European Council President Antonio Costa has made contact with the Kremlin in an effort to engage Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin in discussions about how to end the war in Ukraine, Bloomberg reports, citing people familiar with the matter, according to UNN.
Details
"Costa’s top adviser has held two calls with a senior Russian official close to Putin with a view to preparing the ground for more substantive talks in future," one of the sources said.
Costa's spokesperson declined to comment, and Putin's spokesperson Dmitry Peskov reportedly did not respond to an email requesting his response.
"We need, at the right moment, to have talks with Russia to address our common issues on security," Costa told reporters last month.
Some EU countries have floated the idea of appointing a special envoy for negotiations with Moscow, as the bloc seeks to play a role in securing peace between Ukraine and Russia. However, this idea is controversial and fraught with risks—Putin suggested former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, who has effectively been on the Kremlin's payroll for decades due to his work at PJSC Gazprom, the publication writes.
Germany, France, and the United Kingdom, Europe's three largest economies, have separately discussed a strategy for engaging Putin in peace talks in coordination with President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy. European officials see an opportunity to draw Putin into negotiations as Kremlin forces struggle to advance on the battlefield, Ukraine has intensified strikes inside Russia, and the economic costs of the war are rising, the publication notes.
High-ranking European officials are seeking to coordinate their approach as the war enters a new phase, and they are preparing for a moment when communication with the Kremlin will intensify, one official said.
A peace deal between the US and Iran that would lower oil prices would also reduce Russia's export revenues from energy sales, the publication writes.
Kieran Kelly - Live reporter
Image source, Reuters
US President Donald Trump has laid out the two primary components of his deal to end the war with Iran: Tehran will “never have a nuclear weapon” and the Strait of Hormuz will re-open and be "toll-free" .
Speaking at the G7 summit in France, Trump said the deal agreed between the two countries was "fair" and "good".
Later Trump said he would likely hold a news conference to publicly read the agreement between the US and Iran "word by word”.
Tehran and Washington are set to sign the deal in the Swiss resort of Burgenstock on Friday.
The full details of the agreement have not been made public yet, but in the US, the Wall Street Journal has reported that Iran will be able to immediately start selling oil.
The price of Brent crude oil - the global benchmark for oil prices - has fallen today, with the price falling to $78 (£58) a barrel this evening.
Meanwhile, the Israel Defense Forces says it carried out strikes in southern Lebanon today, claiming it intercepted rockets and destroyed a rocket launcher Hezbollah militants fired at its troops. Hezbollah says it has received assurances from Iran that it will demand the IDF withdraws from southern Lebanon.
Trump described the Lebanon conflict as a "minor war" and insisted it would not derail the US's deal with Iran - but he continued his public criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
His comments about Israel are among his most outspoken yet, showing the extent of his current angry spat with Netanyahu, writes our correspondent Tom Bateman.
We're ending our live coverage, but you can read how Iranians are feeling about the deal here.
By Michael Scott - Jun 17, 2026, 7:00 PM CDT
Every AI boom forecast being published right now — every bull case, Big Tech earnings call, and valuation model — seems to be making the same assumption.
The electricity will be there to power it when they need it. It won’t.
Bitzero (NASDAQ: AIBZ) spent the last four years betting against that assumption. The company locked in more than a gigawatt of low-cost power across Norway, Finland, and North Dakota, well before the rest of the industry started fighting over every available megawatt.
The company is already cash flow positive, with operational sites and grid connections secured — while the hyperscalers spending hundreds of billions are still years away from the electricity to power theirs.
And they just announced a binding letter with their first contemplated major long-term tenant, in a deal worth up to $2.6 billion.
This comes at a time when the scale of money flowing into AI is reaching dizzying heights.
The five largest cloud and AI infrastructure providers — Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, and Oracle — have committed to spending between $660 billion and $690 billion in 2026 alone.
That’s more than the entire defense budget of every country except the United States. Roughly three-quarters of it is going specifically toward AI infrastructure.
