Aurelia Butler

LONDON (Reuters) – Russia accused Ukraine on Thursday of laying hundreds of mines near its coast and said some were drifting into open waters of the Black Sea and creating dangers for merchant shipping, a day after Kyiv said Moscow was responsible for planting mines.The Black Sea is a major shipping route for grain, oil and oil products. Its waters are shared by Bulgaria, Romania, Georgia and Turkey as well as Ukraine and Russia, which have been at war since President Vladimir Putin invaded his southern neighbour on Feb. 24.Ukraine’s foreign ministry said on Wednesday that Russia was planting naval mines in the Black Sea as “uncontrolled drifting ammunition”, turning them “into a de facto weapon of indiscriminate action”.Russia’s defence ministry said on Thursday that from Feb. 24 to March 4, the remnants of the Ukrainian navy’s mine-sweeping forces had placed about 420 sea anchor mines – 370 in the Black Sea and 50 in the Sea of Azov.”As a result of storms in the Black Sea and due to unsatisfactory technical condition, cables with bottom anchors broke on about 10 Ukrainian mines,” the defence ministry said. “Since then, under the influence of wind and surface currents, Ukrainian mines have drifted freely in the western part of the Black Sea in a southerly direction … No one can know where the remaining Ukrainian mines are drifting today.”Russia said Ukraine had “created a direct mine threat to transport and cargo ships of all Black Sea countries”. Ukrainian officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Earlier this month Russia’s main intelligence agency accused Ukraine of laying mines to protect ports and said several hundred of the explosives had broken from cables and drifted away. Kyiv dismissed that account as disinformation. In recent days Turkish and Romanian military diving teams have been involved in defusing stray mines around their waters.Turkey’s defence ministry said it had not yet identified the source and number of drifting mines and had been in contact with Ukrainian and Russian counterparts over the issue. Tayfun Ozberk, a former senior officer with Turkey’s navy, told Reuters it was difficult to determine reliable information on the mines which were being used by both Russia and Ukraine. “Considering that it has been under a blockade for about two months, it seems very unlikely that Ukraine has recently laid mines,” Ozberk said.”In order for there to be 420 free floating mines, Ukraine must have laid 2,000-2,500 mines here. Because every mine you lay does not break, either. Therefore, the possibility that Ukraine may have just mined this area does not make much sense to me.”Ozberk said it was unlikely for even old mines to break away from their thick chains in large numbers.Yoruk Isik, Istanbul-based geopolitical analyst and head of the Bosphorus Observer consultancy, said if the mines threat got bigger it could require an international response including help from Spanish, Italian, French and Greek vessels. London’s marine insurance market has widened the area of waters it considers high risk in the region and insurance costs have soared.Five merchant vessels have been hit by projectiles – with one of them sunk – off Ukraine’s coast, with two seafarers killed, shipping officials say. More

Companies’ plans to move the manufacturing of bicycle components from Asia and China to Europe have largely been put on hold as surging energy costs hit the region.Industry executives say companies have given up on moves to reshore, which had been prompted by lengthening order-to-delivery times, as energy prices have risen much higher on the continent than elsewhere.Despite the war in Ukraine disrupting deliveries further, European groups say it is no longer realistic to source materials and components nearer to their factories and consumers to avoid supply chain bottlenecks.“It would be a dream to buy most of the parts in Europe, but this is a big challenge,” said Bastian Roessler, chief executive of Cube Bikes, which produced more than 1mn bicycles last year.“With the current challenges of a war and higher energy costs, it will be harder to do more sourcing in Europe.” the boss of the German manufacturer added. His comments come as the bicycle industry struggles with lead times between ordering a component to its delivery rising to nearly two years for some parts compared with just a handful of months before the pandemic.The Ukraine war has created more complications with transport groups forced to avoid Russian airspace and other routes that transit the vast country, such as the Trans-Siberian rail route, from Asia to Europe.

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Manufacturers only had to wait three months for fork components before the pandemic, but now it is up to 18 months on average, according to data provided to the Financial Times by the World Bicycle Industry Association.Lead times for other parts are just as long. A bicycle frame used to take three months before the pandemic, but today it takes 15 months, while delivery times for tyres have stretched from three to 12 months.But with gas prices in Europe jumping seven-fold to €111 per megawatt hour as of Friday compared with the same time last year, decisions to reshore have largely been ditched. Manuel Marsilio, general manager at the Confederation of the European Bicycle Industry, said high energy costs were inhibiting investment in Europe.“It’s difficult to do it [invest] in a circumstance like this where the energy price is so big.”However, he argued the long wait for components from China meant producers would still aim to shorten their supply chains in the long-term.He sticks by projections that Europe would double the value of local component manufacturing to €6bn by 2025, helped by the presence of Germany’s Bosch, a vital supplier for bicycles with a motor.Adding to the strains, the bicycle industry is also facing renewed supply chain threats from factory closures because of coronavirus lockdowns in Shenzhen and Shanghai.As of Friday, more than 140 vessels were waiting outside of ports near Hong Kong and Shanghai, up by half on the start of the year, according to data from Kuehne+Nagel.The bicycle industry is particularly vulnerable because of its reliance on a small number of large component producers — Japan’s Shimano, US-based SRAM and Italy’s Campagnolo — that have generally been cautious about over-investing to create new production capacity.“The biggest challenge is we’re very reliant on Shimano or SRAM,” said Rob Gitelis, chief executive of Factor Bikes, a Taiwanese bicycle manufacturer backed by Tour de France winner Chris Froome. “I speak to friends at Apple who have contingency plans upon contingency plans. We don’t have any of that in the bike industry.”In addition, the conflict in Ukraine has created broader concerns over inflation, which could disrupt business and hit consumer demand further.However, Roessler and others are confident the high-end of the industry, which manufactures performance bicycles and electric-powered machines, can weather the storms, particularly with rocketing fuel prices that could prompt people to ditch their cars.“The second car is becoming an ebike,” Marsilio said. More

