2025-06-23 07:46

BRUSSELS, June 23 (Reuters) - An Iranian closure of the Strait of Hormuz would be dangerous and "not good for anybody", the European Union's top diplomat said on Monday. "The concerns of retaliation and this war escalating are huge, especially closing of the Strait of Hormuz by Iran is something that would be extremely dangerous and not good for anybody," Kaja Kallas told reporters ahead of a meeting with EU foreign ministers. Sign up here. Iran's Press TV reported on Sunday that Iran's Supreme National Security Council needed to make a final decision on whether to close the strait, after parliament was reported to back the measure. About 20% of global oil and gas demand flows through the channel. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/any-iranian-closure-hormuz-strait-would-be-extremely-dangerous-eus-top-diplomat-2025-06-23/

2025-06-23 07:16

ATHENS, June 23 (Reuters) - Greece on Monday declared a state of emergency on Chios island, where hundreds of firefighters have been battling wildfires for a second day as winds further whipped up the blaze, causing power cuts and the evacuation of residents. "The situation since yesterday on the island is quite difficult because we constantly have new fronts and resurgences and the climatic conditions are not favorable," Yiannis Kefalogiannis, the climate crisis and civil protection minister, said upon his arrival in Chios. Sign up here. He confirmed that 170 more firefighters will reinforce 11 teams of about 190 firefighters deployed on the island in the northeastern Aegean Sea, who were trying to prevent the conflagration from spreading to homes and areas known for producing mastiha, a natural resin harvested from mastic trees. Thirty more vehicles will reinforce 38 vehicles already deployed, assisted by 13 helicopters and four water bomber aircraft, Kefalogiannis said. Wind gusts complicated efforts to extinguish the wildfires, which have razed forest and pasture land as they barrel towards the north, west and south of Chios town, the island's capital, causing power cuts and forcing hundreds of villagers to flee to safety. Kefalogiannis said the authorities will investigate the causes of the fires which broke out at different geographical parts of the island. Sitting at Europe's hot southernmost tip, Greece has felt the economic and environmental impact of frequent wildfires in recent years that scientists say have been exacerbated by a fast-changing climate. The country has spent hundreds of millions of euros to compensate households and farmers for damage related to extreme weather and to update firefighting equipment. It has hired a record number of firefighters this year, some 18,000 of them, in anticipation of a challenging fire season. https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/firefighters-battle-wildfires-greeces-chios-island-second-day-2025-06-23/

2025-06-23 06:36

MILAN, June 23 (Reuters) - Italian energy group Eni (ENI.MI) , opens new tab has sold a 20% stake in its retail and renewables business Plenitude to U.S. alternative investment manager Ares Management Corp (ARES.N) , opens new tab for about 2 billion euros ($2.3 billion), it said on Monday. The transaction is part of the Italian group's long-term strategy to find partners to jointly develop its businesses and follows the sale of a 10% stake in Plenitude to Swiss investment fund Energy Infrastructure Partners. Sign up here. "Plenitude is an established leader in energy transition, with a differentiated business model and an outstanding track record," said Stefano Questa, co-head of European Alternative Credit at Ares. Plenitude operates in more than 15 countries and combines more than 4 gigawatts of renewable energy production with a power and gas retail business. It has more than 10 million customers and manages a network of 21,500 charging points for electric vehicles. Mediobanca acted as Eni's financial adviser on the deal, which values Plenitude at more than 12 billion euros including debt. ($1 = 0.8693 euros) https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/italys-eni-sells-20-plenitude-unit-ares-2-billion-euros-2025-06-23/

