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Libya has Africa’s largest oil reserves but last year it was only the continent’s third-biggest producer. So the decision of Bahraini Islamic investment bank Gulf Finance House to invest $400 million of initial equity into an energy infrastructure project there is understandable. This is especially so given that the bank says it will not be surprised if the Libyan government’s Economic and Social Fund, which is advising on the project, makes a similar sized equity injection. Libya’s National Oil Company is seeking to increase oil production by 1 million barrels a day in the next four years, while doubling the country’s gas capacity.

As credit and equity markets crashed again in November, mounting problems in the US government bond markets went almost unnoticed. There are worrying signs that the treasury market itself, the last haven for risk-averse investors, is breaking down. Deliveries of treasuries failed at an all-time high of $2 trillion, and over periods lasting weeks, starting in October. Helen Avery reports.

Beleaguered Barclays, Delphic Deutsche, bank bonuses and preempting press releases.

Thierry Porte, the president of Tokyo’s Shinsei Bank, has resigned, taking responsibility for the bank’s poor results after it lost ¥19 billion ($198 million) between April and September this year. The loss caps a run of weak results for the bank over the past two years, and Porte’s exit marks the end of an era as the firm is returned to the leadership of its chairman, the 79-year-old Masamoto Yashiro.

It was off to Billingsgate in the City of London for the Icap Square Mile Sport Awards 2008 last night for a very enjoyable evening that raised a decent amount for charity. Somewhat predictably, Lewis Hamilton won the sportsperson of the year, but the event also applauded some proper athletes. On a personal note, I was very disappointed to get knocked by the Olympic double gold medallist who lives down in my neck of the woods. She declined to give me a lift home on the basis that she didn’t know me. However, she did it in such a polite manner, I really didn’t mind trudging back to London Bridge and getting the ‘vomit comet’, as the last train is colloquially known, back home.

FX volumes really dropped off this week. My sell side chums said it was mainly customers with a genuine need to trade that were doing anything. When orders do hit the market, price moves are exaggerated.

The days when corporates could blithely ignore their FX risk seem long gone.

I was surprised to see that the gold depo market has gone bid, at least at the front end, which in theory has eroded the negative cost of carry.

According to Danish news reports, Saxo Bank is considering taking advantage of the downturn in bank valuations and going on a bargain hunt. The reports suggest that Saxo is now ready to mature from being effectively an FX and securities trading platform to a bank in the sense that most of us understand. Danish daily Jyllands-Posten quoted Saxo director Henrik Vad as saying: “I can confirm that we are interested in becoming a more traditional bank with emphasis on savings and pensions. And it is true that we have talked to several different [banks] and demonstrated that Saxo Bank could be an alternative for those who may have an incentive to seek a strong partner.”

The re-rating of FX platforms has occurred and Icap is now trading on a higher multiple than the LSE.

The Norwegian government and Eksportfinans have announced a new facility that will provide long-term financing for the country’s export sector. The resort to the facility shows that the financial crisis, and access to capital, is becoming difficult even for some of the bond market’s most prestigious names – a situation likely to be exacerbated by the hundreds of billions of dollars of state-guaranteed bank debt issuance in the months to come.

When first the crisis broke, the USD strengthened, but there are good reasons to ask whether it was only a short-lived phenomenon, including the practice of "printing money".