LONDON, May 6 (Reuters) – “Our currency, your problem,” were the words of a former U.S. Treasury secretary in 1971 to other finance ministers aghast at the dollar’s surge. More than 50 years on, relentless dollar strength is again leaving a trail of destruction in its wake.

The U.S. currency vaulted to two-decade highs this week, and its strength is tightening financial conditions just as the world economy confronts the prospect of a slowdown.

The surge threatens “to damage the broader market environment and expose the economic and financial cracks in the system,” said Samy Chaar, chief economist at Lombard Odier.

The 8% gain in the dollar index this year may not reverse in the near future.

Safe-haven appeal for the greenback is intact, with a dollar financing stress indicator from Barclays near its highest level in seven years. And analysis of past peak-to-trough ranges implies the dollar index could rise another 2% to 3%, Barclays said.

IMPORTED INFLATION

The dollar’s latest bout of strength has hit other G10 currencies, from the British pound to the New Zealand dollar, as well as those from developing countries that have big balance of payments deficits.

Even the quintessential safe-haven Swiss franc has not been spared, trading near a March 2020 low versus the greenback.

While currency weakness normally benefits export-reliant Europe and Japan, the equation may not hold when inflation is high and rising, as imported food and fuel become costlier as do companies’ input costs.

Euro zone inflation hit a record 7.5% this month and Japanese lawmakers are fretting that the yen, at 20-year lows, will inflict damage on households. Half of Japanese firms expect higher costs to hurt earnings, a survey found. read more

But growth concerns may prevent central banks, especially in Europe and Japan, from tightening policy in line with the Federal Reserve. Many reckon that could push the euro down to parity with the dollar, a level unseen since 2002.

“With economic recession risk present, who cares how hawkish the ECB (European Central Bank) is or what is priced into the rates curve?,” Societe Generale strategist Kit Juckes said.

A rising dollar helps to tighten financial conditions, which reflect the availability of funding in an economy.

Goldman Sachs, which compiles the most widely used financial conditions indexes (FCI), says a 100-basis-point tightening in its FCI can crimp growth by one percentage point in the following year.

The FCI, which factors in the impact of the trade-weighted dollar, shows global conditions are at their tightest since 2009. The FCI has tightened by 104 basis points since April 1. While equity and bond selloffs had a bigger impact, the dollar’s more than 5% rise in this period will have contributed as well.

EMERGING MARKET PROBLEMS

Almost all past emerging market crises were linked to dollar strength. As the dollar rises, developing countries must tighten monetary policy to head off falls in their own currencies. Not doing so would exacerbate inflation and raise the cost of servicing dollar-denominated debt.

This week, India implemented an unscheduled interest rate rise while Chile put in a bigger-than-expected 125-basis-point rate hike.

Median foreign-currency government debt in emerging markets stood at a third of GDP by the end of 2021, Fitch estimates, compared to 18% in 2013. Several countries are already seeking assistance from the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, and further dollar strength could add to those numbers.

Investors are increasingly wary. Emerging market currencies (.MIEM00000CUS) are at a Nov. 2020 low, while the premium demanded to hold EM dollar bonds versus Treasuries is up some 100 basis points this year (.JPMEGDR)

COMMODITY GAIN AND PAIN

The rule of thumb is that a firmer greenback makes dollar-denominated commodities costlier for non-dollar-based consumers, eventually subduing demand and prices.

That’s yet to happen this time as problems such as the war in Ukraine and China’s COVID lockdowns hamper the production and trade in major commodities.

Dollar strength generally means higher revenues for commodity exporters such as Chile, Australia and Russia, though that is offset by higher costs for machinery and equipment.

But as rising U.S. yields and a stronger dollar threaten global growth, commodity prices are starting to suffer. JPMorgan said this week it was reducing exposure to the Chilean peso, Peruvian sol and others to position for “challenging times.”

The Fed might welcome a rising greenback that calms imported inflation – Societe Generale estimates a 10% dollar appreciation causes U.S. consumer inflation to decline by 0.5 percentage points over a year.

With U.S. gas prices at record levels, the dollar’s surge has so far provided little relief. Money markets expect 200 basis points of rate hikes in the United States over the remainder of the year and see the Fed’s policy rate peaking around 3.5% by mid-2023.

