Category Archives: Commodities

Palm oil land grabs ‘trashing’ environment and displacing people

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Growing rush for land is destroying ecosystems and disrupting lives to satisfy global demand for goods, study warns

Businesses and governments must stop the growing rush of commodities-driven land grabbing, which is “trashing” the environment and displacing people, says new research.

Palm oil and cobalt were extreme risks for land grabs according to an analysis of 170 commodities by research firm Verisk Maplecroft published last week. It also warned that, alongside cobalt, other minerals used for “clean” technology, including silicon, zinc, copper, were high risk and undermined the sector’s label.

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A wealth of sorrow: why Nigeria’s abundant oil reserves are really a curse

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It is known as the resource curse: assets that should bring wealth and stability but instead lead to corruption and poverty. And for Nigeria, oil is the culprit

In Nigeria, oil has been more of a curse than a blessing. Weak institutions of state and poor governance in managing the vast revenues have led the country to fail to realise its full potential in a textbook example of what academics know as the “resource curse”.

First coined by Prof Richard Auty in 1994, the term refers to the inability of nations to use their windfall wealth to improve their population’s lot and bolster their economies. The rich natural resources bring corruption and poverty to a nation, rather than positive economic development and, counterintuitively, these countries end up with lower growth and development than those without natural resources.

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Shell and BP paid zero tax on North Sea gas and oil for three years

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Firms defend paying no corporation tax after government handed out billions to energy giants

Shell and BP, which together produce more than 1.7bn tonnes of greenhouse gases a year, have not paid any corporation tax on oil and gas production in the North Sea for the last three years, company filings reveal.

The oil giants, which have an annual global footprint of greenhouse gases more than five times bigger than Britain’s, are benefiting from billions of pounds of tax breaks and reliefs for oil and gas production.

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Europe’s soaring gas prices: does Russia hold solution to crisis?

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Some believe Kremlin sees gas prices as chance for Gazprom to pressure west to speed up Nord Stream 2 approval

The natural gas market has entered uncharted territory. The movements in the price of gas on Wednesday had been, in the words of one analyst, “unprecedented since the year dot of gas liberalisation in Europe”. In record swings, Dutch wholesale gas, a European benchmark, soared by 30% within one period of three or four hours from an already eye-watering level.

These are chilling numbers for European governments with winter stretching ahead, and when the EU sneezes, the UK, heavily reliant on imports from across the Channel, also catches a cold.

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Nord Stream 2 approval may cool gas prices in Europe, says Russia

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Deputy PM calls for rapid clearance from German regulator after prices reach an all-time high

Russia’s deputy prime minister has said certification of the Nord Stream 2 undersea gas pipeline, which is awaiting clearance from Germany’s regulator, could cool soaring European gas prices.

Prices have risen sharply in response to a recovery in demand, particularly from Asia, with storage levels low.

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‘The sharks are hiding’: locals claim deep-sea mining off Papua New Guinea has stirred up trouble

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‘Shark calling’, an ancient custom of hunters singing to sharks then catching them by hand, is under threat and locals blame deep-sea disturbances

More in this series
• Race to the bottom: the disastrous, blindfolded rush to mine the deep sea
• ‘False choice’ – is deep sea mining required for an electric vehicle revolution?
• Covid tests and superbug killers: how the deep sea is key to fighting pandemics

To catch a shark in the waters off Papua New Guinea, first the men sing.

They sing the names of their ancestors and their respects to the shark. They shake a coconut rattle into the sea, luring the animals from the deep, and then catch them by hand.

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Business minister bids to calm crisis fears as UK gas prices soar

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No cause for alarm now, says Kwasi Kwarteng as energy discussions are likened to early Covid crisis talks

The government was scrambling on Saturday night to reassure Britons that rising gas prices would not plunge the country into an energy crisis, as ministers held a series of emergency meetings with energy companies and regulators to establish whether the nation could keep the lights and central heating on this winter.

