this is business live from bbc news with alice baxter and sally bundock. price spike — markets see a huge surge in the price of oil after attacks at oil refineries in saudi live from london, that's our top story on monday the 16th of september. brent crude initially surged almost 20% following the attacks — and president trump has now authorised the release of strategic us oil reserves. also in the programme. industrial output in china grows at its weakest pace in more than 17 years — as it faces rising

tariffs from the us. and both those factors have meant european stocks start the week on the backfoot. and going meatless — we'll be talking to one firm taking advantage of the plant—based revolution. today we want to know if you thought you were being called into a redudancy meeting who would you take as your emotional support person? a man in new zealand chose a clown. let us know — just use the hashtag #bbcbizlive. hello and welcome to business live. global oil prices spiked to their highest level in four months after two drone attacks on saudi arabian

facilities on saturday. oil surged as much as 19% at one point, to $71 a barrel, after the attacks on the aramco facility. aramco is the world's biggest oil producer and one of the world's most profitable businesses. the attack is expected to hit around 5.7 million barrels a day — that's roughly half of saudi arabia's total oil production. prices eased back slightly after us president donald trump authorised the release of us reserves. brent crude is currently around $66 a barrel. aramco‘s affected facilities at khurais and abqaiq produce around 8% of the world's oil supply. let's talk to our asia business correspondent — karshma vaswani.

the fact this attack knocked almost 596 the fact this attack knocked almost 5% of global oil production offline really speaks to the vulnerability of the infrastructure at this incredibly important facility. yes. you have to ask yourself, and certainly many traders are and that's where you saw the price of oil on the asian markets are popping up oil on the asian markets are popping up as much as they did. a lot of people are asking themselves how vulnerable are these key pillars of energy infrastructure for the world? foran energy infrastructure for the world? for an attack like this to knock the market off—line, 5% of the world's energy supplies, with no real idea when we will see that oil production with team, saudi arabia hasn't been clear about that yet. all it has said is it can tap stockpiles to make up the shortage but we don't know for how long. that's what i'm hearing from analysts and traders. what they've said is if this is a

48—hour stoppage in production, we've got enough stockpiles to shore up we've got enough stockpiles to shore up supplies, then we should start to see the volatility in prices pairing off over the next couple of days. we've seen that in the last few hours, prices are now up about 8% but if this is a long—term thing, and this is something that we've got to price into the risk premium of oil prices, then it's a different picture. that phrase risk premium is something we are hearing a lot at the moment from traders. as you say, we've seen the prices going back slightly, we don't know what will happen in the long term but in terms of the reaction, we don't yet know about the reaction we might potentially see from saudi arabia, from the us. yes. what we heard from the us, president trump tweeting quite early on after the attack that the us could step in and will step

in to provide emergency reserves. but all of this again undermining the key fact that we are in this situation in the first place. just last week, oil traders were saying to me they were worried about demand because of the global economic slowdown, you know, the outlook for oil prices was actually quite bleak. now we are in a situation where shortage is the big concern. are we going to have enough supply? all of this coming at a time when the economy is slowing down. if these high prices continue, we don't know if that will happen, but if they do they could eventually translate into higher prices for consumers at the petrol pump and higher prices for companies which isn't great news when they are already paying more because of the us china trade war. thank you. let's talk about china. its latest

data is out today. china's industrial output continued to stutter in august — numbers just out show industrial output is growing at its weakest pace in more than 17 years. it comes as the us gets ready to impose new tariffs on chinese made goods. dr shirley yu is with me now. she's senior visiting fellow for the insititute of global affairs at the london school of economics. just tell us a bit more about today's data. what does it tell us about china? there is downward economic pressure but that is very much expected. i think the uncertainty of trade policy hurts the economy, especially the emerging economies including china, more than the actual trade policy itself. china has been using a combination of fiscal measures including exchange rate and depreciation to tackle a large chunk of the economic shocks that came from the trade war.

on top of $100 billion of infrastructure spending package, the ratio has gone down to a 12 year low and the exchange rate has gone down about 8%. if you look, it might be difficult for china to hit a 6% growth rate this year but even 5% are still significant momentum. both sides of this ongoing trade war are due to meet in washington soon, that is progress, what do you hope to come out of those talks? there has been some conciliatory moves re ce ntly been some conciliatory moves recently but that is because of the specific timing, octoberfirst recently but that is because of the specific timing, october first is when china celebrates the anniversary of the founding of the

people's republic of china. what is really meaningful is china's proposal to have a dual track approach to the negotiation. china is saying, let's had the trade subjects on one track on the other issues on the other tracks. over the past 40 years, china has been very successful at implementing a dual track approach to many issues i'd just unpack that further because when you say dual track,... you're saying, let's agree on trade now and parked on one side the more tricky issues, is that it? absolutely. and how has china done that in the past? the trade is imbalanced which is the easiest part of the puzzle. the more tricky issues are to do with huawei and manufacturing. over the past few years china has done dual track approach is to difficult issues.

