2024-03-11 11:28

FRANKFURT, March 11 (Reuters) - Tesla's (TSLA.O) , opens new tab German gigafactory near Berlin has been reconnected to the electricity grid following a week-long outage caused by arson, the power firm in charge of fixing the disruption said in a statement late on Monday. The outage, which began on March 5 at the site in Gruenheide, was a result of an arson attack on a nearby power pylon for which activists from the far-left Vulkangruppe claimed responsibility. E.dis, a division of German energy network firm E.ON (EONGn.DE) , opens new tab, said speedy weekend assembly work had enabled it to carry out a multi-hour high voltage test and get a green light from engineers. It reconnected Tesla to the grid at 8:45 p.m. local time (1945 GMT). Tesla said earlier on Monday that it would gradually start up systems in the factory, which employs around 12,500 staff, after the resumption of power. "It is not yet possible to say how long it will take until production can be fully resumed," the company said in emailed comments. Tesla said last week it expected the outage to last until March 15, while the works council chief of the electric vehicle (EV) maker's Brandenburg plant said on March 8 it would restart this week, without giving a specific date. Joerg Steinbach, the economy minister in Brandenburg, said E.dis employees had been working in a three-shift mode to ensure electricity could flow as soon as possible. The outage meant Tesla could not produce around 1,000 cars a day, with the factory's head saying that the disruption would cause hundreds of millions of euros in damages. https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/teslas-german-gigafactory-could-be-supplied-again-monday-says-power-firm-2024-03-11/

2024-03-11 11:27

March 11 (Reuters) - Summit Carbon Solutions, which is trying to build the biggest carbon dioxide capture pipeline in the United States to transport and bury greenhouse gases, has repeatedly pledged its project will not be used by drillers to boost output from oil fields. But Summit has a different message for prospective clients, including North Dakota’s oil sector, according to a Reuters review of state regulatory filings and recordings of public appearances by company executives: if you want to use our project for enhanced oil recovery (EOR), where gas is pumped into oil fields to increase production, just write a check. The dual messages illustrate Summit's efforts to court broad support for its $5.5 billion project, which could capture as much as 18 million metric tons of CO2 annually from 57 Midwest ethanol plants and store it underground at a site in North Dakota. Whether Summit succeeds at its goal to break ground in 2025 and begin operations in 2026 is a major test for carbon capture and storage, a key tool in the fight against climate change but which faces obstacles like unproven scalability and public apprehension. The ethanol industry wants Summit to sequester its carbon to drive down its carbon intensity and draw lucrative tax credits from state and federal clean fuel programs. But the oil industry wants to use the pipeline for EOR, reflecting a belief among drillers in North Dakota’s Bakken that oil recovery is necessary to reverse the once-booming region’s flagging output. North Dakota oil players launched the group Friends of Ag and Energy in December to promote carbon pipelines like Summit's, including through thousands of dollars of radio ads. With the Summit project, "the potential is there, the size of the prize in the Bakken is significant, and ultimately, I see a tremendous long-term opportunity," North Dakota Petroleum Council (NDPC) president Ron Ness told Reuters. Summit has long maintained, in both sworn testimony , opens new tab to state pipeline regulators and on its website , opens new tab, that it does not intend to use its project for EOR. "The Summit Carbon Solutions project will not be used for enhanced oil recovery," the website reads. "Summit does not intend to ship CO2 for use in EOR," the company told the Iowa Utilities Board (IUB) last August. Environmental groups generally oppose EOR because of its potential to extend the life of the fossil fuels industry. But more recently, Summit officials have indicated that using the pipeline to ship carbon for boosting oil production is a future likelihood. "Today, we don’t have any shippers who want to ship CO2 for EOR. When that changes, we will likely move it for that purpose," said Wade Boeshans, Summit's executive vice president, at a December 20 event held by Friends of Ag and Energy in Bismarck, North Dakota. Summit attorney Bret Dublinske told the IUB in a January 19 filing that the company "does not ultimately control" whether future customers would use the pipeline for EOR. And Bruce Rastetter, chairman of Summit's parent company Summit Agricultural Group, also said on a North Dakota radio show on February 7 that the company is open to EOR. Summit CEO Lee Blank said the company’s messaging on EOR is consistent. "The front-end goal of this company is the ethanol industry and the sequestration of carbon, and it will be that until the market tells us to do anything different," he said. The company is also contractually obligated to sequester all carbon it captures at ethanol plants who have signed on with the company, Blank said. OIL INDUSTRY ALLIES North Dakota's oil production peaked in late 2019 , opens new tab after a nearly decade-long drilling boom that made it one of the country’s top crude suppliers, and it has yet to recover, according to data from the Energy Information Administration. The state will need as much as ten times more CO2 than it can capture from stationary sources to free billions of barrels of oil trapped in Bakken fields, said John Harju, vice president for strategic partnerships at the University of North Dakota's Energy and Environmental Research Center. "Importing CO2 via pipeline is something that I think at the end of the day is going to be necessary," Harju said. Summit has faced setbacks in securing state permits, including in North Dakota, and land easements from some landowners along its route over safety, land rights, and environmental concerns. In a bid to build public support, Friends of Ag and Energy advertised on six North Dakota radio stations between early December and February, according to records maintained by the Federal Communications Commission. Invoices show that in December, the group paid a total of $16,366 for 487 ads across the six stations. Invoices for other months were not available. The group's chair, Kathleen Neset, is a North Dakota oil sector consultant and member of the North Dakota Petroleum Council board. Neset did not respond to an interview request. Its parent organization, Primus Incorporated, counts influential figures in the state oil industry as its board members and donors, according to the group's public filings. Summit's current focus on sequestration is in part due to the 45Q tax credit program, expanded by the Inflation Reduction Act, which offers $85 per ton of sequestered carbon and just $50 per ton for EOR. A shift in that policy could alter the company's priorities around EOR, executives and oil industry players said. https://www.reuters.com/markets/carbon/us-carbon-pipeline-company-pledges-no-oil-recovery-bakken-drillers-want-it-2024-03-11/

