(Reporting by Sameer Manekar in Bengaluru; additional reporting by Riya Sharma in Bengaluru; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips)
March 27 (Reuters) - Australia's energy stocks dropped
on Monday as the lower house of the Parliament inched towards
passing an emissions reduction plan that will put some curbs on
new gas and coal investments and a limit on total emissions from
the country's top emitters.
Shares of Woodside Energy Ltd , the country's top
independent gas producer, fell as much as 3.4% to mark their
third straight day of losses. Woodside stock was the
third-biggest loser in the ASX 200 benchmark index and
poised for the worst day in nearly two weeks, if trend holds. Other heavyweights such as Santos Ltd , Beach Energy and Whitehaven Coal lost between 1.5% and 3%.
Local energy sub-index lost up to 2.2% to mark its
third consecutive day in red and the worst in a week, limiting
losses in the ASX 200 benchmark, which was up 0.2% by 0358 GMT.
Mining giants BHP Group and Rio Tinto Ltd ,
major exporters of iron ore and copper across the globe, lost
0.7% and 1%, respectively. Both the stocks weighed on the local
mining index , which was down 0.3%.
Australia's "safeguard mechanism" reform plan, set to take
effect on July 1, seeks to limit emissions from the country's
biggest polluters, and is key to achieving its target to cut
carbon emissions by 43% from 2005 levels by 2030 and achieve net
zero emissions by 2050.
The plan "could mean less acceptances of new deals, which
probably might be the biggest impact; so less project
acceptances is going to mean these companies have less
opportunity to make more money," said Josh Gilbert, market
analyst at eToro.
"Broadly, it is probably something really negative for these
companies - how negative that we may not see play out until we
get commentary from the companies and how it will affect them
directly."
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