Saudi Arabia’s King Salman replaced the country’s energy minister with one of his own sons Sunday, naming Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman to one of the most important positions in the country as oil prices remain stubbornly below what is needed to keep up with government spending.
The new energy minister is an older half-brother to 34-year-old Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and an experienced oil industry figure in Saudi Arabia. He has been minister of state for energy affairs since 2017, but the brothers are not known to be close.
His appointment marks the first time a Saudi prince from the ruling Al Saud heads the important energy ministry.
The move comes as Brent crude oil trades under US$60 a barrel, well below the US$80-US$85 range that analysts say is needed to balance the Saudi budget.
Prince Abdulaziz replaces Khalid al-Falih, who had been removed just days ago as board chairman of the state-owned oil giant Aramco, a company that he once ran as CEO.
Al-Falih had also seen his cabinet portfolio diminished recently when mining and industry were removed from his purview and spun off into a new ministry.
Jin Canrong, an international relations professor at Renmin University of China in Beijing, says China had agreed to 80 per cent of a deal as far back as May
‘Between 60 and 70 per cent’ chance of Chinese President Xi Jinping and American counterpart Donald Trump agreeing a deal in November if US can lower demands
US trade representative Robert Lighthizer (left), US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Chinese Vice-Premier Liu He are expected to continue face-to-face talks in Washington in October.
Chinese President Xi Jinping and US counterpart Donald Trump could reach a deal to end the ongoing trade war by their next scheduled meeting in November, but only if Washington is able to drop the final 20 per cent of American demands currently on the table which are impossible for Being to agree to, according to a leading Chinese expert.
China has already agreed to 80 per cent of demands for a trade deal, but the final portion of Washington’s demands are seen by Beijing as an infringement on its sovereignty, said Jin Canrong, an international relations professor at Renmin University of China in Beijing, on his social media account.
Canrong believes the odds are “between 60 and 70 per cent” that China and the US can reach a trade deal by the time Xi and Trump are likely to meet at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Chile, but only if the US can lower or even drop certain demands.
“It’s not a 100 per cent thing, and it’s possible that the negotiations will collapse,” Jin warned. “The major reason is that China has already offered to make huge concessions.”
The Politburo would never agree to these terms. It would be forfeiting sovereignty and humiliating the nationJin Canrong
China had already agreed to about 80 per cent of US demands before the bilateral talks came to a halt in May, including “buying US goods, opening markets to US investors and making policy improvements in certain areas”, Jin said.
According to Jin, who did not reveal the source of his information but is known to be well-connected in Beijing, the final 20 per cent includes completely abandoning the “Made in China 2025” industrial policy programme, a plan to cut the share of the state in the overall economy from 38 per cent to 20 per cent, as well as an implementing an enforcement check mechanism that would allow the US to dig into the books of different levels of the Chinese government.
“The Politburo would never agree to these terms,” Jin said, referring to China’s supreme decision-making body. “It would be forfeiting sovereignty and humiliating the nation.”
“For the US, the choice is zero or 80 per cent [of what it wants],” Jin said. “The option of getting 100 per cent doesn’t exist … my conclusion is that the US has to give up the final 20 per cent [of its demands].”
China’s top trade envoys, led by Vice-Premier Liu He, are expected to fly to Washington early next month to start a new round of face-to-face trade talks with their US counterparts led by trade representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.
The US and China have already imposed significant tariff increases, which came into affect at the start of September, with further increases threatened for October and December. In particular, China’s Ministry of Commerce has publicly urged the Trump administration to reverse the tariff increase on US$250 billion of Chinese imports scheduled for October 1 – the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China – to facilitate the talks.
Politico reported on Friday that China made a peace proposal in the most recent phone call with top US trade officials last week to buy a modest amount of US agricultural goods if Washington eased export restrictions on Chinese telecommunications equipment maker Huawei and postponed the tariff increase set for the beginning of next month.
If agreed by both sides, this could produce a “mini-deal” before the end of the year, both US and China experts speculated in a conference in Beijing on Friday, according to Caixin magazine.