2024-03-11 11:00

JOHANNESBURG, March 11 (Reuters) - South Africa's African National Congress (ANC) is likely to lose its parliamentary majority in May for the first time since Nelson Mandela led it to power at the fall of apartheid 30 years ago, a survey showed, opening up the prospect of coalition rule. South Africans go to polls on May 29 to elect a new National Assembly, which will then choose the next president. A survey of voter opinion in February by Johannesburg-based think tank The Brenthurst Foundation and the SABI Strategy Group estimated support for the ANC at 39%, down from 41% in October and 44% in November 2022. The survey was modelled on the 66% turnout of the last general election in 2019, when the ANC got more than 57% of the vote. A result below 50% in May would mean the former liberation movement would be forced to enter into a coalition with smaller parties to govern the country, a far cry from its best-ever result in 2004 under Thabo Mbeki when it secured almost 70% of the vote. The ANC's image has been tarnished in the past decade by economic stagnation, rising unemployment and repeated corruption scandals involving its top officials. Its current leader, President Cyril Ramaphosa, has tried to clean up the party's reputation and revive the economy since replacing Jacob Zuma in 2018, but has struggled to make much headway. Rolling power cuts that have become part of daily life are symptomatic of the ANC's lacklustre track record on service delivery. Ramaphosa said last month that the ANC would work to resolve the country's challenges should it win decisively at the polls. Over three-quarters of the Brenthurst/SABI survey's respondents said they would be happy with a coalition government. The survey showed support for the biggest opposition party the Democratic Alliance at 27%, up from 23% in October's survey, while support for the far-left Economic Freedom Fighters party fell to 10% from 17% in October. Support for the newly-formed uMkhonto weSizwe party, which has been endorsed by Zuma, was seen at 13%. The telephone survey was nationally representative, targeted only registered voters and had a 3% margin of error at the 95% confidence level. The Brenthurst Foundation was set up by the Oppenheimers, heirs to the De Beers diamond fortune. https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/south-africas-anc-likely-lose-parliamentary-majority-may-vote-survey-shows-2024-03-11/

2024-03-11 10:57

March 11 (Reuters) - Reddit is aiming for a valuation of up to $6.4 billion in its U.S. initial public offering (IPO), the social media platform said on Monday, as it nears one of the most anticipated stock market debuts of the last few years. The company, along with some of its existing investors, is targeting a sale of about 22 million shares, priced between $31 and $34 each, to raise up to $748 million. The IPO, a major litmus test of investor appetite for new listings, will come more than two years after the company began preparations to go public. So far this year, the IPO market recovery has been uneven. The targeted valuation, on a fully diluted basis, is less than the $10 billion Reddit was valued at after a fundraising in 2021. After its launch in 2005, Reddit became one of the cornerstones of social media culture. Its iconic logo - featuring an alien with an orange background - is one of the most recognized symbols on the internet. Its 100,000 online forums, dubbed "subreddits", allow conversations on topics ranging from "the sublime to the ridiculous, the trivial to the existential, the comic to the serious", according to co-founder Steve Huffman. Huffman himself turned to one of the subreddits for help to quit drinking, he wrote in his letter. Former U.S. President Barack Obama also did an "AMA" ("ask me anything"), internet lingo for an interview, with the site's users in 2012. The company's influential communities are best known for the "meme-stock" saga of 2021, when several retail investors collaborated on Reddit's "wallstreetbets" forum to buy shares of highly shorted companies such as video game retailer GameStop (GME.N) , opens new tab. The episode torpedoed hedge funds that had bet against those stocks, and made retail traders a force to reckon with. It was also featured in a 2023 film starring Seth Rogen. To tap into the retail base, Reddit has reserved 8% of the total shares on offer for eligible users and moderators on its platform, certain board members and friends and family members of its employees and directors. Such buyers will not be under a lock-up period and could choose to sell their shares on the first day of trading, potentially increasing the price volatility. "This is a unique IPO and what happens with it is going to be partly driven by the buzz on the platform," said Reena Aggarwal, director of the Georgetown University Psaros Center for Financial Markets and Policy. Weak debuts from Arm Holdings , Instacart (CART.O) , opens new tab and Birkenstock (BIRK.N) , opens new tab in late 2023 had chilled hopes of a recovery in IPOs as the U.S. stock market came off a deep selloff the year before. Since the IPO, Arm's stock has more than doubled. Instacart has underperformed the S&P 500 (.SPX) , opens new tab and Birkenstock is about even with the index. Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, J.P.Morgan and Bank of America Securities are the lead underwriters for the offering. Reddit expects to list on the New York Stock Exchange under "RDDT." LIMITED COMMERCIAL SUCCESS Despite its cult-like status among followers, Reddit has lagged the success of contemporaries such as Meta Platforms' Facebook (META.O) , opens new tab and Twitter, now known as X. The company has never turned a profit, and said in its filing earlier that it was "in the early stages of monetizing (its) business". Reddit had an average of 73.1 million daily active "uniques" - users who use its platform at least once a day - in the three months ended Dec. 31, 2023, it said. The company's somewhat loose approach to content moderation has also been a sticking point with advertisers. It relies on volunteers from its user base to moderate the content posted on its forums. Moderators can decide to withdraw from their duty at any time, like during 2023, when several quit in protest over Reddit's decision to charge third-party app developers for access to its data. "There's no question that as a public company, Reddit is going to be under much more scrutiny in terms of their platform, what's being put out on the platform and how it's being monitored," Aggarwal said. "Regulators and policymakers are quite concerned about these issues." https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/reddit-targets-up-64-bln-valuation-much-awaited-us-ipo-2024-03-11/