market reform, let's reform a little bit and a little bit more. let's have hong kong macau back to china and in 50 years' time test out what is going to happen. these reforms are potentially going to bring the endless cycles of nuanced trade negotiations over a very long period of time. fascinating to talk to you, many thanks. let's take a look at some of the other stories making the news. a drug manufacturer accused of fuelling the opioid epidemic in the us — purdue pharma — has filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. the company has reportedly reached a tentative multi—billion dollar agreement in the us to settle a host of lawsuits against it. the firm is accused of helping fuel the us opioid crisis through drugs like the painkiller oxycontin.

borisjohnson is preparing to meet eu presidentjean—claude juncker for the first time later today. the uk prime minister is expected to reject any offer to delay brexit past the october 31st deadline, and indicate he will leave without a deal, if no deal can be reached by october 18th. the eu's chief brexit negotiator michel barnier will also attend the meeting in luxembourg. it's called the working lunch. about 49,000 general motors workers have gone out on strike after america's biggest car—maker failed to reach a pay and conditions deal with the united auto workers union. union leaders also said they weren't swayed by a gm offer to make new products at two of the four plants it had been planning to close. so, monday's markets have all eyes on the surging oil price. as you've been hearing, brent crude — that's the naturally, unrefined petroleum product that can then be refined to produce usable products like gasoline, diesel — it surged to four—month highs on monday after those weekend attacks in saudi arabia sparked supply fears,

while shares in asia extended losses on bleak economic data from china — industrial production grew at its weakest pace in 17 and a half years — sapped investors‘ appetite for riskier assets. the nikkei was closed on monday for a public holiday. in europe markets followed their asian counterparts lower. they are starting the week on a bit of the downward trend. let's go back to sally. i'm joined by chief investment officer at legal and general to talk through some of the keyissues general to talk through some of the key issues in the market today. how are you? i'm very well. there's a lot going on. to what extent are you

watching the spike in the price of oil? it was an expected reaction given what happened on saturday and the number of millions of barrels per day of oil not available to the markets today. absolutely. i think we need to assess how long this outage will last because at the end of the day that will determine the secondary impact particularly for oil importers. it is a negative supply shock but it's about the length of the supply shock to persist and determine. how worried are you? there seem to be two camps. those that are quite concerned and think it could be quite serious and basically say saudi arabia went do anything without the us, the us went to anything because they've got an election next year and don't want to get into another war with iran.|j think we have to be clear what we are looking at. one is the commodities impact. we've seen spike

in the oil price which is the backdrop of what we've been debating around the swelling global economy. we had seen oil higher in a 12 month period. it is a natural reaction right now but what you are referring to now is the geopolitical impact which is even more difficult to assess. it has to be placed in all the other events that are currently ongoing and is potentially too early to understand the real implication. sadly no time to talk to you about the federal reserve meeting coming up the federal reserve meeting coming up in the us but we've got to move on. we'll talk about it tomorrow and the next day and the next day. plenty of time. thank you, sonja laud. we'll be talking to one firm taking advantage of the plant based revolution. a leading british business group has warned that the current brexit

impasse in parliament is having a damaging effect on british firms. the british chambers of commerce cut its growth forecast for the uk and said investment will fall by 1.5% this year. ben thompson is at a malt loaf factory in manchester for us this morning. good morning. it's another day, another hairnet situation. welcome to the soreen malt loaf factory in manchester. this is a firm that is susceptible to all of that stuff. when we talk about imports and exports and worries over brexit. that is the crux of this. it's food and drink which is one of our biggest exports. but this firm doing really well, regardless of all the concern what they said is its about doing business better and coming up with better idea. let me introduce

you to the managing director. we we re you to the managing director. we were saying all these reports suggest there is concern, british chambers of commerce about investment and what happens to business ahead of brexit. you're pretty robust and have been investing heavily and are confident, why? i guess, because, as a traditional brand we have reinvented out traditional brand we have reinvented our company traditional brand we have reinvented ourcompany in traditional brand we have reinvented our company in terms of what we are trying to do. soreen and is now about being a healthy energy snack company and we've been able to discover new markets for the business. for example, a lot of people will know the big loaves of soreen. in 2012 we brought out a lunchbox life and it's really about healthy snacks for kids. this has got half the sugar of the average bar. it is now alice bestselling product. you been doing things differently, regardless of what else is happening outside, it's about changing what you have control of.

