OZ Minerals escapes virus pain
OZ Minerals boss Andrew Cole says the coronavirus crisis has so far had no major impact on its core operations or customer demand, as the company delivered a strong first quarter of production for 2020, according to The Australian.
Cole told analysts on Wednesday that falling copper prices in the face of the world's economic slowdown would impact the company, but it had not otherwise seen any major issues from its customers.
"We do some sales into India, and obviously that's in shutdown at the moment. But we've been able to manage through that," he said.
Mizuho to stop lending to new coal power projects
Mizuho Financial Group will stop financing new coal power projects and end all loans for coal by 2050, bowing to pressure from a group of leading investors for climate concessions ahead of the bank's annual shareholders' meeting in June, according to Reuters.
The policy change leaves Japan's third-biggest bank by assets plenty of wriggle room on lending to projects planned or under construction, while the 2050 cut-off was dismissed by activists as too late for an exit from the dirtiest fossil fuel.
Mizuho, among the world's biggest lender to coal power plant developers, said in a statement on Wednesday it would cut its outstanding balance of 300 billion yen in loans to coal power projects as of March this year in half by 2030 and reduce it to zero by 2050.
Coronavirus lockdown slams electricity prices
The Australian reports that power demand in Australia's national electricity market will fall by the most on record over April and May due to the COVID-19 shutdown, cutting electricity prices and rendering high-cost coal generators uneconomic, consultancy RepuTex said.
The national power grid faces a sharp but temporary reduction in demand through to the end of May due to corporate office and small business shutdowns and reduced output from larger industrial facilities.
A 22.5% fall in demand across the market is expected in May compared with a worst case 40 per cent decline under a full lockdown scenario.
