The boss of GB Energy has told Sky News it could take 20 years to deliver a Labour government pledge of 1,000 jobs for Aberdeen.
Sir Keir Starmer promised voters his flagship green initiative, which will be headquartered in the northeast of Scotland, would cut consumer energy bills by as much as £300.
It is one of Labour’s five key missions for this parliament after a manifesto commitment to “save families hundreds of pounds on their bills, not just in the short term, but for good”.
In his first broadcast interview, Juergen Maier, appointed by Downing Street as GB Energy’s start-up chairman, suggested this was a “very long-term project” spanning decades and repeatedly refused to say when household prices would be slashed.
“I know that you are asking me for a date as to when I can bring that, but GB Energy has only just been brought into creation and we will bring energy bills down,” Mr Maier said.
The state-owned company will not supply power to homes but it will invest in new renewable projects while attempting to attract private investors.
Image: Aberdeen’s harbour
Aberdeen HQ ‘nervous’
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Labour hopes GB Energy will help workers move from oil and gas and has pledged 1,000 jobs for Aberdeen, where the initiative will be based.
Aberdeen and Grampian Chamber of Commerce told Sky News the estimated 50,000 local people currently employed in the industry are “nervous”.
Chief executive Russell Borthwick said: “I think the [GB Energy] ambition is good. It needs some quick wins.
“Right now, this city is nervous. We need to give the industry more confidence that things are going to start moving more quickly.
“What we do have is not a great deal of progress. We’ve had a lot of positive meetings with GB Energy. I think we are really looking over the next six months for that to be delivered on.”
Image: BG Energy’s Aberdeen HQ
1,000 jobs in 20 years? ‘Absolutely’
It comes after Energy Minister Michael Shanks MP recently said the UK government had “not moved away” from an ambition of creating “over 1,000 jobs”.
Sky News pushed Mr Maier for clarity on this pledge given the looming crisis in the North Sea industry.
He said: “Great British Energy itself is going to create over the next five years, 200 or 300 jobs in Aberdeen. That will be the size of our team. I have said in the very long term when we become a major energy champion it may be many more than that.”
Pressed to define “long term”, he replied: “Look, we grow these companies. Energy companies grow over 10 or 20 years, and we are going to be around in 20 years.”
He said “absolutely” when asked directly if it could take two decades to fulfil the commitment of 1,000 jobs.
‘Huge risk of not delivering’
Unions told Sky News there is a risk of GB Energy over-promising and under-delivering.
Unite’s Scottish Secretary Derek Thomson said: “If you look at how many jobs are going to go in the northeast, if GB energy does not pick up the pace and start to move workers in there and start to create proper green jobs, then I’m afraid we could be looking at a desolation of the northeast.”
Prospect, which represents more than 22,000 workers across the energy industry, said the current vision seems risky.
Richard Hardy, Scotland secretary, said: “I don’t want to be accused of cynicism, but I do want to see a plan.
“If what happens is that it only creates 200 or 300 jobs, then I think most people would see that as being a failure. There is a huge risk for them in not actually delivering.
“They must understand the political risk they are taking in doing this. It has to be a success for them because otherwise it is going to be a stick to beat them with.”
Sanjeev Gupta, the metals tycoon whose main British business was forced into compulsory liquidation last week, is facing a deepening probe by Australian regulators into his operations in the country.
Sky News has learnt that officials from the Australian Securities & Investment Commission (ASIC) last week served Mr Gupta’s Liberty Steel group with a new demand for information about its activities.
Sources said the regulator had also taken possession of a mobile phone belonging to Mr Gupta as part of the probe.
One insider said that other senior executives at the company may also have had electronic devices confiscated, although the accuracy of this claim could not be verified on Thursday morning.
Both ASIC and a spokesman for Mr Gupta’s GFG conglomerate refused to comment on the suggestion that a search warrant had been produced by the watchdog.
ASIC’s deepening investigation comes a month after it said that three of GFG Alliance’s companies had been ordered by the Supreme Court of New South Wales to lodge outstanding annual reports with it.
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It is the latest headache to hit Mr Gupta, whose companies remain under investigation by the Serious Fraud Office in the UK.
Last week, the Official Receiver took control of Speciality Steels UK following a winding-up petition from creditors led by Greensill Capital, the collapsed finance firm.
Mr Gupta remains intent on buying SSUK back, and has assembled financing from BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, Sky News revealed last week.
SSUK employs nearly 1,500 people at steel plants in South Yorkshire, and makes highly engineered steel products for use in sectors such as aerospace, automotive and oil and gas.
“[Gupta Family Group] will now continue to advance its bid for the business in collaboration with prospective debt and equity partners and will present its plan to the official receiver,” Jeffrey Kabel, chief transformation officer, at Liberty Steel, said after SSUK’s collapse.
“GFG continues to believe it has the ideas, management expertise and commitment to lead SSUK into the future and attract major investment.”
“The plan that GFG presented to the court would have secured new investment in the UK steel industry, protecting jobs and establishing a sustainable operational platform under a new governance structure with independent oversight,” Mr Kabel added.
