Alcoa Inc posted a fourth quarter loss due to a steep plunge in aluminum prices, but its revenue beat expectations and the company gave a positive outlook for global demand for the metal, especially in the aerospace and automotive markets. The largest U.S. aluminum producer forecast 7 percent growth...

Four painful years after the Great Recession struck and wiped out 8.7 million jobs, the United States may finally be in an elusive pattern known as a virtuous cycle — an escalating loop of hiring and spending. The nation added 200,000 jobs in December in a burst of hiring that drove the unemployment...

Royal Dutch Shell's operation in Nigeria is working to plug a leak caused by sabotage that shut its 70,000 barrel-per-day (bpd) Nembe Creek pipeline, the company said in a statement emailed to Reuters on Wednesday. The pipeline in the swampy creeks of the Niger Delta was shut down on December 24 but...

China, the biggest buyer of Iran's oil, has publicly rejected U.S. sanctions aimed at Tehran's energy industry while American allies Japan and South Korea are scrambling to find a compromise to keep critical supplies flowing. Beijing is buying less Iranian crude this month, but analysts say China is...

Irate drivers in Africa's most populous nation paid more than twice the usual price Monday after the government quietly removed a long-cherished consumer subsidy that had kept gas affordable, prompting fears of strikes and unrest. Gas powers Nigeria's generators because the national electricity supply...