Amazon’s spending alone — projected at $200 billion — is so aggressive it’s expected to push the company into negative free cash flow for the year.
But with all that spending going into the AI buildout, there’s one question many don’t appear to be asking: where is all of that electricity actually going to come from?
$690 Billion With Nowhere to Plug In
With the data center buildout for AI in full swing, unfortunately, the infrastructure to support it is struggling to keep pace. A new utility-scale power plant takes five to ten years to go from approval to operation. New nuclear is even slower.
In Virginia — the world’s largest data center hub — operators now face 7-year waits just for grid connections.
Microsoft’s deal to restart the Three Mile Island reactor won’t deliver electricity until 2027 at the earliest.
Google’s first Kairos Power reactor isn’t expected online until 2030.
Those are among the most ambitious power projects in the country. And none of them will be ready inside the window where the money is actually being spent.
Even the venture capitalists who funded the last tech boom are starting to acknowledge the warning signs. Bill Gurley — the Benchmark partner who led Uber’s Series A and called the dot-com bubble before it burst — recently warned that the current AI cycle is heading for a “reset.”
The numbers support that skepticism too.
Gartner estimates that AI companies would need to grow token consumption 50,000 to 100,000 times by 2030 just to break even on today’s infrastructure spending.
Even with the most optimistic projections for AI adoption, that’s a tough hill to climb.
But the revenue math is almost beside the point. Even if every AI bull is completely right about demand, the power still isn’t there to support it.
That’s the gap Bitzero has been building into for four years by taking a counterintuitive approach to how they build their data centers. And with their recent announcement, they’re set to deploy 110 megawatts of capacity at their flagship site by early next year.
The Hidden Power Company That Can’t Be Replicated
Most data center developers build the building first and fight for power later. They secure the land, draft the plans, submit the grid interconnection request, and hope it clears.
That’s the order the industry has run on for decades, and that worked well when power was abundant. But with today’s AI power grab in full swing, that model no longer works.
Bitzero (NASDAQ: AIBZ) has taken that model and flipped it on its head, however.
“We focus first on securing power access, grid positioning, and pricing frameworks, and only then build infrastructure on top of that,” CEO Mohammed Bakhashwain explained in a recent interview. “That sequencing is what allows projects to move forward instead of stalling in the power queue.”
The company’s flagship facility sits in central Norway, where it draws 100% renewable hydroelectric power at 3 to 4 cents per kilowatt-hour. That’s roughly a third of what most U.S. data centers pay.
And Bitzero manages its own connection to the high-voltage grid directly — a regulatory status that takes years to obtain and gives the company direct control over its energy supply.
But there’s an even bigger barrier for anyone trying to follow them in.
After Bitzero’s facility was approved, Norway capped any new data center project at five megawatts of power. That’s barely enough to run a small server room. A single AI training facility needs 100-plus megawatts.
Bitzero’s concessions were locked in before that cap was imposed. That puts the company in a unique position, having secured cheap, abundant power at a time when many data centers simply can’t find the energy to power their chips.
A 1-Gigawatt Headstart?
What makes Bitzero stand out from other data center companies isn’t just the capacity they’ve locked in, however. It’s what the company has actually been doing with that capacity.
Recently, Bitzero confirmed that engineering is complete on a five-megawatt AI cluster at their flagship Norway site, designed specifically to run NVIDIA’s GB300 chips — the same hardware Microsoft and Google are racing to deploy at scale.
But more importantly, the company now has a major deal with a long-term tenant.
Bitzero just locked in a binding letter for a contemplated 15-year lease with an AI cloud provider for the full 110 megawatts at the Norway site, with first deployment targeted for 2027.
That equals not just major validation for the company as a player in the AI data center space, it also results in a deal worth up to $2.6 billion, with as much as 85% of that resulting in net income.
And then there’s Finland.
Bitzero’s site in Kokemaki has been re-engineered to support up to 1,000 megawatts of capacity — a full gigawatt — putting it among the largest planned AI infrastructure facilities anywhere in Europe.