2025-06-23 06:21

Economic pressures drive artisanal mining, impacting corporate operations Rising gold prices fuel conflicts between industrial and informal miners Miners are pressing governments for military support to defend mines TARKWA, Ghana, June 23 (Reuters) - As the afternoon sun beats down on Gold Fields' sprawling Tarkwa gold mine in southwestern Ghana, three men launch a drone into the clear sky, its cameras scanning the lush 210-square-kilometer tract for intruders. The drone spotted something unusual, and within 20 minutes a 15-person team including armed police arrived on the scene. They discovered abandoned clothing, freshly dug trenches, and rudimentary equipment amid pools of mercury and cyanide-contaminated water. The equipment was left behind by so-called wildcat miners, who operate on the outskirts of many of the continent’s official mining ventures - putting at risk their own health, the environment and the official mine operator's profits. Sign up here. The team confiscated seven diesel-powered water pumps and a "chanfan" processing unit used to extract gold from riverbeds. The high-tech cat-and-mouse game is playing out with increasing frequency as record gold prices, now sitting above $3,300 per ounce, draw more unofficial activity - intensifying sometimes deadly confrontations between corporate concessions and artisanal miners in West Africa, according to dozens of mining executives and industry experts interviewed by Reuters. "Because of the vegetation cover, if you don't have eyes in the air, you won't know something destructive is happening," explains Edwin Asare, Gold Fields Tarkwa Mine's head of protection services. "It's like you first get eyes in the sky to help you put boots on the ground.” Almost 20 illicit miners have been killed in confrontations at major mining operations across the region since late 2024, including at Newmont (NEM.N) , opens new tab and AngloGold Ashanti's (AU.N) , opens new tab sites in Ghana and Guinea and Nordgold's Bissa Mine in Burkina Faso. There have been no reports of official mine staff injured. In some cases, clashes at corporate mines caused production halts of up to a month, prompting companies to press governments for more military protection. 'BOOTS ON THE GROUND' Sub-Saharan Africa's unofficial mining operations provide critical income for nearly 10 million people, according to a May United Nations report. In West Africa, three to five million people depend on unregulated mining, accounting for approximately 30% of its gold production, other industry data show, serving as economic lifelines in a region with few formal employment opportunities. Like 52-year old Famanson Keita in Senegal's gold-rich Kedougou region, many inhabitants grew up mining gold in their localities. With simple and traditional methods, they earned extra incomes to supplement those from farming until corporate miners arrived, relocating them from their communities and promising jobs and rapid development. "Those promises have not been fulfilled," said Keita. "Many of our young people are employed in low-level, uncontracted jobs with little pay and no stability. Small-scale farming alone cannot sustain our families." While local residents have long tried to eke out a living on the margins of corporate mines, much of the illicit activity, particularly in the region’s forests and large bodies of water, is now conducted with sophisticated digging and dredging equipment and funding from local cartels and foreigners, including from China. ECONOMIC PRESSURES With rising central bank gold buying and broader geopolitical tensions potentially pushing gold to $5,000 an ounce, Sahel-focused security and mining analyst Ulf Laessing warned that more violent confrontations around mining operations could be expected in the coming months. "The more the gold price rises, the more conflicts we will see between industrial and informal miners," said Laessing, head of the Sahel program at Germany's Konrad Adenauer Foundation. Nine wildcat miners were shot dead in January at AGA's Obuasi mine in Ghana when they cut open the fenced 110-square kilometer concession to scavenge gold, according to a source in the company who asked not to be identified. At AGA's Siguiri Mine, northeast of Guinea, hundreds of wildcat miners invaded the concession in February, prompting military intervention, according to a source familiar with the mine's operations. At least three wildcat miners were shot by guards while others were injured at Newmont’s Ahafo gold mining site in northwestern Ghana in January, police said. In Mali's gold-rich Kayes region, an excavator operator at an illegal mining site in Kenieba told Reuters that operations have expanded rapidly this year, with Chinese bosses deploying more equipment to new sites as gold prices climb. Reuters could not establish who such Chinese operators were, or whether they have any links to companies or official organizations. This year, Ghanaian authorities have been ransacking dozens of informal mining sites, arresting hundreds of locals and foreigners, particularly Chinese nationals, who operate unregulated gold operations in the country's vast forests, including protected areas and bodies of water. "Because of porous borders and weak regulations, the majority of their produce is smuggled," says Marc Ummel, researcher at Swissaid, "depriving the countries of the full benefits." Ghana lost more than 229 metric tons of largely artisanal gold to smuggling between 2019 and 2023, according to Swissaid, which analysed export data within the period. Adama Soro, president of the West African Federation of Chambers of Mines, said artisanal miners also compete with large-scale miners for ore, shortening mines' lives. "We're seeing artisanal miners digging up to 100 meters and impacting the ore body of the big miners, so we're losing money," he said. ARMED MILITARY PROTECTION Miners are resorting to unconventional methods and increased spending at the expense of investment and community projects, said the head of a mining company in Ghana heavily affected by wildcat miners. The mine spends approximately half a million dollars annually on measures, including drone surveillance to combat wildcat mining, but still experiences frequent attacks, the source said. Nordgold, Galiano Gold (GAU.TO) , opens new tab, B2Gold (BTO.TO) , opens new tab and Barrick Gold (ABX.TO) , opens new tab have all seen incursions recently. Ghana's major corporate miners have intensified their campaign for military protection at mining sites this year. Similar requests have been made in Burkina Faso and Mali, according to three mining executives and an industry analyst, who requested anonymity. "Ideally, we want military presence at all mining operations, but we understand the need to prioritize sites facing consistent attacks while implementing regular patrols at others," said Ahmed Dasana Nantogmah, chief operating officer of Ghana's Chamber of Mines. Industry leaders met government officials in mid-April to press their case, with discussions yielding "positive" results, said Nantogmah. Ghana's government did not respond to requests for comment. Ghanaian authorities want miners to cover deployment costs, estimated at 250,000 Ghana cedis ($18,116) per contingent daily of under 50 personnel, said two mining executives who were part of the negotiations. Ghana's mining sector regulator, the Minerals Commission, is taking a technological leap forward, establishing an AI-powered control room to analyze data from 28 drones deployed to illegal mining hotspots. The system includes trackers on the excavators and a control system that can remotely disable excavators operating outside authorized boundaries. "This is a fight we can win with technology if we allow full deployment," says Sylvester Akpah, consultant for Ghana's mining sector regulator's drone surveillance and AI-powered project. https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/gold-prices-surge-west-africa-mine-operators-launch-drones-detect-wildcat-miners-2025-06-23/

