|
Emily Gosden, The Times
There is widespread media speculation about what the US’s air strikes on Iran over the weekend could mean for global oil and gas prices. The Times says: “Oil prices will surge above $100 a barrel if Iran blocks the world’s most important crude shipping route in retaliation for America bombing its nuclear sites, analysts believe. Iran’s parliament voted on Sunday to close the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial chokepoint through which tankers carry about a fifth of global oil supplies…David Fyfe, chief economist at Argus Media, has said that closure of the strait could send prices to between $100 and $150 a barrel. The Arab oil embargo of 1973-74 led to prices roughly quadrupling, from about $3 to almost $12 a barrel.” BBC News says: “US secretary of state Marco Rubio has called on China to prevent Iran from closing the Strait of Hormuz…Any disruption to the supply of oil would have profound consequences for the economy. China in particular is the world's largest buyer of Iranian oil and has a close relationship with Tehran.” Reuters covers an “investor note” issued by Goldman Sachs yesterday: “The bank estimated Brent crude could briefly peak at $110 per barrel if oil flows through the critical waterway were halved for a month and remained down by 10% for the following 11 months. Prices would then moderate, with Brent averaging around $95 per barrel in the fourth quarter of 2025, it said in a note.”
The Washington Post explains: “Analysts caution…that Iran is unlikely to deliver on the threat and note that the nation has vowed to close the strait in the past and never successfully done so. Most of the oil that goes through the strait is delivered to Asia, and Iran is wary of alienating its ally China, in particular. Iran may also lack the firepower to successfully block the strait.” Clyde Russell, Reuters’ Asia commodities and energy columnist, writes: “Thermal coal may end up as a major beneficiary of escalating hostilities in the Middle East, as the fuel used to generate electricity becomes cheaper than one of its main competitors liquefied natural gas (LNG)…Even at the current level, LNG is no longer competitive against thermal coal in the two major markets where fuel-switching can occur, Japan and South Korea.” Bloomberg carries an article under the headline: “China’s record oil stockpile offers buffer as Iran crisis builds.” The Financial Times publishes an article under the headline: “China’s bet on Iranian oil and Middle East influence turns sour.”
Todd Richmond, The Associated Press
“Tens of millions of people across the midwest and east [of the US] endured dangerously hot temperatures again on Sunday as a sprawling June heat wave that gripped much of the US was expected to last well into this week”, reports the Associated Press. The newswire adds: “Most of the northeastern quadrant of the country from Minnesota to Maine was under some type of heat advisory. So were parts of Arkansas, Tennessee, Louisiana and Mississippi, the National Weather Service said. Weather service offices throughout the region warned of sweltering and sometimes life-threatening conditions through to Wednesday.” The Wall Street Journal says that “nearly 200 million people” have been “blanketed” with extreme heat as a “phenomenon known as a heat dome traps the sweltering air”. The New York Times describes it as a “relentless and intensifying heatwave”. It quotes the city’s Emergency Management which said on social media on Saturday: “This is the deadliest weather threat we face in New York City – treat it that way. Don’t wait until you feel sick. Heat builds. It compounds. It kills quietly.” Bloomberg notes that “PJM Interconnection, which serves about 20% of Americans in the mid-Atlantic to the midwest, [has] declared an energy emergency alert with power demand expected to climb to a 14-year high amid intense heat.”
Meanwhile, in other US news, the New York Times reports that scientists are warning that the Republican plan to repeal Joe Biden’s clean-energy tax credits “will mean a hotter planet”. Politico has an article headlined: “Decoding the megabill’s threat to clean energy.” The article begins: “The fate of hundreds of clean energy projects hangs in the balance as House and Senate lawmakers negotiate just how far they are willing to go to bulldoze Biden-era tax credits ahead of a self-imposed 4 July deadline.”
Joe Cash and Liz Lee, Reuters
China has issued the most severe “red” flood alerts for the first time this year, following heavy rains, Reuters reports. The newswire adds that meteorologists attribute “heavy and sudden” rainfalls to climate change, which “increasingly pose major challenges for policymakers as they threaten to overwhelm ageing flood defences, displace millions and wreak havoc on China's $2.8tn agricultural sector”. State broadcaster CCTV reports that over the weekend floods “exceeding the warning level” have occurred in 27 rivers across provinces such as Guangxi, Yunnan and Guizhou. State news agency Xinhua says that Hunan province in central China has been struck by “torrential rains”, affecting more than 400,000 people. Bloomberg says the “heavy rains rolling though southwestern and central China are filling up the rivers and reservoirs that feed the country’s mighty dams, posing another threat to the coal market that competes with hydropower in electricity generation”. Meanwhile, China has issued 1tn yuan ($139bn) in special treasury bonds, funding 220 meteorological projects nationwide and boosting the “modernisation of weather monitoring, early warning and disaster response”, reports state broadcaster China Global Television Network (CGTN).