However, if upcoming U.S. inflation data for April show price pressures peaking, those bets could be dialled down.

Reporting by Saikat Chatterjee and Sujata Rao; Additional reporting by Pratima Desai; Editing by Paul Simao

As we mark the 52nd Earth Day, we must recognise that achieving net-zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050 will require significant investment to finance the necessary economic and social transitions. McKinsey estimates that this will take $9.2tn of annual global investment over the next 30 years – an increase of $3.5tn per year from what is spent today on clean, renewable energy.
Most of these investments will come from the private sector, which is already leading the charge. The value of assets under management with net-zero commitments is now $57tn. The 450 members of the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero, representing more than $130tn in assets, have pledged to align their portfolios with the Paris climate agreement’s 1.5° Celsius warming target. The First Movers Coalition (whose founding members include companies like Amazon, Apple, Boeing, Trane, and Volvo) has pledged to create demand for early-stage clean technologies in “hard-to-abate” sectors like steel, cement, and aviation. In the United States alone, private investment in clean-energy assets reached a record $105 billion in 2021, 11% higher than in 2020 and up 70% over the previous five years.
Moreover, last fall, the International Financial Reporting Standards Foundation created a new International Sustainability Standards Board to develop industry-specific climate disclosure guidelines that will build on reporting standards developed by the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board. By the end of 2021, 258 institutional investors, representing $76tn in assets, had adopted the SASB’s voluntary standards. And, in a significant policy move, the US Securities and Exchange Commission recently proposed new rules that would require public companies to disclose information about their carbon emissions and their plans for addressing climate-related real asset and transition risks.
As these examples suggest, the net-zero challenge cannot be solved by private actors alone. Public-private co-operation and co-ordination will be critical to deploying private capital at the necessary speed and scale. The public sector – from international organisations like the International Monetary Fund and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development to national, state, and municipal governments – must shape incentives and issue regulations to fuel the necessary private investment in clean-energy projects and infrastructure.
In the US, public-private collaboration has already yielded some clean-energy commercial success stories – most notably Tesla, which was created with the help of a US Department of Energy loan. Government-furnished funding for research and development, loans, and tax incentives have accelerated the growth of the electric-vehicle industry and supported a remarkable reduction in the costs of solar and wind energy over the past 15 years.
Publicly funded and directed innovation has a long history of success in the US. In California, standards set by the California Air Resources Board led to the widespread adoption of the catalytic converter, reducing tailpipe emissions in the state by 90% between the mid-1960s and the early 1980s. The technology then became a standard part of all motor vehicles sold in the US, because automakers needed to comply with the regulations set first by California (and then by the newly formed Environmental Protection Agency).
Owing to the size of the California market, the fuel-efficiency standards it sets continue to be adopted by major car manufacturers. And within the state, private capital is now being mobilised through public initiatives like the Self-Generation Incentive Program, which provides rebates to organisations that install onsite energy-storage technologies, and through investment tax credits for solar and storage.
As William H Janeway notes in a recent Project Syndicate commentary, the explosion of venture capital in the information-technology and health industries over the past half-century occurred only after the government had invested billions of dollars in upstream R&D and advance-purchase commitments for new products and services. Historically, alternative-energy and decarbonisation technologies have received nowhere near the support provided by the US Department of Defense and the National Institutes of Health for information-technology and biomedical innovations. Increased government support for R&D of climate technologies would accelerate venture capital investment, which has lately gathered momentum.
Policymakers and business leaders should take advantage of this moment to supercharge public-private partnerships for climate-change adaptation and mitigation. The new $1tn Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal allocates $62bn to the DOE to accelerate the developing and scaling up of clean-energy technologies through R&D support, demonstration projects, an expansion of the DOE loan program, and targeted tax credits. These are major first steps. The $555bn of climate provisions in the Build Back Better bill would provide additional de-risking incentives to unlock the private investment required for the net-zero transition.
Although Russia’s war in Ukraine has forced the US to look for ways to increase fossil-fuel production in the short run, it has also provided a wake-up call. Domestic clean-energy production will be key not just to mitigating climate change but also to energy security over the long run. The climate policies in the Build Back Better legislation would accelerate progress toward both of these goals.
But regardless of what happens at the federal level, states and cities can follow California’s example and implement bold climate policies of their own. California has pledged $37bn over the next six years – more than most national governments – to combat climate change, and has introduced its own new loan program to encourage innovation in clean-energy technologies.
This is a unique and critical moment for the private sector. It must step up and deploy its capital, building on public-policy catalysts to drive innovation and investment for a sustainable future. — Project Syndicate