The first 80 megawatts is targeted for the first half of 2027, and the high-voltage 400 kV grid connection has already been confirmed by the local utility.
That’s the kind of approval most North American data center projects are still years away from securing. While Microsoft waits on the Three Mile Island restart and Google works the reactor timeline, Bitzero is plugging in GPUs and planning to scale up throughout the next 6 to 12 months.
Cash Flow Positive While the Grid Catches Up
Most of the AI infrastructure being built right now won’t generate revenue for years. Bitzero, on the other hand, is already profitable.
That’s because the company currently mines Bitcoin at an all-in breakeven of roughly $50,000 per coin, while the industry average sits between $75,000 and $82,000.
That’s a 45% cost advantage, and it’s not an accident. That’s what 3-to-4 cent hydroelectric power buys when paired with an operationally lean team.
When the April 2024 Bitcoin halving cut mining rewards in half, several public miners pivoted toward AI hosting just to survive. Core Scientific and Hut 8 shifted capacity away from Bitcoin mining because margins collapsed.
Bitzero’s margins barely moved.
That gives the company something most AI-focused buildouts don’t currently have — runway. There’s no pressure to win another AI contract by year-end to keep the lights on.
The Bitcoin business means that Bitzero is already cashflow positive with the enormous AI buildout, now under a signed 15-year lease in Norway and up to 1 GW of potential capacity in Finland and North Dakota, as the upside.
The Shark Who Saw It First
Kevin O’Leary became a strategic investor in Bitzero before most of the market understood what the company actually was. The Shark Tank investor and longtime power-infrastructure portfolio builder has been blunt about the thesis ever since.
“There is no power on the grid anymore,” O’Leary said in a recent interview. “You’ve got the Bitcoin miners with insatiable demand, and you’ve also got massive demand for AI data centers. These two are going to be fighting for power contracts.”
His framing of Bitzero is counterintuitive but straightforward. “It’s really a power company,” O’Leary said. “It was able to acquire some very advantageous power contracts over long periods of time, and they can go anywhere they want with that power.”
O’Leary has also been openly skeptical of most green-energy claims in crypto mining, saying most miners rely on carbon credit purchases rather than actual clean generation. But the exception he names is exactly what Bitzero has built.
“In the case of what Bitzero is doing — hydroelectric in Norway, nuclear in Finland — you know where it came from.”
The scramble for AI infrastructure is creating opportunities well beyond data center developers themselves. Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) has emerged as one of the largest beneficiaries of surging demand for AI computing capacity, committing tens of billions of dollars to expand its cloud and data center footprint. Vertiv Holdings (NASDAQ: VRT) sits further down the value chain, supplying the power, cooling, and thermal management systems that increasingly determine whether AI facilities can operate at scale. Meanwhile, Constellation Energy (NASDAQ: CEG) has become a focal point for investors seeking exposure to the power side of the AI boom, as hyperscalers and data center operators race to secure long-term electricity supplies. Together, these companies illustrate a broader shift underway in the market: the AI investment story is no longer just about chips and software—it is increasingly about the physical infrastructure and energy systems required to support the next generation of computing.
The Trillion-Dollar AI Question Nobody’s Asking
The trillion-dollar question isn’t whether AI demand is real. Between businesses adopting AI at record rates and AI stocks continuing to bolster the stock market, that much is already established.
The real question is whether the electricity to power it will show up on time.
Forecasts suggest it won’t. The growing grid queue confirms it. And every nuclear project the Big Tech hyperscalers have backed is still years away from generating a single watt.
There are very few who can claim they have gigawatt-scale power, plugged into the grid right now, with AI hardware already in production.
Those competitors generally add $2-3 billion in market cap for every 100 megawatts of contracted capacity for AI data centers.
Editor Maria Ponnezhath
Published 06/18/2026, 05:54 AM
Investing.com -- Siemens Energy is evaluating a potential spinoff of its Transformation of Industry division, which produces compressors and steam turbines, Manager Magazin reported Thursday.
An internal document reviewed by the magazine showed the company’s strategists determined that a separation would benefit both the division and shareholders over the long term.