Elsewhere, industry news outlet BJX News reports that China’s electricity consumption in May reached 809,600 gigawatt-hours (GWh), a 4.4% year-on-year increase. State Grid News, managed by the State Grid Corporation of China, reports that China has now established a “full-cycle” management framework for the “green electricity certificate” (GEC) system, covering “issuance, trading, application and cancellation”, ensuring the “authority and uniqueness” of the GECs. Dialogue Earth has an article by Xu Nan, a zero-carbon and green finance consultant, discussing the future of China’s GECs as the prices of the certificates “surge”. Reuters reports that “China’s overseas shipments of rare-earth magnets halved in May from April, tumbling to their lowest levels in more than five years due to export curbs”.
In other China news, state-supporting newspaper Global Times reports that Wang Wentao, China’s commerce minister, has talked via video about the “EU's electric vehicles (EVs) anti-subsidy case, as well as export controls and market access issues” with EU commissioner for trade and economic security Maros Sefcovic. According to CGTN, Russian energy minister Sergey Tsivilev says that China-Russia cooperation “shapes a more balanced, multipolar energy future”. Finally, BBC News carries a feature under the headline: “How China made electric vehicles mainstream.”
Damian Carrington, The Guardian
Almost 600 people are “expected to die early in the heatwave roasting England and Wales, a rapid analysis has found”, says the Guardian, adding: “The surge in deaths would not be occurring without human-caused global heating, the scientists said, with temperatures boosted by 2C-4C by the pollution from fossil fuels…The 32C heat…endured by people in the south-east of England on Saturday will have been made 100 times more likely by the climate crisis”, according to a team of scientists from Imperial College London and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. The Financial Times has published a series of charts showing how “intense heat is affecting Britain”. The Daily Express carries a double-page spread in its print edition under the headline: “Why the UK is really having scorching 30C heatwave summer – and it's terrible news.” Meanwhile, the climate-sceptic Daily Telegraph runs a highly misleading headline claiming that heatwaves “will trigger [a] net-zero meltdown”. However, the article itself does not mention this quote at all.
Philip Aldrick, Bloomberg
Energy costs in the UK will be “cut for as many as 7,000 UK businesses as the government scraps green levies to level the playing field with foreign rivals and boost growth under its new 10-year industrial strategy”, reports Bloomberg. The outlet adds: “Big users of electricity like aerospace, automotive and chemicals firms will be exempted from several climate schemes from 2027 to reduce their bills by as much as 25% and protect 300,000 skilled jobs, the government said. Separately, heavy industries like steel, chemicals and glass will have their network charges, paid to maintain the grid, discounted by 90% from next year – up from 60% currently. This will help around 500 firms, according to a statement.” The Guardian says the measure is a “key plank of the long-awaited industrial strategy, a 10-year plan to boost sectors ranging from the creative industries to manufacturing”. The newspaper adds: “Energy costs are likely to remain significantly higher than in Germany and France, chiefly because UK electricity prices are linked to the cost of wholesale gas, which is a larger part of the British energy mix than on the continent. Key to the plan is the proposed linking of the UK’s emissions trading scheme with that of the EU, announced in May at a joint summit in London, though negotiations about the UK’s entry into that carbon market are still not concluded.” [See Carbon Brief’s factcheck: “Why expensive gas – not net-zero – is keeping UK electricity prices so high.”] The Times, Daily Telegraph and BBC News are among the other outlets covering the news. In the Financial Times, UK prime minister Kier Starmer sets out the government’s vision for its industrial strategy: “Technological advances in life sciences, clean energy, artificial intelligence and more are profoundly reshaping our economy. It’s a golden opportunity. We can harness these great forces and use them to make our economy both fairer and stronger.”
Meanwhile, in other UK news, the Times reports that the “number of green energy and utility sector projects attracting inward investment into Britain fell by 57% last year, according to a new analysis”. It adds: “The slump resulted in the UK losing its top spot to France as the leading European destination for foreign direct investment into utilities and energy supply, EY found.” The Guardian says that “Labour ministers have scrapped a promise by the previous government for a £950m fund for installing electric car chargers near motorways, instead setting aside a smaller sum mainly for on-street charging points. The Times says Boris Johnson’s “failed” scheme was “shunned by motorway services operators after pilots proved commercially unattractive and has been replaced by £400m initiative”.
Alan Healy, Irish Examiner
Ireland has ended its coal-fired power generation, “joining a growing group of European countries that have eliminated the fuel from their electricity mix”, reports the Irish Examiner. It adds: “The closure of Moneypoint’s coal operations makes Ireland Europe’s sixth country to exit coal as renewables continue to increase their share of power generation. The [915 megawatt] station in Co Clare will continue to operate, serving as a back-up role, burning oil under emergency instruction from EirGrid until 2029. Moneypoint is one of Ireland’s largest energy generation stations and was developed in the 1980s to mitigate against the then oil crisis.” The Irish Times says the country’s “exit from coal use is six months earlier than anticipated at the facility…and the move is part of the continuing transformation of Moneypoint into a renewable energy hub”. RTÉ says the plant will “use heavy oil for electricity generation in place of coal for the next four years”. Writing in the Irish Independent, Caroline O’Doherty says: “As [the] final crate of coal is hauled into [the] furnace at Moneypoint, [the] green transformation remains on hold. The West Clare power generator will be on back-up supply duty until 2029.”
|
