Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange September 18, 2012.

NEW YORK | Sun Oct 7, 2012 5:26am EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wall Street may be bracing for a pullback as U.S. earnings season begins next week - if the clouds of profit warnings from bellwethers ranging from FedEx to Hewlett-Packard lead to a downpour of lower profits - or even losses.

Thanks to aggressive stimulus plans from central banks around the world, the Standard & Poor's 500 index .SPX gained 5.8 percent over the third quarter. That sharp rally occurred even as companies were struggling. Earnings for that period are forecast to fall 2.4 percent from the year-ago quarter. If that happens, this would be the first earnings decline in three years, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Market strategists and investors say U.S. stock valuations are broadly out of sync with earnings estimates. They forecast a pullback in stocks in the coming weeks as more companies report results and reduce expectations for the fourth quarter and beyond.

Fourth-quarter estimates for S&P 500 companies show a 9.5 percent gain in profit from a year ago, according to Thomson Reuters data. Analysts say that outlook is too high, given what investors are already hearing from the corporate world.

"It's a divergence right now where the valuations as far as equity prices (are concerned) have soared, and are really putting in place a stronger economy and stronger fundamentals," said Alan Lancz, president of Alan B. Lancz & Associates Inc., an investment advisory firm in Toledo, Ohio.

"But earnings will be the telltale sign," Lancz added. "And if the guidance isn't particularly strong, the market might be setting itself up for a little disappointment. I don't see a major correction, but I do see a pullback."

The earnings season will kick off on Tuesday with results from Dow component Alcoa (AA.N) after the bell. Analysts expect Alcoa's third-quarter results to show it broke even, down from a profit of 15 cents per share a year earlier, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. [ID:nL1E8KQHC5]

JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N) and Wells Fargo (WFC.N), the first big financial names to report, are also on tap next week.

BLAME EUROPE

Nearly half of S&P 500 companies guiding lower for third- quarter earnings blamed weakness in Europe, according to a Thomson Reuters survey. Another 11 percent blamed the weak global economy, 8 percent cited strength in the U.S. dollar, and 6 percent cited the slowdown in China, the survey showed.

Weakness in the U.S. economy hasn't helped. The final read on U.S. second-quarter gross domestic product last month showed growth of just 1.3 percent, weaker than an expected 1.7 percent.

On Thursday, software maker Informatica Corp (INFA.O) issued a profit warning and said business conditions were worsening in Europe. The software company is considered a bellwether because its products are used alongside those made by larger software companies. [ID:nL3E8L44YO]

"Parts of Europe aren't just in recession, they're in depression," said Jeff Kleintop, chief market strategist at LPL Financial in Boston. "I think (analysts) underestimated the extent of the global slowdown, and maybe are still underestimating it."

TECH FEELS CHILL FROM CHINA

While estimates have come down sharply in all 10 S&P 500 sectors since the start of the year, technology is one area where the lower expectations are most notable. Slower growth in China is a big factor in that trend.

Earnings growth in the tech sector is expected to be just 2.3 percent for the quarter, compared with a July 1 forecast of 13.1 percent. Apple Inc (AAPL.O) is a big driver of those gains.

Technology's profit growth has been crucial for the S&P 500. Minus technology, S&P 500 earnings are expected to be down 3.4 percent.

The tech sector is where the slowdown in China's economy is having the biggest impact, Kleintop said.

"They consume a lot of U.S. technology products," he said.

Recent data shows that the pace of growth in China, the world's second-largest economy, may slow for a seventh quarter, straining earnings in the tech and materials sectors. [ID:nL1E8L4DUF]

Applied Materials Inc (AMAT.O) lowered its third-quarter estimates in August, citing China and Europe. On Wednesday, the chip gear maker said it planned to cut its global work force by 6 percent to 9 percent.

FedEx Corp (FDX.N), the world's second-largest package delivery company, cut its fiscal 2013 forecast on September 18, saying a weakening global economy gives its customers a reason to switch to less expensive and slower shipping options. FedEx said its earnings could drop as much as 6 percent for its fiscal 2013 year, which will end in May. [ID:nL1E8KI5V0]

On Wednesday, shares of Hewlett-Packard Co (HPQ.N) fell a whopping 13 percent to a nine-year low after it forecast a far steeper-than-expected drop in 2013 profit. The slide in HP's stock price sharply cut the Dow industrials' gains for the day. [ID:nL1E8L39JP]

The S&P 500 sectors showing the biggest projected earnings decline are materials, forecast down 24 percent, and energy, expected down 18.8 percent, Thomson Reuters data show, with those declines tied largely to the global slowdown.

