2025-02-14 07:57

Ukraine says Russian drone hit Chornobyl nuclear plant Attack caused 'significant' damage to containment shelter chief engineer says structure to contain radiation damaged Russia says Ukraine staged attack Radiation levels at the site remain normal KYIV, Feb 14 (Reuters) - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Friday that a Russian drone had caused significant damage to the radiation containment shelter at the disused Chornobyl nuclear power plant overnight. Zelenskiy and the U.N.'s atomic energy watchdog both said that radiation levels remained normal after the incident, which came as top U.S., Ukrainian and European officials gathered at the Munich Security Conference to discuss the war in Ukraine. The Chornobyl station's chief engineer, speaking to reporters at the site, said a drone had exploded inside and damaged the structure meant to keep radiation from spreading. Maria Zakharova, spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, accused Zelenskiy of orchestrating a drone attack to coincide with the Munich event as part of a lobbying effort to secure more weapons and money from the West. Chornobyl was the site of the world's worst civil nuclear catastrophe when one of its four reactors exploded in 1986. That reactor is now enclosed by a shelter to contain the lingering radiation. Chornobyl's last working reactor shut in 2000. Russia occupied the plant and the surrounding area for more than a month during its push to take the Ukrainian capital Kyiv at the beginning of the invasion. The drone struck the radiation shelter, causing a fire that was then extinguished, Zelenskiy wrote on the Telegram app. "According to initial assessments, the damage to the shelter is significant," he said. Chernobyl's chief engineer, Oleksandr Tytarchuk, said emergency crews were working to minimise the aftermath of the incident. "The barrier which was supposed to prevent the spread of radioactive substances has ceased to function according to its original design," Tytarchuk told reporters at the plant. He said the drone "hit the outer cover, pierced it, fell into the system and exploded there." Had the explosion occurred 15-20 metres (50-65 feet) further away, he said, "it would have directly hit the old shelter, which is 40 years old". Ukraine's SBU security service showed pictures of what it said was the drone, which it said had been carrying a high-explosive warhead. It said the drone was a Geran-2, the Russian name for the Iranian-designed Shahed-136, and had been intended to hit the reactor enclosure. Marcel Plichta, Fellow at the Centre for Global Law and Governance at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, said the visuals released by Ukraine almost certainly showed a Shahed-136. "The warhead of these drones is usually around 30 kg (66 lb), which is notable because it means Russia can grab headlines by launching the attack, but probably wouldn't cause large amounts of damage like you would see from a traditional missile," he said. "Russia frequently uses attacks like this to regain control of the narrative." IMAGES SHOW FIRE AT TOP OF CHORNOBYL RADIATION ENCLOSURE Andriy Yermak, the Ukrainian president's chief of staff, posted photographs that appeared to show a small fire near the top of the shelter, known as the New Safe Confinement. The hulking, arched steel and concrete structure was completed in 2019 to cover an earlier Soviet-built version, which had deteriorated. It is 108 metres high (354 feet) and 162 metres long, spans 257 metres and has a lifetime of at least 100 years, according to the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development. It cost 1.5 billion euros ($1.6 billion) and was financed by 45 donor countries and institutions. Zelenskiy told reporters in Munich that the drone had flown in below radar range, at a height of 85 metres. The president held what he described as a "good meeting" with U.S. Vice-President JD Vance. The discussion comes at a delicate moment for Ukraine, with the new U.S. president, Donald Trump, pushing for rapid negotiations and an end to the war. ($1 = 0.9544 euros) Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russian-drone-attack-damages-chornobyl-nuclear-plants-shelter-zelenskiy-says-2025-02-14/

2025-02-14 07:44

DUBAI, Feb 14 (Reuters) - Dubai Crown Prince Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum on Friday signed an agreement for construction of the Dubai Loop project with Elon Musk's infrastructure firm the Boring Company, Dubai Media Office said in a statement. The project between the Roads and Transport Authority and Musk's company has a capacity of 160,000 passengers per hour and a track length that exceeds 100 kilometers (62 miles), the statement said. The Dubai Loop is a high-speed transportation network. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/dubai-signs-deal-dubai-loop-project-with-elon-musks-infrastructure-firm-2025-02-14/