Beijing and Washington have both kept the details of any negotiations shrouded in secrecy, but last week China’s Ministry of Commerce said that communications between lower-level trade officials would intensify this month to lay the groundwork for “substantive progress” in the October talks. The Office of the United States Trade Representative also said that deputy-level meetings will take place in mid-September to pave the way for “meaningful progress”.
On Friday, Larry Kudlow, the director of the White House National Economic Council, said that the trade war with China may take a long time to resolve.
“The stakes are so high. We have to get it right. And if that takes a decade, so be it,” he said.
White House trade adviser Peter Navarro, meanwhile, was quoted by Yahoo Finance as saying on Friday that the US would stick to its original demands.
“We had a deal. We had a 150 page plus agreement that was in these seven verticals that dealt with each of these issues plus enforcement. It was negotiated over 11 negotiating sessions and including commas and paragraphs. And that’s the basis for moving forward,” Navarro was quoted as saying, referring to the tentative trade deal text from early May. “But the Chinese walked away from that. And in many ways, this deal will be determined by what the Chinese want to do.”
The 12th round of face-to-face talks between China and the US took place in Shanghai at the end of July.
“A good international treaty should be like this: there will be complaints from both sides but both sides will feel it is acceptable,” Jin said. “If one side is extremely happy with a deal and is eager to share it with the press while the other side is depressed, this kind of deal would just be a piece of scrap paper because the unhappy side would renegade on it for sure.”
The chaos of Britain’s recycling system is exposed today with hundreds of thousands of tons of waste being redirected to landfill or incinerators.
Despite residents sorting their household waste into separate bins, up to half of “recyclable” material is not being recycled in some areas of England, government data shows.
Today, The Telegraph launches a Zero Waste campaign calling on the Government, local councils and private companies to do more to boost the country’s lacklustre recycling rates.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/06/26/revealed-really-goes-recycling-rubbish-behind-scenes/
Brexit:
https://www.thetimes.co.uk › article › french-foreign-minister-threatens-to-v...
14 hours ago - Political chaos in Westminster and Boris Johnson’s failure to hold meaningful negotiations means that France will veto another delay to Brexit, the country’s foreign minister said. Frustration is growing across Europe at the deepening political deadlock and brinkmanship in Britain ...
Express.co.uk-5 Sep 2019
Brussels refuse to guarantee Brexit extension as France and Germany could BLOCK delay ... are widely regarded as a general election or second referendum. ... The Labour Party leader said he would not allow the electoral ...
Trade Wars:
According to a Chinese official who asked not to be identified commenting on policy, Trump’s attempts to lobby European leaders such as Merkel appear to have worked in the short term. Trump has provided a model for world leaders to be globalist in their words and protectionist in their actions, the person said.
There are signs that German industry is in lockstep with the government’s aims. In January, Germany’s industry lobby BDI announced a turnaround in its China strategy, labeling China a "systemic competitor” and arguing that "German industry must prepare itself for this new reality,” while the system of open markets in Europe "must be made more resilient.”
Hong Kong:
Protesters clash with police in shopping districts after rally to petition US to ‘resist Beijing’
demonstrators rallied at the US consulate calling on Donald Trump to “liberate” the territory.
Police had clashed with protesters in the Centraldistrict as the demonstrations in Hong Kong entered their 14th week.
Under the deal, Deutsche Bahn will buy the power produced from a 25MW portion of the 48-turbine project at a fixed price.
The supply and trading unit of Innogy’s parent company RWE will act as the contracts and retail partner.
Nordsee Ost consists of 48 of Senvion’s 6.2M126 turbines and was commissioned in 2015.
State-owned railway operator Deutsche Bahn plans to source 100% of its electricity from clean sources, up from 57% today.
Its CEO Torsten Schein said Deutsche Bahn plans to replace expiring fossil fuel-based contracts with power deals for renewable energy "over the next few years", and intends to launch a Europe-wide tender for clean energy contracts by the end of the month.
Corporate PPAs remain rare in Germany — even for onshore wind — but more deals are anticipated beyond 2021 as support schemes expire.
