Spain – ICO has funded €7 million to deploy 20 Renewable Green Hydrogen (RGH) filling stations on the TEN-T network
The operation is part of the European transport decarbonisation program CEF-AFIF, from which the project has received a grant of 4.2 million euros thanks to the support of the ICO.
The Official Credit Institute (ICO) has granted financing of up to 7 million euros to Hidrógeno Verde Renovable SL (HVR), within the framework of the European program CEF-AFIF (Connecting Europe Facility – Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Facility), managed by the European Commission through CINEA (European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency).
This funding will be used to implement the ACTIVA project, promoted by HVR, which involves the development and deployment of 20 green hydrogen refueling stations in Spain along the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T). These stations will be installed at existing service stations and offered on an all-inclusive lease basis to specialized companies, facilitating access to renewable hydrogen without requiring direct investment from operators. The operation will cover part of the investment needed to deploy this infrastructure, which is complemented by a €4.2 million European grant awarded under the CEF AFIF program, thanks to ICO’s support of the project as an Implementing Partner of the European Commission.
Aston Martin has slashed £300m from its investment plans after the British sportscar maker reported a bigger than expected loss in the third quarter because of Donald Trump’s tariffs and weak demand in China.
The carmaker said on Wednesday that losses before tax were £112m in the third quarter of 2025, a ninefold increase from £12m a year earlier.
The brand, whose products are best known for featuring in the James Bond film franchise, has been buffeted by global pressures during a five-year turnaround effort that has been marked by perennial heavy losses.
Aston Martin had already warned earlier this month that this year’s profits would be lower than previously expected because of a decline in sales. It sold 1,430 cars to retailers during the third quarter of 2025, down 13% compared with the period last year.
Revenues over the first nine months of 2025 were down by 26% to £740m compared with almost £1bn a year earlier.
Adrian Hallmark, Aston Martin’s chief executive, said: “This year has been marked by significant macroeconomic headwinds, particularly the sustained impact of US tariffs and weak demand in China.
“Work is under way to review our future product cycle plan with the aim of optimising costs and capital investment while continuing to deliver innovative, class-leading products to meet customer demands and regulatory requirements.”
The manufacturer, which produces its vehicles in Warwickshire and south Wales, has already delayed the launch of its first electric model, and it cut 5% of its workforce in February. It said it would detail further changes early next year.
Aston delivered the first of its Valhalla supercars this month, which it hopes will improve the financial performance if it can deliver 150 in the last three months of the year. The company will make 999 of the mid-engined, plug-in hybrid cars, priced at £850,000 – or more than $1m a vehicle. Aston Martin said that more than half of the cars were already ordered by customers.
The company has been under the ownership of a group of investors led by the Canadian fashion tycoon Lawrence Stroll since early 2020. Stroll, who made his money through fashion brands including Michael Kors, hoped to make Aston Martin into a luxury brand to rival Italy’s Ferrari but immediately was forced to confront the crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
Since then, Aston Martin has been forced to go through a painful process of reducing the number of cars held by dealers, before production issues and weak Chinese demand cause a sales slump. Then Trump came along.
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The US president imposed a 25% tariff on automobile imports on 3 April, on top of an existing 2.5% levy, causing chaos in the global car industry and adding a huge cost to Aston Martin’s cars in one of its key markets.
Demand in China also remained “extremely subdued”, Aston Martin said, because of economic weakness and the imposition of a “luxury car tariff” on more cars from the end of July.
Stroll said that 2025 had brought “several unexpected challenges” but added that his confidence in the long-term future for the brand was “unwavering”.
Turner & Townsend expands European data centre presence with key hires in France and the Netherlands
Turner & Townsend, the global professional services company, has appointed Cyril Delmon and Jeffrey Neervoort as the company’s data centre leads for France and the Netherlands, respectively. Both Cyril and Jeffrey will report into Niall O’Reilly, Data Centres Lead for Europe.
