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File photo. The Methanex plant in Waitara Valley. Photo: Google maps The country's biggest gas user Methanex is temporarily shutting its New Zealand methanol plants and making the gas available to power companies. The business will be shut until the end of October and the gas has been sold to power companies Contact and Genesis, the company said. Methanex chief executive Rich Sumner said the deal would help ensure electricity supplies during the current period of low gas reserves and hydro lakes. It would sell gas to the power companies over the next three months and expected to earn more from the arrangement than the methanol income lost. Meanwhile, Genesis was ramping up coal imports for its Huntly power station, it said. Methanex is a major exporter of methanol produced from natural ...

The latest update on the OCR is due on Wednesday. File photo. Photo: RNZ "Flip-flopping" about the future track for interest rates does not do the Reserve Bank any favours, the head of the country's biggest mortgage broking firm says. The Reserve Bank will provide an update on the official cash rate (OCR) on Wednesday. A number of bank economists now predict it will cut the rate, despite its last forecasts showing it did not expect to reduce it until this time next year. David Cunningham, head of mortgage broking firm Squirrel, said it was positive that the Reserve Bank had indicated in its last update that it was potentially changing its point of view from that of May, when it had discussed the possibility of another rate increase. But he said the quick change was not helpful for the c...

Photo: 123rf Butchers say people are still opting for cheaper cuts of meat or are buying a whole or half animal as the cost of living continues to bite. Retail Meat New Zealand board member and owner of Dunedin's Agora Butchery, Sam Hutchinson, said the economic climate is still challenging and butcher shops have been quieter over winter. "During winter we see slow and low butchery cuts sell well and things like lamb shanks and short ribs, the comfort type foods are selling well at this time of the year when its a little bit colder. "People more than ever are looking for good value and good price points at the butcher shop." He said mince, rump steak and anything that is on promotion are selling well - but expensive cuts are slower. "Cuts like rib eye steak, porterhouse and tenderloin fi...

Younger people may have time to return to saving, paying down debt and investing after being made redundant, but older workers have a tighter timeframe to work with. File photo. Photo: 123rf Katie, 60, has just been told her job is likely to go. "We are still in the consultation and submission phase," she says, "which is an absolute joke because they decided this months ago and even effected a good bait-and-switch move to shift everyone into a new team and now said the team is too big and unwieldy and needs to get trimmed." She said she felt the decision to axe her role was ageist because she is the oldest person in the team. "I'm going to ask for all material concerning the disestablishment of my post - because three of us are being let go and we are the hardest-working members of the ...

Marlborough, Invercargill and Queenstown were the only main centres to record modest growth this quarter. File photo. Photo: Unsplash / Tom Rumble Residential property values continue to fall with only three urban areas recording positive growth, according to the latest QV House Price Index. The index shows national values fell an average of 1.9 percent in the three months ended in July, which was a larger rate of decline than the 0.9 percent drop in the June quarter. The average home value was $909,517, which was 2.3 percent up on the same time last year and 0.5 percent up from the start of the year. "Residential property values are slowly shrinking across all price brackets, in almost every part of Aotearoa," QV operations manager James Wilson said. "This is to be expected given the c...