Tim Daiss
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Articles by Tim Daiss
Battery storage financing hurdles could prolong gas use in SE Asia
Analysis Asia PacificGasasean Rooftop solar panels. Photo by PublicDomainPictures - Pixabay. Much of Southeast Asia’s energy transition is constrained, but surprisingly it’s no longer due mainly to a shortage of capital as much as to the market and policy design of clean energy projects, a new Ember report finds. This is true particularly for battery energy storage systems (BESS) and transmission development.
INTERVIEW: Eric Pedersen of Nordea Asset Management on the EU Methane Regulation
Analysis EuropeEnergy transitionEU Photo by NakNakNak - Pixabay The European Commission, under pressure from the gas industry and some Member States, recently supported a one-year delay of the monitoring, verification and reporting requirements in the EU Methane Regulation, which were set to take effect at the start of 2027, but are now set to be pushed back. The stakes are high.
Manila’s EV ambitions confront economic and energy realities
The Philippine government’s latest attempt to accelerate electric vehicle (EV) adoption in Metro Manila is already facing headwinds, prompting regulators to relax restrictions on which vehicles qualify for newly authorized ride-hailing franchises. The reversal raises a larger question: Is the country’s…
Ugandan solar project heralds move to diversify
Analysis AfricaClimateRenewables Photo: mrganso - Pixabay. The first independent solar project in Uganda has begun commercial operations, signaling a drive to diversify the energy mix in the East African country, whose large hydropower capacity is vulnerable to climate change. The 24-MWp Ituka project was developed by AMEA Power, a Dubai-based renewable energy company, and is due to generate almost 54 GWh of energy annually, enough to power over 192,000 households.
Osaka Gas’ 5% stake in Browse project raises financial questions
Osaka Gas, which has stakes in several Australian gas projects, is investing again in the country’s energy sector to increase its LNG portfolio options. The move is raising financial questions linked to unresolved approvals, environmental questions and the outlook for the LNG market. On September 18, the company said in a disclosure that it had agreed to buy a 5% stake in Woodside Energy’s proposed 11.4 mtpa Browse LNG project off Western Australia from BP.
El Niño changes Southeast Asia’s power sector trajectory
By: Tim Daiss Photo from Philippine News Agency Southeast Asia could face a double energy shock over the coming months as a strengthening El Niño threatens hydropower generation just as the region struggles with elevated and volatile imported energy costs due to energy supply disruptions from the on-again and off-again closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
Bangladesh plan for expensive LNG investment draws criticism
Analysis Asia PacificBangladesh Aerial View of Sadarghat Launch Terminal Dhaka Bangladesh (Photo: Getty Images/MD MARUF HASSAN) Bangladesh is set to pay well above industry prices for its third floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU) at a time when the South Asian nation is already financially embattled due to high LNG prices. The pending deal is drawing criticism both domestically and internationally.
Thailand’s new solar push seeks to reduce reliance on expensive spot LNG
Analysis Asia PacificSolar Solar Power Project in Thailand (Photo: Flickr/Asian Development Bank) Thailand is trying to offset the impact on its energy sector from the increase in spot LNG prices and supply disruptions from the Strait of Hormuz closure, accelerating its push into solar and energy storage.
Philippine Power Crisis Gives Coal an Uncomfortable Second Life
By: Tim Daiss The Philippines has spent years trying to move away from coal for its power sector, but worsening power reliability is forcing Manila to reconsider just how quickly it can afford to do so.
Taiwan’s energy vulnerability makes the case for a nuclear rethink
By: Tim Daiss The disruption of liquefied natural gas (LNG) flows through the Strait of Hormuz has exposed an uncomfortable reality for Taiwan. Its energy imports remain acutely vulnerable to events thousands of kilometers from its shores. However, the more troubling lesson lies much closer to home.