In contrast, consumer discretionary stocks are expected to have the strongest profit growth for the quarter, with Thomson Reuters data showing a gain of 7.7 percent. But in that sector, too, companies, including apparel retailer Express Inc (EXPR.N) - not an S&P 500 component - have warned about the third quarter. [ID:nL3E8L26XS]

ANEMIC REVENUE OUTLOOK

With tepid revenue growth, U.S. companies have been topping Wall Street's earnings expectations in recent quarters through cost reductions. That path to beating profit forecasts, however, will become increasingly difficult as many companies have already made most of the obvious cuts.

"Forward expectations are just too high," said Barry Knapp, managing director of equity research at Barclays Capital in New York.

Revenue for the third quarter is expected to be down 0.1 percent from a year ago for S&P 500 companies, and down 0.4 percent minus Apple, Thomson Reuters corporate earnings research analyst Greg Harrison said.

In all, the negative-to-positive ratio for earnings forecasts is 4.3 to 1, the most negative since the third quarter of 2001, he said.

Tech and materials were also among sectors with the most negative outlooks for the quarter, with tech's negative-to-positive guidance at 5.4 to 1 and materials at 7 to 1.

Corporate America's concerns were exemplified by General Electric Co (GE.N) Chief Executive Jeff Immelt, who told a meeting of analysts and investors last week: "I think the United States is OK. Europe, we remained concerned about. Asia - our part of Asia, particularly China, is not that bad."

(Reporting by Caroline Valetkevitch; Additional reporting by Steve James and Chuck Mikolajczak in New York and Scott Malone in Boston; Editing by Tiffany Wu and Jan Paschal)

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1 of 3. CEO of Dow Jones, Lex Fenwick speaks during an interview in his New York offices July 20, 2012.

(Advisory: this article contains profanity in the fourth, 27th and 41st paragraphs.)

NEW YORK (Reuters) - He's tearing down walls. He's tossing out old business models. And he's dressing down people, publicly and profanely, in the once-buttoned-down halls of Dow Jones & Co., publisher of the august Wall Street Journal.

Lex Fenwick (pronounced FEN-nick), a long-time Bloomberg LP executive, is making his mark on Dow Jones, the News Corp subsidiary where he became chief executive officer earlier this year.

Fenwick quickly dismantled the offices in the executive suite, emulating the open-floor plan of his previous employer. He works from a desk in a corner of the seventh floor of News Corp's headquarters in midtown Manhattan, and his conversations - often expletive-laced - can be widely heard.

"This is not what I wanted! Are you a f---ing idiot?" one employee heard Fenwick screaming at a colleague not long ago. Others inside the company say they have often heard Fenwick yelling profanities and shouting at underlings.

Fenwick has been called a master salesman and business builder whose hard-charging style often runs roughshod over colleagues and subordinates. His makeover of Dow Jones comes at a crucial time for Rupert Murdoch's media empire as News Corp prepares to split off its global publishing assets from its entertainment businesses.

Murdoch needs Fenwick's shock treatment to succeed so that Dow Jones, with about $2 billion in annual revenue, can be the growth engine for the new publishing company, analysts said.

Most of News Corp's newspapers are grappling with industry-wide problems of declining readership and print advertising sales, plus the fallout from the hacking scandal at its British publications. One bright spot is Dow Jones' Wall Street Journal, the top U.S. newspaper by circulation, which also boasts one of publishing's most successful digital strategies.

For Dow Jones, Fenwick's arrival in February has been more of a jolt than when News Corp bought the company in 2007. The executives Murdoch brought in, including seasoned newspaperman Les Hinton as CEO, were seen as evolutionary and, mostly, respectful of colleagues.

Former Bloomberg colleagues say Fenwick, 53, has superb sales skills. During his seven years as chief executive at the financial information and news company, revenue doubled to $6 billion.

But the British executive is erratic - charming and smooth one minute but loud and belligerent the next, according to interviews with more than 20 people who have worked with him.

Fenwick's aggressive approach helped him rise to the top of Bloomberg, but also led to his downfall just a few years later, said these people, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Fenwick declined to be interviewed for this article and a spokeswoman for Dow Jones declined to comment.