Jun 17, 2026 14:59
New Delhi, Jun 17 (PTI) India's current strategic petroleum reserves are equivalent to just about 9-10 days of the country's net crude imports, far below other major import-dependent countries, a new report revealed on Wednesday.
The report released by Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) said other countries that rely heavily on crude imports such as Japan and South Korea maintain reserves sufficient for over 200 days.
The report, 'How Secure is India's Energy Future? Assessing Accessibility, Reliability, and Affordability, also noted that over 85 per cent of India's crude oil imports come from just six countries, including Russia and key West Asian suppliers, limiting flexibility supply shocks.
Hemant Mallya, fellow at the CEEW, said, "Disruptions in crude oil, LNG, LPG, coal, or key shipping routes can quickly affect cooking costs, transport fuel prices, fertiliser subsidies, industrial competitiveness, and inflation."
For gas, India imports nearly half its supply as LNG but has no dedicated strategic gas storage facilities, leaving fertiliser plants and city gas networks exposed, the report said.
It also highlighted that the country's coal security risks are increasingly influenced by its continued dependence on imported coking coal - particularly from Australia -for steelmaking, and exposure to Indonesian export policies for non-coking coal imports.
On the domestic side, declining coal quality and rising production costs signal a narrowing cost advantage for coal power over firm renewable power, said the report.
It argued that clean energy can reduce India's exposure to continuously imported fossil fuels.
However, the report said that clean energy can create a different kind of strategic dependence: on critical minerals, technologies, and industrial inputs.
This dependence must be managed through domestic manufacturing, supply-chain diversification, recycling, and strategic international partnerships, according to the report.
Mallya said, "India's next phase of energy security must move beyond securing fossil fuels to a clear transition plan: optimising gas system utilisation, avoiding further refinery expansion, accelerating viable EV adoption, electrifying industry, reconfiguring refineries for lower gasoline demand, and building resilient green technology supply chains."
Mumbai, June 17 (SocialNews.XYZ) Shares of state-run oil marketing companies (OMCs) traded higher on Wednesday as global crude oil prices extended their decline amid easing geopolitical tensions and expectations of increased Iranian oil supply.
Shares of Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL) rose as much as 2.26 per cent to hit an intraday high of Rs 410.45 on the BSE as of 1:20 pm.
Similarly, Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) stock advanced 2.46 per cent to hit an intraday high of Rs 319.50 so far in the session.
Meanwhile, Indian Oil Corporation Ltd (IOCL) shares climbed 1.61 per cent to Rs 147.45, hitting an intraday high on the exchange.
The rally in OMC stocks came after crude oil prices fell sharply on hopes that a proposed agreement between the US and Iran could pave the way for additional Iranian crude exports and ease supply concerns in global markets.
International benchmark Brent crude was trading below $80 per barrel, hovering around a three-month low after a steep decline over the past few sessions.
While US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude declined about 1 per cent, with trading near $75 per barrel.
Reports claim that the interim agreement could allow Iran to resume crude oil sales while creating a framework for broader negotiations aimed at ending hostilities and addressing concerns related to Tehran's nuclear programme.
In addition, the proposed arrangement is expected to facilitate the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz -- a critical global energy shipping route -- and improve the movement of merchant vessels through the region.
"Brent crude has declined steeply by around 16 per cent in the last 5 days to about $79, thereby removing the major macro concern of a rising BoP deficit in India," the market experts said.
They further noted that from the market perspective, another distinct positive trend is the tapering of the FII outflows. This trend is likely to continue since rupee has been steadily strengthening and can appreciate further.
On Wednesday, the broader equity market traded in positive territory during the session, supported by improved global sentiment and easing concerns over energy prices.
Source: IANS
By Timothy Gardner
WASHINGTON, June 17 (Reuters) - The U.S. Treasury on Wednesday did not publish an extension of its waiver of sanctions on Russian seaborne oil that ran out at midnight, but President Donald Trump and administration officials did not say whether that meant the measures would be re-imposed.