A senior industry insider likened the meetings held between the business secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng, and energy industry leaders to the early crisis talks held following the outbreak of Covid-19.

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Iranian fuel tanker heading for Syria poses test for US sanctions

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Contents will be trucked to Lebanon to ease energy crisis, a plan that could challenge US resolve towards two foes

An Iranian tanker carrying fuel bound for Lebanon was at anchor in the Red Sea on Friday ahead of the final leg of a voyage to Syria, which is set to pose the biggest test yet to US sanctions imposed on two arch regional foes.

The tanker is expected in the Syrian port of Baniyas early next week, in defiance of US sanctions that prevent oil exports from Iran and imports to Syria, which have both been subject to stringent US-imposed restrictions on trade. The imminent arrival is being hailed by the Lebanese militant group turned political bloc, Hezbollah, as a sanctions-busting solution for an energy crisis that has brought Lebanon to a standstill and led to widespread blackouts.

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Is deep-sea mining a cure for the climate crisis or a curse?

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Trillions of metallic nodules on the sea floor could help stop global heating, but mining them may damage ocean ecology

In a display cabinet in the recently opened Our Broken Planet exhibition in London’s Natural History Museum, curators have placed a small nugget of dark material covered with faint indentations. The blackened lump could easily be mistaken for coal. Its true nature is much more intriguing, however.

The nugget is a polymetallic nodule and oceanographers have discovered trillions of them litter Earth’s ocean floors. Each is rich in manganese, nickel, cobalt and copper, some of the most important ingredients for making the electric cars, wind turbines and solar panels that we need to replace the carbon-emitting lorries, power plants and factories now wrecking our climate.

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North Sea oil was battered by Covid, but now faces much deadlier waves

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Since the pandemic hit, the world’s altered attitude to fossil fuels is throwing doubt over the industry’s future

The UK’s North Sea oil industry may have survived one of the darkest market downturns in history during the Covid-19 pandemic, but the deepest gloom lies over the future of the fossil-fuel industry.

Companies are braced for this week’s annual economic report from industry body Oil and Gas UK (OGUK). It is expected to lay bare the full toll of the pandemic on the ageing oil and gas basin last year.

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‘A perfect storm’: UK beet growers fear Brexit threatens their future

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They produce half the country’s sugar needs, but expect new trade deals to make their tough situation worse

In a field in Norfolk, the sight of lush green leaves sprouting from the soil are giving farmer Ed Lankfer cause for optimism. “I think this is one of the best crops we have ever grown,” he says, surveying one of his fields of sugar beet.

The signs are promising so far for this year’s harvest – known in the trade as a campaign – which takes place later than for other crops, during the autumn and winter. It would mark quite the turnaround from 2020’s terrible harvest, when bad weather and pests caused yields of the white sugar-yielding root to plummet by as much as 60%, leaving Lankfer with a £12,000 loss.

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Recipe for inflation: how Brexit and Covid made tinned tomatoes a lot dearer

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Combine the pandemic with rising raw material costs, stir in a labour shortage, a twist of Brexit, add a pinch of poor weather and voila …

Tinned tomatoes are a taken-for-granted store cupboard staple, relied upon by Britons to whip up home cooked favourites such as spaghetti bolognese. But the price could soon make you take notice, amid warnings of higher shopping bills, set against a backdrop of soaring global food prices.

From the packaging to the transportation and the energy used in manufacturing, nearly all aspects of the production of this popular ingredient now cost more. The crushed tomatoes alone are 30% dearer than a year ago, at €0.48 per kilo. The same pressures are driving the prices of many foods higher, meaning Britons will probably face bigger bills for groceries or meals out this autumn.

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World’s third largest diamond discovered in Botswana

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Mining company Debswana shows the 1,098-carat stone to the country’s president, Mokgweetsi Masisi

The diamond firm Debswana has announced the discovery in Botswana of a 1,098-carat stone that it described as the third largest of its kind in the world.