lLaura Tyson, a former chair of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers during the Clinton administration, is a professor at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, and a member of the Board of Advisers at Angeleno Group.
lDaniel Weiss, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Angeleno Group, is Co-Chair of the UCLA Institute of Environment and Sustainability Advisory Board and serves on the board of the World Resources Institute.

The prospect of Europe getting cut off from Russian gas supplies is starting to get real.

The clock is ticking in a standoff over the Kremlin’s demand that its customers in Europe pay in rubles for the fuel, which the region depends on for a fifth of its power generation.

The European Union has said the decree violates sanctions and hands more power to Russia. It suggested an alternative that avoids rubles on Friday, but it’s up to Moscow to decide if that’s acceptable. Payments come due in May, and that’s when the moment of truth arrives.

By refusing President Vladimir Putin’s payment terms and testing his threat to turn off the taps, European buyers “would be running a very real risk of their supplies being cut,” said Katja Yafimava, a senior research fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies.

The game of geopolitical chicken could lead to Europe rationing energy for the first time since the oil crisis in the 1970s. As the biggest consumer of Russian gas in Europe, Germany is most exposed, but the fallout would ripple across the continent and beyond. Here’s what could happen:

Market meltdown
Europe’s natural gas market would show the impact immediately. Trading is already on edge, with prices five times higher than the same time last year. That could get worse.

In the event of a supply disruption, forward contracts could more than triple, especially if Europe enters next winter with depleted storage, according to Kaushal Ramesh, senior analyst, gas and LNG at Rystad Energy.

Such a surge would put governments and central banks under pressure as they seek to control soaring inflation. The risk is that the mounting cost-of-living crisis intensifies and spills over into wider unrest and a deeper crisis.

Power shift
With less fuel for gas-fired generators, the risks of rolling blackouts would increase. While countries would try to shift to other sources, the options are limited.

France would halt large gas-fired power plants to conserve the fuel for other needs, Italy would maximize production from coal or fuel oil, and Germany has discussed burning more local lignite — the dirtiest form of coal. The workarounds are likely to make the region even more polluting.

On the upside, warmer weather would reduce gas consumption for heating, delaying the worst impacts at least until the fall.

By ramping up other energy sources, including an accelerated expansion of renewable power, the EU aims to cut its gas dependency on Russia by two thirds this year.

German rationing
Germany has triggered an emergency plan, with a task force meeting daily to monitor consumption and inventories. Its energy regulator is surveying companies about their usage to help determine how to distribute supplies.

Consumers would be protected as long as possible, and that means industry would bear the brunt of a rationing plan. That’s a big risk for Europe’s largest economy. The country depends on Russia for 40% of its gas supplies, and the fuel is critical for processes in the chemicals and metals industries.

At Europe’s biggest chemical factory, BASF SE churns out compounds used in manufacturing autos, medicines and fertilizers and all fueled by pipelines filled with Russian gas. The company warns that a sudden halt would send shock waves through many industries and cause irreversible damage to German competitiveness.

The concerns are echoed by the likes of steelmaker Thyssenkrupp AG, automaker Volkswagen AG and utility RWE AG.

“Stopping the pipeline-bound gas supply at this time would have dramatic consequences,” RWE Chief Executive Officer Markus Krebber said in an advanced copy of a speech for the company’s shareholder meeting next week. Many manufacturers “would no longer be able to operate their plants.”

Chancellor Olaf Scholz has said a halt to gas flows from Russia would trigger a serious economic crisis in Europe, leading to the loss of millions of jobs.

The sudden halt in Russian gas deliveries could cost Germany’s economy 220 billion euros, or about 6.5% of annual gross domestic product, according to a joint forecast of the country’s leading economic institutes. The Bundesbank estimates that output could shrink nearly 2% this year in the event of an embargo on Russian coal, oil and gas.

