2024-03-20 11:17

March 20 (Reuters) - Sterling fell against a strengthening dollar after shrugging off British data on Wednesday as investors await the outcome of the Federal Reserve policy meeting. The pound hit a fresh 8-1/2-year high versus the yen as the Bank of Japan (BOJ) decision to exit its negative interest rates policy left higher-yielding currencies such as the pound appealing versus Japanese assets. Sterling was down 0.2% versus the dollar at $1.2696, while the euro was flat at 85.39 pence. Against the yen , sterling hit a fresh high of 192.84 and was last up 0.7% at 192.61. British inflation slowed in February, keeping the Bank of England (BoE) on track to start cutting interest rates in the months ahead. British finance minister Jeremy Hunt said the figures would "open the door" for a BoE monetary easing. Markets slightly increased their bets on BoE monetary easing, pricing a roughly 63% chance of a first move in June from 58% before the data. Analysts expect the Federal Reserve to keep rates unchanged after its meeting on Wednesday, and they will focus on signals about the timing and extent of any easing this year. They also forecast that the BoE will keep investors guessing when it will likely start cutting rates. "We expect no changes to the guidance. The minutes should reflect the continued need for more confidence but smaller tail risks," said Ruben Segura-Cayuela, European economist at BofA. "The emphasis from here is likely to still be on sticky services inflation, ongoing and upcoming wage negotiations, and the pass-through of the upcoming increase in the national living wage," he added. Investors recently drove the value of the existing net long position, which assumes the pound will rise against the dollar, to its largest on record, at $5.632 billion. "We have argued there is little justification for this (pound) performance (in 2024) and believe these stretched levels of positioning are increasingly vulnerable to any potential dovish shift by the BoE," said Dominic Bunning, head of European forex research at HSBC. Bunning flagged that the pound has been the best-performing G10 currency relative to the greenback year-to-date. Keep up with the latest medical breakthroughs and healthcare trends with the Reuters Health Rounds newsletter. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/markets/currencies/sterling-edges-down-versus-dollar-hits-fresh-8-12-year-high-against-yen-2024-03-20/

2024-03-20 11:08

WASHINGTON, March 20 (Reuters) - Leaders in the emerging Western nuclear fusion industry are convening in Washington, D.C., this week seeking ways to attract more money for research to avoid falling far behind China in the race to develop and build commercially viable reactors. A funding bill signed by President Joe Biden this month contained $790 million for fusion science programs for 2024, below the more than $1 billion backers say is needed. Scientists, governments, and companies are racing to harness fusion, the nuclear reaction that powers the sun, to provide carbon-free electricity. It can be replicated on Earth with heat and pressure using lasers or magnets to fuse two light atoms into a denser one, releasing large amounts of energy. Unlike plants that run on fission, or splitting atoms, commercial fusion plants, if ever built, would not produce long-lasting radioactive waste. Andrew Holland, CEO of Fusion Industry Association, or FIA, which is hosting a two-day conference, said a fear is that fusion will follow the pattern of the solar industry where much of the technology was invented in the U.S., but manufacturing came to be dominated by China. "It is very clear that China has ambitions to do the same sort of thing, both in the supply chain and the developers," Holland told Reuters. "It's time for the U.S. to respond to that challenge." Private companies around the world have raised more than $6 billion through 2022, a FIA report said last July. The report mostly did not count private money going to fusion in China, which is harder to track. Much more funding is needed to bring fusion from lab experiments to commercial enterprises, backers said. "There's no way we can get to where we need to go unless there's funding coming from the government side and from the private sector side," David Turk, the deputy U.S. energy secretary, told the conference. FIA's third annual conference is expected to attract about 350 attendees from countries including the U.S., UK, Germany and Japan, more than the roughly 100 attendees in previous years. Fusion built momentum last year when scientists at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory in California using lasers repeated a fusion breakthrough. Holland says fusion will be providing power to the grid in a decade. Not everyone puts faith in that timeline. "Maybe he means dog years. Even that would be optimistic," said Victor Gilinsky, a physicist and former Nuclear Regulatory Commission commissioner. Gilinsky estimates that the energy yielded from the lab reaction, which only lasted an instant, was about 1% of the energy used to fire up the lasers. Still, Holland said funding fusion research should be a priority in the fight against climate change. "Fusion should get significantly more and that wouldn't take away from the deployment of much needed other clean energy technologies." The Reuters Power Up newsletter provides everything you need to know about the global energy industry. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/nuclear-fusion-backers-meet-us-capital-competition-with-china-looms-2024-03-20/