2025-06-23 06:07

DENVER June 23 (Reuters) - Utilities in the developed world are stressing over how to keep up with demand from data centres and artificial intelligence searches. But globally, keeping people cool is likely to be a much bigger drain on electricity grids and a more pressing power sector challenge. Worldwide, data centres and air conditioners are both projected to triple their electricity use over the coming decade, and will severely test utilities that are already under strain from aging grids and lengthy backlogs for new supply. Sign up here. Indeed, electricity demand from data centres is projected to rise by roughly 800 terawatt hours (TWh) by 2035, from around 416 TWh in 2024, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). That is enough to power around 75 million American homes for a year, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). Global demand for cooling systems, however, is set to rise by around 1,200 TWh by 2035, or nearly as much electricity as the entire Middle East consumes annually, data from think thank Ember shows. Importantly, the location of demand growth also differs significantly between the two drivers, as does the consequences of failure to meet this spike. Most data centre expansions are set to be within developed economies with modern power networks, and increased demand will primarily come from processing search requests for businesses and social media applications. In contrast, the vast majority of the demand growth for air conditioning is set to occur in emerging economies where many communities already face the prospect of heat-related deaths and illness within already fragile energy systems. Increased deaths and human suffering, the likely outcome of power system shortfalls in the developing world, are of a different order of magnitude than the risk of slower search results and economic drag that could result from failure to boost power supplies for data hubs. BUILDING IMPACT Climate change is leading to more frequent, more intense and more prolonged heatwaves across the world, but especially in developing regions such as South and Southeast Asia where high humidity levels can amplify the impact of heat stress. "A single heatwave - even one lasting just a few days - causes tens of thousands of excess deaths in India," according to a report published in April by India's Centre for Science and the Environment. To combat the effects, new homes and offices across warm climate countries are scaling up the number of cooling units they contain. And many of these areas are already undergoing a building boom, magnifying the amount of space needing to be cooled. In 2022, around 36% of all households were estimated to possess some air conditioning equipment, according to the IEA. By 2035, that share is expected to jump to 50%, and then to 60% by 2050. To power that expanding footprint, the installed capacity of cooling equipment is set to surge from around 850 gigawatts (GW) in 2022 to 1,750 GW by 2035, and to 2,700 GW by 2050, IEA data shows. INDIA-LED India, which already has the world's largest population and is expected to have the third largest economy by 2035, is expected to be the main driver of cooling system demand in the coming decades. Currently, around 5% of the world's stock of air conditioners is in India, or around 110 million units of the roughly 2.4 billion in use globally, per the IEA. By 2035, India's share of the global air conditioner stock is set to rise to 13% (to nearly 500 million units), and then to more than 1.1 billion units by 2050. Indonesia, another fast-growing populous nation prone to hot and humid spells, is set to treble its air conditioner count by 2035, while Brazil, Mexico and the Middle East are all set to more than double it. WIDENING LOADS Power firms in all regions have their work cut out in ramping up electricity supplies to match the projected demand growth from both data centres and cooling systems. But again, the challenges faced in addressing these two demand drivers will differ based on where the power is needed. In the United States and Europe, most data centre expansions are taking place close to established generation sites, so that server farms can tap uninterrupted power and avoid transmission delays. In developing economies, many of the new cooling systems are within new multi-story apartment buildings or on previously undeveloped land, meaning that power suppliers have to vastly expand their geographic reach while also boosting volumes. Needing to rapidly increase both the scope and scale of electricity production will likely expand the use of coal-fired power in India, Indonesia and elsewhere, which will generate pollution that may further accelerate warming trends. But the sheer magnitude of energy demand growth ensures that fossil fuels alone will not be able to meet it, and that supplies from a multitude of power sources will have to be deployed. This "all of the above" approach, in turn, means that power from clean energy and renewable sources should gain a growing share of the generation mix over time, potentially squeezing out high polluting fuels from electricity production. But in the near term, the fossil fuels burned to meet the rising demand for power will only increase. The need to keep people safe and comfortable as temperatures keep climbing will thus only exacerbate future heat stress, putting ever more pressure on strained electrical grids. The opinions expressed here are those of the author, a columnist for Reuters. Enjoying this column? Check out Reuters Open Interest (ROI), your essential new source for global financial commentary. ROI delivers thought-provoking, data-driven analysis of everything from swap rates to soybeans. Markets are moving faster than ever. ROI can help you keep up. Follow ROI on LinkedIn , opens new tab and X , opens new tab. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/forget-ai-keeping-cool-is-bigger-power-sector-problem-2025-06-23/

