European economy

Arcelor Mittal

ArcelorMittal buys John Lawrie Metals, the steel recycling firm for the UK’s oil and gas industry, for an as yet undisclosed amount

Morgan Stanley | ArcelorMittal has announced the acquisition of the steel recycling firm, John Lawrie Metals, for an as yet undisclosed price. The transaction is part of the former’s strategy to increase the use of scrap steel to reduce the emissions from its steel operations. The company which has been bought operates 4 sites in Scotland which recycle steel for the UK’s oil and gas industry, with a total capacity…


rusia energia

Why Europe Didn’t Reduce Its Dependence on Russian Gas

Nick Ottens (Atlantic Sentinel) | Western Europe refused to see the risks. Eastern Europe refused to invest in renewables. Australia, Canada, Europe, Japan and the United States have imposed unprecedented economic sanctions on Russia since it invaded Ukraine, banning Russian airlines and state media, cutting off Russian banks from the SWIFT financial system and freezing the assets of Russian oligarchs and the Russian Central Bank. The one step European countries…


Cellnex

Cellnex will have to sell 1,000 towers to satisfy UK regulator

Renta 4 | 1-. The UK Competition regulator, the CMA, has given the green light to Cellnex’s purchase of 6,000 towers from Hutchinson in the region. The deal is subject to the Spanish firm’s sale of 1,000 sites which overlap geographically with those of Hutchinson. 2-. From what we can glean from the communication, the 1,000 sites which will be subject to being sold off correspond to part of the…


Russian gas pipeline Nordstream2

“Soft Power” May Not Be Soft

Fernando González Urbaneja | The European and US deployment to help Ukraine and stifle Putin’s Russia is not as rhetorical or irrelevant as some imagined a week ago. Putin’s unilateral and criminal war is being met with the patriotism of Ukrainians, determined to defend their country and their freedom, but also with the active revulsion of most of the community of nations. The debate in the United Nations Extraordinary Assembly…


VladimirPutin

Underestimating Putin’s Resolve Leads To Tragedy

J.P. Marín-Arrese | Ever since the Soviet Union collapsed, the US has shown utter disdain for Russia. It flouted the pledge made to Gorbatchev to keep former Warsaw Pact countries out of NATO so that Russia could have a security buffer zone along its frontiers. It openly invited the Ukrainian government to disregard the Minsk agreement, which was brokered to ensure that Ukraine would remain neutral. John Kerry, the former…


Alemania Coalicion 2021 2

Germany Approves €13 Bn Stimulus Package To Ease Energy Bills Of The Most Vulnerable Households

Germany’s coalition parties agreed on Wednesday a roughly 13 billion euro package of measures to help households cope with surging energy prices, including scrapping a surcharge levied on electricity bills to support green power, as reported by Reuters. Energy prices in Germany have soared in the last year, and fears of an escalation of the crisis between Ukraine and gas supplier Russia are set to push them higher still. Germany’s…


rusia energia

Russia’s Dependence On Raw Materials Goes Beyond Oil And Natural Gas: Nickel, Palladium, Platinum, Wheat, Corn,…

Intermoney | The EU cannot replace Russian energy supplies in the short term since, in a normal year, as was 2019, 46.7% of the solid fuels, 41.1% of the natural gas and 26.9% of the oil it imported came from Russia. Figures that are biased upwards by Germany, given that, for example, in 2021, 42.83% of Spain’s natural gas exports came from Algeria compared to the 8.91% that came from…


Russian invasion of Ukraine has begun as Putin039s tanks roll

European Bank Exposure To Ukraine Manageable But Second-Round Effects Could Be Material

Marco Troiano (Scope Ratings) | At the end of September 2021, the combined exposure of BIS reporting banks to Ukrainian residents stood at USD 13.5bn gross of risk transfers, with French and Austrian banks accounting for about half of the total. This does not pose any credit concerns. Only a handful of European banking groups maintain a meaningful local presence, including Raiffeisen’s Bank Aval, BNP Paribas’ Ukrsibbank, and PKO’s Kredobank. While…


gas natural almacenamiento

Electricity Prices in Spain And Portugal Are The Most Sensitive To Those Of Gas

Jorge Mario Uribe Gil via The Conversation | High electricity prices have been at the center of public opinion in the world and particularly in Europe for several months. The huge upward variations that have been recorded since the first half of 2021, and that promise to become more pronounced as the winter progresses, threaten the overall price stability of the region. This rise may lead to situations of energy…


french interconexion

Europe’s Natural Gas Stores Are At Around 33.83% Of Their Capacity; Germany Is At 32.77% And Spain At 58.36%

Intermoney | The EU is the area that would be worst off in the event of a war in Ukraine. At this point, it is worth remembering that Russia was the first supplier of the EU in terms of energy raw materials in a normal year such as 2019. In that year, 46.7% of the EU’s imports of solid fuels (i.e. coal), 41.1% of those related to natural gas and…