The International Energy Agency (IEA) does not expect moves by the G7 nations to counter the evasion of price caps on Russian energy would change the supply situation for crude oil and oil products, IEA executive director Fatih Birol said.
The G7, the EU and Australia agreed to impose a US$60-per-barrel price cap on Russian seaborne crude oil and also set an upper price limit for Russian oil products to deprive Moscow of revenues for its invasion of Ukraine.
The G7 would enhance efforts to counter evasion of the caps “while avoiding spillover effects and maintaining global energy supply,” the group said on Saturday, without giving details, during its annual leaders’ meeting.
Photo: EPA-EFE
The IEA, which provides analysis and input to the G7 on energy, does not see the enhanced enforcement of the price caps affecting the global oil and fuel supply, Birol told Reuters in an interview on the sidelines of the summit.
“Any significant changes in the markets as always we will reflect in our analysis, in our reports, but for the time being I don’t see a reason to make a change in our analysis,” he said.
According to Birol, the price cap reached two main objectives: It did not trigger tightness in the markets as Russian oil continued to flow, but at the same time Moscow’s revenues were reduced.
“Russia did play the energy card, and it did fail. But there are some loopholes, some challenges for the better functioning of the oil price cap,” Birol said.
The G7 has also brought support for the gas investment back to the communique on Saturday in that it said was a “temporary” solution to address potential market shortfalls and as nations are trying to decouple from the Russian energy.
The move has alarmed climate advocates who warned the group might fail to deliver on its goal to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050 and limit global warming to 1.5°C.
“It may have some impact, but countries once again reiterated that if there are some impacts to slow down in that area, they are going to accelerate in the other areas that it will not change their determination of reaching the 1.5°C goal,” Birol said.
“The clean energy transition is happening and much faster than many think,” he said.
The language change was brought in by Germany, once a top buyer of Russian gas, sources have said, and the communique did not have a time frame for investments into the gas sector.
“There is no determination of any time frame there, but I think the main issue is because of the reliance of especially European countries on Russian gas almost for decades. Now it is not easy to change everything from one day to another,” Birol said.
“[German] Chancellor [Olaf] Scholz made clear again and again that Germany is very keen to reach this 1.5 degrees target. And I believe in his words,” he said.
PATENTS: MediaTek Inc said it would not comment on ongoing legal cases, but does not expect the legal action by Huawei to affect its business operations Smartphone integrated chips designer MediaTek Inc (聯發科) on Friday said that a lawsuit filed by Chinese smartphone brand Huawei Technologies Co (華為) over alleged patent infringements would have little impact on its operations. In an announcement posted on the Taiwan Stock Exchange, MediaTek said that it would not comment on an ongoing legal case. However, the company said that Huawei’s legal action would have little impact on its operations. MediaTek’s statement came after China-based PRIP Research said on Thursday that Huawei filed a lawsuit with a Chinese district court claiming that MediaTek infringed on its patents. The infringement mentioned in the lawsuit likely involved
Taipei is today suspending work, classes and its US$2.4 trillion stock market as Typhoon Gaemi approaches Taiwan with strong winds and heavy rain. The nation is not conducting securities, currency or fixed income trading, statements from its stock and currency exchanges said. Authorities had yesterday issued a warning that the storm could affect people on land and canceled some ship crossings and domestic flights. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) expects its local chipmaking fabs to maintain normal production, the company said in an e-mailed statement. The main chipmaker for Apple Inc and Nvidia Corp said it has activated routine typhoon alert
GROWTH: TSMC increased its projected revenue growth for this year to more than 25 percent, citing stronger-than-expected demand for AI devices and smartphones The Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER, 台灣經濟研究院) yesterday raised its forecast for Taiwan’s GDP growth this year from 3.29 percent to 3.85 percent, as exports and private investment recovered faster than it predicted three months ago. The Taipei-based think tank also expects that Taiwan would see a 8.19 percent increase in exports this year, better than the 7.55 percent it projected in April, as US technology giants spent more money on artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure and development. “There will be more AI servers going forward, but it remains to be seen if the momentum would extend to personal computers, smartphones and
Catastrophic computer outages caused by a software update from one company have once again exposed the dangers of global technological dependence on a handful of players, experts said on Friday. A flawed update sent out by the little-known security firm CrowdStrike Holdings Inc brought airlines, TV stations and myriad other aspects of daily life to a standstill. The outages affected companies or individuals that use CrowdStrike on the Microsoft Inc’s Windows platform. When they applied the update, the incompatible software crashed computers into a frozen state known as the “blue screen of death.” “Today CrowdStrike has become a household name, but not in