During the war on Iran, Trump’s administration waived U.S. sanctions on the Russian oil to help vulnerable economies deal with the energy crisis. That could change after Washington and Tehran reached a memorandum of understanding to end the war that would allow oil from the Middle East to reach global markets.
Trump on Wednesday was noncommittal about a U.S. re-imposition of sanctions on Russia. “We are looking at that. We’re seeing how far the price of oil comes down, it’s, it’s really tumbling,” he told reporters during the G7 summit in France.
On Tuesday, Trump suggested the U.S. could allow re-imposition of the sanctions by ending the waiver. “Soon we’ll be able to do that, because the oil is now flowing,” out of the Middle East, he said.
The Trump administration last year slapped sanctions on Russian oil majors Rosneft and Lukoil to pressure Russia to end its war in Ukraine by depriving Moscow of oil revenue. Russia is one of the world’s top oil exporters, along with the United States and Saudi Arabia.
The U.S. has allowed the waiver to expire in recent months only to extend it days later. The White House and Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Tehran can immediately sell oil after a ceremony expected later this week for signing of the deal, a senior U.S. official said on Tuesday. But it could take months to bring oil and gas flows to normal levels.
International Energy Agency head Fatih Birol has said the Iran war has led to the biggest disruption to global energy markets in history.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s special envoy Kirill Dmitriev, who was involved in talks with the U.S. on previous extensions, said on June 4 that U.S. officials understood the waivers’ role in stabilizing markets.
U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, who have led U.S.-brokered negotiations aimed at ending the war in Ukraine, will visit Russia soon, the Kremlin said on Sunday.
(Reporting by Timothy Gardner; additional reporting by Andrea Shalal in Washington; Editing by Bill Berkrot)
By Charles Kennedy - Jun 17, 2026, 12:30 PM CDT
The global oil market could swing from one of the largest supply disruptions in history to a surplus of more than 5 million barrels per day next year if Middle East production and exports recover following the U.S.-Iran peace agreement, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Wednesday, as reported by Reuters.
In its first outlook for 2027, the Paris-based agency forecast global oil supply growth of 8 million barrels per day, far outpacing projected demand growth of just 2 million bpd. The result would be a supply surplus of roughly 5 million bpd, creating a wildly different market atmosphere after months of war-driven shortages.
The forecast assumes a gradual recovery in Gulf oil production and exports following the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and the lifting of restrictions on Iranian oil exports.
“If the deal holds, exports and production from the Gulf should see a gradual recovery, not least because Iranian oil exports can fully resume once the U.S. blockade is lifted,” the IEA said in its monthly oil market report.
The agency estimates that the Iran conflict blocked more than 14 million bpd of Middle Eastern oil production and exports, triggering massive inventory drawdowns and sending governments around the world scrambling for alternative supplies and new energy security strategies.
Oil inventories have fallen at a rate of 3.8 million bpd since the outbreak of the war in late February, according to preliminary IEA data. Stock draws accelerated to roughly 4.6 million bpd in May alone as governments and refiners tapped into reserves to fill the gaps.
The IEA cautioned that a full recovery remains far from certain. Political uncertainty, prolonged demining operations and unresolved shipping arrangements could slow the return of Middle East barrels even after a formal peace agreement is signed.
While the agency expects inventories to continue falling in the near term, it said a large supply overhang could emerge by late 2027. That surplus would allow countries to rebuild depleted emergency reserves and replenish commercial inventories after more than a year of extraordinary stock draws.
June 17 (offshoreWIND.biz) Kenya has become the first African country to join the Global Offshore Wind Alliance (GOWA), marking a milestone for the global expansion of offshore wind.
Announced at the eleventh Our Ocean Conference in Mombasa on 17 June, Kenya’s accession to GOWA positions Africa alongside Europe, Asia, North America, South America and Australia in pursuing offshore wind as part of long-term energy and industrial strategies.
Kenya already generates nearly 90% of its electricity from renewable sources and sees offshore wind as a potential new pillar of its clean energy system. According to GOWA, the country has an estimated 68 GW of floating offshore wind potential, offering opportunities to meet rising electricity demand, diversify power supplies and reduce reliance on imported fuels.
