At The Bell – The S&P/ASX 200 index is tipped to continue to rise this morning following a strong overnight local finish, positive WA Street moves and falling oil prices.
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The local market will be buoyed by news thar all major US benchmarks pushed higher on positive news out of the Middle East.
Reuters has reported that the US Army has used up much of its stockpile of highly accurate long-range missiles during its war with Iran with Brent crude down by more than 6.0% overnight.
However, there are conflicting signals from the US and Iran over the status of talks to end their five-month-old war creating uncertainty, with the latest attack on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz highlighting risks to global energy flows.
Meanwhile, international research firm Global Data has called on energy companies to invest in cybersecurity to prevent supply risks.
In its latest strategic intelligence report, “Cybersecurity in Energy” Global Data noted that energy infrastructure is a high-value target for cybercriminals.
Ravindra Puranik, an oil and gas analyst at GlobalData, said attacks on critical national infrastructure (CNI) can have an outsized impact, disrupting essential services, causing nationwide instability, and generating financial gains for hackers.
“Energy companies depend on extensive third-party ecosystems, making supplier vulnerabilities a major cyber risk that can spread into IT and OT environments. Attacks exploiting shared vendor software (e.g., file-transfer tools) have hit major players.”
“Mitigation requires stronger vendor governance, such as continuous monitoring, standards, segmentation, least privilege, audits, and joint incident response.”
S&P Global has reported that China has unveiled plans to significantly expand recycling of end-of-life batteries, metal scrap and renewable energy components by 2030 as part of a new five-year program aimed at decarbonising its industrial sector.
In a statement, China’s official press agency said a road map has established specific volume targets for recycling and the use of secondary raw materials.
According to S&P the Chinese national road map calls for recycling more than one million tonnes of spent traction batteries annually by 2030 with recovered materials expected to meet 10% to 15% of the raw material demand for new traction battery production.
On the company news front, Monadelphous Group (ASX:MND) is an early winner, landing a major $200 million Nelson’s Point construction contract with BHP.
Elsewhere, New Frontier Minerals (ASX:NFM) has identified an untested bedrock conductor at Harts Range in the NT;
Forrestania Resources (ASX:FRS) has unveiled an upgraded British Hill gold MRE of 126,290 ounces;
Westgold Resources (ASX:WGX) is on target for a Cue Hub expansion to 1.7 Mtpa in FY28; and
Evolution Energy Minerals (ASX:EV1) has cleared the final hurdle for a Chikundo drilling contract in Tanzania.
Buck and ore
Now – in forex, the Oz dollar is buying US$0.7041
Looking at commodities, all in the greenback,
Iron Ore is up 0.15% to $93.90per tonne
Brent Crude was down 6.06% to $78.69 bbl
Gold is selling at $4077.86 per ounce
US natgas futures were down 3.36% to $2.6875 MMBtu
That’s HotCopper’s Market Open, I’m Colin Sandell-Hay – happy trading.
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