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Japan's April crude-steel output drops 6.4% due to weak construction demand
The world's third-largest producer of crude steel, Japan, saw its output fall 6.4% from April 2012 to April 2013, due in part to a weakening construction market and a drop in exports. Shipments that are robust From top Chinese producer. The Japan Iron and Steel Federation reported that the output, which was not adjusted for season, fell to 6.6 millions metric tons after a slight increase the month before. The production also fell 8.4% from the previous month. Steel demand was sluggish because of delays in construction due to labor shortages and material costs. Meanwhile, the slumping overseas market, driven by China’s massive steel exports hurt overseas shipments, according to an analyst with the federation. The analyst added that it is too early to determine the impact of U.S. Tariffs. Nippon Steel closed a blast-furnace at its Kashima Plant, near Tokyo, late in March. JFE Steel (a division of JFE Holdings) plans to temporarily stop one of its furnaces in western Japan by mid-May. Tadashi Imai is the president of the Federation. You can also read about the warnings below. In March, U.S. steel and automobile tariffs could reduce Japan’s annual crude steel production by several millions tons to below 80,000,000 tons. (Reporting and editing by Louise Heavens, Yuka Obayashi)
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Portugal wants European regulators to lead Iberia's outage investigation
Portugal's acting energy minister said that it wants the European energy regulators, ACER, to conduct an independent investigation to determine the cause of the massive power outage which brought Spain and Portugal almost to a standstill in the last month. Maria da Graca Carvalho stated that Prime Minister Luis Montenegro wanted an independent investigation conducted by the European Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators in order to supplement the technical report prepared by the European Network of Transmission System Operators ENTSO-E. Carvalho, in response to questions, said that "ACER is a suitable entity for coordinating any external evaluation process. It could bring more transparency, impartiality, and confidence to the conclusions." In a written statement, the minister said that "there is no evidence at this time" to suggest that cyber attacks, human error or sabotage could have been the cause of the outage. Last week, Spain's Energy Minister said that a sudden loss of electricity generation at a Granada site, followed by outages in Badajoz, Seville and seconds later, caused the unprecedented blackout in Spain and Portugal. Iberia is behind the EU target of all countries having 15% of their energy systems interconnected with the wider European network by 2030. Iberia's contribution remains at only 3%. Carvalho stated that Portugal, despite the reasons for the blackout, was considering how to improve the resilience and security in the national electric system. This is a strategic imperative. (Reporting and editing by Andrei Khalip, Jan Harvey, and Sergio Goncalves)
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Investors on the alert ahead of Trump's "Big Beautiful" tax bill
Bond vigilantes scoured the global debt markets Thursday, keeping both the dollar and the stock market subdued, in advance of an important vote on Donald Trump's 'big beautiful' tax bill. After a disappointing 20-year U.S. bond sale on Tuesday, caution dominated Europe. This reinforced the "Sell America' narrative that was already on investors' mind after Moody's cut its triple A credit rating for United States last week. As global yield curves steepened, Germany's long term bond yields reached their highest level in two months. Figures showed that the British government borrowed more in April than was expected, and euro zone businesses unexpectedly returned to contraction. Stock markets in London and Paris were all down by more than 0.5%. Gold, a safe-haven asset, rose to its highest level in two weeks while bitcoin reached a record high. This was partly due to investors seeking alternatives to U.S.-based assets. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a non-partisan organization, estimates that the U.S. Bill, which extends Trump's tax cuts of 2017, as well as boosts military and other expenditures, will add $3.8 trillion to the U.S. national debt over the next decade. UBS economist Paul Donovan stated that while final details are yet to be determined, "the overall impact will push the U.S. along a path of rising debt". Bond investors are not happy. The 30-year Treasury bond yield, a proxy of super-long-term U.S. borrowing costs, reached 5,108%, the highest level since October 2023. And, for 20-year bonds, it hit 5,126%, the highest level since November 2023. Japan's bond market has also been a focus, given that it has the highest ratio of debt to GDP among major economies. The 30-year JGB's yield was hovering at 3.155%. This is not far off the record high of 3185% that was hit the previous session. After Wall Street's tepid auction of debt, stocks in Asia fell as well. MSCI's broadest Asia-Pacific share index outside Japan finished 0.6% lower while Japan's Nikkei dropped 0.8% due to a stronger yen. TRADE DEAL PROGRESS The oil price fell by more than 1% after a report that OPEC+ was discussing a production boost for July. This stoked fears that any possible jump in global supplies would exceed the growth of demand. Brent futures in Europe fell $1.05 or 1.62% to $63.86 per barrel, while U.S. West Texas intermediate crude fell 97 cents or 1.58% to $60.60. Investors have also been jittery due to the slow progress made in trade agreements. The Group of Seven will meet in Canada. There, the finance ministers will try to put a positive spin to discussions aimed at reaching an agreement on a communique that focuses mainly on non-tariff matters. Investors are also looking for any hint that currency markets might be included in trade negotiations. Thai and Japanese officials, however, said that currency markets did not feature in their discussions. (Additional reporting from Johann M Cherian, Singapore; editing by Gareth Jones).