India’s Grid Dilemma: record renewables, surging coal and problematic gas
Analysis EuropeRenewables India’s record renewable power generation in July pushed clean energy to 20% of the country’s electricity mix, a 30% jump year-on-year to 36.25 billion kWh, and compressed coal’s market share to a one-year low of 65.7%, down from 69% in June, according to government data reported by Reuters. The surge was anchored by combined solar and wind capacity exceeding 100 gigawatts (GW) for the first time, accounting for a record 42.8% of daily supply by mid-July.
Why Lower Oil Prices Don’t Bring Cheaper Gasoline
By: Tim Daiss As escalating hostilities between the US and Iran push crude oil to multi-week highs - with Brent futures surging toward US$98 a barrel - motorists across Asia and other major markets remain trapped paying elevated prices at the pump.
Japan’s emergency energy moves threaten its decarbonisation goals
Analysis Asia PacificEnergy Security Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant Seaside (Wikicommons/Triglav) Japan’s energy sector is undergoing systemic changes that will determine how it powers its economy for decades to come. In June, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) stated that the country needs to rebuild between two and five aging nuclear reactors by the 2040s and as many as 11 to 14 by the 2050s to secure a stable power supply.
Can Small Modular Reactors Make Nuclear Work in Southeast Asia?
By: Tim Daiss For decades, nuclear power has occupied an uneasy place in Southeast Asia’s energy future. Governments periodically embraced it whenever electricity demand surged or fossil fuel prices spiked, only to retreat as construction costs mounted, financing evaporated, or public opposition resurfaced.
Southeast Asia’s State Power Giants Face Financial Reckoning
By: Tim Daiss Southeast Asia’s state-owned power utilities are being asked to perform an impossible balancing act. Governments want them to keep electricity cheap for households and industry, maintain reliable supply, absorb rising fuel costs, invest in new electrical grids, buy more renewable power, and prepare for liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports. That may be politically convenient, but it’s becoming financially unsustainable.
Strait of Hormuz stalemate causes SE Asia LNG rethink
Most commercial traffic in the Strait of Hormuz has been blocked by Iran since early March, just days after the U.S. and Israel began a bombing campaign against the country, causing LNG spot prices to surge to new multi-year highs. The benchmark Japan-Korea Marker (JKM) for spot prices in Northeast Asia skyrocketed by 94% during March alone. The closure has choked at least 20% of global LNG supply from the market.
ASEAN May be Swapping One Energy Dependence for Another
By: Tim Daiss Southeast Asia’s transition away from imported fossil fuels is accelerating, but the region may be walking into a different form of energy dependence, one centered not on geopolitically fragile Middle Eastern supplies, but on China.
Climate finance in Asia may be doing more harm than good - Tim Daiss
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Hormuz disruption: why China’s gas trap is a regional warning
Tensions between the U.S. and Iran and the resulting loss of most shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, even as a fragile ceasefire put in place on April 8th plays out, continues to shape energy markets. Major economies are also being impacted by a simultaneous loss of oil and LNG cargoes through the geopolitically volatile chokepoint. China, the world’s largest energy consumer, is no exception.
Japan’s US$10bn SEA Oil Lifeline Risks Solving Wrong Problem
By: Tim Daiss Japan’s recent offer of US$10 billion in loans to Southeast Asian countries to secure oil supplies comes at a moment of heightened market anxiety. Oil prices have spiked to multi-year highs amid Middle East tensions and lingering concerns over shipping routes, including the Strait of Hormuz. Global oil benchmark Brent crude prices have increased since the late February start of the US-Iran war, jumping from around US$70/bbl pre-war to peaks near US$120 (again of some +70 percent).
Hormuz turmoil drives South Asia LNG, power stress
Disruption in the Strait of Hormuz, even as flows intermittently resume, is already feeding into power markets across South Asia, exposing structural vulnerabilities in LNG-dependant economies including India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. While some oil and gas flows continue through the critical maritime chokepoint, heightened geopolitical risk has driven up freight costs, insurance premiums, and spot LNG prices, placing immediate pressure on import-dependent power systems.