Read more: Germany to Borrow Extra 40 Billion Euros to Cushion War Blow

But the Berlin-based DIW think tank says a combination of energy savings and optimizing alternative supplies could put Germany in position to offset Russian gas as soon as this winter.

The government has expanded its authority over the energy sector with new rules on gas storage. It’s also planning to grant itself powers to put critical energy infrastructure under temporary state control.

Global squeeze
Emerging nations would get squeezed by Europe’s thirst for energy, especially liquefied natural gas, as they would struggle to compete on price. The region is already pulling most of the spare LNG supply from the U.S. and other nearby exporters, keeping spot rates for the super-chilled fuel well above normal for this time of year.

Pakistan is suffering from blackouts, due in part to European nations outbidding the cash-strapped country for LNG cargoes. Argentina is also dependent on LNG from the spot market and has been forced to fork over hundreds of millions of dollars to secure deliveries for the southern hemisphere’s upcoming winter.

Double bluff
As in any game of chicken, there’s the chance for one side or both to pull away from the brink. While Europe needs the gas, the continent remains the only potential market in the near term for production from Russian fields.

Turning off the tap now may permanently close the door on Russian energy imports to its neighbor, choking off a key source of revenue in the process. Germany, which has been criticized for cautious support of Ukraine, would face renewed pressure to stand up to Putin more forcefully.

As a result of strong demand, U.S. natural gasoline prices soared to their highest intraday levels in more than 13 years.

• Despite a drop in backup inventories, production is still flat
• Strong demand from Europe has almost pushed LNG exports to the limit

Futures rose to $7.558 per million British Thermal Units, surpassing January’s -fueled the rally. This was roughly twice the level at the beginning of the year.

As suppliers struggle to keep up with a surge in demand after a pandemic, a global fuel shortage is emerging across the markets. This situation is further complicated by the conflict in Ukraine. This discount is shrinking, even though U.S. natural gasoline prices have been well below those in Europe and Asia over the past year due to a bounty from shale fields.

The underground caverns and the aquifers holding backup inventories are lower than normal, and production is flat. To help Europe reduce its dependence on Russian energy, the U.S. is currently exporting every molecule possible of liquefied gas.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, temperatures below normal are expected in parts of the northern U.S.A. between April 25 and May 1. This could lead to an increase in demand for heating and power-plant fuels, which would divert supply from storage that is normally used during this time. The U.S.’s shortage of coal has also contributed to the rise in gas prices, which has limited power generators’ ability to switch fuels.

According to the Energy Information Administration, inventories increased by 15 billion cubic yards in the week ending April 8, which was less than half of the average gain over the past five years. Stockpiles are still 18% lower than usual.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could force Europe to delay key decarbonization efforts for up to a decade, a prominent regional energy expert has warned in Greece.

Now that Europe is moving to reduce imports of Russian oil and gas, he explained, some of the measures expected to reduce carbon emissions may have to be put off “for eight, nine, maybe 10 years,” as would planned shutdowns of nuclear generating stations.

“The European Union will need to provide the necessary permissions in some cases, plus financing in others,” he said. “Eight to 10 nuclear plants and as many as 30 coal stations slated for decommissioning will have to remain online to keep up with electricity demand, and several projects required to replace Russian gas will need to be accelerated with additional funding and/or guarantees.”

Coordinated releases of strategic oil reserves by the US and other countries are helping to contain upward pressure on crude and other energy prices, he said, but reasonable levels “cannot be maintained unless more supply makes it to market and that means oil producers –primarily OPEC but others as well – have to start pumping more.”

On yet another front, “Spain has both spare LNG receiving capacity and an undersea pipeline for imports of gas from North Africa – but very little of that can reach the rest of Europe unless and until a new pipeline connects the Iberian Peninsula to the rest of Europe via France,” said Baroudi, who has been advising companies and governments on energy policy for decades. “Paris has recently voiced new openness to that idea, but the EU can and should do more to facilitate it. It should also do more to establish an agreed route for another pipeline to carry gas from the Eastern Mediterranean to Greece and/or Turkey.”

Baroudi also argued that the EU would be wise to ensure adequate capital flows into renewables such as wind and solar. “We might have to retain fossil fuels longer than we had planned, but that’s no reason to stop funding a cleaner future,” he said. “In fact it’s a reason to move as quickly as possible.”