definitely. in targeting a new consumer, that has driven growth. we had to invest keep up with demand which has meant putting in a new high—speed wrapping set up because we are exporting lunchbox and now selling it to schoolchildren. nice to see you. they spent more than £1 million on this equipment, say they are confident about the future. nevertheless, a big worry for many businesses is the uncertainty of brexit. you're watching business live — our top story. global oil prices spiked to their highest level in four months after two drone attacks on saudi arabian facilities over the weekend. oil surged as much as 19% at one point, to $71 a barrel — but have since fallen back after president trump authorised the release of strategic us reserves.

of course, that's had a major impact on markets today. over in asia we saw a real slump. here in europe, most indices following their asian cou nterpa rts most indices following their asian counterparts and are lower. we're in the midst of a plant—based meat revolution. concerns about sustainability, animal welfare and our own health are driving a global shift towards meat substitutes. a study by nielsen found that global sales of plant—based meat products grew 20% in the year tojune 2018, reaching $3.3 billion. the market for alternative meat could reach $140 billion in the next ten years, according to barclays, grabbing a 10% share of the $1.4 trillion world meat market. this year's standout blockbuster us stock market listing has been beyond meat,

it's shares are up more than 600% from the debut in may. one uk company hoping to take on beyond meat and impossible foods is the meatless farm company, which launched in the us last month. morten toft bech is with us now. he's the founder of the meatless farm company. you have brought in some examples of your products which are on sale in the uk and various supermarkets. how did this all begin? it started three years ago with my wife complaining she lacked some sort of substitute for making a spaghetti bolognese that was fresh and acting the same way as meat, looked the same way as mincemeat and would kick and taste the same. i thought that might be a good idea. as a family we support the meet reduction theme. we know

that something needs to be done for the planet. was that your major motivation for going down the plant based foods line? two the real difference with the meatless farm co is our core mission is global reproduction. there is 1.4 billion cows reproduction. there is 1.4 billion cows in the world, 800,000 are sorted every day and we need to do something about it. you are a uk based company with a factory in nottingham and you've opened one recently in canada because you want to penetrate the us market. you are saying to us earlier that the uptake in the us is far greater for meatless products than in the uk. we are seeing sales of about three or four times higher are seeing sales of about three or fourtimes higher in are seeing sales of about three or four times higher in america on these type of products in america than in europe. it seems like the us consumer has got on board. how do

you know they are going to buy your products are not beyond meat? beyond meat is so well known now because of their stock market debut, the publicity, they've had a massive marketing campaign. your products will be next to theirs and i would imagine people will buy the.|j will be next to theirs and i would imagine people will buy the. i think consumers want choice and we provide another version of the product. at the end of the day, such a big market and a huge demand for this. the volumes of traditional beef products is enormous so there for if we take... we are about 2—3% of the market at the moment and when that grows there is massive potential for more. lots of eyes are on the us but whereas globally are you looking? but here we are looking at china. we believe there is a great potential in asia. we have already launched in the middle east, we are looking to mainland europe as well. what's it

like in terms of price? most people assume you would have to pay a premium. do you? is it vastly different? the meat industry has had 50 years to perfect mass production and has driven down through efficient animal agriculture the price of meat. it is a hard thing to get to but the goal is to have price parity with meat. we don't want price to be a reason for not eating a plant —based diet. price to be a reason for not eating a plant -based diet. how concerned are you about brexit on your supply chain and your general business? i'm concerned, i tried to focus more on the bigger picture of meet reduction and helping the planet but obviously i have to be realistic as a business in uk manufacturing that there are certain risk factors at the moment. we put procedures in place to

mitigate those risks but... but you can't stockpile, can you? it has a 14 day shelf life. that's correct. we can do certain things, we can freeze things. we have stockpiled ingredients instead so at least we aren't going to have a problem with supply. we'll keep an eye on you. something else you told us earlier is that banks have been in touch about whether you want to list on financial markets. they are very sexy right now these kind of companies. they are. we try to keep out companies. they are. we try to keep our feet on the ground and make a tasty product. thank you for coming in a moment we'll take a look through the business pages but first here's a quick reminder of how to get in touch with us. london, singapore, shanghai, new york. our correspondence have your business world covered, on air, online and on the bbc‘s news app.

