Singapore Business Review/20 September 2017
The two will engage in policy dialogues and joint capacity building.
Singapore and Japan signed a Memorandum of Cooperation (MOC) to tighten cybersecurity cooperation between the countries.
According to a press release, the MOC covers regular policy dialogues, information exchanges, collaborations to enhance cybersecurity awareness, joint regional capacity building efforts, as well as sharing of best practices between both countries.
The MOC was signed by Cyber Security Agency of Singapore (CSA) and National Center of Incident Readiness and Strategy for Cybersecurity (NISC).
CSA has previously signed six Memoranda of Understanding (MOA) with Australia, France, India, the Netherlands, the UK, and the US. It also made a joint declaration of cybersecurity cooperation with Germany.
News Source: Singapore Business Review
Read MoreSingapore Business Review/20 September 2017
It signed a letter of intent for the design and construction of two carriers.
Sembcorp Marine and US-based SeaOne Caribbean LLC (SeaOne) signed a letter of intent (LOI) for the design and construction of two large Compressed Gas Liquid (CGL) carriers.
According to a press release, the vessels will be used for SeaOne’s Caribbean Fuels Supply Project.
Sembcorp Marine will design neo-panamax CGL carriers based on SeaOne’s single gas and liquids cargo delivery requirements, with help from its subsidiary, LMG Marin.
The 366m long, 2 billion bcf capacity carriers will be equipped with SeaOne’s technology and systems.
The CGL cargos will be transported to terminals in the Caribbean, Central, and South American regions.
Sembcorp Marine does not expect the LOI to affect company performance for the year.
News Source: Singapore Business Review
Read MoreThe Guardian/19 September 2017
Labor will step up pressure on the Turnbull government to increase transparency in the gas market to help manufacturers facing rising prices and tight supply, ahead of a public intervention by Australia’s competition watchdog on energy.
With the chairman of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, Rod Sims, due to address the National Press Club on Wednesday on the issue of electricity and gas affordability, Bill Shorten will call on the government to accelerate gas market transparency reform.
The Labor leader says the Australian Energy Market Operator should be given “teeth” by fast-tracking reforms designed to help give Australian manufacturers a head start in gas contract negotiations.
“This is a crisis happening right now – Australian manufacturers need action on it right now, not in five years’ time,” the Labor leader said in a statement. “The energy crisis we’re facing right now is bigger than one power plant – it’s a national problem that demands a national solution.”
Shorten has also renewed Labor’s complaint that the government is yet to pull the trigger on its proposed export controls to keep more gas onshore.
Sims has previously raised concerns about the ability of pipeline operators to exercise market power when negotiating the price of transportation services and the chief scientist, Alan Finkel, has also called for the Australian Energy Market Operator to be given more visibility on gas contracts to help it manage looming shortages.
With manufacturers complaining that they are unable to secure affordable long-term gas contracts, federal and state energy ministers have also established a gas market reform group to improve transparency, reform the wholesale gas market and create a new arbitration framework for pipelines that are not regulated under national laws.
In the lead-up to Wednesday’s press club speech, Sims has raised concerns about the anti-competitive effects of vertical integration in the Australian power industry, which he says are increasing power costs for consumers.
The ACCC chairman has noted that AGL’s acquisition of two New South Wales coal plants, including the ageing Liddell power station, which has been at the centre of the Turnbull government’s energy policy deliberations, had led to “about 85% of generation capacity being in three hands and those same hands have got about 85% of the retail market”.
Sims has characterised AGL’s takeover of Liddell as an “anti-competitive acquisition”.
With AGL intent on resisting pressure from the Turnbull government to either sell the Liddell plant, or extend its operating life for five years beyond 2022, when it is due to close, the company took journalists on a tour of the ageing facility on Tuesday.
Company representatives said the cost of keeping the plant open for an extra decade could be more than $900m.
The ACCC chairman will give the Turnbull government two reports on electricity and gas late this week, which will play into the Turnbull government’s ultimate resolution of its energy policy.
Late on Tuesday, Labor’s climate and energy spokesman, Mark Butler, continued to extend an olive branch to the government on energy policy.
With the former prime minister Tony Abbott running a public campaign against subsidies for renewable energy in an effort to get Malcolm Turnbull to abandon the clean energy target recommended by the chief scientist, Butler noted that, by 2020, solar and wind would be able to be able to “stand on its own two feet” in a well designed energy market.
He said Labor would also do everything it could to secure bipartisan agreement on a post-2020 energy policy if the prime minister was “able to get something out of the Coalition party room”.