2025-02-14 07:31

NEW DELHI, Feb 14 (Reuters) - India will be a bright spot for petrochemical demand in 2025 even as global consumption lags supply, amid rising demand for electric vehicle parts, solar panels and household appliances, industry executives said on the sidelines of India Energy Week conference. "We are seeing good local demand in the sectors like propylene where our company operates," Bharat Petroleum's (BPCL.NS) , opens new tab director of refineries Sanjay Khanna said. Indian Oil (IOC.NS) , opens new tab Chairman A S Sahney said demand is expected to remain resilient this year. Petrochemicals are used in key building blocks for a variety of goods such as plastics, paints, and pharmaceuticals. Ganesh Gopalakrishnan, TotalEnergies's (TTEF.PA) , opens new tab global head of petrochemical trading, said there is good demand from the automobile sector while white goods consumption is recovering. However, global petrochemical margins are expected to stay depressed for a few more years amid weak demand from top petrochemical consumer China and excess supply from new Chinese and Middle Eastern plants. "The industry is waiting for China to announce its big incentive plan in March," said TotalEnergies's Gopalakrishnan, adding that this could spur China's demand and improve global petrochemical margins. Refiners in India have been insulated from losses because they produce their own petrochemical feedstock naphtha, margins have been negative in the last 3-4 years for standalone plants which rely on imported feed, said Pankaj Srivastava, an analyst at consultancy Rystad Energy. Meanwhile, investments continue to pour into India. The country is expected to receive $87 billion worth of investments in the next decade to meet the nation's rising demand for petrochemicals, the country's oil minister Hardeep Singh Puri said last year. He said India consumes 25 to 30 million metric tons of petrochemical products annually, and the chemical and petrochemicals sector, currently valued at $220 billion, is expected to grow to $300 billion by 2025. Companies such as Nayara Energy and Haldia Petrochemicals have already announced plans to boost production. Petronet LNG is setting up a petrochemical complex of 750,000 metric tons-per-year (tpy) propane dehydrogenation unit and 500,000 tpy polypropylene unit in the western state of Gujarat. "The downturn in petchems has always been cyclical and we hope margins will recover in next three years," Petronet LNG Chief Executive Akshay Kumar Singh said. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/india-remain-bright-spot-petchem-demand-2025-2025-02-14/

2025-02-14 07:23

Malaysia to review UCO and SPO standards, says deputy minister Palm industry urged to view EU's deforestation law positively Low palm demand from India is short term pain, official says KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 14 (Reuters) - Malaysia will crack down on fraud in the used cooking oil industry, its deputy commodities minister told Reuters, as western governments investigate whether shipments of the biofuels feedstock from Asia actually contain virgin oil. The Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB) is reviewing its standards and policies governing used cooking oil (UCO) and palm industry waste known as sludge palm oil (SPO) to better distinguish them in order to prevent discrepancies in exports, said Deputy Plantation and Commodities Minister Chan Foong Hin. "The government is also strengthening enforcement mechanisms to uphold industry credibility and Malaysia's reputation as a responsible exporter,” he said in an interview on Thursday, adding that complaints from buyers could endanger the country's status as a credible UCO exporter. He said ensuring that the entire supply chain is traceable would combat fraudulent practices. "Basically the centre of this issue is the traceability. How do you make the whole supply chain traceable?", Chan said. The European biodiesel industry last year complained of a surge in imports from China it believes involve supplies declared as made with recycled oil and fat but actually produced with cheaper and less sustainable virgin oil. Neighbouring Indonesia, the world's biggest palm oil producer, last month moved to curb exports of UCO and palm oil residue, saying that shipments in recent years had exceeded production capacity, indicating virgin crude palm oil (CPO) had been mixed in. In August, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said it launched investigations into the supply chains of at least two renewable fuel producers, without naming the companies, amid industry concerns that some may be using fraudulent biodiesel feedstocks to secure lucrative government subsidies. DEFORESTATION RULES Malaysia's palm industry, the world's second-largest, should not view the EU's looming deforestation regulation negatively as the country is committed to anti-deforestation, Chan said. About 87% of Malaysia’s palm oil plantations are sustainably certified through the Malaysian Sustainable Palm Oil (MSPO) standards, Chan said. “In fact, we are ready,” he said. In December, the EU approved a one-year delay to the landmark deforestation law requiring importers of soy, beef, cocoa, coffee, palm oil, timber, rubber and related products to prove their supply chains do not contribute to the destruction of the world's forests, or face hefty fines. Chan downplayed a downturn in shipments to top palm oil buyer India, which hit a 14-year low in January, as a “short term" situation given the demand needs of its 1.45 billion population. India imported 3.03 million metric tons of Malaysian palm oil in 2024, up 6.5%. "The permanent factor is the population. So yes, we are still optimistic," Chan said. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/malaysia-will-crack-down-fraud-used-cooking-oil-exports-official-says-2025-02-14/