In his first eight months at Dow Jones, Fenwick has swept aside several senior managers and replaced them with former Bloomberg colleagues. He plans to raise prices for Dow Jones Newswires and reduce discounts, a strategy that could backfire at a time when banks are under pressure to cut costs.

Fenwick also wants to transform the way Dow Jones sells its news and information to financial institutions by introducing a new Web-based platform for all its products before the end of the year, aiming to win market share from Bloomberg, Thomson Reuters Corp and other rivals.

As part of a stand-alone publishing company, Dow Jones will be critical. In the 2012 fiscal year ended June 30, Dow Jones contributed $180 million in earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization - that is 30 percent of EBITDA from News Corp's newspaper properties, estimated Gabelli & Co analyst Brett Harriss.

"If anything is going to have lasting power it's going to be something like Dow Jones where you have a niche audience, specialized reporting and the willingness of consumers to pay for the product," Harriss said.

News Corp has not said who will run the new publishing company. Media watchers view Dow Jones Editor-in-Chief Robert Thomson a long-time Murdoch confidante who currently reports to Fenwick, as one of the front runners. News Corp declined to comment.

It is unclear what role Fenwick will play in the new structure. In an interview last July, he spoke of some nervousness about joining Dow Jones after 25 years at Bloomberg.

"It's quite strange to only know one thing and to go to a different thing," he said then. "With trepidation you step into this thing and say you know this could be really scary."

A PAGE FROM BLOOMBERG

Fenwick started as one of Bloomberg's first sales employees in London in 1987, when the company was an upstart in European financial markets against Reuters. He eventually became head of European sales and turned the region into one of Bloomberg's best, at times even outperforming the United States.

He wears purple (yes, purple) suits from the Savile Row designer Ozwald Boateng. He also favors leather pants, pork pie hats atop his bald pate, a pierced ear and modern art.

At Bloomberg, Fenwick was fond of marketing antics and extravagant office parties. One infamous Christmas party in London was based on the Seven Deadly Sins. It featured drag queens, a huge bed covered in purple satin and entertainers waving cash and shouting "Money, ain't it gorgeous!"

"He's irascible, opinionated and can be incredibly demanding," said TheStreet Editor-in-Chief William Inman, who worked for 17 years at Bloomberg and used to run its publishing unit. "He trusts his instincts and 90 percent of the time he is dead-on right."

Still, many colleagues were surprised when Fenwick was promoted to chief executive in 2001 as founder Michael Bloomberg, now mayor of New York City, stepped down to focus on politics. The strength of the European division and Fenwick's creativity won him the job, say people with knowledge of the matter. Bloomberg LP declined to comment for this article.

As CEO, Fenwick ramped up what had already been put in place: a strong brand and first-rate customer support. His desk sat in the middle of customer service, and he ordered every new member of the sales staff to rotate through that department.

But he also ran into legal trouble. In 2007, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed a high-profile class action lawsuit that accused Michael Bloomberg, Fenwick and other top executives of discrimination against pregnant women.

One of the complaints alleged that Fenwick had instructed another executive to fire two women who were pregnant and said "I'm not having any pregnant bitches working for me." Bloomberg LP has denied the allegation.

U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska last year threw out the suit, saying there was insufficient evidence presented to show discrimination was the company's standard operating procedure, even if there were several isolated instances of discrimination. Some of the women are still pursuing individual claims.

Bloomberg insiders say Fenwick used fear as a tactic to motivate people.

"He would go into the office in his purple suit and stand there like a peacock and scream at people," said one former Bloomberg veteran. "He felt that he was keeping people off balance constantly... so they would look at things differently."

For his part, Fenwick has talked about the tough love he experienced from his parents. He once told a colleague that when he turned 21, his father gave him a one-way ticket to Australia to force the party-loving youth to learn to fend for himself. Fenwick wanted to refund the ticket and pocket the cash, but his father followed him to the airport to watch him board the plane.

Fenwick's take-no-prisoners attitude led him to butt heads with other Bloomberg executives and ultimately led to his downfall there, people with knowledge of the situation said.

By 2005, he was stripped of some major responsibilities though he held on to the CEO title until 2008, when he was demoted to lead Bloomberg Ventures.

