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German Pellets Plans Second U.S. Plant
German Pellets has announced plans to construct a 1 million-metric-ton pellet plant in the central Louisiana town of Urania. The facility is being developed at the former site of a Georgia Pacific fiber and particleboard plant that closed more than a decade ago. As such, much of the facility’s infrastructure is already in place, including railway siding. The pellet plant is expected to be operational next April. News of the new plant came as German Pellets prepared to open a 500,000-metric-ton pellet plant in Woodville, Texas. The company plans to export pellets manufactured at both plants to Europe. Shipping will be completed via the harbor of Port Arthur on the Gulf of Mexico, a deep-water port where the company operates storage and loading systems. German Pellets also operates 14 pellet plants throughout Germany and Austria. Continue reading
EU Urges Energy Market as U.S. Shale Gas Widens Price Gap (1)
European Union leaders are set to urge faster integration of the bloc’s power and natural-gas markets to lower energy prices as the U.S. shale-gas revolution widens the EU’s cost gap with its largest trading partner. The 27-nation EU must accelerate efforts to implement energy legislation aimed at breaking down national barriers by 2014 and develop interconnections to end the isolation of some member states from networks by 2015, according to a new draft of conclusions for a leaders’ summit in Brussels today. The summit initiative comes after a record drop in private investment in Europe and the biggest-ever slump in the EU carbon market, designed to cut pollution and stimulate a shift to cleaner fuels. “The EU’s energy policy must ensure security of supply for households and companies at affordable and competitive prices and costs, in a safe and sustainable manner,” according to the conclusions obtained by Bloomberg News. “This is particularly important for Europe’s competitiveness in the light of increasing energy demand from major economies and high energy prices and costs.” At stake is an EU campaign to win energy-policy authority from national officials that compares with existing European powers over monetary, antitrust, trade and agriculture matters. Some governments, including the U.K., are lagging behind in introducing rules in line with EU legislation more than two years after a deadline passed. Price Gap If the EU becomes a fully integrated market, it could save as much as 35 billion euros ($45 billion) a year in electricity costs in 2015 compared with 2012, according to the European Commission, the bloc’s regulatory arm. Shale-gas production has contributed to a widening gap between U.S. and EU industrial prices for energy, according to a commission report prepared for the summit. “In 2012, industry gas prices were more than four times lower in the U.S. than in Europe,” the report said. As the EU’s oil and gas import dependency is set to increase to more than 80 percent until 2035, the U.S. is on its way to become a net exporter, according to the International Energy Agency. The increase in European energy prices is linked to the inconsistency of EU policies to boost the share of renewable energy, increase energy efficiency and cut greenhouse gases, as well as to national policies that distort the internal market, according to a study commissioned by BusinessEurope, a Brussels-based employers’ federation. ‘Cost Burdens’ “The U.S. industry already has a head start on global markets — this means that any additional cost burdens on European industry should be avoided if competitiveness is to be ensured,” Frontier Economics Ltd. said in the study. While companies such as Chevron Corp. (CVX) have begun drilling exploration wells in countries including Poland, shale-gas production in Europe won’t make the region self-sufficient in natural gas, according to a 2012 study by the EU Joint Research Centre. Under the best-case scenario declining conventional production could be replaced and import dependence maintained at a level around 60 percent, it said. Indigenous Resources As some member states and environmental groups are seeking stricter controls on shale gas exploration, EU leaders will say it’s crucial to “further intensify the diversification of Europe’s energy supply and develop indigenous energy resources,” according to the draft conclusions. Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusktold reporters today he was satisfied with the proposed wording as it treats shale gas as an opportunity and lets countries explore it as an option in national energy mixes. Europe needs to diversify its energy sources, boost efficiency, modernize infrastructure and complete the internal market, although shale gas development in Europe may not be a “silver bullet,” according to lobby group Shale Gas Europe, which is supported by companies including Royal Dutch Shell Plc. (RDSA), Halliburton and Statoil. Energy costs in the EU will remain above the U.S. because of differences related to infrastructure, rock structure and legislation, Iain Conn, head of BP Plc (BP/)’s refining and marketing unit, said March 16. ‘Cheap Coal’ “Europe is more dependent on imported energy and although Europe is benefiting — if I can call it that — from cheap coal coming from the U.S. as a result of this, Europe’s cost of energy for the economy is going to be higher than in the U.S. for