News Source: The Guardian
Read MoreThe Straits Times/19 September 2017
WELLINGTON (Reuters) – New Zealand’s jet fuel shortage on Tuesday (Sept 19) forced 28 flights to be cancelled, six of them international, with concerns that the fuel crisis may spread after petrol stations in the country’s largest city Auckland cut high octane fuel for high-end cars.
The fuel shortage, caused by a damaged pipeline to Auckland Airport, has caused widespread disruption to air travel since the weekend and comes only days before Saturday’s national election with infrastructure shortages a hotly contested issues.
New Zealand’s military, which cancelled an exercise with Singapore to save fuel, was trucking fuel supplies around the country in an attempt to ease the shortage and government officials have been asked to avoid non-essential air travel.
Air New Zealand said on Tuesday that it was beginning to refuel long-haul aircraft at the international airport in the capital Wellington. Flights to and from Auckland have been stopped at airports in Australia and Pacific islands like Fiji to refuel.
New Zealand’s largest fuel supplier Z Energy said on Tuesday that fuel for some high-end cars was not available at 13 of its petrol stations in Auckland, according to a spokesman.
“While air travel will continue to be affected until the pipeline is fully operational, the fuel industry has advised government that impacts on petrol and diesel supply for motorists are minimal,” said Judith Collins, New Zealand’s Minister of Energy and Resources.
The government has come under criticism for what has been deemed an infrastructure failure as it faces a tight contest with the newly invigorated Labour Party.
The damaged pipeline is owned by New Zealand Refining and the company has told local media that initial investigations showed a digger had scraped the pipe.
“The fact that one digger can cause our international travel to be ground to a halt shows how vulnerable that infrastrucutre was and the National government ignored that,” Labour leader Jacinda Ardern said on Monday.
New Zealand’s air traffic control provider Airways said on its website that it was implementing fuel conservation measures, which involve organising airplane landing and take-offs in such a way as to minimise the amount of time they spend in the air to save fuel. It expects up to 10 days disruption to passengers.
The New Zealand Refining spokesman told Reuters on Monday that the pipeline was closed for repairs and was expected to return to 70 per cent capacity by Sept 24-26.
News Source: The Straits Times
Read MoreThe Guardian/19 September 2017
Emergency crews have attended a large-scale acid leak in Hull, which caused a vapour cloud to form over a dock in the east of the city.
The fire service had initially warned nearby residents to close their doors and windows as a precautionary measure after a tank containing 580 tonnes of hydrochloric acid sprang a leak at the King George dock late on Monday.
By the early hours of Tuesday morning, firefighters said the wind was blowing the vapour away from houses near the United Molasses site, where the leak occurred, and declared the area near the dock safe.
However, a spokeswoman from Humberside fire and rescue service confirmed firefighters had returned to the site on Tuesday afternoon following a change in the direction of the wind, and a number of emergency service vehicles, including an ambulance, could be seen waiting on standby nearby.
The service said its officers were helping as the acid was being transferred on to tankers to be taken away safely. “An exclusion zone within a section of the Port of Hull has been established,” said a spokeswoman. “Please be assured nobody outside the exclusion zone should be concerned.”
A spokesperson for Associated British Ports (ABP), which owns the dock, described the leak as ongoing, but under control. They said air particulate samples had confirmed that air quality was within safe levels.
“We can confirm that eight people reported signs of feeling unwell as a result of this incident. Four were assessed at the scene and discharged immediately, four were taken to hospital for further assessment. All have now been discharged and are showing no further symptoms.”
Simon Donnachie from Humberside fire and rescue service said: “With any sort of corrosive leak you’re going to have some sort of vapour cloud.” He said emergency services had tested the gas cloud for acidity and that the risk it posed to human health was minimal.
“[The cloud] dissipated a short distance so we were not concerned about it reaching villages,” he said. “We were more concerned about ABP as a site.”
Speaking to the Hull Daily Mail on Tuesday afternoon, staff at ABP said they had arrived at work only to be put on lockdown a few hours later and told not to open windows.
The leak occurred on a site managed by United Molasses, which focuses on the global trading and marketing of molasses, vegetable oils and related products and the storage of bulk liquids.
The Environment Agency confirmed it had attended the site in the early hours of Tuesday. It said there appeared to be no leakage into the Humber or any other environmental impact.
A spokesperson from the Health and Safety Executive said it was aware of the incident and was liaising with the Environment Agency. “We will carry out an investigation once the initial incident has been fully dealt with,” it said.
The Guardian/18 September 2017
Alan Finkel has urged the Australian government to swiftly commit to the final recommendation of his energy review, warning the longer that commitment takes, the more likely states and territories are to set up conflicting emissions reduction schemes.
