Outlook: Moffat survives to fight again as Pedder walks the plank
news.independent.co.uk Jeremy Warner 15 March 2003
Now let's just get one thing straight. The losses of the past two years, the debacle of the failed merger with CSN of Brazil, the botched announcement of another massive round of UK redundancies, and the almost comical failure of the agreed sale of aluminium assets to Pechiney of France, vetoed at the last moment by the Dutch supervisory board, has got nothing at all to do with the chairman, Sir Brian Moffat. It's easy to see why you might think otherwise, but in fact all these matters are delegated by the board to the chief executive.
It is therefore Tony Pedder who must take the rap for the disaster that Corus has become. Sir Brian has meanwhile dutifully agreed to defer his planned retirement until a replacement is found. Well someone's got to clear up the mess, haven't they? It was Sir Brian's head on a platter that the unions wanted, for it is him they blame for the cost slashing of recent years, but instead they must make do with Mr Pedder, who was in truth just the messenger.
Sir Brian says Corus is committed to soldiering on as a combined Anglo-Dutch affair, and he insists that the financial situation, although serious, is not nearly as bad as the stock market thinks. The balance sheet is still strong, and he's no reason to believe the banks won't roll over their €1.4bn credit facility when it comes up for renewal early next year.
It doesn't look that way from the outside. As Sir Brian confirms, there are further substantial job losses to come, with one of the three remaining integrated steel plants facing possible closure, while what remains will require massive investment to be put on a viable footing again. The balance sheet may look relatively strong at the moment, but it won't long remain so if the company spends at the rate it reckons it has to.
Now that there's no money coming in from Pechiney, do the banks really want to weather those closure costs, or indeed provide further investment funds to an industry which 10 to 20 years from now probably won't be manufacturing in Britain at all? Sir Brian believes the European assets can still be made viable enough to provide a platform for a life-saving deal with one of the up and coming steel makers of the developing world.
But essentially unviable companies cannot for ever keep on merging their way to salvation. Both sides blamed each other when the CSN talks collapsed. The Brazilians have Lula to contend with, but it can be as nothing compared to the challenge now facing Corus. Sir Brian puts as positive a spin on things as he can. Beneath the gruff exterior he must know a good sight better than the stock market just how perilous the company's position has become.
Iraqi oil bonanza
It amazes me how many apparently well informed, business savvy people still believe that next week's war against Iraq is all about oil. Nobody would pretend that regime change in Baghdad won't have consequences for the oil market. Iraq possesses some of the biggest reserves of oil outside Saudi Arabia, and what's more it is potentially very cheap to extract. But although gas-guzzling American consumers might appreciate the prospect of apparently limitless supplies of cheap oil, hardly anyone else does, and that includes the American administration.
Near term, it is in any case quite unlikely that we'll see significantly increased production of oil out of Iraq. For that to happen requires very substantial new investment and it will take some years for this to have a noticeable impact on supply. It also seems to me unlikely that Western oil interests will benefit significantly from the Iraqi oil bonanza. Rather the reverse in fact.
Once Saddam Hussein is removed, the Iraqis won't need Exxon, BP, Shell or anyone else for that matter to help them exploit their oil reserves. The capital markets will be open to them once more, and they'll follow the Middle Eastern habit of raising the money to develop the oil for themselves. Western expertise will be required, of course, but you don't invade a country for a few lousy overseas development contracts.
As for the oil majors, they don't benefit from cheap oil unless they are actually producing it themselves. BP says all its oil development projects have to be commercially robust at $16 a barrel. Much Iraqi oil might cost as little as $1 a barrel to produce and if Iraq's liberation means world oil prices fall permanently to below $20 a barrel, the oil majors are in some difficulty. As indeed is Russia, whose political stability and economic renaissance relies on oil prices of more than $20 a barrel, and Saudi Arabia, whose ability to keep its army of budding Bin Ladens under control depends on oil supported handouts. Cheap oil is not the panacea it might seem. Even George Bush knows that.
Polluting aviation
You have to pay attention these days to spot a new tax in the making. For obvious reasons, the Government doesn't like to trumpet these things, even when the idea of the tax is to help improve the environment. Thus it was that a discussion document – Aviation and the Environment, Using Economic Instruments – was quietly posted on the Treasury and Department of Transport websites yesterday.
"Using economic instruments" doesn't necessarily mean a new tax, the Government insists. That's just one of a number of options for dealing with the aviation industry's disproportionate propensity to pollute. Other instruments might include more regulation, emission trading arrangements, or measures to encourage innovation in cleaner technology. But whatever the Government settles on, it plainly believes the industry incapable of improvement unless given a powerful incentive to do so, which in government speak normally means some form of charge.
As things stand, tax on aircraft fuel is not allowed under international convention, and even if the Government were allowed to impose such a tax unilaterally, it presumably wouldn't do so because of the effect this would have on competitiveness. It's all very well to lead the world in environmentally friendly policies, but no one will thank you for it if it poleaxes the economy in the process. None the less, even the industry – airlines and airports – accepts that if it wants to carry on growing as it has done, it must find ways of reducing emissions.
According to the document, aviation is responsible for 5 per cent of all CO2 emissions in the UK. If nothing is done to correct the position, this would rise to 10 to 12 per cent by 2020. Add in other pollutants, noise and the effect on local air quality, and there are few other industries that come remotely close in terms of adverse environmental impact.
The Government already imposes an industry specific tax on aviation – passenger duty – but this is just a revenue raising device; it's got nothing to do with the environment. Simply increasing the tax might help fill the Treasury's coffers, but it wouldn't unless raised to a level where it actually began to reduce the amount of aviation taking place have any effect on emissions.
The industry favours a system of emission trading, but there are key drawbacks. One is that it might act as a disincentive to new competition. The other would be the practical impossibility of policing it. My own view is that aviation pollution is likely in the end to prove self correcting anyway. Whatever the Government does about it in the meantime seems set to do harm than good. Fuel is one of aviation's biggest single costs, so there is already a big incentive to use more efficient, cleaner technologies.
Experience with the Climate Change Levy, a well meaning but muddled piece of government intervention which penalises companies for the amount of energy they use rather than the pollution they produce, shows how difficult it is to produce effective public policy remedies in this arena. But don't take my word for it. Just ask Lord Marshall of Knightsbridge, who was responsible for proposing it. He also happens to be chairman of British Airways. Would he propose something similar for aviation? I don't think so.