According to data from the World Bank Group’s ESMAP programme from 2020, the technical potential off the Kenyan coast is 43 GW, of which 9 GW of technical potential could be tapped through fixed-bottom offshore wind and 34 GW with floating wind technology.
Offshore wind development is also aligned with Kenya’s Energy Transition and Investment Plan, launched in 2024, which sets out pathways to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 across the power, transport, industrial and cooking sectors.
Through its GOWA membership, Kenya will gain access to a network of governments, developers, investors and industry stakeholders working to accelerate offshore wind deployment globally. Floating wind is expected to be a key area of collaboration, given the deeper waters along Kenya’s Indian Ocean coastline, according to GOWA.
Kenya’s Principal Secretary for Energy, Alex Wachira, said offshore wind was “a new frontier for Africa” and added that Kenya’s coastline and maritime zones present opportunities for energy security, the blue economy and coastal communities.
GOWA Executive Director Amisha Patel said Kenya’s membership represented an important milestone for both the alliance and the continent, highlighting Africa’s growing role in ocean governance, climate action and the sustainable blue economy.
Founded by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) and the Danish government in 2022, GOWA aims to accelerate offshore wind deployment worldwide and support the development of at least 2,000 GW of global offshore wind capacity by 2050.
Shortly after being founded, the alliance saw Belgium, Colombia, Germany, Ireland, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, the UK, and the US join.
Last year, the group further expanded as Canada joined, with two Canadian provinces, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador, also becoming GOWA members as subnational governments.
Tokyo, June 17 (Jiji Press)--International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Rafael Grossi will visit Japan for four days starting Tuesday next week in connection with the release into the sea of treated water from the disaster-stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant in northeastern Japan.
Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi announced the schedule on Tuesday.
The chief of the Vienna-based nuclear watchdog will visit the Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc. nuclear plant, the site of the March 2011 triple meltdown, in Fukushima Prefecture to conduct additional monitoring of the ocean discharge of the treated water containing small amounts of radioactive tritium. Analytical institutions from China, South Korea and Switzerland will also participate in the monitoring.
In a press conference on Tuesday, Motegi indicated his intention to hold talks with Grossi, saying, “I would also like to exchange views on the situation in Iran.”
The Fukushima plant started releasing treated water in August 2023 due to the need to secure enough space for decommissioning work at the plant’s premises, which are occupied with tanks storing treated water.
The London Metal Exchange (LME) has signed a landmark agreement with the Shanghai Futures Exchange (SHFE) to list a new cash-settled futures contract giving international market participants direct exposure to China’s flat steel market for the first time.
The new instrument, LME Steel HRC Shanghai, will be cash-settled against the SHFE’s Steel Hot-Rolled Coil (HRC) monthly US dollar price. Currency conversions and pricing calculations will be handled by Commodity Pricing and Analysis Limited (CPAL), a sister company of the LME. Trading is expected to begin in October 2026, subject to final regulatory non-objection.
The deal is a significant step in bridging East-West commodity markets. China is by far the world’s largest producer and consumer of steel, and the SHFE’s HRC contract is one of the most liquid commodity futures in existence. Until now, access for non-Chinese entities has been structurally limited.
LME Chairman John Williamson said the contract would give companies outside China “easier access to one of the world’s most liquid commodity contracts alongside the simplicity of trading a cash-settled LME contract,” while also deepening the exchange’s ties with Chinese metal markets.
SHFE Chairman Tian Xiangyang highlighted the move’s broader significance, noting it would “further attract global steel enterprises and financial institutions to participate in price formation” and enhance the international profile of China’s steel futures ecosystem.
The new contract adds to the LME’s growing suite of cash-settled steel products and marks one of the most concrete steps yet toward integrating Chinese commodity benchmarks into global capital markets infrastructure.
