Europe’s green ambitions could be hit as gas prices reach record highs

Published

3 years ago

September 26, 2021

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A woman on the bicycle rides pass the power station in Neurath, Germany.

NurPhoto | NurPhoto | Getty Images

LONDON — The European Union could struggle to advance its green agenda as gas prices soar across the bloc, according to experts who warn against slowing down investment into the sector.

The European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, has vowed to become carbon neutral by 2050, presenting a concrete plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55% from 1990 levels by the end of this decade.

However, these ambitions could be hit as a natural gas shortage on the continent drives prices higher. The front-month gas price at the Dutch TTF hub, a European benchmark, has risen more than 250% since the start of the year. It traded at about 74 euros ($87) a megawatt-hour on Tuesday — just shy of its record high of 79 euros it hit last week.

You can’t stop financing windmills for people’s bills.

Jacob Kirkegaard

senior fellow, German Marshall Fund of the United States

The recent spike is already having a tangible impact. Spain, for instance, has announced emergency measures to limit the profits that energy companies can make from gas alternatives, including renewables. The government is also hoping to cap what consumers are paying for their electricity.

“Soaring energy prices have hit economies across Europe, and if Madrid’s actions are imitated elsewhere as governments prioritize cheap energy over the green transition, the EU’s credibility in advancing global climate action could take a hit,” Henning Gloystein, director of energy at the consultancy firm Eurasia Group, said in a note Friday.

Spain is not the only country to cap energy price increases, with France and Greece making similar moves. But the plan in Spain has been the subject of some criticism.

Iberdrola, a Spanish energy firm with a focus on renewables, said the move “would undermine investor confidence in the country” at a time when the nation needs private money to achieve its climate ambitions.

Had we had the green deal five years earlier, we would not be in this position.

Frans Timmermans

EU Climate Chief

“The risk to climate policymaking lies perhaps mostly in a loss of credibility ahead of the global COP26 climate talks in Glasgow later this year,” Gloystein told CNBC via email.

“If wealthy countries in the EU are seen subsidizing energy for households that is in part supplied by fossil fuels, then the EU can hardly tell poorer countries to stop subsidizing household fuel consumption supplied by fossil fuels,” Gloystein added.

Meanwhile, Jacob Kirkegaard, senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States think tank, said he is not overly worried at this point, but that the ongoing energy crisis “makes it even more important that the Spanish government finds other sources of financing.”

“You can’t stop financing windmills for people’s bills,” he said, adding that countries should not ease their investments in greener energies.

The EU’s fault?

There is a wider problem, however: Some European leaders and lawmakers have blamed the EU for the energy price increases.

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, for instance, said earlier this month that “Polish power prices are tied to the EU’s climate policies,” according to Politico.

When asked if comments like these could hurt the EU’s green ambitions, Kirkegaard said: “There’s absolutely that risk because clearly the Polish government want to extract more money from the EU for the green transition.”

Vapor rises from the cooling towers of the Turow coal powered power plant, operated by PGE SA, in Bogatynia, Poland.

Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Poland said Monday that it will keep a coal mine running, even though the European Court of Justice ruled it should be shut down. Under the same ruling, Krakow has to pay a 500,000 euro fine for every day that it keeps the mine open.

The EU’s climate chief, Frans Timmermans, has insisted that the price increases are not the bloc’s fault. “Only about a fifth of the price increase can be attributed to CO2 prices rising,” he told the European Parliament earlier this month. “The others are simply about shortages in the market.”

“Had we had the green deal five years earlier, we would not be in this position because then we would have less dependency on fossil fuels and natural gas,” he added.

‘Fair green transition’

Kirkegaard said that “it is too early to tell” if the price rises are going to jeopardize the EU’s green ambitions. The biggest risk, in his opinion, is whether public support for a greener economy falls because it is perceived to be impacting on their bills.

The European Commission announced earlier this summer that there would be special funds allocated to support the most vulnerable parts of the population in this green transition. The question is whether that will suffice.

“This must be a fair green transition. This is why we proposed a new Social Climate Fund to tackle the energy poverty that already 34 million Europeans suffer from,” Ursula von der Leyen, president of the commission said at a speech last week.

Environment

Oil giant Saudi Aramco posts 15% drop in third-quarter profit but maintains dividend

Published

4 hours ago

November 5, 2024

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Oil giant Saudi Aramco posts 15% drop in third-quarter profit but maintains dividend

Saudi Aramco’s Ras Tanura oil refinery and oil terminal

Ahmed Jadallah | Reuters

Saudi state oil giant Aramco reported a 15.4% drop in net profit in the third-quarter on the back of “lower crude oil prices and weakening refining margins,” but maintained a 31.05 billion dividend.

The company reported net income of $27.56 billion in the July-September period, topping a company-provided estimate of $26.9 billion. The print is also a 5% drop from the previous quarter, which came in at $29.1 billion, as lower global oil prices, weaker demand and prolonged OPEC+ production cuts led by Saudi Arabia continue to impact crude prices.

The average selling price of oil for the second quarter of 2024 stood at $85 per barrel, but dropped to $78.7 per barrel during the third quarter, according to Saudi-based bank Al Rajhi capital, as non-OPEC supply volumes grew.

The oil firm said its year-on-year decline was partly offset by a “reduction in selling, administrative and general expenses primarily driven by a gain from derivative instruments, and a decrease in production royalties largely reflecting lower crude oil prices and a lower average effective royalty rate compared to the same quarter last year.”

