Today
Super funds look to take advantage of energy transition
The biggest question for the $3.9 trillion super sector is not whether to invest in the energy transition’s unlisted asset boom, but rather which opportunities are best.
- Hannah Wootton
CEFC spend to rise to jump-start grid build-out
Funding for big-ticket transmission projects is set to swell spending by Australia’s green bank this year beyond the $1.8 billion invested in 2023-24.
- Angela Macdonald-Smith
Yesterday
- Opinion
- Opinion
We need overriding public interest test to break approval logjam
Australia has to look at the global benefits of green projects, not just local impacts. The alternative might be stagnation, or worse.
- Alan Finkel
Shell, PetroChina to expand huge Surat coal seam gas project
The investment, expected to cost billions of dollars, will supply export customers and the domestic market, where regulators have warned of looming shortages.
- Angela Macdonald-Smith
- Opinion
- Opinion
Cheap, fast and low-risk climate action opportunities
The core principles that drive good investment are also at play in climate change. Climate Ltd should think about diversifying its emission reduction bets.
- Kate Howitt and Gates Moss
- Opinion
- The AFR View
Union iron ore claim poses risks for green superpower hopes
Let’s hope for the sake of Australia’s energy transition that we don’t return to the bad old days of industrial disruption in the Pilbara.
- The AFR View
This Month
Woodside punished as investors query ‘marginal’ green projects
The oil and gas producer had almost $2.6 billion wiped off its market value as investors struggled to accept projected returns on a large US acquisition.
- Updated
- Angela Macdonald-Smith
EnergyAustralia returns to profit as prices jump
After two June halves of heavy losses, EnergyAustralia has surged back into the black, buoyed by sharply higher wholesale prices when renewables fell short.
- Angela Macdonald-Smith
Marinus Link makes billion-dollar cable commitment
The order should ensure the $3 billion-plus project to build a second power link to Tasmania starts up in 2030 when the energy market operator says it’s needed.
- Angela Macdonald-Smith
July
Nuclear talk finally goes ahead after Holmes à Court criticism
The engineer whose nuclear speech was cancelled the day renewable energy advocate Simon Holmes à Court objected to it has finally delivered the talk.
- John Kehoe
Marex raids Jarden’s carbon trading business, opens NZ office
The Nasdaq-listed firm has snared Jarden rainmaker Nigel Brunel and a swathe of the Kiwi investment bank’s carbon trading team.
- Sarah Thompson, Kanika Sood and Emma Rapaport
- Opinion
- Chanticleer
Macquarie has partly reversed its ban on banking coal deals
Sentiment against part of the coal industry has softened, and Macquarie has read the tea leaves.
- Anthony Macdonald
No wind or sun? Try using compressed air and molten salts
“You want as many cards up your sleeve as you can,” says Hydro Tasmania chief executive Ian Brooksbank of emerging renewable generation technologies.
- Angela Macdonald-Smith
Australia could buy South Korean nuclear reactors
The East Asian nation is gradually increasing its exports of energy technology to diversify its economic base and strengthen its geopolitical influence.
- Michael Read and Elouise Fowler
- Opinion
- Opinion
The common sense path to net zero
Looking at the environmental crisis through the lens of financial frameworks, the core principles that drive good investment are also at play in climate change.
- Kate Howitt and Gates Moss
- Analysis
- Commercial real estate
The new risk lurking in banks’ commercial real estate lending
While working from home is a known risk for office towers, Citi highlights a new pressure point for lenders – the growing cost of the energy transition.
- James Eyers
EnergyConnect exit leaves just months to turn around crucial grid link
Elecnor, the Spanish contractor building part of the key link needed for the transition away from coal power, is expected to cease its involvement by the end of September.
- Angela Macdonald-Smith and Jenny Wiggins
- Opinion
- Opinion
Delivering the world’s most important corporate rescue
What’s true for commodities is true for the greatest eleventh-hour turnaround in human history. In climate terms, that means “the cure for high emissions is high prices”.
- Kate Howitt and Gates Moss
- Updated
- Mergers & acquisitions
Woodside splashes $1.35b in the US to become ‘global LNG powerhouse’
The acquisition of Tellurian will give the ASX-listed oil and gas company a foothold to develop exports in the booming US market for shipping natural gas.
- Updated
- Angela Macdonald-Smith
- Opinion
- Letters to the Editor
Climate balance sheet reveals a dire bottom line
Letters from readers on the climate debate; ANZ’s bonds scandal; energy wars; Fortescue job losses; remembering MH17 victims; and a post-election exodus from the US.
