Day: April 26, 2022

The trade volume on Turkiye’s spot natural gas market showed a decrease of 85.9% to 16.05 million Turkish liras on Monday, Turkiye’s Energy Exchange Istanbul (EXIST) data showed on Tuesday.

Total trade on Sunday amounted to 113.76 million liras.

On Monday’s spot market, 1,000 cubic meters of natural gas cost 11,963.89 liras, while the cumulative natural gas trade volume amounted to around 1.34 million cubic meters.

Turkiye received 139.33 million cubic meters of pipeline gas on Monday.

US$1 equals 14.79 liras at 1107 GMT on Tuesday.

Source: Anadolu Agency

Oil prices edged higher on Tuesday following sharp price fluctuations in previous trade with the ongoing war in Ukraine, and despite sustained COVID-19 lockdowns in China and a rise in the US dollar index.

International benchmark Brent crude was trading at $102.51 per barrel at 0719 GMT for a 0.34% increase after closing the previous session at $102.16 a barrel. American benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) was at $98.56 per barrel at the same time.

While supply fears lingering from the Russia-Ukraine war, containment measures due to increasing COVID-19 cases in Shanghai, the largest city in China and one of the most important financial and trade centers in Asia, raised demand fears in the world’s second-largest, oil-consuming country to further exert downward price pressure.

Following increased cases, the Chinese capital Beijing also began mass testing for millions of residents. Over the weekend, Beijing reported 41 cases, the largest number so far in its recent spike.

Fears over the economic impact of China’s COVID-19 lockdowns and the aggressive pace of US rate hikes saw investors retreat, sending the dollar to a two-year high against other currencies to pressure crude oil prices that are indexed to the US dollar.

The dollar index, which measures the value of the American dollar against a basket of currencies, including the Japanese yen, British pound, Canadian dollar, Swedish krona and Swiss franc, was at 101.70 on Tuesday, after rising 0.58% on Monday to a two-year high of 101.86.

Source: Anadolu Agency

Turkiye’s benchmark stock index opened at 2,498.11 points on Tuesday, rising 15.51 points, or 0.62%, from the previous close.

Borsa Istanbul’s BIST 100 index was up 0.41% to end Monday at 2,482.60 points, with a daily trading volume of 43.9 billion Turkish liras ($3 billion).

The US dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate stood at 14.7860 as of 10 a.m. local time (0700GMT), up from 14.7810 at Monday’s close.

The euro/lira exchange rate fell to 15.8162 from 15.8420, while a British pound traded for 18.8023 liras, down from 18.8660 at the last close.

Brent crude oil was sold for around $102.72 per barrel as of 10 a.m. local time, while the ounce price of gold was at $1,904.30.

Source: Anadolu Agency

Spanish electricity company Iberdrola began construction of its second major offshore project in the Baltic Sea, the 476-megawatt (MW) Baltic Eagle offshore wind farm, the company announced on Monday.

Once operational by the end of 2024, Baltic Eagle will be capable of supplying renewable energy to 475,000 homes and preventing the emissions of more than 800,000 tonnes of carbon per year.

The wind project is part of what will be the largest offshore wind complex in the Baltic Sea, with a total installed capacity of more than 1,100 MW and a combined investment of €3.5 billion, Iberdrola said.

The Spanish company Windar has already manufactured the first of the 50 transition pieces for the facility to join the wind turbine towers to the foundations.

As a company committed to expanding its renewable energy portfolio, Iberdrola has more than 30,000 MW of operational capacity in the pipeline and early-stage developments.

Iberdrola expects to have 12,000 MW of offshore wind energy in operation by 2030 and to achieve cumulative investments of over €30 billion worldwide.

The company has projects in the US, the UK, Poland, Sweden, Ireland, Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines and Brazil.

Source: Anadolu Agency

British multinational energy and services company, Centrica, is building its first solar farm, the 18-megawatt (MW) plant in South West England in partnership with Essex-based Push Energy, the company announced on Monday.

The Codford Solar Farm was acquired in 2021 and received Centrica investment approval in December.

A total of 33,000 panels will be installed for the project that is due for completion in the summer.

Once complete, the 72-acre site will be capable of powering some 4,850 homes.

Centrica plans to deliver 900 MW of solar and battery storage by 2026.

Codford will be the first solar farm completed as part of those aims and follows the acquisition of a 30 MW battery storage plant in Dyce, Scotland, Centrica said.

“Centrica has committed to reaching Net Zero by 2045 and this marks a key milestone in the company’s drive to tackle the effects of climate change,” Bill Rees, director of Centrica Energy Assets, said.

Source: Anadolu Agency

The size of Turkiye’s gaming sector grew to $1.2 billion in 2021, according to the founder of Gaming in Turkey, an Istanbul-based gaming and esports agency.

“There are over 165 professional esports teams and 8,126 licensed esports players in Turkiye,” Ozan Aydemir told Anadolu Agency on Tuesday.

The number of players in Turkiye jumped from 30 million in 2018 to 42 million in 2021, nearly half of them – 47% – women, Aydemir stressed.

The gaming sector had a market share of $853 million in 2018, $830 million in 2019, and $880 million in 2020, he said.

In 2021, Turkish game companies also attracted investments of $266 million.

Shifting to a bigger picture, Aydemir said the size of the global gaming market reached $176 billion in 2021, down $1 billion due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Source: Anadolu Agency

Total global military spending rose 0.7% to $2.1 trillion in 2021, with the US, China, India, UK and Russia making up 65% of this, according to data released Tuesday by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

US expenditures fell 1.4% to $801 billion in 2021 compared to the previous year, but funding for military research and development (R&D) rose 24% between 2012 and 2021, which indicates that the US is focused on next generation technology.

“Even amid the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic, world military spending hit record levels,” said Diego Lopes da Silva, Senior Researcher with SIPRI’s Military Expenditure and Arms Production Program. “There was a slowdown in the rate of real-terms growth due to inflation. In nominal terms, however, military spending grew by 6.1%.”

All the figures come before Russia’s current war on Ukraine, which started this Feb. 24, but include much of the Kremlin’s buildup to the war.

China, the world’s second-largest spender, allocated an estimated $293 billion to its military in 2021, up 4.7% from 2020.

“China’s military spending has grown for 27 consecutive years,” the report noted.

Russia increased its military expenditures 2.9% in 2021 to $65.9 billion, at a time when it was building up some 100,000 troops along the Ukrainian border, ahead of the current war.

“High oil and gas revenues helped Russia to boost its military spending in 2021. Russian military expenditure had been in decline between 2016 and 2019 as a result of low energy prices combined with sanctions in response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014,” said Lucie Béraud-Sudreau, the director of SIPRI’s Military Expenditure and Arms Production Program.

Iran’s military budget also rose for the first time in four years, to $24.6 billion, the data showed. “Funding for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps continued to grow in 2021 – by 14% compared with 2020 – and accounted for 34% of Iran’s total military spending.”

Source: Anadolu Agency