the benefit of lower fuel and coal prices was clearly at play here even as we saw hong kongs economy the recovery was perhaps slower than expected both in tourism and commercially do you see that being able to be sustained well actually what we saw over the past few years was huge shocks in the energy markets we had the covid pandemic and that was immediately followed by the russian invasion of the ukraine which saw steep increases in wholesale prices so we havent had what we would call a normal market for for some time now this year and its early days yet were only halfway through the year but what we are seeing is signs of economic recovery growth in electricity demand in china has been steady at around 5 per annum what weve seen in hong kong in our coal market are very hot weather which has seen a just under 4 increase in electricity demand so the demand the broad demand for electricity is is growing and as we decarbonise the electricity supply we will see growing and steady demand for electricity over other energy sources so this is a challenge that we will face is is how to decarbonise as quickly as we can how to support that that growth in in electricity demand what about the outlook for coal and gas prices then if we talk about the cost side because clearly the geopolitical side that is not going away any time soon and at the same time you have you know climate weather and other potential complicating factors what we saw in 2022 was a very steep rise which was caused by russian gas having to be replaced in europe around 40 of europes gas was being sourced from russia that had to come from somewhere else and thats really what drove prices up very steeply and very suddenly what were now seeing is a slow and steady decline in prices as that demand is replaced by other sources so a softening generally of coal oil and gas prices theres still some way to go but that that is really where were heading richard what options are you now reviewing for your energyaustralia unit well energyaustralia is exactly the same as all of our businesses they require massive investment in order to decarbonise and we as a as a group have limited resource weve got finite resources so we have to be selective in where we will concentrate our capital and in some of our markets weve looked at the options of bringing in partners so that were not growing these businesses as a 100 owner were able to grow these businesses along with a partner weve done this in india with a subsidiary of proper energy we were we are looking in australia as well to find partners for the energy transition there it will require investment in very specific areas in energy storage for example as we replace our primarily coal based fleet of power generators there we will need a combination of renewable energy and storage all of that will require substantial capital so we are in the process of looking for partners with our business there weve actually seen buyers including brookfield snap up energy assets in australia why hasnt that interest translated to energy australia there is a lot of interest in the energy transition and investing in the energy transition we are a long term investor we have been in the australian market for 20 years we have a sizeable business there with a strong customer base and a portfolio of generating assets so its more a matter of finding the right partner we want to participate we want to stay involved in in in the market in australia and we are looking for the right partners and that can be at the enterprise level but it could also be at the project level so theres various ways that we can find partnerships but its a matter of finding finding good partners and finding ones which are aligned with our our our objectives and our values of course your successors tenure begins in october what do you think the most pressing challenges will be well the challenges for the energy industry generally are dealing with climate change and that is going to be a relentless investment and change in our entire industry its quite an exciting time and ive found over the past ten years that the industry has gone through more change than ive seen in my entire career so the big change the big challenge i think will be how to decarbonise this industry as quickly as we can