FacebookTwitterLinkedInEmailPrint分享Sarah Kent and Robb M. Stewart for the Wall Street Journal:The world’s largest energy companies are sidelining big ideas that they touted just a couple of years ago as the future of the industry, Sarah Kent and Robb M. Stewart report. The oil industry has deferred or canceled $270 billion in projects as of March since crude prices began crashing nearly two years ago.The casualties include ultra-deep-water drilling projects, huge boats that serve as floating liquefied natural gas factories and technology that could cut emissions from burning fossil fuels. Royal Dutch Shell PLC, Chevron Corp. and Woodside Petroleum Ltd. are among the big companies to pull back or delay ambitious projects.“To be brutally honest, any large new greenfield investment, whether floating LNG, deep-water or elsewhere, is under very strict critical review for cost levels and return, simply because of where the industry is,” Shell Chief Financial Officer Simon Henry said.Full article ($): Complex and expensive ideas once held out as industry’s future fall to cost-cutting pressures WSJ: Energy Companies Scale Back ‘Big Ideas’
J.P. Morgan puts capital behind solar-plus-storage projects
J.P. Morgan puts capital behind solar-plus-storage projects FacebookTwitterLinkedInEmailPrint分享Energy Storage News:8minutenergy Renewables, J.P. Morgan Asset Management and an affiliate of Upper Bay Infrastructure Partners have entered into a joint venture that will provide equity capital for 8minutenergy’s 10.7GW portfolio of utility PV and storage projects.This joint venture, along with investment from 8minutenergy CEO, Tom Buttgenbach, provides over US$200 million in capital commitments. 8minutenergy is wholly owned by Buttgenbach and his management team as of 6 December 2018. Buttgenbach, who co-founded 8minutenergy in 2009, led a management buyout of the shares of fellow co-founder Martin Hermann last week.Buttgenbach noted: “We thank J.P. Morgan and Upper Bay for bringing the long-term focus and financial resources to enable us to unleash the full potential of our pipeline and incredibly talented team.“We have been the largest and most successful solar developer in California, and have expanded our cost leadership across the US, developing a solar and storage project pipeline of 10.7GW. A testament to our low-cost leadership is the 420MW Eagle Shadow Mountain Solar plant in Nevada, which at 2.3 cents/kWh fixed for 25 years, holds the record for lowest-price solar PPA in the nation. In Texas, which is a purely price-driven competitive market, we will start construction of our 280MW Holstein 1 power plant in the second quarter of 2019.”Michael Lehman, managing director and portfolio manager of J.P. Morgan Asset Management, said: “We’ve been very impressed with the 8minutenergy team and their ability to deliver sustainable returns through their utility-scale solar projects. 8minutenergy has a premier development process that consistently delivers attractive solar projects with long-term, contracted cash flows.”More: JP Morgan buys into 10.7GW solar-plus-storage pipeline
Creditors, workers challenge Mission Coal bankruptcy bonuses for top brass
Creditors, workers challenge Mission Coal bankruptcy bonuses for top brass FacebookTwitterLinkedInEmailPrint分享S&P Global Market Intelligence ($):Unsecured creditors and the unionized workforce of Mission Coal Co. LLC filed objections to two incentive programs the company proposed to retain employees during its bankruptcy sale process. Mission Coal asked the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Alabama to approve two plans on Nov. 28: a key employee incentive plan, or KEIP, and a key employee retention plan, or KERP. The KERP is a $1.1 million proposed incentive program that Mission said is designed specifically to retain 40 “critical non-insider employees” through the reorganization, while the KEIP provides up to $281,875, depending on certain sales metrics, to encourage two senior members of management to meet “challenging sale-related process and pricing goals.”A committee of Mission’s unsecured creditors wrote in a Dec. 12 filing that they do not object to the broader KERP program, but do object to KEIP bonuses they said are unnecessary and duplicative of pre-petition bonuses that were paid to the same two executives on the eve of the company’s bankruptcy. Just two days before the petition date, the unsecured creditors wrote, Mission doled out $1.5 million in bonuses to three top executives, including the two who would benefit from the new program: Gary Broadbent, the general counsel and vice president of human resources, and Vice President of Accounting Alan Jones. “The proposed KEIP does not properly incentivize the debtors’ executives to achieve significant value-enhancing performance during the pendency of these Chapter 11 cases,” attorneys for the unsecured creditors wrote. “Moreover, the proposal to reward two executives who each received payments of $365,000 a mere two days before the petition date is unseemly, at best.”The United Mine Workers of America, or UMWA, the union representing some of those employees, said it was not consulted in the design of the retention plans and urged the rejection of both of the proposed programs.More: ($) Mission Coal sees backlash from workers, creditors over incentive programs
Osaka Gas withdrawal may kill planned 1.2GW coal plant development in Japan
Osaka Gas withdrawal may kill planned 1.2GW coal plant development in Japan FacebookTwitterLinkedInEmailPrint分享Reuters:Japan’s Osaka Gas Co Ltd said on Wednesday that it will pull out of a plan to build a coal-fired power plant in Yamaguchi, western Japan, citing changes in the electricity market and future business risk.Osaka Gas had planned to build a 1.2-gigawatt (GW) coal-fired power station in the city of Ube in Yamaguchi prefecture, aiming to start operations around 2026. Electric Power Development (J-Power) and Ube Industries Ltd are partners in the project.J-Power said it and Ube Industries have agreed to continue the plan to build a coal-fired power plant, but they will halt an environment access process to revise the plan. “We will consider scaling down the size to a single 600-megawatt ultra super-critical (USC) power plant or building a few 300-megawatt integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) plants,” J-Power Executive Managing Officer Hitoshi Kanno told a news conference.A spokesman at Osaka Gas said the company’s decision reflected concerns over tighter regulations on coal power stations after 2030 and intensifying competition after the liberalization of the power market in Japan.The move by Osaka Gas comes after other Japanese companies have withdrawn from new coal-fired power projects amid growing global pressure for companies to divest coal assets due to environmental concerns.More: Osaka Gas to withdraw from coal-fired power station project
European Energy A/S to build 300MW solar farm in Denmark, largest in northern Europe
FacebookTwitterLinkedInEmailPrint分享Renewables Now:Renewables company European Energy A/S has secured local council permission to install what it says will be the largest solar photovoltaic (PV) park in Denmark and in Northern Europe.The company’s project for a 300-MW solar complex was approved by the municipality of Aabenraa, Southern Jutland region, with a “massive majority,” the developer said on Wednesday. Its proposal will require a total investment of over DKK 1 billion (USD 157.5m/EUR 134.3m).The PV farm is planned to be built near Kasso, in proximity to future data centres and a major regional transformer station. Its construction is slated to begin early next year, while the power plant is scheduled to start feeding electricity to the grid before the end of 2021.Once up and running, the solar farm will be capable of producing enough electricity for over 75,000 Danish homes. Its output will help offset 1110,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions annually.[Veselina Petrova]More: European Energy wins approval for 300-MW solar complex in Denmark European Energy A/S to build 300MW solar farm in Denmark, largest in northern Europe