Innogy is due to be carved up under a complex asset swap deal between its owner RWE and utility E.on.
RWE will acquire the renewable assets — including Nordsee Ost — and gas storage businesses of its subsidiary Innogy, as well as those of E.on.
Meanwhile, E.on will buy 86.2% of Innogy and its grid and retail business, and RWE will receive a 16.67% "effective participation" in E.on in return.
Drilling Down: Denver saltwater disposal well operator makes Permian Basin push
Denver oilfield water company Felix Water is seeking permission to drill 13 injection wells on its Pbar SWD lease in Loving County. Denver oilfield water company Felix Water is seeking permission to drill 13 injection wells on its Pbar SWD lease in Loving County. Photo: Courtesy Photo / Felix Water LLC Photo: Courtesy Photo / Felix Water LLC Image 1 of / 5 Caption Close Drilling Down: Denver saltwater disposal well operator makes Permian Basin push 1 / 5 Back to Gallery
Water remains a big issue in the arid Permian Basin of West Texas where for every barrel of oil produced, another four to 10 barrels of saltwater — the remnants of an ancient inland sea — come out of the ground.
Over the past week, six companies filed 20 drilling permits to develop saltwater disposal, or injection, wells in the West Texas shale play.
Denver oilfield water company Felix Water led the pack by seeking permission to drill 13 injection wells on its Pbar SWD lease in Loving County. Occidental Petroleum-owned APC Water Holdings is seeking to develop another three saltwater disposal wells in Reeves County.
The remaining four injection well permits were filed by Midland-based APR Operating, Houston-based Crimson Exploration and Midland-based Double Drop SWD.
Permian Basin
Chinese-owned Surge Energy is preparing for nine horizontal drilling projects in West Texas. Spread out on three leases near the towns of Vealmoore and Knott, the wells target the Spraberry field down to a total depth of 9,000 feet.
Eagle Ford Shale
Houston exploration and production company Recoil Resources is preparing obtained a drilling permit for a new oil well on its Boeing Unit lease in Wilson County, southeast of San Antonio. The horizontal drilling project targets the Marcelina Creek field of the Austin Chalk geological layer down to a total depth of 8,100 feet.
Haynesville Shale
No horizontal drilling permits were filed in the East Texas shale play over the past week, but San Angelo exploration and production company KJ Energy is preparing to drill a vertical gas well. The company obtained a permit to drill a vertical well on its Hughes Gas Unit lease about 7 miles north of Long Branch in Rusk County, targeting the natural gas-rich Brachfield SE field at a depth of 10,365 feet.
Barnett Shale
No horizontal drilling permits weree filed in North Texas shale play over the past week, but Plano oil company Veteran Exploration and Production is drilling a vertical well on its N. Elrod USMC lease in Archer County. The well targets the Mississippian and other geological formations down to a depth of 6,100 feet.
More Information Top 10 Texas Drillers (Wednesday, August 28th through Tuesday, September 3rd) Felix Water 13 Diamondback Energy 10 Pioneer Natural Resources 9 Surge Energy 9 Magnolia Oil & Gas 8 EOG Resources 6 BPX Operating Company 5 Encana 4 APC Water Holdings 3 Production Resources 3 Source: Railroad Commission of Texas
Conventionals
Castroville oil company Production Resources Inc. is planning to drill three vertical wells in deep South Texas to target he Piedre Lumbre field on its Duval County Ranch Company East lease about 7 miles southeast of Freer.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-09-10 19:58:40|Editor: huaxia
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UN high commissioner for human rights Michelle Bachelet delivers a speech at the opening of the 40th regular session of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva, Switzerland, Feb. 25, 2019. (Xinhua/Xu Jinquan)
Some migration policies are "putting migrants at heightened risk of human rights violations and abuses, and may violate the rights of vulnerable people," warned the United Nations (UN) High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet.
GENEVA, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations (UN) High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet on Monday expressed concern about the migration policies of the United State and the European Union (EU).
In a speech at the 42nd session of the Human Rights Council, Bachelet said some migration policies are "putting migrants at heightened risk of human rights violations and abuses, and may violate the rights of vulnerable people."