REVAMPING DOW JONES

Fenwick began to explore other opportunities. His chance came when Hinton, a long-time Murdoch lieutenant, resigned as Dow Jones CEO in July 2011 at the height of the hacking scandal at the British newspapers, which Hinton had once overseen. In finding a successor, News Corp wanted to address the Newswires business since Murdoch had primarily focused on the Wall Street Journal.

A source close to the company said Fenwick is supposed to concentrate on the business and leave Thomson to run an autonomous newsroom. News Corp management knew Fenwick could be combustible, but felt he was worth the risk, the source said.

Fenwick brings new energy and drive to Dow Jones, his supporters say. They contend that the company had become too cautious.

"The history of Dow Jones is a series of opportunities lost," said Peter Appert, an analyst who covered the company when it was controlled by the Bancroft family and is currently with Piper Jaffray. "The hegemony of Dow Jones is significantly diminished in all parts of the financial information sector."

Fenwick has told employees he has Bloomberg and Thomson Reuters in his sights. He plans to create a Web-based platform to house all Dow Jones content, so he can better control the customer experience and be less dependent on third-party distributors like Bloomberg, Thomson Reuters, FactSet Research Systems Inc and International Data Corp.

He has also brought some of Bloomberg's focus on customer service to Dow Jones. He has shortened the customer service department's email response time to four hours from 24 hours. The company also plans to launch in November a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week online chat system to address customer issues.

VEXED COLLEAGUES

Fenwick has rattled Dow Jones employees used to a more genteel style.

In a meeting with dozens of Dow Jones sales people and senior managers last spring, Fenwick was asked if he would seek customer advice on his changes. "F--- the customer," Fenwick replied, adding that he only cared about Dow Jones, according to four people who heard, or heard about, the outburst.

And Fenwick has backpedaled over some decisions.

After a presentation about Factiva, a news database that draws upon roughly 35,000 sources, Fenwick was surprised to learn that a default search ranked stories by relevance and did not give prominence to Dow Jones content. He pressed for changes to make Dow Jones articles pop up first, but had to undo them after customers reacted badly.

Some Dow Jones employees have reached out to Murdoch and News Corp President Chase Carey to complain about Fenwick, said another source. It is not clear how Murdoch and his lieutenants viewed the complaints.

At least a dozen high-level executives at Dow Jones have left since Fenwick joined. Many others are discreetly looking for new jobs. Some insiders fear layoffs are in store, partly because Fenwick is expected to consolidate journalists from Dow Jones Newswires into one newsroom under the Wall Street Journal moniker.

Several Dow Jones clients said they were impressed with the new CEO. One senior banker said Fenwick was smart and direct, adding, "He is what they need over there." Other clients said they were concerned about his plans to raise prices, which could affect decisions to renew contracts.

Ultimately, Fenwick's ability to boost Dow Jones's bottom line will determine his success or failure. "I would love to tell you we are making so much money here that we could lose a few million," Fenwick said in the July interview with Reuters. "I can't really say that. We need every dollar."

(Additional reporting by Miranda Maxwell in Melbourne; Editing by Tiffany Wu and David Gregorio)

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Performers present a puppet show as part of 'Odd Man Out 2011' by artist Spartacus Chetwynd at Tate Britain in London October 1, 2012.

LONDON | Mon Oct 1, 2012 10:03pm EDT

LONDON (Reuters) - What do a nudist, an inflatable slide, an oracle and Barabbas have in common? They're all part of just one finalist's exhibition in the running for Britain's most controversial annual art prize.

Turner Prize finalist Spartacus Chetwynd's "Odd Man Out" show comprises two theatrical performances using poorly constructed homemade costumes and puppets with paper backdrops in a deliberate effort to shy away from "professional" art.

Chetwynd, who lives in a nudist colony and wore a false beard during her interview with the press, is one of four finalists given an exhibition at the Tate Britain museum in London and the chance to win the 25,000 pound ($40,600) Turner Prize live on Britain's Channel 4 television network on December 3.

Her installations will vie with film from Elizabeth Price, Paul Noble's painstaking graphite on paper drawings of the imaginary metropolis of "Nobson Newtown" and Luke Fowler's combination of mundane photographs and a 93-minute film on the life of a maverick Scottish psychiatrist.

Chetwynd's carnivalesque performances and sculptural installations are said to create an "atmosphere of joyful improvisation" in the notes describing the installation.

