Drop from £1,690 driven by fall in wholesale gas prices but household bills still substantially higher than three years ago.
The energy price cap in Great Britain will fall 7% to the equivalent of £1,568 a year this summer after a drop in wholesale gas prices.
Set by the energy regulator, Ofgem, the cap reflects the average annual dual-fuel bill for 29m households and takes effect from July until the end of September.
The cap, which is set quarterly, will fall by £122 in July from its current level of £1,690, easing the pressure on household finances.
Although that represents a fillip for hard-pressed consumers, it still leaves bills far above the £1,154 cap in the summer of 2021, before the energy crisis. Wholesale gas prices began to rise sharply in 2021 and escalated after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022.
Bills have since eased from their peak in 2023 – when the cap reached £4,279 but the government subsidised bills to keep them at £2,500 – but remain above pre-crisis levels, meaning millions of households are expected to remain in fuel poverty.
Jess Ralston, an energy analyst at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, said: “Households are still struggling with bills that are hundreds of pounds higher than pre-crisis levels, and estimates suggest bills may rise again as we head into winter.
“Whatever colour the next government is, we’ll be heading into a winter still heavily dependent on volatile gas markets, going backwards on our energy independence. The cost of living, driven in part by energy bills, and the UK’s energy security may well be key election issues – so how the parties choose to tackle them will likely be in the spotlight.”
The price cap is expected to rise slightly in October before falling again in January 2025, according to analysis by the consultancy Cornwall Insight. It had forecast July’s cap would be £1,574 a year.
The start of the Ukrainian Embassy in Mauritania will be a new page of Ukrainian-Mauritanian relations and will open many additional opportunities: political, economic, trade, humanitarian, said Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba.
“Raised the Ukrainian flag in Mauritania. In the Mauritanian capital Nouakchott, the Ukrainian embassy officially started its work. We continue to expand our presence and strengthen our position in Africa,” – wrote Kuleba in Instagram.
The Minister noted that Mauritania is an important country for Ukraine. In particular, because Mauritania now chairs the African Union, the continent’s key international organization with 55 member states.
“Secondly, it is a promising trade partner for Ukraine, the volume of trade turnover and its nomenclature can be significantly expanded. Thirdly, Mauritania is important in the context of international anti-terrorist efforts in the Sahel region. Ukrainian experience in the field of security here can have a great demand,” Kuleba pointed out.
At the same time, he emphasized that trade between the two countries gradually grew before the full-scale war, but political relations hardly developed.
“Last year we changed this trend. I had the first telephone conversation in the history of bilateral relations and then a face-to-face meeting with my Mauritanian counterpart. Regular contacts between our agencies began. The start of the Embassy will be a new page of Ukrainian-Mauritanian relations and will open a lot of additional opportunities: political, economic, trade, humanitarian,” – wrote the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Ferrexpo plc, a mining company with major assets in Ukraine, and Salzgitter Flachstahl GmbH, a subsidiary of German steel company Salzgitter AG, have announced that they will strengthen their cooperation.
According to a stock exchange announcement, the companies signed a memorandum of understanding for the supply of direct reduced iron (DRI) pellets for the production of low-carbon steel.
It is specified that the memorandum on the use of pellets in SALCOS (Salzgitter Low CO2-Steelmaking), a production facility of Salzgitter, provides for the implementation of a decarbonization program, joint development of strategies for the use of raw materials within environmentally friendly supply chains.
“We have agreed on the terms of our cooperation for the future. Ferrexpo’s DR pellets can significantly reduce emissions in steel production under the SALCOS program,” explained Jaroslawa Blonska, Acting Marketing Director at Ferrexpo.
Gerd Baresh, Technical Director of Salzgitter Flachstahl GmbH, expressed his hope for intensified cooperation in the context of the SALCOS program: “This agreement will help us reduce carbon emissions in our supply chains and stimulate the production of environmentally friendly steel.”
The SALCOS program is expected to be technically completed by 2033.
Ferrexpo is an iron ore company with assets in Ukraine. Ferrexpo owns 100% of shares in Poltava Mining, 100% of shares in Yeristovo Mining and 99.9% of shares in Bilanivsky Mining.
State-owned PrivatBank, Oschadbank and Ukreximbank have purchased the largest amount of domestic government bonds since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion and have become market leaders in terms of government bonds with UAH 316 billion, UAH 154.2 billion and UAH 130.5 billion, respectively.
“PrivatBank’s clients mainly invest in hryvnia domestic government bonds (64.5%) and US dollar bonds (33.7%). At the same time, 80% of clients reinvest in securities of the Ministry of Finance when redeeming government bonds,” the financial institution’s press service said.
PrivatBank noted that every third hryvnia of the 1 trillion hryvnia raised in government bonds since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Russia was invested by the bank or its clients.
In its turn, Oschadbank clarified that UAH 154.23 billion in equivalent of the total portfolio of domestic government bonds, UAH 26.6 billion, was purchased since the beginning of 2024, UAH 65.29 billion in 2023, and UAH 62.34 billion in 2022.
The top three are followed by the state-owned Ukrgasbank, which purchased the equivalent of UAH 89.3 billion of domestic government bonds in the primary market.
Among the top ten banks in the country in terms of assets, FUIB and Sens Bank also published data on investments in domestic government bonds.
