously violated the one-China principle,... seriously infringed upon China’s sovereignty and security interests, (and) damaged China-US relations,” foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian told a news conference. — AFP

French budgetary situation grim

PARIS: France’s budgetary situation is “very serious”, Prime Minister Michel Barnier told AFP on Wednesday, saying more information was needed to gauge the “precise reality” of French public finances. France was placed on a formal procedure for violating European Union budgetary rules before Barnier became head of government earlier this month, while the Bank of France warned this week that a projected return to EU deficit rules by 2027 was “not realistic”. France’s public sector deficit is projected to reach around 5.6 percent of GDP this year and go over six percent in 2025, which compares with EU rules calling for a three-percent ceiling on deficits. — AFP