the foreseeable future,” he said. As a net importer, Europe can boost energy efficiency, create a market based on smart infrastructure, exploit conventional and unconventional energy sources and bet on innovation in order to ensure secure and competitive prices, according to the commission. By 2020, the region needs to invest 1 trillion euros to reach its goal, the commission said. Financing investment in “new and intelligent infrastructure” should primarily come from the market, according to the draft summit conclusions. Private investment in Europe tumbled by a record 350 billion euros in 2007-2011, 20 times the drop in private consumption and four times the decline in real gross domestic product, according to a report by the McKinsey Global Institute published last year. Carbon Market “This makes it all more important to have a well-functioning carbon market and a predictable climate and energy policy framework post-2020 which is conducive to mobilizing private capital and to bringing down costs for energy investment,” according to the draft conclusions. EU leaders will return to the issue of 2030 energy and climate rules in March 2014, after the commission comes forward with a “more concrete proposals,” they said in the draft document. By then ministers will have discussed policy options in that regard, taking into account objectives set for a global climate deal sought in 2015, the document showed. Prices in the European emissions trading system tumbled to a record low of 2.46 euros a metric ton last month amid a surplus of allowances and concerns that lawmakers may fail to reduce the glut. That compares with 25-30 euros expected by policy makers when the cap-and-trade system was created in 2005. EU leaders will call on the commission to study how energy prices are affecting Europe’s competitiveness and what response is needed. The EU will need to look at innovative financing methods, improved liquidity in the energy market and the issue of the contractual linkage of gas and oil prices, they said in the draft statement. To contact the reporter on this story: Ewa Krukowska in Brussels at ekrukowska@bloomberg.net To contact the editor responsible for this story: Lars Paulsson at lpaulsson@bloomberg.net Continue reading
South Korea To Launch Ambitious Carbon Trading Scheme, Says Report
South Korea is preparing to introduce the world’s most ambitious emissions trading scheme, potentially paving the way for carbon costs as high as $90 a tonne for many of the country’s key industries. That is the stark conclusion of a major new report from Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) and Ernst & Young, which hails the proposed scheme as the world’s most ambitious carbon-pricing policy but warns that changes to the proposals may be required before the scheme is introduced in 2015 to avoid “punitive” costs on industry. “If the government implements the scheme without any changes, it will have major implications for Korean companies,” said Richard Chatterton, lead analyst for carbon markets at BNEF, in a statement. “A carbon price will lead to higher power prices and impose additional costs on industrial firms. The government is mitigating the impact for covered entities by handing out most allowances for free, but costs could still rise quickly.” The report calculates that if South Korea adheres to its national target of cutting emissions to 30 per cent below business-as-usual levels by 2020 emissions reductions delivered through the planned emissions trading scheme would have to reach 836 million tonnes between 2015 and 2020. But it also predicts the “need to reduce emissions will, however, exceed the options available within industrial companies and from the country’s current fleet of gas fired power stations”, meaning that the target is likely to be missed and the price of carbon in the scheme will effectively be set by a $90 a tonne penalty price for company’s exceeding their emissions cap. The government hopes that businesses will be able to comply with the cap by accelerating the shift toward lower carbon energy sources, such as gas, renewables, and carbon capture and storage plants. But the BNEF report warns that the cost of such technologies is likely to be significantly higher than the penalty price, meaning many firms are likely to opt to exceed their targets. It recommends that the government consider a number of options to improve the proposed scheme, including relaxing the number of offset credits companies can use to count towards their carbon target or loosening the over-arching cap on emissions. “The challenge is to put in place a carbon price high enough to impact investment decisions, but low enough to transition smoothly towards a carbon-constrained economy,” said Milo Sjardin, head of Asia research for BNEF, in a statement. “With the proposed design, demand and supply within the ETS are not well-matched and will lead to unnecessarily high carbon prices. Policy-makers will need to look at cost containment measures closely while not compromising the ambitions of the scheme.” However, Yoon Joo-Hoon, senior manager at Ernst & Young, warned that while changes to the proposals could be made businesses still needed to be preparing now to the likely impact of the scheme, arguing that firms should be looking at carbon mitigation options and developing a plan for operating effectively under an emissions trading scheme. Continue reading
