MOSCOW (MRC) -- Australia will set up a AD1 B (USD740 MM) fund to invest in companies to develop low-emissions technology, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Wednesday, as the country seeks to cut carbon emissions and hit net-zero targets by 2050, reported Reuters.
Under the plan, the federal government will commit AD500 MM to the fund, matched by private investors, which will be used to back early stage companies in developing technologies including carbon capture and storage (CCS).
"Our plan to reach net zero by 2050 is an Australian one that's focused on technology not taxes and this fund backs Australian companies to find new solutions," Morrison said in a statement.
The federal government will introduce legislation to establish the fund, in order to allow the Clean Energy Finance Corp to fund CCS, which is not allowed under its existing terms.
The move came a day after the federal government pledged AD178 MM (USD132 MM) to ramp up the rollout of hydrogen refueling and charging stations for electric vehicles.
As MRC wrote before, in March 2021, BP plc stopped importing oil for its refinery in Western Australia, the country’s largest, and was on track to decommission the plant by the end of March. BP announced last October it would shut the loss-making Kwinana plant, capable of processing 146,000 barrels per day (bpd) of oil, and turn it into a fuel import terminal. It said at the time operations would wind down over six months.
We remind that in early February, 2021, Rosneft Oil Company and BP signed a Strategic Collaboration Agreement focused on supporting carbon management and sustainability activities of both companies. The agreement builds on years of partnership between the two companies and formalises key elements of their collaboration on sustainability and work to identify carbon reduction activities and low carbon opportunities.
Ethylene and propylene are the main feedstocks for the production of polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP), respectively.
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,868,160 tonnes in the first nine months of 2021, up by 18% year on year. Shipments of all grades of ethylene polymers increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 1,138,510 tonnes in January-September 2021, up by 30% year on year. Supply of propylene homopolymer (homopolymer PP) and block-copolymers of propylene (PP block copolymers) increased, whereas supply of injection moulding statistical copolymers of propylene (PP random copolymers) decreased significantly.
MRC