One show is in a makeshift room covered in giant sheets of paper decorated with pictures of parrots, snakes and people, where audience members are invited to individually prostrate themselves before a rag puppet "oracle" in the shape of a mandrake root held reverentially by men dressed in green.

Once prostrate, the oracle delivers its message saying things like "84 percent of people have more sense than you" or "you will lose your mobile phone" or "watch out for Dave".

"The show is meant to be celebrating political ineptitude, so it's not complaining about misrepresentation or the two-party voting system," Chetwynd told reporters after performing. "It's just saying 'Oh my God look at this, have a laugh at this or what about how about having a deity for a while.'"

Audience members move from that past an inflatable slide lying on its side to another installation of theatre, where hooded puppeteers dressed in childish clown-like costumes perform a play from a passage in the Bible where the Jews decide to have Barabbas released instead of Jesus.

SCOTTISH PSYCHIATRIST

Fowler's exhibit consists of photographs of people in everyday poses and a long film which follows the life and work of maverick Scottish psychiatrist RD Laing (1927-89), who believed that psychosis did not have anything to do with chemical imbalances in the brain and is caused by and fuelled by the social environment where one lives.

"He (Fowler) is confronting the viewer with this material and asks or encourages us to create our own interpretation or meaning of the subject," said curator Sofia Karamani.

Karamani, on a tour of the show, said Noble's creation of the painstakingly detailed Nobson Newtown began by accident with the creation of a font.

Drawings of graphite on paper in small and incredibly intimate details are built around one word at the centre of a piece, which fan out from infinitesimally small drawings, into bigger, more intricate figures, creating vast, dramatic almost lunar landscapes or precise architectural pictures.

"He (Noble) was saying the other day, when he started making constellations it was time to stop," Karamani told reporters.

Finally, Price presents her video installation "THE WOOLWORTHS CHOIR OF 1979 2012. Comprising three parts, the video brings together photographs of church architecture, internet clips of pop performances, and news footage of a notorious fire in a Woolworths furniture department in Manchester in 1979.

The film rises to a crescendo of images and sound climaxing with repeated images of girl pop bands and those of people who can only be witnesses of the fire, whose words are displayed in text while 1960s girl band music plays ever louder.

Members of the Turner Prize 2012 jury are Andrew Hunt, the director of the Focal Point Gallery in Southend-on-Sea, Heike Munder, the director of Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst in Zurich, Mark Sladen, the director of Kunsthal Charlottenborg in Copenhagen and Penelope Curtis, the director of Tate Britain and the chair of the jury. The fifth member of the jury, Michael Stanley, the director of Modern Art Oxford in Oxford, has died.

The Turner Prize awards British artists aged under 50 for an "outstanding exhibition or other presentation of their work in the twelve months preceding".

Established in 1984, it has thrived on public debate about what constitutes art, with critics in the past accusing winners of creating works designed purely to shock.

Favourite Martin Boyce won the Turner Prize last year with his distinctive sculptural installations, topping a shortlist of works that some critics said was one of the best in the Turner's then 27-year history.

Damien Hirst was presented with the prize in 1995 for a pickled cow, and in 2001 an empty room with a light that switched on and off clinched the prize for Martin Creed.

(Reporting by Paul Casciato; editing by Patricia Reaney)

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1 of 2. ''Snake Ceiling,'' by Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, is pictured at the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo in 2009, in this handout photograph obtained on October 2, 2012. The work is part of Ai's first major U.S. art exhibition scheduled for launch at Washington's Hirshhorn Museum on October 6, 2012. The show, ''Ai Weiwei: According to What?'', groups sculpture, photography, video, audio and installation work.

WASHINGTON | Tue Oct 2, 2012 4:50pm EDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - China's most famous political dissident, Ai Weiwei, launches his first major U.S. art exhibition on Sunday with some unflinchingly political works, including an image of his brain bleeding from a police beating.

The show, "Ai Weiwei: According to What?" at Washington's Hirshhorn Museum groups sculpture, photography, video, audio and installation work.

The choice of the Hirshhorn on the National Mall reflects Ai's desire to connect with political leaders, hundreds of foreign diplomats and the network of think tanks in the U.S. capital, museum director Richard Koshalek told reporters.

Ai said in a statement: "This exhibition has been an opportunity to re-examine past work and communicate with audiences from afar. I see it as a stream of activities rather than a fixed entity."