(Bloomberg) — Gazprom PJSC’s average daily exports to key foreign buyers so far in April fell to lowest in three months, as warmer weather and lower spot prices started to lure European clients away from Russian gas. The gas giant exported an average of 407 million cubic meters a day to countries outside the former Soviet Union in the first 15 days of April, according to Bloomberg calculations b

The gas giant exported an average of 407 million cubic meters a day to countries outside the former Soviet Union in the first 15 days of April, according to Bloomberg calculations based on a Gazprom statement published Friday. That’s nearly 18% below the daily average for the month of March. The company’s year-to-date exports to its key markets tumbled more than 26% compared to the same period of 2021 to 44.6 billion cubic meters, Gazprom said.

“Russian flows have been reduced and LNG imports strengthened in the last few days, as a result of the TTF day-ahead price falling, making spot volume prices more competitive compared to TTF-indexed Russian pipeline gas,” Rystad Energy analyst Vinicius Romano said in a research note earlier this week.

The European Union depends on Russia for 40% of the gas it consumes, which makes it challenging for the alliance to stop the purchases immediately in retaliation for Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. However, the bloc is trying taking steps to wean itself off Gazprom supplies, with EU governments starting to assess alternative supply sources.

Moscow’s demand that so-called “unfriendly” countries pay for gas deliveries in rubles starting from April is creating additional pressure on its clients to find alternative supplies, as the Kremlin has threatened to cut off exports to buyers that refuse to comply.

Gazprom doesn’t provide a detailed export breakdown by country, making it difficult to assess supplies to Turkey and most of Europe, the key market for the company’s foreign deliveries. Russian daily flows toward the borders with European nations have averaged nearly 324 million cubic meters between April 1-12, compared with 361.5 million cubic meters per day in March, according to Gazprom data.

Gazprom said it continues to supply gas in line with requests from consumers and is in full compliance with its contractual obligations.

The EU Commission’s plan to eventually have the continent’s gas storages 90% full by the start of winter is “very ambitious,” Gazprom said in the statement. That would imply reinjections of 63 billion cubic meters, which is higher than the volume of gas stored during the warmer months in recent years and still would not cover peak demand if winter is abnormally cold, according to the Russian company.

Gazprom’s daily output between April 1-15 averaged 1.393 billion cubic meters, according to Bloomberg calculations. That’s 4.3% below the average over the whole of April 2021. Since the start of the year, the producer pumped 155.9 billion cubic meters of natural gas, down 1.3% year on year, according to Gazprom’s data.

Russia’s year-to-date domestic gas consumption declined 3.6% compared to the same period in 2021 amid warmer weather in February, Gazprom said.

— With assistance by Helen Robertson

RABAT, April 15 (Reuters) – Morocco is studying options at several ports to build a floating or land-based facility to import liquefied natural gas (LNG), Energy Minister Leila Benali said on Friday.

Morocco relied for much of its gas needs – about 1 billion cubic metres (bcm) annually – on a pipeline that used to channel Algerian gas to Spain, until it was halted last October by Algiers, against the backdrop of worsening relations between the Maghreb’s most populous countries.

Whether floating or onshore, studies are underway to choose the “most immediate solution”, Benali told reporters.

The country tendered in January for a study on the upgrade of Mohammedia port near Casablanca to host an LNG floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU).

Mohammedia and the Mediterranean port of Nador appear to be best equipped to host regasification terminals, she said.

“But we can prepare four ports at least,” she said, citing Kenitra and Jorf Lasfar ports.

“It is important for Morocco’s energy sovereignty to have regasification capacity on our territory and in our maritime space,” she said.

Morocco will enter the international LNG market “in the upcoming days,” making use of unused capacity at Spanish terminals, she said, without giving further details.

Though she said: “We are not importing Spanish or European LNG.”

“Transit issues have been settled,” she said.

In addition to Spain, Morocco discussed in November with Portugal and France about tapping into the under-used regasification capacity.

“They have regasification terminals that are under-used, and we have a pipeline that has to be used,” Benali said.

The pipeline is key to feeding two small power plants that supply Morocco’s northwest and northeast, which currently rely on the national grid.