2024-03-11 10:36

LONDON/ LUSAKA, March 11 (Reuters) - China Nonferrous Metal Mining Corp's (1258.HK) , opens new tab Chambishi Copper Smelter in Zambia has cut one-fifth of its production due to power shortages in the country, two sources with knowledge of the matter told Reuters. The plant, which produces about 250,000 metric tons of copper per year, is one of the biggest processing facilities in Africa's second-largest copper producer. Zambia generates about 87% of its electricity from hydropower, and lower water levels due to its current drought, the worst in two decades, have curbed power generation, the managing director of state-owned power utility Zesco said. Zesco said last week it would start rationing electricity supplies from March 11. However, the sources said that Chambishi had already reduced capacity as of last week. CNMC did not immediately respond to emailed questions on the matter. The company is now considering plans to install diesel generators at the plant to help alleviate the impact of power shortages, according to the sources. The power shortage comes amid a gradual decline in Zambia's copper production due to lack of new investment at some operations, including Konkola Copper Mines and Mopani Copper Mines. Output of the metal slumped to about 698,000 tons in 2023 from 763,000 tons the prior year, according to data from the Zambia Chamber of Mines. Some of Zambia's smaller producers may also be affected by the power shortages, though its still too early to calculate the overall impact on production, the sources said. The utility plans to meet mining companies on March 14 to discuss ways it could "claw back" about 250 megawatts or 20-25% of supplies, managing director Victor Mapani told journalists in Lusaka last week. The Zambezi River Authority (ZRA) has reduced its allocation of water for electricity generation to Zambia and Zimbabwe to 16 billion cubic litres currently from 30 billion in 2023 and 40 billion in 2022, Mapani said. https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/zambias-chambishi-copper-smelter-scales-back-capacity-amid-power-cuts-sources-2024-03-11/

2024-03-11 10:29

MUMBAI, March 11 (Reuters) - The Indian rupee rose for a third straight session on Monday on the back of dollar inflows, but its rally was run into by likely intervention from the central bank. The rupee closed at 82.7575, up from its previous close of 82.7850. The local unit had hit an over six-month intraday high of 82.65, but the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) likely purchased dollars via state-run banks to prevent a significant appreciation in the rupee, traders said. "The rupee has broken a key support level of 82.80 given robust inflows, solid fundamentals and a weakening dollar," said Amit Pabari, managing director at forex advisory firm CR Forex. "While the overall momentum is building towards the rupee edging towards 82.50, we feel that large-scale gains could be restrained due to dollar purchases from the RBI and importers." The focus for investors was the RBI's $5 billion/rupee sell/buy swap that matured on Monday. The RBI did not roll over the swap and took delivery, aiming to bolster foreign exchange reserves and rupee liquidity, four bankers said. "The RBI may have accepted delivery of the swap and that was the most feasible option considering the significant inflows and as dollar liquidity is not a concern for now," Pabari said. The rupee was also helped by strength in its Asian peers amid a drop in U.S. Treasury yields. The Korean won climbed 0.8% and the Indonesian rupiah advanced 0.4%. Focus now turns to the U.S. February inflation data due Tuesday. The data comes on the back of the higher-than-expected January inflation print. https://www.reuters.com/markets/currencies/rupee-ends-higher-inflows-likely-rbi-intervention-caps-rise-2024-03-11/