2025-06-03 20:22
HULL, England, June 3 (Reuters) - Britain’s next renewable energy auction must secure a record amount of new offshore wind capacity if the country is to meet its 2030 clean power targets, Darren Davidson, vice president of turbine maker Siemens Energy UK&I, told Reuters. The country has put offshore wind at the heart of its plans to decarbonise its electricity sector by 2030. It aims to boost capacity to 43-50 gigawatts (GW) by the end of the decade, from around 15 GW at present, although a government report in November said it would be a challenge to reach that goal. Sign up here. Britain holds annual auctions for renewable subsidies, offering a guaranteed minimum price for the electricity produced to help spur investment in new projects. Last year’s auction, AR6, offered 1.5 billion pounds ($2.03 billion) in funding, with just over 5 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind capacity winning contracts. "To keep on track with (clean power 2030) targets, we estimate AR7 will need to clear a record 6 GW of offshore wind capacity," Davidson said. The largest amount of offshore wind capacity awarded contracts in auctions to-date was 5.46 GW in AR3 in 2019. Davidson was talking at Siemens Gamesa’s turbine factory in Hull, northeast England, last week. Siemens Gamesa, which is Siemens Energy’s (ENR1n.DE) , opens new tab wind power business, has installed 10 GW of offshore wind turbines round the coast of Britain. The Hull factory opened in 2016 and employs over 1,400 people, with 600 new employees recruited over the past 12 months as the site more than doubled its manufacturing capacity. "The last five years have really proven that when we've got that visible pipeline of projects it allows us a greater ability to invest," Davidson said. It is currently manufacturing 300 blades, each one longer than a football pitch at 108 metres (354 ft) long, for 100 turbines at RWE’s Sofia wind farm off the coast of Britain. It will start producing blades for Scottish Power's East Anglia Three project this summer. ($1 = 0.7401 pounds) https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/britain-needs-record-offshore-wind-auction-meet-targets-says-siemens-energy-2025-06-03/
2025-06-03 20:19
Over 50 companies express interest in Alaska LNG project Project aims to reduce transit time and costs to Asian markets Final investment decision in pipeline expected by end of fourth quarter June 3 (Reuters) - Energy developer Glenfarne said on Tuesday that its unit, Glenfarne Alaska LNG, has completed the first round of its strategic partner selection process with over 50 companies that have formally expressed interest for over $115 billion of the contract value for the Alaska LNG project. If built, the Alaska LNG project will export up to 20 million metric tons per annum of the superchilled gas, according to the project document. Sign up here. It would open direct access for U.S.-made LNG to Asian markets without having to go through the Panama Canal or around the Horn of Africa, reducing transit time and costs. "Alaska LNG’s economic fundamentals allow it to deliver LNG into Asia at prices that are lower than Henry Hub pricing from the U.S. Gulf Coast," Glenfarne said in a press release. The U.S. is the world's largest exporter of LNG and could triple its export capacity by 2030 if ongoing projects and those expected to get the financial greenlight this year are successful. An associated 807-mile 42-inch pipeline is to be built and will be capable of transporting natural gas to meet both Alaska's domestic needs and supply the LNG export facility, the company said. Phase One is expected to deliver natural gas about 765 miles from the North Slope to the Anchorage region. Additionally, Phase Two will add nearly 42 miles of pipeline under the Cook Inlet to the Alaska LNG export facility in Nikiski, which will be constructed simultaneously with the LNG export facility. Glenfarne expects a final investment decision on the domestic portion of the Alaska LNG pipeline by the end of the fourth quarter this year. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/glenfarne-announces-over-115-billion-strategic-partner-interest-alaska-lng-2025-06-03/
2025-06-03 19:51
June 3 (Reuters) - Social media platform Reddit (RDDT.N) , opens new tab was back up after an outage that affected nearly 31,000 users on Tuesday, according to outage tracking website Downdetector.com. Reddit said on its status page that the incident had been resolved following an investigation into elevated errors. Sign up here. The outage affected 30,817 users at its peak, which came down to 529 users as of 3.31 p.m. ET, according to Downdetector, which collates status reports from various sources to track outages. The actual number of affected users could vary. Shares of Reddit were down 1.5%. https://www.reuters.com/business/reddit-down-thousands-users-globally-2025-06-03/