Ai's 81-day detention last year sparked an international outcry. Activists see authorities' tax evasion case against him as an attempt to muzzle the artist over his criticism of the Chinese government.

The exhibition fills much of the ring-shaped museum with scores of Ai's works. It centers on such themes as the relationship between art, society and individual experience.

The works include dozens of ink jet prints of the construction of Beijing's 2008 Olympic Stadium, which he helped design, and "China Log," a 63-inch-high (1.61-metre-high) map of China made of ironwood taken from demolished temples.

Much of show is devoted to the deadly 2008 earthquake in Sichuan province and the thousands of schoolchildren who died when shoddily constructed buildings collapsed. Ai was among the dissidents who had challenged Chinese authorities to investigate the deaths.

The ghostlike magnetic resonance image of his bleeding brain, measuring 3.3 by 6.5 feet, he attributes to a 2009 police beating.

"Snake Ceiling" is a 295-foot (90-meter) sculpture of a twisting snake made from student backpacks and mounted on the museum's ceiling.

A wall-sized print shows the names of 5,000 students killed in the quake. They are recited on a three-hour, 41-minute voice recording nearby.

Ai, 55, who is not allowed to leave China, was in frequent contact with organizers about how his works were displayed, curator Mami Kataoka said.

China is piling more pressure on Ai, with the artist saying on Tuesday that authorities have revoked the business license of the company that produces his art.

"Ai Weiwei: According to What?" runs at the Hirshhorn until February 24, 2013. It then travels to the Indianapolis Museum of Art, the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto, Miami's Perez Art Museum and the Brooklyn Museum in New York.

(Editing by Doina Chiacu)

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OTTAWA (Reuters) - Indian companies are lagging behind when it comes to investing in Canada's giant oil sands but could well start making deals within the next five years, Canadian Energy Minister Joe Oliver says.

Oliver, speaking to Reuters before a visit to Delhi and Mumbai, said Canadian energy industry needs C$650 billion ($663 billion) in investment over the next decade. Ottawa concedes much of it will have to come from abroad.

To some political consternation in Canada, China is rapidly buying up assets in the tar sands of northern Alberta, one of the world's biggest crude oil deposits. But India - the world's fourth largest oil importer - has yet to conclude a deal.

"I think they realize ... they are certainly behind others, and they acknowledge that," Oliver said.

"They are looking to Canada now with increasing interest. I can't predict what precisely they'll do, but I'd certainly be surprised that if in five years from now the picture didn't look quite a bit different."

Last month sources said a trio of state-run Indian oil companies had bid $5 billion for stakes in Canadian oil sands holdings owned by ConocoPhillips (COP.N).

The bid from the group, which comprises producers Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC.NS) and Oil India Ltd (OILI.NS) with refiner and retailer Indian Oil Corp (IOC.NS), is the first by Indian energy companies for assets in Canada.

Canada is now deciding whether to approve a $15.1 billion bid by Chinese state-owned CNOOC Ltd (0883.HK) for oil producer Nexen Inc (NXY.TO), which is active in the oil sands.

Some in Canada's governing Conservative Party are uneasy about allowing a Chinese state-owned enterprise to buy such assets.

Indian state companies are partly owned by an elected government in what is the world's most populous democracy, and this could help reduce Canadian hesitation about future deals.

Oliver said he would try to boost Canadian energy exports to India. The government, keen to reduce its export reliance on the United States, is already trying to boost oil sales to China.

Canada exported C$1.4 billion ($1.43 billion) worth of natural resources to India last year - including just C$4.1 million in energy products - and Oliver said he sees great potential for more trade.

"There is tremendous complimentarity between our two countries. We have these vast resources - oil, gas, minerals, metals and forestry - and India is growing ... there are immense opportunities," he said.

Oliver - noting that Saudi Arabia and Iran together supply 29 percent of India's oil - said major importers of crude generally want to diversify their sources of supply to include what he called reliable and stable countries.

But any talk of boosting Canadian oil exports to India will depend in part on how soon new pipelines are built from the Alberta oil sands to ports on the Pacific Coast.

Opposition to one of the proposed pipelines, Enbridge Inc's (ENB.TO) Northern Gateway project, is steadily growing and there are doubts as to whether it will ever be built.