China’s Hormuz Problem
Tim Daiss Apr 15, 2026 China is in a tightening bind. A fragile two-week ceasefire has kept the Strait of Hormuz partially open, but flows remain constrained and increasingly shaped by political tolerance rather than market forces.
China’s Hormuz Problem
By: Tim Daiss China is in a tightening bind. A fragile two-week ceasefire has kept the Strait of Hormuz partially open, but flows remain constrained and increasingly shaped by political tolerance rather than market forces.
Hormuz closure: Time for Japan to expand its domestic energy resilience - Tim Daiss
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Southeast Asia's Reliance on Imported Fuels Exposes Structural Weaknesses
By Asia Sentinel By: Tim Daiss Countries across Asia are scrambling as prices skyrocket at the pump due to the sustained disruption in energy supplies from the Persian Gulf, with energy security increasingly defined not by crude oil production but by access to refined fuels. Service stations in Laos and Cambodia are closing, government and business offic...
Hormuz-driven LNG price spikes short-circuit SE Asian power markets
Shipping costs had already increased more than 40% after the first four days of the war, with Atlantic basin rates spiking to more than $61,000/day and Pacific rates up $41,000/day from around $10,000/day on February 27th — the day before the start of the war. Just a week later, spot LNG charter rates had increased by as much as 600% in the Atlantic Basin, topping off at some $300,000/day, reflecting tight vessel availability and heightened geopolitical risk emanating from the Middle East.
China's EV surge is dismantling Japan's auto empire in Southeast Asia - Tim Daiss
Due to the technical or legal reasons, readability mode is not available for this article. Thank you for your kind understanding.
Saudi Arabia Not Immune to Hormuz Shutdown
By: Tim Daiss The "Hormuz Risk" is no longer an abstract exercise for Riyadh. A prolonged disruption in the Strait of Hormuz, which is now effectively paralyzed following U.S.-Israeli military strikes and Iranian threats of mining, would expose structural vulnerabilities for Saudi Arabia that have long been masked by the seeming stability of Gulf shipping lanes.
Strait of Hormuz threat already impacting Asian LNG - Gas Outlook
Analysis Asia PacificAsian LNG The Ras Laffan LNG terminal in Qatar (Photo: Wiki Commons/Matthew Smith) The ongoing war in Iran has already impacted Asian LNG markets. On March 4th, state-run Qatar Energy declared force majeure at its Ras Laffan plant and said that it won’t be able to return to normal production and export levels for at least a month. Qatar is one of the world’s top LNG exporters, with a liquefaction capacity of some 77 mtpa.
Bangladesh LNG bill is no longer a stopgap, it’s structural - Gas Outlook
Bangladesh sharply increased spending on LNG imports in 2025, underscoring how emerging South Asian economies are still structurally exposed to volatile global gas markets. The government-run BSS News reported last month that Bangladesh spent approximately US$3.88 billion on LNG imports in calendar year 2025, up around US$855 million from US$3.02 billion the year before. Import volumes rose from 86 cargoes in 2024 to 109 cargoes in 2025. But this wasn’t just a price story.
India's Cheap Russian Oil Era Narrows
By Asia Sentinel By: Tim Daiss India's multi-year windfall from discounted Russian crude may be entering a more constrained phase, partly as major Indian refiners have grown more cautious over enforcement action against so-called "ghost" tankers carrying Russian cargoes. According to tanker tracking and market pricing data reported by Reuters and commodity intelligence f...
No quick fix for Australia’s gas reserve depletion - Gas Outlook
In December, the Australian federal government announced that it was finalising the design of an east coast gas reserve plan that would force exporters to set aside gas for domestic usage. Some government ministers, however, maintain that the new scheme is unlikely to lower gas prices for consumers and gas heavy industries. The federal government was supposed to finalise the scheme before Christmas with a plan set to be enacted this year. That failed to materialise.
Peak Population Doesn't Mean Peak Energy in Asia
By Asia Sentinel By: Tim Daiss Asia's demographic story is shifting with startling speed. Fertility rates are plummeting across much of the region. Japan's population has been shrinking for 16 years. South Korea's birth rate remains one of the lowest in the world. China's population has also begun to decline, falling for the fourth consecutive year in 2025 ...