2025-02-14 07:22

BUDAPEST, Feb 14 (Reuters) - Russia will be "reintegrated" into the world economy and the European energy system once a peace deal is achieved and the war ends in Ukraine, Prime Minister Viktor Orban told state radio on Friday. "If the U.S. president comes and creates peace, there is a deal, I think Russia will be reintegrated into the world economy ... the European security system and even the European economic and energy system, that will give a huge boost to the Hungarian economy," Orban, an ally of President Donald Trump, said. "We will win a lot with a peace deal." Trump said both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy expressed a desire for peace in separate phone calls with him on Wednesday, and he ordered top U.S. officials to begin talks on ending the war in Ukraine. Since Russia invaded Ukraine in early 2022, Orban has emerged as a vocal critic of EU sanctions against Moscow and the bloc's financial and military support for Ukraine. While countries in Western Europe have made serious efforts to wean themselves off Russian energy, landlocked Hungary gets 80-85% of its gas from Russia, with most of its crude oil supplies also coming from Russia. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-be-reintegrated-into-world-economy-if-war-ukraine-ends-orban-says-2025-02-14/

2025-02-14 07:15

Vietnam has wide duty gap, large trade surplus with US More than one-quarter of US exports to Vietnam in 2024 were farm products US is largest market for export-reliant Vietnam HANOI, Feb 14 (Reuters) - Vietnam stands ready to import more farm products from the United States, according to a statement from trade minister Nguyen Hong Dien on Friday, a day after U.S. President Donald Trump said he would start imposing global reciprocal tariffs. The Southeast Asian export hub, home to manufacturing operations of multinationals including Apple (AAPL.O) , opens new tab and Samsung (005930.KS) , opens new tab, could be hit hard by any new tariffs. Last year, it posted a record $123.5 billion trade surplus with the U.S., the largest after China, the European Union and Mexico. "Vietnam is ready to open its market and increase imports of agricultural products from the United States," Dien told U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam Marc Knapper at a meeting this week, the Vietnamese government said on Friday. More than one-fourth of U.S. exports to Vietnam last year were agricultural products, mostly cotton, soybeans and tree nuts, for a total value of $3.4 billion, according to U.S. government data. A White House official, who spoke to reporters on Thursday before Trump ordered his team to devise a plan on reciprocal tariffs, said the administration would study countries with the biggest trade surpluses and highest tariffs first. Among top U.S. trading partners, Vietnam is one of the countries with the largest tariff gaps, charging higher import duties than those applied by the United States. Vietnam imposes average import duties of 9.4%, according to the World Trade Organisation. Last week, the government of the export-reliant country, whose largest market is the United States, set up a working group to address any rising risks from trade tensions. ADDRESSING TRADE GAPS Trump has not explicitly mentioned Vietnam as a trade target, but new 25% tariffs imposed this week by the U.S. on steel and aluminium have already hit the Southeast Asian nation. Many of Vietnam's steel exports to the U.S., however, had already faced 25% duties, making that blow less heavy than on other exporters, one industry official said. For Vietnamese aluminium, pre-existing U.S. tariffs had been at 10%, Do Ngoc Hung, Vietnam's trade representative in the United States, told Vietnamese state media. To reduce the trade surplus, Vietnamese officials have discussed with the Trump administration the possible purchase of U.S. liquefied natural gas, multiple officials said. Vietnamese budget carrier VietJet (VJC.HM) , opens new tab has also agreed to buy , opens new tab 200 Boeing (BA.N) , opens new tab 737 MAX jets in a multi-billion dollar deal first signed in 2016 and revised afterwards. No plane has yet been delivered although the company had said it expected to receive the first jets last year. Vietnam has also been in talks to buy Lockheed Martin (LMT.N) , opens new tab C-130 Hercules military transport planes, officials have said. The Trump Organization has also agreed to develop a $1.5 billion golf course in Vietnam, its local partner said in October. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/vietnam-says-ready-import-more-us-farm-goods-trade-risks-rise-2025-02-14/