2025-06-23 05:57

SINGAPORE, June 23 (Reuters) - Global shares slipped on Monday while oil prices briefly hit five-month highs and the dollar firmed as the world held its breath to see if Iran would retaliate against U.S. attacks on its nuclear sites. Market reaction to the weekend escalation of the conflict in the Middle East has been subdued so far as investors remain in wait-and-see mode. Sign up here. Here are some comments from market analysts: CAROL KONG, CURRENCY STRATEGIST, COMMONWEALTH BANK OF AUSTRALIA, SYDNEY: "The price action in response to the escalating Middle East conflict has been muted so far as markets wait and see how Iran responds. Judging by the small fall in FOMC rate cut pricing by year-end, there are more worries about the positive inflationary impact of the Middle East conflict than the negative economic impact. The currency markets will be at the mercy of comments and actions from the Iranian, Israeli and U.S. governments. The risks are clearly skewed to further upside in the safe haven currencies if the parties escalate the conflict." CHARU CHANANA, CHIEF INVESTMENT STRATEGIST, SAXO, SINGAPORE: "Markets appear to be treating the U.S. strikes on Iran as a contained event for now, rather than the start of a broader war. The muted haven flows suggest investors are still assuming this is a one-off escalation, not a disruption to global oil supply or trade. "Markets may be responding not to the escalation itself, but to the perception that it could reduce longer-term uncertainty. If Iran’s nuclear capabilities are seen as meaningfully set back, some investors may interpret that as a de-escalation in disguise — a geopolitical risk removed, rather than added. "That said, any sign of Iranian retaliation or threat to the Strait of Hormuz could quickly shift sentiment and force markets to reprice geopolitical risk more aggressively." PRASHANT NEWNAHA, SENIOR ASIA-PACIFIC RATES STRATEGIST, TD SECURITIES, SINGAPORE: "The market reaction to weekend developments has been muted to state the least. The price action implies this will be a short-lived conflict, that escalation will ultimately lead to de-escalation." SHOKI OMORI, CHIEF DESK STRATEGIST, MIZUHO SECURITIES, TOKYO: "On Monday, in light of weekend geopolitical risk events in the Middle East, market participants adopted a wait-and-see stance. Although the market initially anticipated a bull-flattening of the JGB curve following last week's unexpectedly large reduction in 20-year bond issuance, muted movements in U.S. interest rates, combined with a shift in sentiment toward dollar buying rather than selling, made it challenging for investors to take decisive positions." VASU MENON, MANAGING DIRECTOR, INVESTMENT STRATEGY, OCBC, SINGAPORE: "Much depends on what Iran will do next, but the shock and awe of the US attack and the warning from Trump not to retaliate or suffer significant consequences, may prevent Iran’s leaders from responding aggressively." "Investors should prepare for more volatility in the coming days, and possibly even weeks, given the ongoing Middle East crisis and uncertainty about Trump’s tariff policy. However, these developments may not be the end of the global equity bull market as long it doesn’t result in sharply higher inflation and cause a global recession. "There is scope for safe havens like gold to continue rising as global uncertainties are likely to remain a fixture, and global central banks continue to diversify away from their US dollar holdings towards gold. We see gold rising to US$3,900/ounce over a 12-month horizon." https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/analysts-react-markets-brace-iran-response-us-attack-2025-06-23/