Speaking at the Melbourne economic forum at Victoria university on Monday, Finkel, Australia’s chief scientist, said that a failure to establish a clean energy target would create more uncertainty for investors, who would have to navigate various state policies.
The Victorian government announced two days after the review had been released that it was prepared to implement its own clean energy target if the federal government didn’t commit.
“Every day that goes by until there’s agreement on integrating emissions and energy policy there’s more opportunity for interventions at the state and federal level, which means more uncertainty to persuade investors from making decisions that they would otherwise make,” Finkel said.
The Turnbull government accepted 49 of the 50 recommendations made in the June review, which was commissioned after a storm brought down 23 transmission towers and caused widespread power outages in South Australia last September.
The final recommendation outlines an orderly transition to a cleaner energy market, which would involve the federal government agreeing with state and territory governments to an emissions reduction trajectory; establishing a clean energy target; and instituting a requirement for all large generators to provide three years’ notice before shutting down so the loss can be accommodated.
Finkel said it was disappointing that media attention had focused on the one recommendation the government had not yet accepted, rather than the 49 it did, but also said the final recommendation was necessary to provide long-term policy certainty.
“The longer and longer it takes to get final agreement the more likely it is that the states will commit themselves to new schemes and new targets that it will be hard for them to walk away from, and that aren’t harmoniously connected to what the orderly transition will be,” he said. “All we can do is offer them the carrot of an attractive scheme.”
The clean energy target proposed in the Finkel review would keep the current target of a 28% emissions reduction by 2030 and extend it out to zero emissions by 2070. It has been criticised as too weak by environment groups and Greens MPs and too ambitious by some Coalition MPs.
Fairfax Media reported last week that the government was working on a major redesign of the proposed clean energy target.
Finkel said the target as proposed was “modest,” and would be able to coexist with coal-fired power stations provided emissions continued to trend downward.
“There are two types of people in the world, those who hate coal and those who love coal,” he said. “I am the only person in the world who doesn’t mind.”
Finkel said that even if the government enacted energy policies that supported coal-fired power stations they would still not be backed by investors because the market no longer supported those options.
“So the people who say just go back to coal and you’ll solve all the problems are not recognising the complexity of the issue,” he said. “The world has moved on.
“If you had a magic wand and said: ‘Abracadabra! There is no more climate change,’ you would still have the problem that we have today because we are in a moment of disruption.”
He said that those who argued there was a simple solution to Australia’s energy market, or that the entire energy structure could be changed in 10 years, did not understand the complexity of the issue.
“Electricity is a bit like education: everyone has an opinion,” he said.
Finkel said Australia’s electricity market was “a single, 5,000km long machine” that was beholden to the laws of physics and stuck between government and the market. All three elements: the infrastructure, the market, and policy and regulations, required work.
The Guardian/18 September 2017
Re David Lowry’s criticisms of nuclear energy (Letters, 17 September), it is true that nuclear plants stop generating temporarily for maintenance and repair, but the same is true for most other forms of electricity generation. However, on average these outages represent a much smaller quantity of lost generation compared to the day-to-day intermittency of wind or solar. Nuclear plants spend a high proportion of the time generating at their maximum capacity.
On emissions, some proponents of both nuclear and renewables do fall into the habit of referring to their technologies as “zero-carbon”, even though there are some greenhouse gas emissions produced with all forms of generation. But there is remarkable academic agreement that the emissions from nuclear, wind, solar and many other non-fossil generation sources are similarly low per unit of electricity generated and these emissions are tiny fractions of those associated with burning coal and gas. We desperately need to cut emissions in our electricity mix to as low as possible.
The nuclear industry’s Harmony programme has a goal of 25% of the world’s electricity being supplied by nuclear energy by 2050. The remaining 75% would need to be supplied by a broad mix of other almost zero-carbon generation options, alongside energy storage and smart grids to help deal with intermittent generation and variable demand. We should work together for a strong, clean future for electricity generation rather than quibble while coal burns.
Agneta Rising
Director general, World Nuclear Association
The simple engineering facts that solar only functions less than one-third of the day and wind only functions when winds are just right mean that they are unreliable and must be backed up at a moment’s notice. In most areas, that’s by burning gas in low-efficiency “peaker” turbine plants that never get shut off fully to protect their expensive equipment. So, wind/solar energy is far from free, has high related emissions and is far more expensive than a nuclear plant that runs 90% of every year for decades. Nuclear power provides far better capacity, stability, longevity and jobs than can wind/solar enterprises, all while providing local communities with reliable power and great economic benefit to boot. The combustion industry loves renewables because their use commits poorly informed electorates and legislatures to installing emissions-producing backup.
