Blog

The federal government of Canada has announced that it will impose a «backstop» carbon tax on fuels in the provinces and territories that have no adequate carbon emission pricing plans and refuse to adopt the country-wide CO2 pricing system. This «backstop» mechanism will apply in Manitoba, Ontario, New Brunswick and Saskatchewan as of April 2019, and in Nunavut and Yukon as of July 2019: in these provinces, proceeds from the new tax will go directly back to taxpayers (direct rebates named «Climate Action Incentive payments»).

The other provinces, namely Quebec, Alberta, British Columbia, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador will comply with the federal benchmark. Canada’s nationwide climate-change strategy includes a carbon tax, which has to be either adopted by the provinces or imposed by the federal government. The tax will rise by CAD10/tCO2eq (around US$7.6/tCO2eq) each year from CAD20/tCO2eq (around US$15.3/tCO2eq) in 2019 to CAD50/tCO2eq (around US$38/tCO2eq) by 2022.

The tax will be imposed on fuel and production and distribution companies, which will in turn pass on the cost increase to customers. energy prices should then rise by CAD4.42c/l (US$3.4c/l) for gasoline, CAD3.10c/l (US$2.4c/l) for propane and CAD3.91c/m3 (US$3c/m3) of gas.

The government of Australia has decided not to implement LNG export controls in 2019, as the domestic gas market is no longer expected to suffer from any shortage. This announcement will ease concerns from major LNG customers such as Japan, China and South Korea.

The Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources of Indonesia has awarded two blocks in an auction for six oil and gas blocks that was launched in August 2018. Hong Kong energy firm Hong Kong Jindi Group won the South Jambi B onstream gas block, while local company PT Minarak Brantas Gas (Bakrie Group) won the Banyumas exploration block.

Japanese gas utility Osaka Gas has launched a gas joint marketing business in Indonesia, in partnership with Indonesia oil and gas group Pertamina. Under the agreement with Pertamina, Osaka Gas will supply gas to end customers. The group plans to launch an energy service business in Indonesia, supporting customers with financing schemes to support the introduction of gas in their plants.

Kazakhstan’s top uranium producer Kazatomprom, which holds first rights on uranium extraction in Kazakhstan and accounts for most of the uranium production in the country, has cut its production forecast for 2018 by 20%, from the initially planned 27,000 t to 21,600 t. Production should continue to decline by around 20% in 2019 and 2020.

The Ministry of Energy of Chile is waiting for the final feasibility study for the development of a 200 MW power interconnection line between Arica (Chile) and Tacna (Peru), which could connect the Chilean and Peruvian electric systems.

EDF Renewables has commissioned five solar PV power plants with a cumulated capacity of 101 MW, namely 60 MW Mashabei Sadeh, 14 MW Pduyim, 13 MW Mefalsim, 7 MW Kfar Maimon and 7 MW Bitha, in the Negev Desert in Israel. Four of the projects were won in a tender in mid-2017 and will sell their power generation at €47/MWh (US$53.5/MWh).

German energy group and Norwegian energy company Equinor (formerly Statoil) have installed the last turbine at the 385 MW Arkona offshore wind project, located northeast of the island of Rügen in the German Baltic Sea. The €1.2bn wind project includes 60 turbines, which were provided by Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy (SGRE) and installed in just three months..