“Instead, liquidation will now impose prolonged uncertainty and significant costs on UK taxpayers for settlements and related expenses, despite the availability of a commercial solution.”
Mr Gupta wants to hand control of SSUK to his family in a bid to alleviate concerns about his influence.
One source close to the situation claimed that the ownership structure devised by Mr Gupta would be independent, ring-fenced from him and have “robust standards of governance”.
Behind Tata Steel and British Steel, SSUK is the third-largest steel producer in the country.
Other parts of Mr Gupta’s empire have been showing signs of financial stress for years.
Mr Gupta is said to have explored whether he could persuade the government to step in and support SSUK using the legislation enacted to take control of British Steel’s operations.
His overtures were dismissed by Whitehall officials.
He had previously sought government aid during the pandemic but that plea was also rejected by ministers.
The world’s most valuable company, and first to be valued at $4trn (£2.9trn), beat market expectations in keenly anticipated financial results.
Microchip maker Nvidia recorded revenues of $46.7bn (£34.6bn) in just three months up to July, latest financial data from the company showed, slightly better than Wall Street observers had expected.
The company’s performance is seen as a bellwether for artificial intelligence (AI) demand, with investors paying close attention to see whether the hype is overblown or if significant investment will pay off.
Originally a creator of gaming graphics hardware, Nvidia’s chips help power AI capability – and the UK’s most powerful supercomputer.
Nvidia’s graphics processors underpin products such as ChatGPT from OpenAI and Gemini from Google.
Other tech giants – Microsoft, Meta and Amazon – make up Nvidia’s biggest customers and are paying large sums to embed AI into their products.
Why does it matter?
Nvidia has been central to the boom in AI development and the surge in tech stock valuations, which has seen stock markets reach record highs.
It represents about 8% of the value of the US S&P 500 stock market index of companies relied on to be stable and profitable.
Strong results will continue to fuel record highs in the market. Conversely, results that fail to live up to the hype could trigger a market tumble.
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Nvidia itself saw its share price rise more than 40% over the past year. Its value impacts anyone with cash in the US stock market, such as pension funds.
The S&P 500 rose 14% over the past year, and the tech-company-heavy NASDAQ gained 21%, largely thanks to Nvidia.
As such, its earnings can move markets as much as major economic or monetary policy announcements, like an interest rate decision.
Image: Sir Keir Starmer with NVIDIA chief Huang at London Tech Week. Pic: AP
What next?
Revenue rises are forecast to continue to rise as Nvidia said it expected a rise to roughly $54bn (£40bn) in the next three months, more than the $53.14bn (£39.3bn) anticipated by analysts.
This excludes any potential shipments to China as export of Nvidia’s H20 chip, designed with the Biden administration’s export crackdown on advanced AI powering chips in mind, had been banned under US national security grounds.
But in recent weeks, Nvidia and another chipmaker, AMD, reached an unprecedented agreement to pay the Trump administration a 15% portion of China sales in return for export licences to send chips to China.
There were no H20 sales at all to China in the second quarter of the year, the period for which results were released on Wednesday evening.
Previously, 13% of Nvidia’s revenue came from China, with nearly 50% coming from the US.
Market reaction
Despite the expectation-beating results, Nvidia shares were down in after-hours trading, as the massive revenue rises previously booked by the company were not repeated in the latest quarter.
Compared to a year ago, revenues rose 56% and 6% compared to the three months up to April.
The absence of Chinese sales in forecasts appeared to disappoint.
Ryanair staff are to get more money for spotting and charging for oversized baggage, the company’s chief executive has said.
Michael O’Leary said he made “absolutely no apology” for catching people who are “scamming the system”.
The reward for intercepting passengers travelling with bags larger than permitted will increase from €1.50 (£1.29) to €2.50 (£2.15) per bag in November, and the monthly €80 (£68.95) payment cap will be scrapped, Mr O’Leary said.
At present, the budget airline allows travellers a free 40cm x 30cm x 20cm bag, which can fit under the seat in front, and charges for further luggage up to 55cm x 40cm x 20cm in size.
Customers face fines of up to £75 for an oversized item if it is brought to the boarding gate.
“I make absolutely no apology for it whatsoever”, Mr O’Leary said.
“I am still mystified by the number of people with rucksacks who still think they’re going to get through the gate and we won’t notice the rucksack”, he added.
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Around 200,000 passengers per year are charged bag fees at airport gates.
“We have more work to do to get rid of them”, Mr O’Leary said.
“We are running a very efficient, very affordable, very low-cost airline, and we’re not letting anybody get in the way.”
The airline does not support a European Union proposal to ensure customers get a free cabin bag, he said.
Air fares
After a 7% fall in air fares for the year to 31 March, Mr O’Leary said he expected ticket prices to go back up this financial year.
“We expect to get most of last year’s 7% decline, but not all,” he told reporters in a news conference.
“We have sold about 70% of our September seats, but we have another 30% to sell, and it’s those last fares, what people pay for all those last-minute bookings through the remainder of September, that will ultimately determine what average airfares are.”