Aramco’s dividend includes a base payout of $20.3 billion and an atypical performance-linked one of $10.8 billion. The Saudi government and the kingdom’s sovereign wealth vehicle, the Public Investment Fund, are the main beneficiaries of the dividend, holding stakes of roughly 81.5% and 16% in the company.

The remaining shareholding trades freely on Saudi Arabia’s Tadāwul stock exchange, with the company having finalized its second public share offering back in June.

Aramco’s earnings before Interest and Taxes (EBIT) came in at $51.45 billion in the third quarter, down 17% year-on-year. Aramco’s capital expenditure guidance was brought up 20% to $13.23 billion.

The company was trading at 27.45 riyals following the announcement, down 0.18% on the previous day.

The earnings align with a broader trend across oil majors, whose third-quarter profits have also suffered from declines in crude prices and refining margins. Aramco said it achieved average realized crude price of $79.3 per barrel in the third quarter, compared with $89.3 per barrel in the same period of last year.

Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest crude exporter who produces roughly 9 million barrels per day of crude at present, serves as the de facto leader of the OPEC+ oil producers’ alliance, a subset of whom agreed over the weekend to delay a planned December output hike by one month.

OPEC chief says delayed December output hike is 'nothing unusual'

“Aramco delivered robust net income and generated strong free cash flow during the third quarter, despite a lower oil price environment,” CEO Amin Nasser said in a statement. “We also progressed our upstream developments, strengthened our downstream value chain, and advanced our new energies program as we continue to invest through cycles.”

The revenues will be a boon to the Saudi economy, which is currently undergoing a diversification process under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s legacy Vision 2030 scheme spanning a slew of high-cost infrastructure “gigaprojects.”

Earlier this year, Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Finance cut the kingdom’s growth forecast to 0.8% in 2024, in a steep decline from a previous projection of 4.4%, and raised the outlook for the national budgetary shortfall to roughly 2.9% of GDP, from a prior indication of 1.9%.

Environment

Cybertruck backlog runs out, Model S gets stuck, GM hits a sales milestone

Published

10 hours ago

November 5, 2024

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Cybertruck backlog runs out, Model S gets stuck, GM hits a sales milestone

On today’s episode of Quick Charge, Tesla’s Cybertruck is now available in Canada – and, like in the US, there’s no waiting! Plus, we’ve got an “actually” smart summon Tesla that’s actually stuck, GM reaches a sales milestone, and we get a brand-new title sponsor!

Today’s episode is the first with our new title sponsor, BLUETTI – a leading provider of portable power stations, solar generators, and energy storage systems.

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Environment

This ‘supercharger on wheels’ brings fast charging to you [update]

Published

12 hours ago

November 4, 2024

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This 'supercharger on wheels' brings fast charging to you [update]

Mobile car care company Yoshi Mobility launched a DC fast charging EV mobile unit that it likens to “a supercharger on wheels.”

November 4, 2024 update: Yoshi Mobility will only be charging EVs on the side of the road now – it announced today that it’s selling its fleet fueling operation to EZFill Holdings (Nasdaq: EZFL).

It was originally founded as a direct-to-consumer, mobile fueling business in 2016, but now it’s going to focus on mobile EV charging, virtual vehicle inspections for partners like Uber and Turo, and onsite preventative maintenance.

Bryan Frist, Yoshi Mobility’s CEO & cofounder, said, “By spinning off our fuel business and focusing all of our energy on solving hair-on-fire problems that fleet owners face, we are meeting the changing needs of enterprise customers while making the future of transportation safer, cleaner, and more sustainable.”

May 22, 2024: Yoshi Mobility saw that its existing customers needed mobile EV charging in places where infrastructure has yet to be installed, so the Nashville-based company decided to bring the mountain to Moses.

“We recognized a demand among our customers for convenient daily charging, reliable private charging networks, and proper charging infrastructure to support their fleet vehicles as they transition to electric,” said Dan Hunter, Yoshi Mobility’s chief EV officer and cofounder.

The company says its 240 kW mobile DC fast charger, which can turn “any EV” into a mobile charging unit, is the first fully electric mobile charger available. It can provide multiple charges in a single trip but doesn’t detail how they charge the DC fast charger or who manufactured it. (I asked for more details, and they replied that they won’t disclose client names or the manufacturer of its DC fast charger yet.)

Yoshi is launching its mobile charger on two GM BrightDrop Zevo 600s and will introduce additional vehicles throughout 2024. It aims for full commercialization by Q1 2025. (I wonder if the Zevo 600 ever charges itself? Yes, I asked that too.)

Yoshi Mobility says it’s already deployed its EV charging solutions to service “major OEMs, autonomous vehicle companies, and rideshare operators” across the US. Its initial customers are made up of large EV operators managing “hundreds” of light-duty vehicles requiring up to 1 megawatt of energy per day that don’t yet have grid-connected EV chargers. I’ve asked Yoshi for details of who it’s working with, and will update if they share that info.

The company says pricing is based on location and enterprise charging needs. Once under contract for service, the service will be deployed to US-based customers within 10 days.

To date, Yoshi Mobility has raised more than $60 million, with investments from GM Ventures, Bridgestone, ExxonMobil, and Y-Combinator in Silicon Valley.

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