Prime Minister Kim Min-seok, right, and Chang In-hwa, chairman of POSCO Group, attend the completion ceremony for the Electric Arc Furnace at POSCO Gwangyang steel plant on the 17th. POSCO
POSCO has completed construction of Korea's largest Electric Arc Furnace and a rare gas plant at its Gwangyang steel plant in South Jeolla Province at the same time. The company is moving to a greener, low-carbon production system while strengthening supply chains for key materials used in semiconductors and aerospace, expanding its business areas.
On the 17th, POSCO held a completion ceremony for the new 2.5 million-ton-a-year Electric Arc Furnace at the Gwangyang steel plant, built with an investment of 600 billion won. It is the largest single Electric Arc Furnace in Korea. The event was attended by Prime Minister Kim Min-seok, Democratic Party lawmaker Kwon Hyang-yeop, Chang In-hwa, chairman of POSCO Group, and Lee Hee-geun, president of POSCO, among other guests.
An Electric Arc Furnace melts scrap steel using electricity to produce molten metal. Compared with the traditional blast furnace method, which uses iron ore and coal, it can cut carbon dioxide emissions by about 75%. It will serve as a key bridge for reducing greenhouse gases until hydrogen reduction steelmaking, the ultimate eco-friendly steelmaking technology, is commercialized.
POSCO applies a 'blend-melting technology' that mixes molten metal produced in the Electric Arc Furnace with molten metal from its existing blast furnaces for refining. The method sharply reduces carbon emissions while precisely controlling the composition of the molten metal to maintain blast-furnace-level quality. By advancing this technology, the company aims to establish mass production of premium-grade steel by 2030.
The company is also strengthening supply chains for national advanced industries such as semiconductors and aerospace. On the same day, POSCO Air Solution, POSCO's industrial gas unit, completed a high-purity rare gas plant with an annual capacity of 130,000 Nm3 in Donghoan, Gwangyang. It refines raw gas extracted from the steel plant's oxygen facility into high purity and directly produces xenon, krypton and neon, which are essential for semiconductor lithography and etching processes. By localizing key gases that had relied entirely on imports, the company can now supply 52% of total demand from South Korea's semiconductor industry.
[Reporter Jeong Ji-seong]
This article has been translated by GripLabs Mingo AI.
New Delhi [India], June 17 (ANI): As India's steel demand remained robust in May, surging nearly 9 per cent on YoY, industry capacity utilisation is expected to stay above 90 per cent in the medium term, as per a report by Kotak Institutional Equities.
Domestic steel demand grew 9 per cent year-on-year in May 2026 and 8.7 per cent in FY26-to-date, following 7.6 per cent growth in FY26 after four consecutive years of double-digit expansion. It further noted 'exports increased 30 per cent YoY, on a weak base, to 0.5 million tons, but were outpaced by imports of 0.7 million tons in May 2026.'
According to the report, primary rebar prices have fallen by around Rs 7,000 per tonne, or 11 per cent, from their April 2026 peak. Meanwhile, domestic hot-rolled coil (HRC) prices have remained relatively stable, declining by only Rs 1,600 per tonne, or 2-3 per cent, amid seasonal weakness in the steel sector.
Additionally, HRC prices are still trading at a 7 per cent discount to China's import parity levels, limiting the risk of further declines. 'Weak steel spreads in China due to cost inflation improve odds of higher regional prices going ahead,' it added.
The report noted that spot hard coking coal prices are 4 per cent higher than fourth-quarter FY26 levels, while global iron ore prices have largely remained range-bound. Additionally, the NMDC iron ore fines prices have increased by about 20 per cent as against March 2026 exit on higher domestic steel prices in 4QFY26.
'We expect industry utilization to remain above 90% in the medium term, led by a robust demand CAGR of ~7% over FY2026-29E, outperforming capacity additions,' it said.
Furthermore, margins will likely improve on QoQ as a 'portion of the sharp 14%/21% increase in trade prices in 4QFY26 gets reflected in 1QFY27E. This should more than offset the increase in coal and ore prices, leading to higher qoq margins for our ferrous coverage,' the report added. (ANI)