Referring to the U.S. recent measures to block migrants, Bachelet said at least 35,000 asylum seekers have been pushed back to Mexican border areas.
Migrants walk in front of the border wall between Mexico and the United States, near the Santa Fe International Bridge, in Ciudad Juarez, state of Chihuahua, Mexico, on May 11, 2019. (Xinhua/Christian Torres)
According to the human rights chief, in these areas, the UN human rights office has documented increases in detentions and deportations, cases of family separation in the context of arbitrary deprivation of liberty, lack of individual assessment, denial of access to services and humanitarian assistance, and excessive use of force against migrants.
"I remain deeply disturbed ... in particular, the continued separation of migrant children from their parents, and the prospect of a new rule which would enable children to be indefinitely detained, merely on the basis of their administrative status," she added.
Asylum seekers' bedding is seen outside the migrant reception center in Brussels, Belgium, on Sept. 3, 2015. (Xinhua/Zhou Lei)
Speaking of the migration policies in Europe, Bachelet said actions by some European countries to "criminalize, impede or halt the work of humanitarian rescue vessels and search planes" and the sharp decrease in the number of search and rescue vessels have had "deadly consequences for adults and children seeking safety."
"I am concerned by this lethal disregard for desperate people," Bachelet said, while calling for more determined and effective actions by the EU and its member states to deploy search and rescue operations.
According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, by July, the death by drowning of over 900 migrants in the Mediterranean has been reported, and many more deaths may have gone unrecorded.
JPMorgan Chase (JPM) reported second-quarter results that came in ahead of Wall Street’s expectations, with its chief executive offering upbeat comments about US consumers even as geopolitical uncertainty hindered the markets segment and the bank lowered its view for full-year net interest income. Earnings increased to $2.82 a share from $2.65 in the same period of 2018, ahead of the […]
Natural gas prices were trading lower early on Friday despite a heat-wave in high demand regions as production continues to outstrip demand, with the U.S. Energy Information Administration a day earlier reporting another big build in stored supplies. Gas for August delivery was last seen down US$0.01 to US$2.28 per million British thermal units in Nymex electronic trade, the lowest […]
United Parcel Services (UPS) reported second-quarter results that came in better than Wall Street expected as gains in the domestic segment offset a weaker performance in the international division amid demand for next-day delivery that was driven by online shopping. Adjusted earnings rose to $1.96 a share from $1.94 a share in the same period of 2018, while the consensus […]
Procter & Gamble’s (PG) fiscal fourth-quarter results came in ahead of analysts’ expectations as the consumer-products maker said its organic sales growth got a benefit from higher prices and positive mix. Net sales rose 4% to $17.1 billion, ahead of the consensus on Capital IQ for $16.9 billion. Excluding the impact of foreign exchange, acquisitions and divestitures, organic sales rose […]
Market News UPS Beats Expectations in Second Quarter United Parcel Services (UPS) reported second-quarter results that came in better than Wall Street expected as gains in the domestic segment offset a weaker performance in the international division amid demand for next-day delivery that was driven by online shopping. Adjusted earnings rose to $1.96 a share from $1.94 a share in the same period of 2018, while the consensus […]
Stock Watch Procter & Gamble’s Fiscal Fourth-Quarter Results Beat Expectations Procter & Gamble’s (PG) fiscal fourth-quarter results came in ahead of analysts’ expectations as the consumer-products maker said its organic sales growth got a benefit from higher prices and positive mix. Net sales rose 4% to $17.1 billion, ahead of the consensus on Capital IQ for $16.9 billion. Excluding the impact of foreign exchange, acquisitions and divestitures, organic sales rose […]
Finance Wynn Resorts Says Proxy Firms Back Plans for Board Nominees, Executive Pay Wynn Resorts (WYNN) said proxy advisory firms Glass Lewis & Co. and Institutional Shareholder Services Inc. have recommended that shareholders vote for the casino and resort company’s planned executive compensation proposal and endorse all three directors who are up for re-election. “”Given the very high level of refreshment of the Company’s management and board, as well as the remedial actions […]
Markets regulator Sebi is likely to give approval to Deutsche Bank by next month to operate as a custodian in the commodities space, a move which will enable participation from institutional investors, including mutual funds and portfolio management service providers, in such segment.