The company showed the stone, which was found on 1 June, to the country’s president, Mokgweetsi Masisi, in the capital Gaborone.

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G7 nations committing billions more to fossil fuel than green energy

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In spite of green rhetoric, money has piled into aviation and car industries since start of pandemic, report finds

The nations that make up the G7 have pumped billions of dollars more into fossil fuels than they have into clean energy since the Covid-19 pandemic, despite their promises of a green recovery.

As the UK prepares to host the G7 summit, new analysis reveals that the countries attending committed $189bn to support oil, coal and gas between January 2020 and March 2021. In comparison, the same countries – the UK, US, Canada, Italy, France, Germany and Japan – spent $147bn on clean forms of energy.

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Gaza damage and Glasgow raids: human rights this fortnight in pictures

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A roundup of the coverage on struggles for human rights and freedoms, from Myanmar to Peru

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Price of gold: DRC’s rich soil bears few riches for its miners – photo essay

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As the value of gold reached new heights last year, those mining it continued to face crippling deprivation and dangerous conditions

  • Produced as part of Congo In Conversation, with the support of the Carmignac photojournalism award. Text and photographs by Moses Sawasawa, a photographer based in Goma and co-founder of Collectif Goma Oeil

The muddy slopes surrounding the eastern Congolese gold-mining town of Kamituga hold vast wealth and crippling deprivation.

In South Kivu province near the borders of Rwanda and Burundi, Kamituga has mineral resources estimated to be worth $24tn (£17tn) in untapped deposits. Yet the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has one of the lowest levels of GDP per capita in the world and people work in dangerous conditions with little hope of scratching out anything more than a meagre existence from tough and dangerous work.

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Goldman Sachs executive quits after making millions from Dogecoin

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The crypto asset is down more than 30% this week but is still up by more than 1,000% from the start of 2021

A senior manager at Goldman Sachs in London has quit the US investment bank after making millions from investing in Dogecoin, the joke crypto asset which has risen by more than 1,000% in value this year.

City sources said Aziz McMahon, a managing director and head of emerging market sales, had resigned from the bank after making money from investing in the digital currency based on the Doge internet meme.

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Growing pains: Zimbabwe’s female tobacco farmers struggle to compete

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At the mercy of international markets and denied access to mainstream finance, the enterprising growers face a precarious existence

Moreen Tanhara waits patiently for officials to inspect her tobacco. The 49-year-old has travelled nearly 100 miles (150km) overnight in an old lorry to reach Tobacco Sales Floor, an auction house in Harare. Tanhara sits quietly on one of the fragrant sacks she has brought from Guruve, a farming area north of Zimbabwe’s capital, while on the auction floor workers prepare tobacco leaves for the first sales of the season.

Related: Zimbabwe urged to take action against child labour on tobacco farms

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‘We cannot drink oil’: campaigners condemn east African pipeline

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Activists say the ‘heart of Africa’ line shipping crude from Uganda to Tanzania is unnecessary and poses a huge environmental risk

Activists have accused French and Chinese oil firms of ignoring huge environmental risks after the signing of accords on the controversial construction of a £2.5bn oil pipeline.

Uganda, Tanzania and the oil companies Total and CNOOC signed three key agreements on Sunday that pave the way for construction to start on the planned east African crude oil pipeline (EACOP). But on Tuesday a letter signed by 38 civil society organisations across both east African countries said the parties had failed to address environmental concerns over the pipeline and had steamrollered over court and parliamentary processes.

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How the Suez canal blockage can seriously dent world trade

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Analysis: 12% of global shipping uses the canal with any delays disrupting supply chains, fuelling shortages and hiking prices

World trade’s pre-eminent shortcut – the Suez Canal – is facing “massive” disruption which could cause cargo delays around the globe, shipping experts warned on Friday.

The narrow, 120-mile passage of water linking the Red Sea and the Mediterranean allows ships of colossal proportions to navigate a relatively direct route from Asia to Europe, rather than taking a 3,500-mile diversion around Africa.

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