($1=$0.98 Canadian)

(Reporting by David Ljunggren; Editing by Peter Galloway)

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IKANINI, South Africa | Sun Oct 7, 2012 8:42am EDT

IKANINI, South Africa (Reuters) - The rules of the game in South Africa's labour market have changed and the new players are workers such as Tshepo Modise and Thulani Soko, wildcat strikers at mining giant Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) (AMSJ.J).

They feel underpaid, stretched to the limit financially and betrayed by established unions they say are more concerned about ties with politicians and management than workers in the shafts.

But to a few global mining firms, they are part of an overpaid workforce breaking their contracts and in the crosshairs for sacking as costs are cut at marginal shafts in South Africa.

"We no longer want to sit at the table with unions. We've been sabotaged," said Modise, a 30-year-old machine operator at Ikanini, a slum settlement next to an Amplats mine 120 kilometers (75 miles) northwest of Johannesburg.

Since the end of apartheid in 1994, workers have won steady wage increases, but millions of jobless South Africans have missed out on the gains, becoming reliant on the state or relatives for help.

Income inequality in South Africa, already among the world's highest, has grown worse since the former liberation movement African National Congress took over after the end of white-minority rule.

Modise and his 33-year-old colleague Soko speak bitterly about living conditions in Ikanini, where there is no running water or electricity, compared with the prosperity of mine managers who live nearby.

The unrest has also led to job losses; Amplats on Friday sacked 12,000 wildcat strikers, and the next day Atlatsa Resources (ATL.V) dismissed some of the 2,500 workers who went on strike this week at its Bokoni platinum mine.

Each miner supports on average eight to 10 people, often living in abject poverty, according to industry data, so the sackings could cut off income to more than 100,000 people.

Strikers said at the weekend they would stay off the job to press the mining giant Amplats to take the workers back.

The head of the National Union of Mineworkers warned of renewed violence. The labour strife has already led to the death of 49 people since August, including 34 shot dead by police at Lonmin's Marikana platinum on August 16 - the worst security incident in ANC rule.

HELD FOR RANSOM

In terms of lost working days, the strikes this year are relatively mild, but the unrest is by far the most violent since the end of apartheid.

In 2011, 6.2 million working days were lost to strikes. The number so far this year is less than 2 million working days, according to the Andrew Levy Employment, a labour consultancy.

President Jacob Zuma's ruling ANC and its governing alliance partner, the COSATU labour federation, have kept a lid on strikes by pushing deals for incremental wage raises, thereby guaranteeing a steady labour supply.

The strikes are now beyond the control of the government and COSATU, as fed-up workers hold out for big pay rises, in some cases double or triple their salaries.

In one of the largest blows to the ANC-COSATU labour alliance forged in the struggle to end apartheid, wildcat strikers at Lonmin's Marikana mine reached a deal in September for yearly wage increases as high as 22 percent.

Within hours, workers at nearby platinum mines called for similar deals. In the days that followed, wildcat strikes hit sectors including gold, iron and car manufacturing.

"Marikana is the future of labour relations in South Africa," said Loane Sharp, a labour economist at staffing firm Adcorp.

"The labour strikes are so much more damaging and dangerous, but they still do not seem to be enough for government to learn the lesson that the labour market is in a shambles," he said.

JOB LOSSES

The strikes pushed the rand to 3-1/2 year lows last week and prompted Moody's last month to cut South Africa's government bond rating, citing the government's difficulty in keeping up with economic challenges and widening strikes.

"The South African government has not implemented the kinds of policies to deal with these structural pressures. They are boiling over to the loss of legitimacy for the main, post-apartheid institutions, including the unions and the ANC," said Mark Rosenberg, an Africa analyst at Eurasia Group.

To appease its allies in COSATU, whose 2 million members have been a powerful vote-gathering machine, the ANC has passed a raft of union-friendly labour laws that economists said have eroded competitiveness and driven up costs for employers.

As a result, South Africa ranks worst among 144 countries in terms of employer-labour relations and next to worst in terms of overpaying unproductive workers, according to the World Economic Forum's Global Competitiveness Report.

Nor is anything likely to change this year, with ANC leaders more preoccupied with an internal leadership election at the end of the year than the labour strife, which JP Morgan said is likely to put a dent in 2012 growth.

"South Africa is experiencing a perfect storm as weakening domestic demand coincides with large drags from strikes in mining, downward momentum in manufacturing and political news flow ahead of ANC elections at year-end," it said in a research note.

(Writing by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Will Waterman)

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