Category: News & Announcement

BEIJING, PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA (31 March 2020)— The Asian Development Bank (ADB) and China Gas Holdings Ltd. (CGH) today signed a $20 million private sector loan agreement to support natural gas and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) deliveries to households, hospitals, industry, and services crucial to the ongoing response to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) and the post-pandemic recovery in Wuhan and other affected areas in Hubei province, the People’s Republic of China (PRC). CGH is currently the main supplier of natural gas and LPG to households and commercial and industrial…

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ISLAMABAD: Demand in the country for electricity, natural gas and petroleum products has dropped dramatically as a result of the coronavirus epidemic, creating serious operational and financial challenges in the supply chain. Senior government officials told Dawn that electricity consumption had plummeted by almost 30 per cent and authorities had been compelled to provide uninterrupted power supply to even high-loss areas to maintain frequency. For example, the total power demand went down to about 8,500MW on Monday against 12,500-13,000MW projections based on actual consumption last year. These sources said the…

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If humanity is to tackle the problems of a growing global population, increased urbanization, scarcity of resources and climate change, we have to rethink the way we live. The ReGen Village is aimed at doing this, by being built to be self-sustaining from the ground up There are newly conceived community concepts around the world that are designed to help people live more sustainably. Bicester in the UK, for example, is using solar power in a bid to become the country’s first true zero carbon community, while the Cannery in California, US, has its…

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The wave of oil industry spending cuts continues, with the majors now announcing significant reductions to spending as oil remains stuck in the $20s.  Royal Dutch Shell said on Monday that it would cut spending by 20 percent, or about $5 billion, and also suspend its share buyback plan. French oil giant Total SA and Norway’s Equinor announced similar moves. ExxonMobil and Chevron have suggested they too would be axing their budgets, with Exxon under particular pressure. Goldman Sachs estimates that Chevron needs $50 per barrel in order to cover spending and its dividend. ExxonMobil, on…

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I attended one of three major biodiversity planning meetings this February, originally scheduled for China, but relocated to Rome. The day I arrived, there were three cases of the coronavirus COVID-19 in northern Italy. Two days later there were 21, and five days later there were 229. I left the fifth day, without even attending the primary workshop. A colleague teased me, and I worried that I had over-reacted. From my early training in public health, I suspected this was not just a distant wave, but an unstoppable tsunami that…

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