To help broaden the commodity derivatives market, Sebi’s board in March this year approved a proposal to allow mutual funds and portfolio managers to trade in this segment. Moreover, the regulator made necessary amendments in the custodian regulations so as to provide for requisite custodial services.
The regulator in May came out with guidelines allowing mutual funds and portfolio managers to invest in commodity derivatives.
However, institutional investors have been staying away from the segment and experts believe lack of custodial services has been a key deterrent to institutional participation in the commodity derivatives markets.
Many custodians have been sceptical about managing the physical delivery of commodities as they lack domain expertise with regard to agricultural commodities and warehousing.
Now, sources privy to the development expect some participation from institutional investors in the commodities derivatives market from this year which will deepen the market.
“Deutsche Bank is expected to get a green signal from Sebi by October to provide custodial services and once the custodian thing will happen, we will see some participation from institutional investors in the commodities derivatives market this year,” a source close to the development said.
Besides, HDFC Bank and Stock Holding Corporation of India among others have approached the capital markets regulator to provide custodial services, he added.
Under the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) guidelines, mutual funds need to appoint a registered custodian for underlying goods, in view of the physical settlement of contracts.
The issue of lack of participation from mutual funds in the commodity derivatives segment was discussed in the Sebi’s commodity derivatives advisory committee late August, sources said.
Apart from this, issues including Options offered by stock exchanges and gold spot exchange were also discussed, they added.
A committee, under the leadership of NITI Aayog member Ramesh Chand, had pointed out the importance of regulation in the spot market after ₹5,600-crore National Spot Exchange Ltd (NSEL) fraud was revealed 2013.
The committee appointed by the Finance Ministry submitted its report in February 2018 suggesting that Sebi should regulate the new gold spot exchange.
Earlier Sebi was believed to have told the government that it did not have the skill set to regulate a spot market. Instead, it had suggested that regulation of commodity spot exchanges should be vested in a separate sectoral regulator.
A senior White House adviser tamped down expectations on Tuesday for the next rounds of U.S.-China trade talks, urging investors, businesses and the public to be patient about resolving the two-year trade dispute between the world’s two largest economies.
“If we’re going to get a great result, we really have to let the process take its course,” Peter Navarro said on CNBC.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration is seeking sweeping changes to China’s policies and practices on intellectual property protection, the forced transfer of U.S. technology to Chinese firms, American companies’ access to China’s markets and industrial subsidies.
Trump has imposed stiff tariffs on Chinese imports that have roiled global markets. China has retaliated with its own duties.
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Chinese trade deputies are expected to meet with their U.S. counterparts in mid-September in Washington before minister-level meetings in early October in the U.S. capital, involving Chinese Vice Premier Liu He, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.
U.S. tariffs of 15% on about $125 billion worth of goods took effect on Sept. 1, and tariffs on virtually all remaining Chinese imports, including cellphones and laptop computers, are scheduled to take effect on Dec. 15. Tariffs on $250 billion worth of goods are due to rise by 5 percentage points to 30% on Oct. 1.
Navarro said the tariffs were “working beautifully.”
“People need to understand this: the tariffs on China are our best defense against China’s economic aggression and best insurance policy - this is important - the best insurance policy that China will continue to negotiate in good faith,” he said.
The South China Morning Post reported bit.ly/2manJ5q, citing an unidentified source, that China was expected to buy more agricultural products in hopes of a better trade deal with the United States.
American and Chinese trade officials would discuss a deal based on a draft text that was negotiated in April before the talks broke down in May, the Hong Kong-based newspaper said.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce called for a high-standard comprehensive agreement to lift the uncertainty.
“The time is now to strike a deal that addresses the U.S.’s legitimate concerns about market access, forced technology transfer, subsidies, and digital trade, while concurrently removing punitive and retaliatory tariffs,” U.S. Chamber international affairs director Myron Brilliant said in remarks to an audience in Beijing.