These appointments come at a pivotal time as the sector continues to grow at pace across Europe, driven by burgeoning demand for AI services and the increasing popularity of cloud storage solutions.
Cyril and Jeffrey’s experience will be hugely valuable as Turner & Townsend drives growth across the data centre industry, supporting clients at all stages of the project lifecycle as they contend with the complexities of the sector.
Based in France, Cyril is a seasoned Project and Programme Director with over 25 years of experience delivering large-scale infrastructure projects across critical sectors including hyperscale data centres, nuclear energy and defence.
He has led complex programmes valued over €2bn across France and internationally, supporting on acquisitions, construction and operations.
Jeffrey, who will lead the Netherlands data centre team, has seven years of experience in the data centre industry, combining operational leadership with commercial strategy and risk management expertise.
In his previous role, he oversaw service delivery for key clients across multiple countries, leading a team of over 140 people.
Turner & Townsend’s data centre team spans every major market and region, working across more than 500 data centre projects.
Having been at the forefront of data centre development for over a decade, Turner & Townsend helps clients optimise their performance and value at every stage of a programme, with its capabilities underpinned by its market-leading digital products.
Niall O’Reilly, Data Centres Lead for Europe at Turner & Townsend, said:
Cyril and Jeffrey’s appointments demonstrate our continued commitment to providing our clients with best-in-class programme and project management support in the data centre sector.
“Both bring with them deep expertise in strategic planning, procurement, operations and regulatory compliance, which will be vital as the sector continues to evolve.”
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Operating profit has slumped at German carmaker Mercedes-Benz driven by the cost of restructuring, weak demand in China, US tariffs and provisions for potential car finance mis-selling in the UK.
In the period between July and September, the group recorded profit before interest and tax of €750mn, a 70 per cent decline on the same period the previous year. But the company maintained its full-year guidance and shares rose 6 per cent at the start of trading on Wednesday.
The profit fall was influenced by the cost of a major restructuring programme launched this year. Workforce cuts in Germany and restructuring overseas cost €876mn in the quarter, the company said.
Mercedes-Benz also made new provisions of a “mid-three-digit million euro amount” to cover the cost of claims related to potential car finance mis-selling in the UK. The British financial regulator the FCA this month presented a draft scheme redress scheme for customers affected.
The unadjusted operating profit figure was below analyst estimates compiled by Visible Alpha, which had expected EBIT of €1.5bn.
Mercedes-Benz has struggled with falling sales in China, where domestic carmakers have been winning market share from European rivals. The company’s global unit sales fell 12 per cent year on year in the third quarter, led by a 27 per cent drop in China.
The carmaker said that US tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump had also hit its profits in the third quarter, as had fluctuations in the exchange rate. Mercedes’s unit sales in the US fell 17 per cent in the quarter.
Sales in Europe have been more robust, increasing by 2 per cent in the third quarter.
Overall, the group reported revenues of €32.1bn in the third quarter, a decline of 6.9 per cent on the same period last year.
Battery-powered vehicles made up 21.8 per cent of its sales in the third quarter, a rise fuelled partly by the launch of new all-electric models.
Chief executive Ola Källenius said in a statement that the company remained “focused on enhancing customer experience while driving efficiency across our company”.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang delivers remarks next to U.S. President Donald Trump at an ‘Investing in America’ event in Washington, D.C., on April 30, 2025.
Leah Millis | Reuters
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is headed to South Korea, one of the company’s most important markets, ahead of meeting there between U.S. President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping.
For Huang, it’s expected to be a trip that mixes business and politics with a meeting with Trump on the cards as well as execs from South Korea’s biggest firms such as Samsung and SK Group.
Market watchers will also be looking out for clues as to Nvidia’s future in China.
Here’s what might happen this week with Nvidia.
Nvidia’s key suppliers
South Korea is home to one of Nvidia’s most important suppliers: SK Hynix. The company develops so-called high-bandwith memory, or HBM, a specific type of semiconductor that goes into Nvidia’s high-end AI systems.
