2023-12-19 23:38

MEXICO CITY, Dec 19 (Reuters) - Mexico emitted "extreme" amounts of methane from a natural gas pipeline running through its northern border state Durango in 2019, a research paper published on Tuesday showed, citing data collected from satellites. Methane, a potent greenhouse gas that traps heat in the atmosphere and warms the planet much faster than carbon dioxide in the short term, is considered a top threat to the climate. Scientists from Harvard University, led by Marc Watine and Daniel Varon, identified a hot spot in Durango that released thousands of metric tons of methane over two months. Watine said the team was able to trace the methane leaks to the El Encino-La Laguna pipeline that passes through the states of Chihuahua and Durango, transporting natural gas from the United States to Mexico. "Our analysis shows that there were emissions from several different parts of the pipeline between April and May that year," Watine said in an interview. "Not all of it came from one location." On May 12, 2019, between 260 and 550 tons of methane were released per hour from one location, totaling 1,130 to 1,380 tons over three hours, the scientists found. It was not clear what caused the emissions or which company was responsible for them. Government documents showed the pipeline, owned by state-owned power utility CFE, is operated by Fermaca Pipeline El Encino. CFE did not immediately respond to a request for comment and no contact details are listed in public documents for Fermaca Pipeline El Encino. Scientists have said Mexican companies, including state energy company Pemex, lag behind their obligations to identify, report and mitigate emissions from their infrastructure. In September 2022, another group detected two methane leaks from Pemex infrastructure in the Ku-Maloob-Zaap oil field cluster in the Gulf of Mexico. Methane, the main component of natural gas, is invisible and odorless. However, in recent years satellite technology has evolved to make detection possible and more accurate. The latest research was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a peer reviewed journal. https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/mexico-emitted-extreme-amounts-methane-gas-pipeline-scientists-find-2023-12-19/

2023-12-19 23:07

Follows COP28 commitment by countries on fossil fuels Many countries also pledged to triple renewable energy Will see renewables finance hit 7.5 billion euros/yr by 2025 LONDON, Dec 20 (Reuters) - Dutch lender ING (INGA.AS) will stop financing oil and gas exploration and production by 2040 and triple new lending to renewable energy over the next two years as part of an updated climate strategy, the bank's chief executive told Reuters. Investors and regulators are increasingly pushing banks to cut climate-damaging emissions tied to their financing and many are looking to tighten lending criteria to companies in high-emission sectors unless they have a plan to transition to net-zero. The Netherlands' biggest lender had made its latest decision, CEO Steven van Rijswijk said, in light of an agreement this month from the COP28 climate talks in Dubai for countries to move away from fossil fuels and bolster roll out of renewables. Under the new plan, ING will reduce loans to upstream oil and gas by 35% by 2030, a move that would cut absolute emissions from its portfolio by 50%. "Initially we had said we would bring down our upstream oil and gas exposure by 50% by 2040 and now we are saying that we're going to be completely out," van Rijswijk said. As well as the COP28 outcome, he also linked it to an updated report by the International Energy Agency that said to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, advanced economies needed to phase out oil and gas by 2040. Its renewables financing would hit 7.5 billion euros ($8.22 billion) by 2025, up from 2.5 billion euros in 2022. The target would mean the bank would hit its tripling target five years ahead of the pledge made by governments at COP28, it said. A spokesperson for Extinction Rebellion, which has targeted ING as the Netherlands' largest financier of fossil fuels, said the move announced on Wednesday was a step in the right direction but "not enough." "Existing projects extracting oil, coal and gas are already enough to take us over 2 degrees of warming," said Tessel Hofstede, saying the bank should rule out financing new oil projects. Climate groups are planning to block a highway that runs past Amsterdam's financial district on Dec. 30 to protest ING's policies. The update is the latest move by ING, which has a market capitalisation of around $54 billion, to toughen up its climate strategy to rein in emissions linked to its financing. Last March, it said it would restrict lending to clients engaged in sectors including trade finance. In October, it called on governments to help by setting tougher decarbonisation rules in sectors including real estate. It also follows similar steps by other regional lenders. Last week, France's second-biggest listed bank Credit Agricole (CAGR.PA) said it would stop financing new fossil fuel extraction projects and triple renewables financing. ($1 = 0.9119 euros) https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/ing-ditch-upstream-oil-gas-by-2040-triple-renewables-ceo-2023-12-19/

2023-12-19 22:48

Dec 19 (Reuters) - FedEx (FDX.N) cut its full-year revenue forecast and reported quarterly profit that fell far short of analysts' targets on Tuesday, sending shares tumbling 9.8%, as its largest Express business saw demand from the U.S. Postal Service drop. The global delivery firm's shares fell to $252.58 in extended trading after closing at $280 on Tuesday. The results also dragged down shares of rival United Parcel Service (UPS.N) by 2.9%. FedEx said adjusted earnings for the quarter that ended Nov. 30 jumped 23% to $1.01 billion, or $3.99 per diluted share. But the result fell 19 cents per share short of analysts' estimate, according to LSEG data. "We expect revenue will continue to be pressured by volatile macroeconomic conditions negatively affecting customer demand for our services across our transportation companies" for the remainder of the fiscal year that ends May 31, FedEx said in a regulatory filing. FedEx now expects a low-single-digit percentage decline in revenue from last year, compared with its prior forecast of roughly flat results. In a nod to investors who have pressured the company to slash costs and improve profits, FedEx said it expects to repurchase an additional $1 billion of common stock during fiscal 2024. Operating income during the quarter dropped 60% at the company's air-based Express unit. That was partly due to falling volume from the U.S. Postal Service, which has been shifting more packages from higher-margin air services to more economical ground services. FedEx is negotiating a renewal of the post office contract with an eye toward improving profitability from the business. "It will take quite a significant change in contractual terms and agreement to renew that," Brie Carere, FedEx's chief customer officer, said on a conference call with analysts. Analysts pressed the company on how it plans to meaningfully improve stubbornly low profitability in the Express business. "Is the margin profile here fixable?" asked Bernstein analyst David Vernon, who said he was relaying investor concerns. "I'm very confident that the margin at Express will return," after the company restructures those operations and demand comes back, FedEx CEO Raj Subramaniam said. Elsewhere, operating income at FedEx's Ground division, known for delivering packages from Walmart (WMT.N) and other customers, rose 51% during the quarter. FedEx said Ground gained share during the quarter and retained virtually all the customers it poached from United Parcel Service ahead of the Aug. 1 expiration of the contract covering UPS's 340,000 United Brotherhood of Teamsters employees. "I'm confident we'll hold on" to them, Carere said. The call came amid the crucial holiday peak shipping season that runs from late November through Christmas and is shaping up to be lackluster this year as consumers grapple with inflation and higher costs for housing, food and other necessities. https://www.reuters.com/business/fedex-cuts-full-year-revenue-forecast-2023-12-19/

