Chevron Australia, a subsidiary of Chevron, has signed deals with three companies from the countries of Japan and South Korea that is worth approximately $60 billion. The deals, which were made with GS Caltex, Tokyo Gas and Osaka Gas, call for Chevron Australia to provide natural gas from the Gorgon gas field once it is developed.
Said John Gass of Chevron: “With Osaka Gas and Tokyo Gas, we have as foundation customers two of the most experienced LNG buyers in the largest LNG market in the world. The agreements with GS Caltex provide our initial entry into the important Korean LNG …read more

While many experts in the United States are breathing a sigh of relief thanks to signs that the economy may be turning around, Japan is currently seeing some ominous signs. Japan, which has the world’s second largest economy, saw unemployment rise to a level it hasn’t seen since the end of World War II.
In July, Japan’s unemployment rate was 5.7%. In June, it was 5.4%. The previous post-World War II record was 5.5% in 2003. According to the latest stats, for every 100 job seekers, only 42 jobs are available.
Experts in the country think that unemployment could reach 6% at …read more

According to the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, Sony’s planned worldwide layoffs of 8,000 announced late in 2008 will hit Hawaii hard. Currently, Hawaii has 70 employees of Sony. According to Sony, 17 employees will be taking retirement options within the next 60 days. Within the same time frame, another 14 employees will be laid off. All in all, slightly more than 44% of the current Sony employees in Hawaii will be out of jobs before July 1st.
Another area in the United States that will be hit hard is San Diego, California. Multiple sources are indicating that more than 330 Sony employees will …read more

We’ve talked about writing a novel using your phone’s keypad, and we’ve talked about cell phones as a platform for ebooks.
Book marketing expert John Kremer points to an article in the New York Times called Thumbs Race as Japan’s Best Sellers Go Cellular. At this point, the novels are those that have been written for cell phones with short sentences and lots of cell phone spelling.
What’s amazing is that the top seller (Love Sky by Mika) sold to 20 million folks, was printed as a print book and was made into a movie.
Obviously, cell phones are going to play a …read more