2024-03-20 11:03

SANTIAGO, March 20 (Reuters) - After 15 years of a devastating drought, reservoirs in Chile are running dry, imperiling access to drinking water in the Andean nation. The Cogoti reservoir in the Coquimbo region of northern Chile, a basin with a capacity of 150 million cubic has completely depleted as the southern Hemisphere summer comes to an end. "The water situation is critical, I hope God remembers the rural poor and farmers," said Heriberto Perez, a local resident who raises livestock in the region and worries about how little water there is for his animals. "We're all human beings and we have to have a little bit of water, right?" The historic drought has impacted nearly ever aspect of life in the copper-rich nation, affecting everything from mining output to green areas in the capital. The World Resources Institute has Chile ranked as one of the most water stressed countries in the world, with a risk it could run out of water supply by 2040. While rainfall helped replenish some reservoirs in central and southern Chile this past winter, the north remained parched, sapping reservoirs throughout the region. "It hasn't rained in our zone, it's been years of very little rain," said Rene Carvajal, president of a local rural drinking water committee in Coquimbo. Carvajal said that one year it only rained 15 millimeters and there was no snow in the Andes mountain range in the region last year. "We could immigrate but we're going to find the same water situation, the lack of water in other cities too," Carvajal said. "There's going to be water restrictions in the city too, water is scarce here and all over the region." The Reuters Daily Briefing newsletter provides all the news you need to start your day. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/persistent-drought-is-drying-out-chiles-drinking-water-2024-03-20/

2024-03-20 10:50

OSLO, March 20 (Reuters) - The Ventyr group, owned by Japanese power companies and IKEA store owner Ingka, won Norway's first offshore wind farm tender to build 1.5 gigawatts (GW) of capacity in the North Sea, the energy ministry said on Wednesday. The government hopes the auction for the right to build bottom-fixed wind turbines will be the starting point for massive offshore power developments in the years leading up to 2040. "This is a milestone for the government's offshore wind ambition," Energy Minister Terje Aasland told a press conference. Ventyr's owners are Ingka Group, the owner of most IKEA stores, and Parkwind, majority owned by Japan's Jera, a 50-50 joint venture between a unit of Tokyo Electric Power Company (9501.T) , opens new tab and Chubu Electric Power (9502.T) , opens new tab. The descending-bids auction resulted in a subsidy for the winner of 1.15 crown ($0.1076) per kilowatt hour of electricity under a 15-year contract for difference (CfD) capped in advance at a total of 23 billion crowns. The winner of the Soerlige Nordsjoe II tender beat out bids from one other participant, as only two out of the five pre-qualified groups participated in the auction, the ministry said. It did not name the losing bidder. One of the five, Germany's Energie Baden-Wurttemberg (EnBW), had pulled out of the process ahead of the auction. The remaining groups that did not win were a consortium between Aker Offshore Wind, BP (BP.L) , opens new tab and Statkraft, another between Equinor (EQNR.OL) , opens new tab and RWE (RWEG.DE) , opens new tab and a joint project proposed by Shell (SHEL.L) , opens new tab, Lyse and Eviny. The Reuters Power Up newsletter provides everything you need to know about the global energy industry. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/norway-awards-first-offshore-wind-tender-swedens-ingka-japans-parkwind-2024-03-20/

2024-03-20 10:49

BRUSSELS, March 20 (Reuters) - Lufthansa (LHAG.DE) , opens new tab wants to close a deal with Italy's ITA Airways "as soon as possible," Lufthansa's Chief Executive told journalists on Wednesday, adding that he was optimistic ahead of an expected statement of objections from the European Commission on the deal. The European Commission opened a full-scale investigation into the deal in January on concerns that the acquisition could reduce competition in passenger air transport services on several short-haul and long-haul routes and is set to publish a statement of objections to the deal this month. Get U.S. personal finance tips and insight straight to your inbox with the Reuters On the Money newsletter. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/lufthansa-wants-close-deal-with-ita-soon-possible-ceo-says-2024-03-20/

2024-03-20 10:26

KAMPALA, March 20 (Reuters) - The Ugandan shilling was little-changed on Wednesday although dollar inflows from remittances, commodity exports and offshore investors were expected to give the local currency a boost, traders said. At 1004 GMT, commercial banks quoted the shilling at 3,870/3,880, compared with Tuesday's close of 3,875/3,885. The central bank is on Wednesday due to sell 20-year and 3-year Treasury bonds worth a combined 520 billion shillings ($134.37 million). ($1 = 3,870.0000 Ugandan shillings) Keep up with the latest medical breakthroughs and healthcare trends with the Reuters Health Rounds newsletter. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/markets/currencies/ugandan-shilling-little-changed-remittance-inflows-lift-it-2024-03-20/