Ford chief says company in trouble in N. America
Detroit, USA: Ford Motor Co. chief executive officer Bill Ford has said that the company was ``in trouble'' in North America. The stock lost 6 cents on European exchanges as a result, and has by now lost 12 per cent over the year.

Ford, based in Dearborn, Michigan, is set to announce its third restructuring in five years this month. In January, Ford had already announced a cut of 30,000 jobs and the closure of 14 plants in North America by 2012.

The company didn't expect the speed and severity of the rise in oil prices, Ford said in the Newsweek interview posted on the magazine's Web site yesterday. Ford has said this month's announcement is an acceleration of the January plan. The company has taken its restructuring operations outside North America putting its profitable U.K.-based Aston Martin luxury-car unit on the sales block. It is curently debating the fate of its Jaguar and Land Rover luxury-vehicle subsidiaries.

Land Rover became profitable in 2005 while Jaguar is losing money.

North American losses have continued in 2006 as fuel prices caused sales of F-Series pickup trucks to fall below company projections. Overall, the North American unit has been unprofitable for seven of the past eight quarters and Ford has posted a $1.44 billion net loss for the first half of 2006.

The Newsweek interview reflected comments ford made in an e-mail to employees on Sept. 1, in which he said that the company's business model is no longer enough to sustain profitability.
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Bulgaria, Greece and Russia agree on pipeline
Sofia, Bulgaria: After 12 years of discussion, Bulgaria, Greece and Russia have agreed to work on a 175-mile long oil pipeline project to link the Black Sea with the Aegean Sea, media reported.

The governments in Sofia, Athens and Moscow have decided to sign by the end of the year an agreement for the construction of the Bourgas-Alexandroupolis oil pipeline, Bulgaria`s SNA Sofia News Agency said Monday.

Using the pipeline, Russian oil would be transported across the Black Sea to Bulgaria`s port of Bourgas and via the pipeline to the Greek Aegean port of Alexandroupolis.

This is the shortest way to bring Russian oil directly to the Mediterranean Sea.
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