Dr Alexander Cannara
Menlo Park, California, USA
News Source: The Guardian
Read MoreHR In Asia/14 September 2017
With more employers in Singapore are planning to add to their headcount in the fourth quarter, job seekers can expect more job opportunities this year, the latest ManpowerGroup Employment Outlook Survey found.
Released on Monday (Sep 11), the poll noted a growth of 11 percent in net employment outlook after seasonal variations have been taken into account. From 700 employers participated in the survey, 16 percent expect to increase their employment level over the next three months, while the other 5 percent forecast a decrease and 74 percent anticipate no change.
This figure marked the strongest outlook in the past two years, improving by 7 percentage points from the previous quarter, and up 4 percent from the same period.
Country manager of ManpowerGroup Singapore Linda Teo said the rise in net employment outlook might be attributed to employer confidence owing to Singapore’s recent economic growth. In the first half of the year, Singapore’s economy grew by 2.7 percent.
Ms Teo said that while there is a renewed confidence amongst employers, many are still wary and adopting the wait-and-see mentality due to worries that trade numbers could weaken and domestic demand may stall despite the potential pick-up in trade.
Staffing levels are predicted to increase in six of the seven industry sectors during the last three months of the year. According to the report, the public administration and education remain the strongest sector, with employers reporting a solid net employment outlook of 22 percent expansion. Additionally, employers in the services sector and the transportation and utilities sector also forecast a steady increase in staffing levels.
“The stronger hiring outlook in the services sector reflects the expected surge in demand for IT specialists, especially those dealing with cyber operations and cyber security as more companies go digital,” said Ms Teo. She also added that Singapore’s Smart Nation project is also forecast to drive demand more talents for data scientists and software engineers.
Meanwhile, employers in the finance, insurance and real estate sector, the wholesale and retail trade sector, and the manufacturing sector can expect a modest rise in hiring outlook, Today Online reports.
The report also noted the mining and construction sector is the one with weak spot, with a contractionary outlook of 1 percent, the lowest in more than eight years.
News Source: HR In Asia
Read MoreSingapore Business Review/13 September 2017
A mega project could be in the works.
Keppel Telecommunications & Transportation (Keppel T&T) logistics business is changing its business model, but a complete turnaround could not come immediately until 2019.
According to UOB Kay Hian, its Courex acquisition stands at the core of its transformation as the company captures additional parts of the value chain.
Feedback from clients using its omnichannel management solution has been positive.
Meanwhile, a mega project for its data centre (DC) business is believed to be in the works.
The demand for cloud-enabled DCs remains stable, with more looking for larger critical capacities and higher power densities.
UOB Kay Hian analysts Edison Chen and Foo Zhiwei said, “We believe at least one large-scale project, done through ADCF, is in the works, which will generate substantial fee income given its size. Hence, KTT will continue to see earnings growth (albeit delayed) despite the divestment of KDC SG4.”
Here’s more from UOB Kay Hian:
Our review of KTT revealed that its chosen DC development strategy was different from what we originally expected. While we had expected KTT to focus primarily on developing its own DCs, the focus is now on supercharging the development cycle together with ADCF.
While this increased speed of development cycle will likely be beneficial in the long run, it will result in short-term earnings uncertainties. We want to take a conservative stance, and thus have removed our original assumptions for operating earnings in divested and future DCs.
The Straits Times/13 September 2017
SINGAPORE – DBS Bank has pledged to power all of its operations in Singapore using renewable energy by 2030, and eventually aims to extend this to all of its global operations, it announced on Wednesday (Sept 13).
To achieve its pledge for its local operations, DBS will install solar panels at its office building in Changi Business Park and procure Renewable energy certificates (RECs) from solar energy companies in Singapore.
Its commitment comes as the bank joins RE100, a global renewable energy campaign led by The Climate Group in partnership with CDP, that brings together influential global businesses committed to using only renewable energy to power their operations.
DBS said it will be the first Asian bank as well as first company in Singapore to be one of more than 100 international firms to make the “go 100% renewable” commitment.
The bank also plans to work closely with The Climate Group and CDP to draw up similar renewable energy roadmaps for its regional operations. The CDP, formerly the “Carbon Disclosure Project”, is a UK-based organisation which works with shareholders and corporations to disclose major firms’ greenhouse gas emissions.
Said Mike Power, co-chair of DBS’ Sustainability Council: “Transitioning towards a low-carbon economy powered by 100 per cent renewable energy is both technically feasible and economically viable.
“As Southeast Asia’s largest bank, DBS recognises the leadership role it can play in this transition and we believe that ensuring our own operations across the region are powered from 100 per cent renewable sources makes sense, and besides, it’s the right thing to do.”
News Source: The Straits Times
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