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Gold prices up for a fourth day amid US debt worries
The gold price rose for a fourth consecutive session on Thursday. It reached a two-week-high as investors sought refuge in the metal of safety amid concerns about the U.S. government’s growing debt burden and its fiscal outlook. As of 0705 GMT spot gold rose 0.3% to $3,324.91 per ounce after reaching its highest level since the morning session. U.S. Gold Futures increased 0.4% to $3326.30. Investors are concerned about the US fiscal situation. "The rally in gold began last week following Moody's downgrade, and continued into this week as the decision was made to pay this large tax bill," Ole Hansen said, head of commodity strategies at Saxo Bank. The dollar is also weak. The gold price correction that has been attempted over the past few weeks or last month seems to have run its course. Moody's lowered the top sovereign credit rating of the United States by one notch, citing its growing debt pile of $36 trillion. The sale of U.S. Treasury Department bonds for 20 years, valued at $16 billion, was met with a lackluster demand by investors on Wednesday. This impacted the risk-taking attitude among Wall Street investors. Market participants are also concerned that the U.S. debt will increase by trillions of dollar if Congress passes Donald Trump's tax-cut proposal. During times of political or financial instability, gold is used to store value. Dollar index is near a two-week low. This makes bullion attractive to other currency holders. Trump's tax and spending bill passed a critical hurdle on Thursday. The House of Representatives voted along party lines in order to start a debate which should lead to an approval vote later that morning. Other than that, silver spot rose 0.3%, to $33.49 per ounce. Platinum rose 0.2%, to $1078.16, and palladium fell 0.7%, to $1030.28.
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Andy Home: US Aluminium smelters compete with Big Tech to get scarce power.
In the United States, it's been 45 years since anyone has built a primary aluminum smelter. Alumax opened the Mt Holly plant, in South Carolina, in 1980. The country now had 33 smelters with a combined capacity of nearly five million metric tonnes of aluminium per year. Six is the number today. Two have been completely curtailed. Mt Holly and two other plants are operating below capacity. The annual production has dropped to 700,000 tonnes. Emirates Global Aluminium is hoping to turn the tide in Oklahoma with a new facility. The new plant joins Century Aluminum which received federal funding from the Joe Biden Administration for a "green" low carbon smelter in the Ohio/Mississippi River Basin. Both projects are facing the same problem. The high power prices have killed most of the country's metal smelters, and the lack of affordable power has discouraged anyone from building a smelter since the turn of the century. The fact that tech companies are willing to pay anything for their data centres, which consume a lot of electricity, makes it difficult for any smelter projects to compete with them for power. No power, no metal Since ancient times, aluminium compounds have been used as dye fixers by the Egyptians and for pottery by the Persians. It wasn't until early in the 19th century, however, that someone figured out how to refine it into metal. Even then it was still a costly curiosity. In 1869, the global production of aluminium was only two tons and it was worth more than gold. Charles Martin Hall, in the United States, and Paul Heroult, in France, independently discovered a solution that involved electrolysing an intermediate product known as alumina. Hall-Heroult is the dominant process for producing metals that are ubiquitous in vehicles, buildings and consumer packaging. It also requires a large amount of power. According to the U.S. Aluminum Association, it takes 14,821 Kilowatt-hours to produce a ton aluminium. A smelter of modern size with an annual capacity of 750,000 tonnes requires more electricity than a city of the size of Boston. It's a huge challenge for primary aluminum producers in the United States, given that the Energy Information Administration has estimated the country to be facing a deficit of energy of 31 million megawatt hours by 2030 and 48 millions by 2035. ALUMINIUM VERSUS AI Matt Aboud is Senior Vice President for Strategy & Business Development, Century Aluminum. He says that the power to build a U.S. aluminum smelter is now available. He explained the problem at last week's CRU Aluminium Conference, held in London. It