Asia's Energy Transition Grows But 'Dirty/Risky' Countries Left Out
By Asia Sentinel By: Tim Daiss Global investment in the transition to clean energy reached a record US$2.3 trillion in 2025, underscoring the sector's resilience despite trade disruptions, US administration antipathy, higher interest rates and rising geopolitical risk. But in Asia, the headline figure masks a growing imbalance. Capital is flowing, but it'...
India electrification quietly outpacing China: report - Gas Outlook
China’s rapid electrification over the past two decades has often been treated as a one-off miracle, a byproduct of state planning, scale, and industrial policy that other emerging economies couldn’t easily duplicate. However, a new report from energy think-tank Ember suggests that assumption may no longer hold. By several key measures, India is now electrifying faster than China did at a comparable stage of economic development, and doing so with lower per-capita fossil fuel intensity.
Canada's TMX Pipeline Hedge
By: Tim Daiss Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney's visit to Beijing last week, the first by a Canadian leader in nearly a decade, was framed publicly as a reset in Sino-Canadian trade relations. But beneath the diplomatic language and joint statements, energy quietly resurfaced as one of the most consequential subtexts of the trip.
Venezuela's China Oil Trade Enters New, Painful Phase
By: Tim Daiss A long-running question in global oil markets is resurfacing with the ouster of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro: what happens next to Venezuela's crude exports to China, most of which have already operated for years in the gray zone of US sanctions? It's a complex political triage that will take months, and perhaps years, to unravel.
China's Coal Plateau Masks Deeper Shift in Power Market Control
By: Tim Daiss New data from the International Energy Agency (IEA) suggests that global coal demand has reached a plateau and could begin edging lower by 2030, driven by rising competition from renewables, natural gas, and nuclear power. Nowhere is that conclusion more politically sensitive nor more easily misunderstood than in China, the world's largest coal consumer and producer. At first glance, China appears to defy the narrative.
ASEAN Shared Energy Fight Exposes Regional Problem
By Asia Sentinel By: Tim Daiss If Southeast Asia ever needed a reminder of how difficult regional energy cooperation can be, the latest deadlock in mid-2025 over how to certify cross-border renewable electricity has delivered a textbook case. ASEAN energy ministers have now reopened long-standing disagreements over what even qualifies as "clean power," und...
Russian Shadow Fleet's New Weak Link: Insurance
By: Tim Daiss Russia's sanctions-busting shadow fleet has survived nearly two years of tightening Western restrictions, US secondary sanctions, and G7 price-cap enforcement. But the next pressure point isn't tankers, transponders, or AIS manipulation, it's insurance, the least visible but most structurally vulnerable part of Moscow's oil export machine.
Japan’s Takaichi pushes back against Russian supply pressure - Gas Outlook
U.S.-Japanese bilateral relations continue to drive headlines. U.S. President Donald Trump met newly-elected Japanese prime minister Sanae Takaichi in Japan in late October to shore up the decades-old alliance. The meeting took place just one week after Takaichi took office as Japan’s first female leader. The backdrop of the meeting couldn’t have been timelier.
Pakistan LNG trajectory dramatically changes course - Gas Outlook
Pakistan’s LNG trajectory has taken a dramatic turn. The country is no longer keen on locking in as many contracts for the super-cooled fuel as possible but is now attempting to defer nearly 200 cargoes for future delivery. Islamabad recently asked state-run QatarEnergy to defer the cargoes as it forecasts a gas supply surplus until 2031, reflecting weakening domestic demand for imported LNG.
Asia's Gas Reality Check After the IEA's New Outlook
By Asia Sentinel By: Tim Daiss The International Energy Agency (IEA) has finally said the quiet part aloud, ironically as nearly 200 countries meet in Brazil on the edge of the Amazon rainforest, seeking to blunt the effect of climate change. Global oil and natural gas demand isn't going anywhere, the IEA says in its World Energy Outlo...
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