Energy

Bloomberg With liquefied natural gas (LNG) prices reeling from the triple whammy of a mild winter, rising supply and China’s hobbled economy, Japan may be about to land another blow. Electricity consumption, the biggest outlet for LNG in the world’s top importer of the fuel, is expected to drop after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s shock announcement urging schools to shut ...

Bloomberg Tasmania will invest $33 million to build a renewable hydrogen industry, as the island state plots a course to commercial exports of the clean fuel by 2030. Australia’s smallest state seeks to benefit from its abundance of hydropower generation and the falling cost of large-scale production from renewables to make emissions-free hydrogen for export to Asia. Hydrogen projects are ...

Bloomberg The worst start to the year for Nordic electricity prices in more than a decade is delighting consumers, dividing central bankers and hurting utilities. Nordic futures have plunged by more than half this year, outpacing declines in everything from oil to US natural gas and agricultural commodities. The impact of that economic tailwind is likely to grow in the ...

Bloomberg Vietnam may scale back a plan to boost coal’s role in its power generation as financial restrictions and local environmental concerns make it more difficult to build plants. The National Steering Committee for Power Development has recommended eliminating about 15 gigawatts of planned new coal plants by 2025 due to slow progress and the unwillingness of some regions to ...

Bloomberg Sentiment in South Africa’s manufacturing industry fell to the lowest level in more than a decade in February as the prospect of continued power cuts and concern about the global economy weighed on confidence. That makes the recovery of an economy that the government estimates expanded at the slowest pace in 10 years in 2019 even more challenging. Absa ...

Bloomberg The coronavirus outbreak that has sent markets worldwide on a collective nosedive is forcing US oil and gas explorers already burning through borrowed cash and failing to deliver returns to the brink of distress. Drillers’ fall from grace has worsened as shareholders increasingly demand they shift their focus to generating cash flow, instead of increasing production at any costs. ...

Bloomberg The Trump administration is moving to sell drilling rights in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Interior Secretary David Bernhardt said. “We are about to finalise a leasing plan for that,” Bernhardt said at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland, without providing a more specific timetable. His declaration comes amid delays in standing up a sale — originally expected ...

Bloomberg South Africa’s Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd is making preparations for a 3,000-megawatt gas-fired plant, but the debt-stricken utility is still awaiting formal guidelines from the government before it can proceed with the project. The facility could alleviate a serious shortage of electricity led to a series of rolling blackouts, as the state-owned company has been forced to implement nationwide ...

Bloomberg Egypt, Ethiopia and mutual neighbour Sudan should conclude an agreement before the completion of Ethiopia’s disputed Nile dam, to prevent “significant harm to downstream countries,” US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said. “Final testing and filling should not take place without an agreement,” Mnuchin said in a statement on the Treasury Department’s website following the latest Washington meeting, which Ethiopia ...

Bloomberg Two pioneers of the US natural gas export industry were forced to sell shares of the company they founded amid a global market rout and concern that a key supply deal won’t be finalised. Tellurian Inc Chairman Charif Souki and Vice Chairman Martin Houston sold 4 million and 3.4 million shares respectively, according to filings. In both cases, the ...