2023-12-19 22:42

Dec 20 (Reuters) - Germany's Wintershall Dea (WINT.UL) and Austria's OMV (OMVV.VI) are to formally lose their shares in gas extraction projects in Russia's Arctic, according to decrees signed by President Vladimir Putin. OMV last year pulled out from Russia after the start of the conflict in Ukraine. Wintershall Dea, a joint venture of BASF (BASFn.DE) and Russian billionaire Mikhail Fridman's investment firm LetterOne, is in the process of exiting from Russia. All activities with Russian participation, including Wintershall Dea's stake in the Nord Stream pipeline as well as joint ventures with Gazprom (GAZP.MM) are to be legally separated by mid-2024. Under the decrees signed on Tuesday by Putin, OMV's and Wintershall Dea's stakes in the Yuzhno-Russkoye field and in the Achimov projects are to revert to newly created Russian companies. Both projects are located in the Yamal-Nenets region in Russia's far north. Under the terms of the decree, all shares held by foreign companies in joint ventures with gas giant Gazprom (GAZP.MM) are to be turned over to the new Russian entities. Shareholders will receive shares proportionate their holdings in the joint venture. Proceeds from the sales of these holdings will be placed in special accounts owned by what was previously their former foreign owners. All corporate agreements previously in force will no longer be valid from the moment of the decree's signature. (This story has been corrected to fix company names to OMV in the headline and to Wintershall Dea in the first paragraph) https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/putin-seizes-imv-wintershall-deas-russian-ventures-2023-12-19/

2023-12-19 22:00

NEW YORK, Dec 19 (Reuters) - The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on Tuesday approved a $1.2 billion settlement between PJM Interconnection and more than 80 parties that resolved complaints stemming from a massive outage during a 2022 winter storm. More than 15 complaints were brought against PJM for non-performance charges following Winter Storm Elliott, which brought sub-freezing temperatures to two-thirds of the U.S. Power plant owners that failed to deliver electricity during the storm were slapped with penalties under PJM's capacity performance framework. The original settlement proposed $1.8 billion in non-performance charges against power suppliers including Energy Harbor and Calpine. PJM, along with 80 other parties, filed a settlement package with the agency in September to resolve these complaints and avoid a potential litigation. The parties also agreed to trim non-performance charges to $1.2 billion. The settlement resolved all but one complaint made by Old Dominion Electric Cooperative. PJM oversees electricity supply in a 13-state region, managing and paying on-call generators to keep power systems running. FERC and the North American Electric Reliability Corp led a joint inquiry into the power outages and blackouts during Elliot and found the cold temperatures caused unplanned electricity generation supply losses of over 70,000 megawatts. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-ferc-okays-12-billion-pjm-settlement-outages-during-2022-storm-2023-12-19/

2023-12-19 21:53

Dec 19 (Reuters) - The Texas electric grid is too dependent on natural gas-fired backup power generators after blackouts, U.S. regulators found on Tuesday in a study that also called for gas suppliers and electric utilities to sync their plans to recover from outages. The joint study by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), North American Electric Reliability Corp (NERC), and six regional entities which encompass nearly 400 million customers, looked at outages in Texas during the 2021 Winter Storm Uri. The freeze left more than 4.5 million people without power, some for days, as the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) sought to prevent a grid collapse due to the suspension of an unusually high amount of generation. As per a 2021 report on Uri by regulators, all 28 of ERCOT's "blackstart" resources, which can start up without drawing power from the grid, use natural gas as their primary fuel, and during Uri, over 80% of them failed or faced issues in starting. ERCOT has defined processes to procure blackstart resources and verify their sufficiency, but it "relies heavily on natural gas as fuel" for those resources, the study released on Tuesday found. "Where feasible, grid operators should incorporate a variety of fuel and non-fuel options into their blackstart system restoration plans," FERC said in a statement about the study. The study highlighted "the need for the electric and natural gas industries to work together to develop a joint blackstart system restoration plan that considers extreme cold weather conditions and the mutual interdependence of these two complex and important industries." It recommended that gas suppliers raise the priority of delivering gas to blackstart resources, while power producers identify and address the limitations of such resources, store natural gas off-site for blackouts, and test starting dual-fuel resources without any primary fuel. Last month, FERC and NERC urged lawmakers to fill a regulatory blind spot to maintain reliable supply of natural gas during extreme cold weather. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/texas-grid-over-relies-natural-gas-restore-power-after-blackouts-study-2023-12-19/