The ministry said in a published budget document that it expects the economy to expand by 3.5% in 2023.”The persistent impacts of the pandemic on supply and demand imbalances, and the escalation of the geopolitical conflict between Russia and Ukraine, have forced countries to adjust their growth expectations for this year,” the document says.The new figure compares to President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s projection of 5% growth for the economy in 2022 and a prior government forecast for a 4.1% expansion. [nL1N2UD138]The budget document projected inflation at 5.5% by the end of 2022, slowing to 3.3% by the end of 2023.The exchange rate is seen at 20.7 pesos per U.S dollar for the end of 2022, and 20.9 pesos at the end of 2023, the ministry said, compared with 19.8 pesos on Friday.Mexico expects this year’s average oil price will be $92.90 per barrel, while crude production is estimated at 1.82 million barrels per day (bpd), rising to 1.85 million bpd in 2023.The ministry expects an average of 879,000 bpd of crude exports in 2022.The country will remain focused on promoting economic development and job creation through public spending, the document said, adding spending would not “jeopardize the continuation and completion of key infrastructure works or priority social programs.” More

LIMA (Reuters) – Peru, the world’s no. 2 copper producer, will target “excess profits” that mining firms have gained from soaring global metals prices for extra taxation, the country’s economy minister told Reuters.While President Pedro Castillo came to power last July pledging to increase taxes on the powerful mining sector, the current plan is far less ambitious than initial promises of sharp tax hikes that met fierce resistance from the industry and a divided Congress.”The focus is on the surplus profits,” Oscar Graham (NYSE:GHM), the country’s minister of economy and finance, said in an interview in Lima late on Friday, adding that the government was looking at an “adjustment” to taxes.Copper prices are currently trading at near record levels around $10,000 per tonne in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.”The margins (of the adjustment) are being evaluated,” he said, but added it was important that the sector did not lose competitiveness and that mining investment was not discouraged.Graham said Peru needed better distribution of mining wealth to communities to quell mining protests that have rocked the sector and stalled production at key mines such as MMG Ltd’s Las Bambas and Southern Copper (NYSE:SCCO)’s Cuajone mine.”We have to look at the issue of the efficient use of resources provided by mining, otherwise we will have recurrent conflicts in the country,” he said. INFLATIONGraham also said Peru faced risk from any “prolongation” of the war in Ukraine, with domestic prices having risen at their fastest pace in a quarter of a century in March.”We are net importers of oil and corn, which form the chain of inputs that most affect the family basket,” he said, adding that the government was evaluating doubling the budget for social programs to mitigate inflation for the most vulnerable.Graham said projections of economic growth this year of between 3.5% and 4.0% were unchanged, but he did not rule out a revision given the global crisis.To rebuild investor confidence that has been dented by economic issues and political turmoil, Graham said he would present to Congress a plan to cut the deficit to 1% of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2026.The deficit was cut to 2.6% last year from 8.9% in 2020.”This is very important to provide certainty, especially to international rating agencies and investors,” he said.In mid-March, ratings agency Standard & Poor’s cut its rating for Peru, citing political uncertainty. President Castillo survived an impeachment vote in late March, the second time lawmakers have tried to remove him. Peru: Inflation spikes https://tmsnrt.rs/3NFT34cPeru: Inflation spikes (Interactive graphic) https://tmsnrt.rs/3iXZ1iO More

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) -Mexico will use the extra revenue it collects from higher oil prices to subsidize domestic gasoline and diesel prices, Deputy Finance Minister Gabriel Yorio told Reuters on Friday.While production has slid significantly in recent years, Mexico remains a major oil producer and exporter.Without the fuel subsidy, annual inflation, which hit 7.29% in the first half of March, would rise above 9% within four months, Yorio said in an interview at his office in downtown Mexico City.”I think that practically all the surplus that will be generated by higher prices will also be reflected in the cost of gasoline,” he said. “So we’re literally going to have to use the surplus to finance the additional subsidies.”Mexican motorists have largely been shielded from big spikes in fuel prices in recent weeks due to the subsidy policy championed by the government of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who has long promised to insulate consumers from sharp price hikes at the pump.The Bank of Mexico has hiked the key interest rate seven monetary policy meetings in a row to try to rein in inflation. The central bank’s target is 3% inflation with a 1-percentage-point tolerance range above and below that.”What we have calculated is that over a period of four months this measure avoids two percentage points of inflation. In other words, if over these four months annual inflation is around 7% more or less, this prevents it from rising to 9%,” said Yorio.Mexico’s government is just the latest globally to try to cushion the impact of soaring fuel prices following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and one of the few that has the luxury of additional oil income to help finance those subsidies.Governments from Brazil to France are considering pumping up subsidies or trimming taxes to shield consumers from the financial strain of higher fuel prices, reflecting the economic and political risks governments see in the current energy spike.Yorio said investors’ view of Latin America, and Mexico specifically, has improved amid the fallout from the war, as the region is seen as far removed from the conflict.At a recent road show to New York and Europe, investors expressed interest in buying more Mexican debt, but Yorio said Mexico’s government had no plans to issue additional dollar- or euro-denominated bonds this year.He added that Mexico will likely, however, issue debt in Japan for refinancing purposes.”At some point this year we’re probably going to go to the Samurai market because we haven’t done so in two years and we have upcoming amortizations in yen.” More