A daily update on the latest business and economic news.
France's Finance Minister Roland Lescure revealed on Wednesday that between 30 and 40 per cent of Gulf refining capacity has been damaged or destroyed by Iran's retaliatory strikes, leaving a shortage of 11 million barrels a day on global oil markets. Lescure warned it could take up to three years to restore damaged facilities, and several months to restart those that were urgently shut down.
Meanwhile, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has travelled to Algeria for emergency energy talks, seeking to secure increased gas deliveries to Italy as the country scrambles to replace lost LNG supplies from Qatar.
With fossil fuel supplies under severe strain, both the UK and Germany signalled on Wednesday that the energy crisis is accelerating their green transitions.
This, as European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde assured the continent that the ECB has several options for dealing with the inflation shock triggered by the US-Israeli war on Iran, and vowed policymakers would not be "paralysed by hesitation".
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