2025-06-03 19:49
Global automakers warn of production halts without China's critical minerals Executives and diplomats are scrambling to get meetings in Beijing Trump and Xi expected to talk this week amid trade war June 3 (Reuters) - Alarm over China's stranglehold on critical minerals grew on Tuesday as global automakers joined their U.S. counterparts to complain that restrictions by China on exports of rare earth alloys, mixtures and magnets could cause production delays and outages without a quick solution. German automakers became the latest to warn that China's export restrictions threaten to shut down production and rattle their local economies, following a similar complaint from an Indian EV maker last week. Sign up here. China's decision in April to suspend exports of a wide range of critical minerals and magnets has upended the supply chains central to automakers, aerospace manufacturers, semiconductor companies and military contractors around the world. The move underscores China's dominance of the critical mineral industry and is seen as leverage by China in its ongoing trade war with U.S. President Donald Trump. Trump has sought to redefine the trading relationship with the U.S.' top economic rival China by imposing steep tariffs on billions of dollars of imported goods in hopes of narrowing a wide trade deficit and bringing back lost manufacturing. Trump imposed tariffs as high as 145% against China only to scale them back after stock, bond and currency markets revolted over the sweeping nature of the levies. China has responded with its own tariffs and is leveraging its dominance in key supply chains to persuade Trump to back down. Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are expected to talk this week, White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Tuesday, and the export ban is expected to be high on the agenda. "I can assure you that the administration is actively monitoring China's compliance with the Geneva trade agreement," she said. "Our administration officials continue to be engaged in correspondence with their Chinese counterparts." Trump has previously signaled that China's slow pace of easing the critical mineral export ban represents a violation of the Geneva agreement. Shipments of the magnets, essential for assembling everything from cars and drones to robots and missiles, have been halted at many Chinese ports while license applications make their way through the Chinese regulatory system. The suspension has triggered anxiety in corporate boardrooms and nations' capitals - from Tokyo to Washington - as officials scrambled to identify limited alternative options amid fears that production of new automobiles and other items could grind to a halt by summer's end. "If the situation is not changed quickly, production delays and even production outages can no longer be ruled out," Hildegard Mueller, head of Germany's auto lobby, told Reuters on Tuesday. Frank Fannon, a minerals industry consultant and former U.S. assistant secretary of state for energy resources during Trump’s first term, said the global disruptions are not shocking to those paying attention. “I don’t think anyone should be surprised how this is playing out. We have a production challenge (in the U.S.) and we need to leverage our whole of government approach to secure resources and ramp up domestic capability as soon as possible. The time horizon to do this was yesterday,” Fannon. Diplomats, automakers and other executives from India, Japan and Europe were urgently seeking meetings with Beijing officials to push for faster approval of rare earth magnet exports, sources told Reuters, as shortages threatened to halt global supply chains. A business delegation from Japan will visit Beijing in early June to meet the Ministry of Commerce over the curbs and European diplomats from countries with big auto industries have also sought "emergency" meetings with Chinese officials in recent weeks, Reuters reported. India, where Bajaj Auto (BAJA.NS) , opens new tab warned that any further delays in securing the supply of rare earth magnets from China could "seriously impact" electric vehicle production, is organizing a trip for auto executives in the next two to three weeks. In May, the head of the trade group representing General Motors (GM.N) , opens new tab, Toyota (7203.T) , opens new tab, Volkswagen (VOWG.DE) , opens new tab, Hyundai (011760.KS) , opens new tab and other major automakers raised similar concerns in a letter to the Trump administration. "Without reliable access to these elements and magnets, automotive suppliers will be unable to produce critical automotive components, including automatic transmissions, throttle bodies, alternators, various motors, sensors, seat belts, speakers, lights, motors, power steering, and cameras," the Alliance for Automotive Innovation wrote in the letter. (Changes headline to 'curbs'; in paragraph 10 removes reference to new system) https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/global-alarms-rise-chinas-critical-mineral-export-ban-takes-hold-2025-06-03/
2025-06-03 18:03
June 3 (Reuters) - Chicago Federal Reserve President Austan Goolsbee on Tuesday said higher inflation from U.S. import tariffs could become evident quickly, but he said it would take longer to see a tariff-induced economic slowdown. With business CEOs signaling they plan to pass on to consumers some if not all of the increased costs from tariffs, higher prices could show up in inflation data in a month, or "certainly within a couple of months if it's going to affect prices in a significant way," Goolsbee said at an event held by the Corridor Business Journal in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Sign up here. If the higher costs then lead to an economic slowdown, "that one won't show up in the data for a while." Timing aside, President Donald Trump's trade policies are likely to push the economy in what Goolsbee called a "stagflationary direction," referring to a combination of stagnating economic growth and rising inflation. "Employment goes down, prices go up from tariffs, and there's not an automatic playbook of what does the central bank do if both sides get worse at the same time," Goolsbee said. Once the dust clears on tariff policy, if the economy looks like it did before the Trump administration announced a slew of bigger-than-expected tariffs on April 2, the short-term interest rates that the Fed controls can go "a fair bit below where they are today," Goolsbee said. "But with the uncertainty, I can't express that with too much confidence because who knows, if we wake up tomorrow and the tariffs are going back to 50% on the world, there is a lot of domestic production that is going to suffer and we have to figure out how to deal with that," he said. https://www.reuters.com/business/feds-goolsbee-says-tariffs-could-boost-inflation-quickly-take-longer-slow-2025-06-03/
2025-06-03 15:15
Stock pickers up 6% Tech stocks lift returns Health stocks weigh LONDON/HONG KONG/NEW YORK, July 11(Reuters) - Hedge fund returns climbed in June, as broader stock markets hit record highs and markets weathered turbulence around U.S. trade uncertainty, according to a Goldman Sachs report and sources familiar with the funds. Hedge fund stock pickers returned over 3% in June and are up over 6% for the year so far, while systematic hedge funds trading stocks saw performance declines for June of 0.68% but are still up 11.91% for the year, said the Goldman Sachs' prime brokerage note to sent to clients July 1. Sign up here. The S&P 500 (.SPX) , opens new tab and the Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC) , opens new tab ended June at record closing highs, while an index that tracks the dollar against major peers dropped (.DXY) , opens new tab. Some of the biggest multi-strategy funds posted positive returns, including Schonfeld Strategic Partners, with a 1.1% return for June that added a 6% result for the year, said a source familiar with the fund. Bridgewater Associates' main funds ended the first half of 2025 with gains, with the flagship Pure Alpha 18% volatility fund posting a 17% return in the first half. The $73.7 billion UK hedge fund Marshall Wace returned 0.38% in its Market Neutral TOPS fund, bringing its half-year performance to 11.23%. Its Eureka fund returned 5.35% in June and is up 4.47% for 2025 so far, said another source familiar with the fund's results. Tailwinds for stock pickers riding on rallying equity markets included technology firms as well as trading on market volatility. Losses stemmed from health care stocks, the Goldman data showed. Systematic stock traders had their first performance decline in eight months, Goldman's note added. Negative performance came from consumer discretionary stocks and getting stuck in crowded short positions. A short position expects an asset price to decline. https://www.reuters.com/markets/wealth/hedge-funds-lifted-by-stocks-stymied-by-bonds-may-say-sources-2025-06-03/
