Pharmaceutical giant Novartis invested billions in Slovenia, helping turn the country into a global player in generic drug production. Now, as cheap Asian competitors increasingly dominate the market, Swiss drug companies see the tiny Balkan nation playing a key role in their shift to more complex, expensive medicines. Polonca Kuhar’s career in Slovenia’s pharmaceutical industry…

Russian coal exports declined further in 2024 amid economic sanctions and logistical issues. Recent US sanctions against SUEK and Mechel, meaning that these companies are no longer able to conclude new deals, have put under threat 20% of Russian coal exports, or more than 30 mio t. Due to high transshipment rates, Russian mining companies…

The price of lithium may have fallen and Albemarle may consider them to be “unsustainable”, but Exxon isn’t giving up on its lithium expansion plans, Exxon’s lithium global business manager said in a Bloomberg interview. Lithium suppliers have been reining in spending and even production as a slowing of EV demand collided with new lithium…

Equinor has signed a 15-year agreement to supply LNG to India’s Deepak Fertilisers, which will use the gas mainly as a feedstock for ammonia production at a new plant, the Norwegian energy major said on Monday. Equinor is growing its LNG portfolio and will use the super-chilled fuel from its operated Hammerfest LNG export plant…

Last week thermal coal indices on the European market continued steady recovery above 115 USD/t. The sharp price strengthening was driven by the introduction of sanctions against major Russian coal companies (SUEK and Mechel) as well as by rising gas quotes and a reduction in ARA stockpiles. Prices were also supported by short sellers, covering…

Last year in November, the UK, together with key partner Italy, hosted the COP26 climate summit, an event many believed to be the world’s best last chance to get runaway climate change under control. A key outcome of the summit was that dozens of nations pledged to end deforestation, curb CO2 and methane emissions and…

World stocks of the crop, excluding China, have declined for four straight years and inventories are at their lowest level in 15 years. That will not be the case this year, according to the company’s machine learning-based forecast models. “A favourable start to winter wheat crops in the U.S. and Russia, along with improved prospects…

India’s coal imports are starting to reflect shifting world trade and pricing dynamics in the wake of Russia’s invasion of neighbouring Ukraine. India, the world’s second-biggest coal importer behind China, has long been viewed as a price-sensitive buyer of the polluting fuel, and given the surge in prices after Russia’s Feb. 24 attack on Ukraine,…

China announced it will establish a backup coal production system by 2027 to stabilise prices and secure coal supply, and aims to have 300 million metric tons of “dispatchable” coal production on hand by 2030. As China produces over 4 billion tons of coal each year, the direct operational impact…

In October Germany will bring back 10GW of coal fired power stations to the grid, which will add 2mt of coal demand per month. The market has reacted with rising prices. However, to put it into perspective, whilst this will be a 100% jump in German imports, it is only…