Markets Overview
- ASX SPI 200 futures little changed at 7,351.00
- Dow Average up 1.5% to 34,764.82
- Aussie up 0.7% to 0.7298 per US$
- U.S. 10-year yield rose 13.0bps to 1.4318%
- Australia 3-year bond yield rose 2bps to 0.24%
- Australia 10-year bond yield rose 0.5bps to 1.26%
- Gold spot down 1.5% to $1,742.44
- Brent futures up 1.4% to $77.22/bbl
Economic Events
- 11am: (AU) Australia to Sell A$1 Billion 1.5% 2031 Bonds
A A$30 billion-plus ($22 billion) bid to export Australian solar power to Singapore via a 4,200-kilometer (2,600-mile) cable has taken another step forward after clearing a crucial approval hurdle.
Indonesia has recommended the route that transmission cables for the Australia-Asia Powerlink can be laid through its territorial waters, project owner Sun Cable Pty Ltd. said in a statement Thursday. The government in Jakarta has also granted the subsea survey permit required, it said.
The company plans to use the high-voltage cable to supply enough electricity to meet 15% of Singapore’s demand from a giant solar and battery complex deep in the Outback. The project, which is backed by billionaires including Atlassian Corp co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes and Fortescue Metals Group Ltd. Chairman Andrew Forrest, will also supply the northern Australian city of Darwin when it starts operating in 2028.
Indonesia’s approval “brings us closer to generating and transmitting affordable, dispatchable renewable energy to Darwin and Singapore, via the world’s largest renewable energy transmission network,” said David Griffin, Sun Cable’s chief executive officer. Similar proposals for long-haul, transnational power shipments have been considered in other regions, including from North Africa to Europe and from Mongolia to Japan and South Korea.
Other News
Kew Gardens has secured a new world record for the “largest collection of living plants at a single-site botanic garden”.
The Royal Botanical Gardens in Kew, London has gained recognition from the Guinness World Records (GWR) for a feat in biodiversity, housing a total of 16,900 species of plants within its 320-acre site.
The achievement will be honoured in the upcoming GWR book to be published in 2022. This is not the first time the Unesco World Heritage site has earned a world record. Other records it holds include the world’s biggest waterlilies and the world’s tallest plant.
This title went to the prehistoric plant known as the titan arum, famed not only for its height at a whopping 3 metres, but also for its flowers that give off an aroma of rotting flesh.
Around since the time of the dinosaurs, the plant achieved its GWR title for world’s tallest bloom at Kew in 2018.