Among the execs that Huang is expected to meet is SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won, Yonhap reported. SK Group is SK Hynix’s parent company.
The meeting could be a chance to discuss future HBM development. Rival Samsung also develops HBM but its product has not been certified by Nvidia for use. A discussion about the progress on Samsung’s HBM could be on the cards as Huang said Tuesday he would meet with the company.
Infrastructure and business deals
Huang has been on a world tour this year visiting countries in the Middle East, Europe and Asia. More often than not, Nvidia has announced infrastructure deals during these trips, outlining how the tech giant will supply its coveted graphics processing unit-based products to data center projects.
On the sidelines of the Nvidia developers’ conference held in Washington on Tuesday, Huang said his company is partnering with with Samsung and autoamker Hyundai “in many ways” including investing in “AI factories” — a term used to describe data centers.
SK Telecom, another subsidiary of SK Group, is currently building data centers in South Korea. Nvidia is planning to supply its chips to SK Group, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
Other areas where Nvidia may announce plans could be driverless cars and robotics, a major area of focus for South Korea’s tech industry.
Trump meeting and China
And for Huang, it’s not just about business. Geopolitics will be a big focal point as Huang’s trip coincides with a planned meeting between Trump and Xi in South Korea.
Trump called Huang “an incredible guy” during a speech at the APEC Summit in South Korea. Separately, Trump said he will meet with the CEO on Wednesday.
This week could be crucial for providing insights on Nvidia’s future in China. The tech giant was previously banned from exporting its AI chips to China until earlier this year when the Trump administration ended the restrictions. While Nvidia is permitted to export its downgraded H20 chip to China, Beijing has reportedly pushed local companies not to purchase it. Instead, China is pushing its local firms to buy domestic Nvidia alternatives.
Trump on Wednesday signaled that Nvidia’s Blackwell AI processors could be up for discussion with Xi.The Blackwell chip is Nvidia’s most advanced product and is not currently allowed to be exported to China.
“Trump wants to do business with China and he considers almost everything is business including Nvidia,” George Chen, partner and co-chair of the digital practice at The Asia Group, told CNBC on Wednesday.
“We may see China wants some sort of guarantee that the U.S. will not add location trackers into U.S. chips to be sold to China … The U.S. may also have its own demands in return, hence Nvidia now becomes one of the bargains for the two presidents in Korea.”
Chinese regulators in July raised concerns about the security of Nvidia chips in July. The world’s second-largest economy is a lucrative market for Nvidia and being shut out has already cost the tech giant billions of dollars in lost sales. Any opening up of the China market will be positive for the chip maker.
The federal government is considering enforcement action against oil and gas company Inpex after it admitted serious reporting errors that significantly underestimated hazardous emissions released from its liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant on Darwin Harbour over many years.
The LNG plant is 3 kilometres from residential suburbs and 10km from Darwin city. It is required to report emissions to the National Pollutant Inventory.
Inpex has now released corrections for 2023–24 that more than double the previous estimates of emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) released into the air in Darwin, from 1,619 to 3,562 tonnes. The reason for the errors has not been disclosed.
The originally reported levels of very toxic compounds benzene and toluene were just 4–5 tonnes in 2023–24. However, corrected estimates were 136 and 112 times higher, respectively, with emissions exceeding 500 tonnes of both chemicals.
Currently there is no legal limit on the amount of VOCs that Inpex is allowed to emit. These new figures raise questions about the potential harms, given serious toxicity of benzene and toluene, the large amounts released into the atmosphere over several years, the closeness to population centres and the lack of detail in current sampling. As a cancer-causing chemical, there is no known safe threshold for benzene exposures.
When the news broke, NT Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro responded with public statements of faith in Inpex and the NT Environment Protection Authority. She said the incident illustrated the reliability of industry self-reporting. Inpex said the revised levels raised no health concerns for Darwin.
