The country is still grappling with a huge oil spill off its eastern coast that has now contaminated an area around six times the size of Singapore, and another separate slick and fire have also tarnished the industry’s image.

In the latest incident, a leak from a piece of oil refining equipment caught fire Saturday at a plant owned by state-run China National Petroleum Corp , the country’s biggest oil producer.

The company said in a statement Sunday the fire in the northeastern port city of Dalian had been put out, there were no casualties and tests showed the surrounding sea had not been polluted.

The fire came exactly a year after two pipelines exploded at an oil storage depot also owned by CNPC in the same city, triggering a devastating spill.

The government estimated about 1,500 tonnes of oil poured into the Yellow Sea, but Greenpeace said up to 60 times more may have escaped.

The state-run Beijing News on Sunday quoted anonymous people at the CNPC refinery as saying the workshop where the fire broke out had just been serviced.

It added the plant where this weekend’s incident happened was close to the depot where the spill happened last year.

“Some observers are pointing out that the frequent incidents to have hit oil firms recently may not be unexpected, and loopholes in the firms’ safety and production management need to be seriously examined,” the report said.

Netizens — already incensed about the oil spill off the east coast which was kept secret by authorities for several weeks before being made public this month — also expressed anger at the latest embarrassing mishap.

“What is this? No doubt

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Food price inflation is likely to rise above 5% in coming months, according to a leading market research agency.

Kantar Worldpanel said it expected the hike after grocery prices rose faster than expected in the 12 weeks to 11 July. The consumer panel had previously predicted that food inflation would not breach the 5% threshold this year.

Grocery prices rose by 4.8% in the three months to the middle of July, up from 4.6% last month.

Martin Whittingham, director at Kantar Worldpanel, said: “While we previously predicted that grocery inflation would not exceed 5% in 2011, we believe this no longer to be the case.

“It has been growing much faster than anticipated and as such we expect it to reach 5% and perhaps go beyond in the next few months. How

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Investment platforms are becoming an important distribution model for life insurers, according to Tower Australia CEO of Group Life Andrew Boldeman.

“Platforms offer an easy solution for the adviser and we are seeing good growth from this area,” he told insuranceNEWS.com.au. “The insurance offerings on platforms have been getting better.”

Tower has been working with financial services provider IOOF to enhance life insurance products for superannuation members on its Pursuit platform.

“We [also] work with some independent platform providers to enhance the insurance offering, but many of the larger ones are owned by the banks with their own set of products.”

Mr Boldeman believes the large institutional platforms will eventually expand their insurance offerings further to meet the demand of advisers.

Life insurance advisers have been multi-agents for many years and initially that was behind their reluctance to use platforms that had limited product offerings.

“The advisers who have always written life insurance want access to all quality products,” he said. “But those new

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If you see a building under construction, it’s most likely an apartment complex.
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Homeownership goes in and out of favor, UCLA professor Stuart Gabriel said, and now it’s in decline.

“The pendulum swings back and forth a bit,” Gabriel said. “Homeownership is not dead, it’s just in a period of adjustment.”

Least popular are homes in remote “exurbs” far from cities, he said. With gasoline prices at sustained highs, many people want to be closer to their jobs in urban centers where the most affordable housing is often apartments.

Demographics and generational trends are also working in favor of apartments. Many renters in their 20s and 30s are delaying marriage and childbearing … and cherish the mobility to move where their careers take them. Read more…

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The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has launched an investigation into websites that charge for services which are available from the government for free.

The consumer watchdog will probe unscrupulous companies that charge customers for advice on government benefits, booking driving tests and applying for European Health Insurance Cards (EHICs) – all of which are provided for free from government departments.

The OFT closed down four sites offering EHICs last year.

The companies that charge for these services pay for sponsored links in search engine results which means they can appear above government entries, making unwitting consumers believe they are clicking through to official sites.

Some even register “.org” domain names to give the illusion of officialdom.

Cavendish Elithorn, senior director of the OFT’s Goods and Consumer Group, said: “It is important that companies are clear about the service they are offering, and do not trick people into paying for something that they can get for free or much cheaper on government websites. We will b

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