check out bbc.com/business for their insight and analysis. the bbc‘s business live page has the latest breaking news. we want your views, too. get in touch via the business live pages, tweet us at bbc business or find us on facebook at bbc money. join the bbc‘s business conversation. what other business stories has the media been taking an interest in? sonja laud isjoining us again to discuss. one of the stories we spotted in the papers today was about thomas kick, this potential restructuring, potentially about to be bought out bya potentially about to be bought out by a chinese company. bring us up to speed on that. it has been reported a couple of times and i think there has been an additional twist. it's clear there is a group of hedge funds that have used credit default

swaps to get their stake in. they need 75% of bondholders to agree to the deal otherwise they might fail and that is the tricky bit, that is the balancing part. if they fail it is complicated, they have 22 million customers, they could be all over the world on holiday. absolutely. they have to prepared to potentially fly people back from their holiday. what i read over the weekend, it seems they get breathing space for another week before they then call the bondholder meeting to come to resolution. one more week but it is probably more complicated than we anticipated. lets move on to the guardian. this chap in new zealand gotan e—mail guardian. this chap in new zealand got an e—mail from guardian. this chap in new zealand got an e—mailfrom his bosses guardian. this chap in new zealand got an e—mail from his bosses which he felt was a bit ominous. he thought it might be about

redundancy. he knew he was entitled to an emotional support person so he chose, not a member of his family, but a clown. he hired a clown and took with it is incredibly interesting. on the one hand, i think having support during a meeting like this is incredibly important. you might decide what best supports you during difficult situations, although when you read the article it seems quite interesting that he tried to be a proper clown using balloon figures during the meeting. thank you very much for being with us. when i thought about it, i would take my smart employment lawyer sister with me. mike brown says, i wouldn't take anyone, the fakes making me redundant would need emotional support in the future, their loss is not mine! —— the people making the

redundant. another viewer said, i didn't know it was about redundancy until i sat down in the meeting. goodbye. good morning. a changeable weekend but temperatures getting up to 27 degrees. this week it won't be that warm but lots of dry weather around with a bit of rain across northern parts, some cooler nights but turning warmer by the time we get to saturday. today we've got a cold front moving southwards. it's quite a weak affair because it's in this area of high pressure. giving us some rain and drizzle across southern areas through today. some brighter skies and a bit of sunshine for north wales, northern england and a few bright skies in scotland and a few bright skies in scotland and northern ireland. temperatures are and northern ireland. temperatures a re lower and northern ireland. temperatures are lower than yesterday, especially across the south where temperatures

will be 20, maybe 21. 14—18 elsewhere. three tonight the cloud and patchy rain will tend to clear away. clear skies for many, there could be some patchy mist and fog into tuesday morning. quite chilly for many, temperatures into single figures. staying in double figures across the far south and south—west. during tuesday we are looking at dry weather with lots of sunshine on tuesday as well. more cloud into the far north—west later on. maximum temperature is fairly similar, about 14-18 temperature is fairly similar, about 14—18 for many. at about 20 in southern parts. high—pressure dominating throughout the week and a warm front in the north of scotland is going to bring more cloud and some rain. some of that cloud could drift into northern ireland and the far north of england. for much of southern england, wales, holding onto that sunshine into wednesday

afternoon. maximum temperatures once again getting into the mid to high teens. perhaps up to 20 in the south. into thursday, that weather system drifting to the north, higher pressure is still better across most parts on thursday. some light winds and again there could be patchy mist, a bit of fog. we may be chasing a bit of cloud around in northern parts of the uk into thursday afternoon but some brighter skies and a bit of sunshine developing here and there. maximum temperatures once again up to mid to high teens, 20—21dc. into saturday, many of those temperatures in the 20s to mid 20s. goodbye.

you're watching bbc news at 9 with me, carrie gracie. the headlines. borisjohnson meets the eu commission president later. the government says an agreement can be reached but if not, it insists it won't delay brexit. let's hope we have some more constructive talks. we've got the october council in sight on the 17th and 18th of october and there's a deal to be done but the eu have got to want it. the eu have got to move as well. oil prices surge after drone attacks on saudi arabian plants knocked out 5% of global supply. universities should be legally bound to provide mental health support to students, according to a former health minister. high—profile celebrities pledge not to publish abuse they receive on social media, after research suggests that publicising