As a group of leading scientists aware of the complexities involved in measuring these chemicals and their health impacts, we strongly disagree. We view the potential health implications to be significant – they require an urgent, comprehensive and independent investigation.
Given the size of this correction, it’s imperative that corrections across all years are made public immediately. Corrected levels of benzene and toluene for 2021–22 could be particularly high, as Inpex has already reported emitting 11,000 tonnes of volatile organic compounds to the National Pollutant Inventory. That is nearly seven times more than the amount now reported for 2023-24.
NT Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro made public statements of faith in Inpex. Amanda Parkinson/AAP
Higher volatile organic compound emissions in 2024/25
In the wake of this scrutiny, Inpex has also released corrected data for 2024–25. Compared with 2023–24, Inpex further increased its emissions of total volatile organic compounds by 21%, with a 31-fold increase in xylene emissions and continuing high emissions of benzene and toluene.
This is despite revelations in 2024 that Inpex had emitted many times more volatile organic compounds than the 500 tonnes predicted in their draft Environmental Impact Statement to the NT government in 2008.
This led to detailed questioning of the chairs of Inpex and the NT Environment Protection Authority by senators David Pocock and Sarah Hanson-Young at the Senate Inquiry into federal support to the Middle Arm Industrial Precinct in Darwin in 2024.
In addition, documents provided by Inpex to the inquiry also revealed the facility’s two anti-pollution devices had been out of operation for extended periods of time since 2019. These devices, called acid-gas incinerators, destroy volatile chemicals such as benzene, toluene and hazardous sulphur-containing compounds before they are released. There were no legal consequences for these breakdowns and resulting elevated VOC emissions.
Alarmingly, the Middle Arm Inquiry Report ignored these discussions. Labor and Liberal senators gave full support for a third LNG facility to be built in Darwin with little mention of the extensive health concerns raised in submissions and additional papers.
Why are these emissions so concerning?
Many studies have linked exposure to the toxic family of chemicals known as BTEX (benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylenes) to multiple health issues. Short exposures can cause symptoms such as headaches, respiratory symptoms and asthma attacks. Longer exposures can cause neurological damage, pre-term births and impaired liver, kidney, lung, reproductive and immune function.
The World Health Organization classifies benzene as a carcinogen, most strongly associated with leukaemia and other blood cancers.
While most research to date has examined risks associated with BTEX chemicals in workplaces and indoor settings, many recent studies have demonstrated that at least some of these risks extend to outdoor exposures.
Last month, an extensive multi-country study demonstrated a consistent link between benzene, toluene and xylene levels in outdoor air and the risk of death.
Besides these direct risks, BTEX chemicals react readily once in the atmosphere to form ground-level ozone, especially in warm, tropical environments such as Darwin.
Darwin residents are concerned about reports of chemical emissions. Mark Kolbe/Getty Images
We need clean air
Darwin residents are understandably concerned about the levels of highly toxic chemicals emitted by Inpex LNG so close to homes and urban areas of Darwin.
Days before these revelations, the NT EPA reported one of Inpex’s two LNG processing units had released 36,000 litres of hot oil across the plant and into stormwater drains.
These pollution issues follow the ABC investigation of a significant gas leak at the nearby Santos LNG facility, which had not been made public for nearly 20 years.
The federal Department of Climate Change, Energy and the Environment is now reviewing these incidents and considering enforcement action.
Inpex senior vice president Bill Townsend told the ABC workers had been told there was “no cause for health concern”, citing air quality monitoring – both on-site and in the Darwin region – which he said had “consistently” shown emissions were within government limits.
This week, hotly debated new national environment protection laws are expected to enter Parliament. Strong environmental laws aren’t just for wildlife – they are vital in protecting human health too. Improved evidence-based federal laws such as a Clean Air Act would go a long way to protecting Australia’s health and wellbeing.
