"Work from home and limit flights", urges IEA, as fuel crisis deepens

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What happens when a conflict starts hitting the infrastructure

that powers the global economy?

It's well-business expressed from the BBC World Service.

I am Bissy Adibayo.

We'll look at how attacks and energy sites across the

golfer drive in volatility in oil and gas markets,

and the return of K-pop superstars BTS.

And we'll begin with the International Energy Agency's call

and governments to do what they can to reduce the man for oil,

including encouraging people to work from home

and cut in road speed limits by 10 kilometers an hour.

The head of the IEA Fatiba role says,

the disruption to supplies caused by the US-Israeli war with Iran is huge.

Our world is facing the greatest global energy security challenge in the history.

It is much bigger than what we had in the 1970s, the oil price shocks.

It is also bigger than the natural gas price shock we have

experienced after the Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

And it is not only oil and gas, fertilizers, petrochemicals.

These are all facing major problems.

And so the world's attention remains closely focused on energy prices,

with prices for oil and gas soaring since the start of a US-Israel war with Iran.

Well, let's bring in Randips and Mel, a fund manager at M&G Investments.

Randip, it's been three weeks since all of this started.

What are you seeing in energy prices today?

The energy prices remain volatile.

Oil, European Brent is up to 106 gas prices are rising.

The volatility seems to say.

And with the US now announcing, they're sending three additional

warships and more troops to the Middle East.

It looks like it's going to stay this way for a while.

And we've seen all of that trickle into the markets as well.

That's right, the S&P is now down a percent.

All European markets are weakened.

We're seeing bond yields rise.

Because as long as this continues,

the inflation and the economic system is likely to increase.

And while we run a path of declining interest rates,

they may need to rise to offset this inflation.

Stay with us, Randip, because the story is moving very quickly.

And several Gulf countries have again come on the attack

from drones and missiles fired by Iran.

Israel had struck Iran's south-fast gas fields,

prompting retaliation across energy sites in the region.

And a major gas facility in Qatar has been badly damaged

with repairs expected to take years.

So what does that mean for global energy supply?

I've been speaking to Anne Sophie Kobo

from the Center on Global Energy Policy.

So for the world, this is a very important volume.

And all of these instructions to these facilities

have caused significant damage.

And it will take years to repair, of course.

So what does this tell us about how serious this escalation is

for global energy supply and pricing?

Well, what is showing us is the fact that energy infrastructure

is very vulnerable to such attacks.

I don't think people were really expecting that.

And it can, of course, get worse.

I mean, right now we are looking at this specific attack

on the very important piece of energy infrastructure.

But you can also imagine that the Iranians would also try to attack

at Kaikin Saudi Arabia, which is also very important,

but on the other side.

So the first thing is that we don't know

yet how this war is going to end,

because there are really two things

we need to stop the attacks on energy infrastructure.

And we need also to reopen the straight-offermost.

And nobody has quite figured out how to do that.

So we are in a complicated situation where I think everybody

from the European and Asian countries is trying

to reopen the straight-offermost, because we are the ones

directly impacted by these high oil and gas prices.

And talking about the straight-offermost,

a lot of the world's energy flows through this region, of course.

So are we in any way close to seeing real disruption?

Well, on the other side, I mean, there are substantial stocks.

And actually, the international energy agency

has released some emergency stocks last week.

I mean, all artists as announced that these stocks would be released.

On the gas side, it's a little bit different,

because we have stocks, but in order to cover

heating demand during winter.

So we are at the end of the winter.

The stocks are actually relatively low.

And we need to refill them.

And I think for us, European, the main question

is to what extent and how we can refill the stocks

to be ready for the next winter.

Magnumistic, we are going to be in competition

with some other countries on the other side of the planet

in particular Japan, Korea, and Taiwan,

which can afford higher prices.

But it's also very important to understand

that in the global South, in developing countries

which cannot afford very high gas prices,

these crises is very simply resulting

into demand destruction.

So these are factories which are not functioning,

fertilizer in particular.

So down the line, because there are also a lot of

fertilizer exports which are going through the straight,

we might eventually have a food crisis emerging

in a few months from now or a year from now.

That was Anne Serfie Corby from the center

on global energy policy.

And of course, no country in the world

is immune to rising fuel prices.

High diesel prices are affecting these French fishermen.

The more expensive diesel is,

the more our salaries will decrease.

If diesel prices remain this high,

fishermen salaries will decrease by at least a third easily.

For the moment, it's okay.

We can afford to go out to sea.

But if fuel prices keep increasing,

we'll be forced to remain in port.

Randip Semel from M&G Investments is still with us.

Randip, let's talk about the patent on Semaglotide,

which is the key ingredient behind the drugs like

Wigovie and Ozembig and is expiring in India today.

What could that mean for investors and farmer companies

in the US and Europe?

This has been well headlined for some time.

So it's probably not going to have a huge impact for investors,

nor for Nordic who manufacture these drugs.

I've always known that these patents

would expire at a certain point in time.

Now India is not a huge market.

The ability to pay for these drugs is a lot less.

In markets like the US,

where they generate more than half of their revenue,

the patents still go on to 2032.

And by then, no more Nordic are expecting

to have their second generation drugs onto the market.

Thanks, Randip.

China has warned its citizens to be careful

when investing in mining in Zimbabwe,

the government in Harari imposed a ban on the exports of lithium

and other raw minerals.

Zimbabwe wants to promote local processing

and to curb irregular exports.

The country supplies almost the fifth

of China's lithium imports,

a key component in batteries.

K-pop supergroup BTS are back.

And that was a trailer from their first show

in almost four years,

streaming a Netflix this Saturday.

And you can hear just how hyped the fans are there,

and not only is the band back,

but they've also released a brand new album

and a kick-off of a huge global tour.

Cedar Bowl Seiji is professor of Korean and East Asian studies

at Pusan National University.

People are so excited.

There's so many activities, too, on the side.

It's not just that we're going to have the concert tomorrow

or that everybody's going to start streaming madly later today.

It's also a series of events and special decorations.

And it's like a treasure hunt.

The entire country has become a treasure hunt for fans

who are just so excited that this day is finally come.

That's it from World Business Express.

Please subscribe to get the latest

search for World Business Express.

I'm busy at Dubai off.

Thanks for listening.

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So when you want to reach the right professionals,

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LinkedIn has grown to a network of over one billion professionals,

including 130 million decision makers.

And that's where it stands apart from other ad buys.

You can target your buyers by job title,

industry, company, role,

seniority, skills, company revenue.

So you can stop wasting budget on the wrong audience.

It's why LinkedIn ads generate the highest B2B return on ad spend

of major ad networks.

Spend $250 on your first campaign on LinkedIn ads

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