is that there is no fixed price for a long time, and a smelter would need that to secure its profitability, as well as pay off construction costs which will reach billions of dollars. According to the Aluminum Association, a new U.S. aluminum smelter needs a minimum of a 20-year contract for power at a cost not exceeding $40 per MWh in order to be financially viable. Every smelter is competing with Big Tech. They are both on the hunt for energy in order to power their next-generation artificially intelligent data centres. According to the Aluminum Association report released on rebuilding U.S. Supply Chain Resilience, tech companies are "not limited in what they will pay" for reliable 24/7 electricity. Microsoft reportedly paid Constellation Energy $115 per megawatt hour in order to restart Three Mile Island Nuclear Plant in Pennsylvania. It warned that even reactivating idle aluminium lines would be difficult, given that the average price of electricity in 2023 will be $73.42 per megawatt hour (MWh) for the four states where smelters are located. "WHERE the wind sweeps down the plain" EGA has not yet signed a deal to provide electricity for its 600,000-ton smelter project in Oklahoma. According to a Memorandum of Understanding, signed by the state governor Kevin Stitt, the final go-ahead depends on an agreement "power solution framework" based on a Special Rate Offer from Public Service Company of Oklahoma. According to the EIA, Oklahoma produces almost three times as much energy as it consumes. In 2023, natural gas will account for around half of the electricity generated in Oklahoma. Wind power will make up another 42%. Oklahoma is actually the third-largest wind power state, after Texas and Iowa. To run an aluminum smelter using intermittent wind power, it would require a large amount of grid storage, so gas would be a part of the energy mix. It's better than coal, but it isn't ideal for an industry that collectively tries to reduce its carbon footprint in order to produce "greener" aluminium. DO NOT CHANGE IT! Even if EGA is able to secure a long-term, viable power deal, it will take until the end of this decade for the project to produce its first hot metal. According to projections by the Aluminum Association, by then, 14 new remelt facilities would have been established, bringing the U.S. scrap aluminum demand to 6.5 millions tons. Recycling uses much less energy, usually around 5%, than it does to produce new metal. It also has a lower capital cost. The shortage of scrap is the main obstacle to growth in secondary production in the United States. Only 43% of beverage cans are recycled in the country. This equates to 800,000 tonnes of aluminum thrown away every year. Also, it exports large amounts of scrap aluminium. Exports will increase by 17% annually to 2.4 millions tons in 2024. Most of these are destined for China which is hungry for recyclable materials. To reduce import dependence of a metal classified by all U.S. government agencies as critical, capturing more recyclable material and sending less abroad is a complementary approach. This is also more cost-effective and faster than waiting to find out if EGA or Century will win the fight with Big Tech to get enough power for a new primary melter. These are the opinions of the columnist, who is also an author. Mark Potter edited this article
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Reliance, India's largest solar manufacturer, will start manufacturing modules this year.
Reliance Industries, owned by Indian billionaire MukeshAmbani, will begin production of solar photovoltaic panels this year. A company executive announced the news on Thursday. Partha P. Maitra, Reliance Industries' President of Strategy and Initiatives, said: "We are building three larger factories... to meet the clean energy needs." India is scrambling to reach its clean energy target after failing in 2022. Global Energy Monitor's report shows that the country has increased investments in this sector over the last year. However, it needs to double the capacity additions within the next five to reach its goal of 500 GW of non-fossil energy capacity by 2030. Maitra stated that Reliance plans to increase solar module production to 20 GW annually. He said that the factory's micro-power electronics and battery production will begin next year. If it happens, we will be No. The world's second largest solar PV manufacturer. The executive stated that we will be producing 14% of the total number of solar PV modules outside China. Reporting and writing by Nidhh Verma, Bengaluru; editing by Mrigank Dahniwala.