Thus, according to the information on FUIB’s website, the amount of investments of more than 2 thousand clients of the bank (both individuals and legal entities) in government bonds since the beginning of the full-scale invasion has reached 1.6 billion in national currency, while foreign currency portfolios amounted to more than $50.5 million and EUR10.5 million, respectively.
The press service of Sens Bank indicates that as of today, the financial institution’s portfolio of government bonds held by individual investors is over UAH 8.1 billion, which “corresponds to about 13% of the total portfolio of government bonds held by individual investors in the country.”
“(…) our bank’s clients, both individuals and business representatives, continue to actively invest in securities. Thus, in April this year alone, our clients purchased government bonds worth UAH 1.87 billion, of which UAH 1.6 billion were military bonds,” the bank noted.
Sens emphasized that clients prefer hryvnia bonds, as the bank’s information shows that in April this year, 53% of consumers preferred them.
Other banks from the “Big Ten” by assets as of April 1 this year – Raiffeisen, Ukrsibbank, Universal Bank (mono) and Credit Agricole – did not publish information on the volume of purchases of government bonds since the beginning of February 24, 2022 on their websites at the time of the publication of this material.
At the same time, Kredobank, the 14th largest bank by assets, reported that its clients have invested more than UAH 3 billion in government bonds since the beginning of the full-scale Russian aggression, and more than 70% of this amount was invested in military bonds.
Kredobank reminded that it was one of the first banks to cancel brokerage fees for the purchase of military bonds after the war started and reduced the minimum investment amount in government securities to UAH 50 thousand.
“The main preferences of Kredobank’s customers for 2024 are short-term, up to 1 year, military government bonds in national and foreign currencies. We also observe that after the maturity of the bonds, more than 50% of customers re-invest their funds, doubling the amount,” said Serhii Kucheriavyi, Director of the Liquidity and Securities Department of the bank.
As reported, the Ministry of Finance managed to lower interest rates by another 0.1-0.27 percentage points (p.p.) at auctions for the placement of domestic government bonds on Tuesday, May 21, bringing the total decrease to 0.92-1.37 p.p. after the National Bank cut the discount rate from 14.5% to 13.5% per annum on April 26.
According to the website of the Ministry of Finance, the cut-off rate for one-year securities decreased from 15.15% to 15.05%, for two-year securities – from 16.2% to 16.08%, and for three-year securities – from 17.2% to 16.93%.
The number of concluded Green Card contracts in January-April 2024 decreased by 8.88% to 451.8 thousand, according to the website of the Motor (Transport) Insurance Bureau of Ukraine (MTIBU).
According to the report, in January-April 2024, the total accrued insurance premiums under international insurance contracts “Green Card” concluded by the member companies of the Bureau increased by 3.81% compared to the same period in 2023 – up to UAH 1.680 billion.
At the same time, the amount of compensation paid on claims increased by 21.51% to EUR 16.758 million.
The Motor Bureau also noted that while previously Green Card insurance certificates were mostly issued for a short period of up to three months, now drivers are increasingly choosing long-term or annual insurance contracts.
MTIBU is the only association of insurers that provide compulsory insurance of civil liability of owners of land vehicles for damage caused to third parties.
“Green Card is a system of insurance coverage for victims of road traffic accidents, regardless of their country of residence and country of vehicle registration. “The Green Card covers 45 countries in Europe, Asia and Africa.
According to the decision taken by the General Assembly of the Council of the Bureau of the International System of Motor Insurance “Green Card” in Luxembourg in May 2004, Ukraine became a full member of the system on January 1, 2005.
The number of road accidents caused by children has increased 1.4 times
Almost 6.5 thousand road accidents with victims were recorded in Ukraine in 4 months of 2024, according to the Patrol Police Department (PPD). This is 6% more than in the same period in 2023. 813 people died in these accidents. There has also been a significant increase in the number of road accidents involving children – 1.4 times this year. Most of these accidents occurred in the Lviv region.
6475 road accidents with victims were recorded in Ukraine in the first four months of 2024. This is 6% more than last year.
The number of people killed in such accidents this year reached 813, and 8155 were injured.
For the second year in a row, the top three anti-leaders in terms of the number of accidents with victims are led by Dnipropetrovska oblast, where 637 such incidents occurred, 10% of the total number in the country. The number of accidents here increased by 14.5% compared to the same period last year.
Lviv region ranks second with 586 accidents with victims (9%), and Kyiv closes the top three anti-leaders with 534 cases (8%).
The largest increase in road accidents with victims over the year was recorded in Kherson (+26%), Mykolaiv (+23%) and Rivne (+23%) regions.
Most people – 70% of the total number – died in road accidents due to speeding (430) and maneuvering violations (136).
It is worth noting that the number of road accidents involving children is increasing year by year. For example, 956 such accidents occurred in the first four months of 2024, almost a quarter more than in the same period last year. The highest number of such accidents was recorded in Lviv region – 115 cases.
The number of accidents involving children has increased 1.4 times this year compared to last year and 3 times compared to 2021. The largest number of such cases occurred in Lviv (21), Rivne (14), Ivano-Frankivsk (13), and Volyn (12).
https://opendatabot.ua/analytics/kids-dtp-2024-4