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Investor's letter: Vietnam cuts retroactively subsidies for solar and wind farms
According to a petition from investors, Vietnam's state-owned power utility has reduced the subsidised prices that it pays for electricity generated by solar and wind farms. These farms now face defaulting on their bank debts. The document was sent to Vietnam's highest authorities on May 16, and follows a letter from the majority of signatories in which they warned that billions of dollars were at risk due to retroactive changes made by Vietnamese authorities to subsidies, even though they were targeting a massive expansion of solar energy capacity. Documents show that, starting with invoices for January, a subsidiary EVN's Vietnam power utility "unilaterally" withheld a part of its payments. It did this by applying a tariff provisional of its own. The report added that "this has caused us breach our commitments to local and international banks, as well as to face the risk default due to monthly debt repayments and cash shortages." The 16 signatories include the private equity fund Dragon Capital and the Vietnamese subsidiary ACEN energy group of the Philippines, as well as investors from Thailand Portugal the Netherlands South Korea Singapore and China. The letter was also signed by dozens of Vietnamese projects. The Southeast Asian nation has seen a boom of renewable energy investments in recent years. This is due to generous feed-in-tariffs (FiTs) where the state agreed to buy electricity at inflated prices for a period of 20 years. Nevertheless, in response to allegations that FiTs were being abused and that EVN was losing money from the subsidy program, the authorities have frozen or reduced some subsidies. EVN did not immediately comment on the second complaint, but in recent weeks it said that preferential pricing could no longer be extended for projects that violated regulations. It was not specified whether the rules had been changed retroactively or which projects were in violation of regulations. Reporting by Francesco Guarascio, Editing by Hugh Lawson
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India's imports of finished steel fell 11.3% in April due to slow China and Japan shipments
India's steel imports in April fell by 11.3% on an annual basis to 0.5 millions metric tons, following a drop in shipments to India from China and Japan. India, which is the second largest crude steel producer in the world, imposed in April a temporary tariff of 12% on certain steel imports. This was locally known as "a safeguard duty" to stop a rush of cheap shipments, primarily from China. The shipments of finished steel from China in April fell by 26.5% to 0.1 metric tons. The data revealed that imports from Japan fell to 85,600 tons, a 60% drop from the previous year. Nitin Kbra, Director Sales and Marketing, Bhagyalaxmi Rollering Mill Pvt. Ltd., a Maharashtra based producer, said: "China's imports have definitely decreased." China's crude output of steel in April fell 7% compared to March. This was contrary to analysts' expectations, who expected a rise due largely to healthy profits and robust international exports. However, production remained high. Data shows that in April, South Korea exported the most finished steel to India. Imports reached 0.15 million metric tonnes, an increase of 2.4% over the previous year. The government reported that the price of India's hot-rolled coils "inched higher" in April due to the imposition the temporary tariff. The data also showed that finished steel imports to France and Germany experienced a sharp increase in April. The imports of finished steel from Germany increased by more than five-fold to 30,600 metric tonnes, while those imported from France increased by 10 times to 30300 metric tonnes. The data shows that India imports most of its plates from France and Germany. Plates are used primarily in heavy machinery manufacturing, construction and transportation. New Delhi was a net steel importer in April. The data revealed that finished steel exports fell by 25.7% to 0.4 millions metric tons in April. The data shows that Europe is the biggest destination for Indian steel. However, shipments to Belgium fell 6% year-on-year in April while exports of finished steel to Italy dropped 60.4%. India's April finished steel production was 12.4 million tons, and crude steel output at 12.9 millions tons.
US EPA to cut staff back to 1980s levels and dissolve the research office
As part of an overhaul of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the agency announced on Friday plans to cut its budget by $300,000,000 in fiscal year 2026. It also plans to reduce its staffing levels to those of 1980s and dissolve its Research and Development office. The reorganization will consolidate key offices and reflect President Donald Trump's executive order to reduce regulatory red tape, promote energy development, and cut down on bureaucracy.
In a press release, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin stated that the reorganization would bring needed efficiencies in incorporating science into rulemaking and sharply focus on our work to provide the cleanest air and water possible for our communities.
The agency has said that its staffing levels will drop to a level seen last in the 1980s when Ronald Reagan was president of the United States and the EPA was headed by an administrator critical of the agency. In 1984, there were just over 11,400 EPA staffers. By 2024, that number will rise to 15,100.
After weeks of speculation, Zeldin announced the cancellation of EPA grant money worth billions.
Major changes to the agency's structure include shifting scientific research from the Office of Research and Development to different program offices, such as a new office of applied science that would align research with the politically-appointed administrator's policy priorities.
Researchers at ORD had warned against dissolving ORD's research unit, arguing that it would undermine the scientific independence of the organization.
It said that the EPA would also raise issues such as cybersecurity, emergency response and water reuse and conservancy. (Reporting and editing by Leslie Adler, Ni Williams, and Valerie Volcovici)
(source: Reuters)