“Without a truly effective agreement, we don’t see an alternative path to reestablishing bilateral economic stability,” Brilliant added.
The U.S. Commerce Department on Tuesday levied preliminary anti-subsidy duties of 104% to 222% on Chinese-made ceramic tiles, a popular item in U.S. home improvement stores.
The Commerce finding that the tile exports were unfairly subsidized affects about $483 million worth of Chinese imports, which have already been hit with 25% tariffs.
A B.C. company plans to open a plant in Texas where giant fans will suck carbon dioxide from the air so it can be permanently stored underground.
The plant, set for completion in 2023, will likely be able to capture 1-megatonne of CO2 annually.
“That’s the work of 40 million trees,” said Carbon Engineering CEO Steve Oldham.
B.C. company Carbon Engineering developed massive fans to suck carbon dioxide from the air so it can be reused as fuel will open a plant in Texas in 2023. (Carbon Engineering)
The Squamish-based company’s massive turbine technology works like a giant global warming vacuum to suck carbon straight from the atmosphere. Its fans pull air through a structure filled with corrugated sheets soaked in a solution that absorbs C02. The absorbed carbon-rich solution is then turned it into tiny white pellets, which in turn can be treated at high temperatures to release the carbon dioxide as a gas. It can then be stored permanently underground, or turned into synthetic liquid fuel.
“We’re using a material we’ve treated as waste for years as something that we can reuse,” said engineer Jenny McCahill.
Though direct air capture of carbon has been discussed for years, it recently gained more momentum when the United Nations in 2018 labeled it a necessity to end global warming. Concepts like Carbon Engineering’s fans are all about damage control now, said Simon Fraser University professor Mark Jaccard.
“We are still in a struggle to move forward with policies that reduce the burning of fossil fuels, so now we’re moving to technologies that have to reverse the damages,” he said.
For Oldham and his carbon capture team in Squamish, the goal is as much to have a commercially-viable product as it is to make progress in the fight against global warming.
“If you believe there is a cost to climate change, there is a value in eliminating carbon now,” he said.
New York (CNN Business)One investing firm is trying to capitalize on the success of the plant-based food craze with a new meatless ETF.
The US Vegan Climate ETF is set to begin trading Tuesday under the ticker symbol "VEGN." As you might expect, Beyond Meat (BYND), up nearly 500% from its initial public offering price, is one of its holdings.
But investors looking at the ETF should be warned. It's not a fund that focuses on plant-based food.
The ETF is based on the Beyond Investing US Vegan Climate Index — an index with 275 companies. That index, itself, is based on the Solactive US Large Cap Index, which tracks America's biggest publicly traded firms.
Beyond Investing, which runs the VEGN ETF, says its index "excludes companies engaged in animal exploitation, defense, human rights abuses, fossil fuels extraction and energy production, and other environmentally damaging activities" according to the fund's prospectus. Beyond Investing's team decides which stocks to exclude and which new ones to add.
That doesn't mean environmentally friendly companies are necessarily the top holdings. It just means the ETF won't own oil stocks, big food firms or retailers that sell meat-based products — be that beef and poultry or leather and fur.
According to the fund's website, the US Vegan Climate ETF's biggest stakes are in megacaps Microsoft (MSFT), Apple (AAPL), Facebook (FB), JPMorgan Chase (JPM) and Cisco (CSCO). They make up nearly 15% of the fund's total assets.
Still, Apple is often targeted by workers rights group China Labor Watch due to its business relationship with Chinese manufacturer Foxconn, which makes many Apple products. Few big companies actually hit all the marks when it comes to being socially responsible.
Since the fund is only kicking out companies with questionable stances toward animals and the planet, what's left are many stocks you'd find in your average S&P 500 index fund.
Claire Smith, CEO of Beyond Investing, said in an interview with CNN Business that by removing these companies — what she dubbed "the nasties" — from a broader index fund, Beyond Investing is eliminating about 43% of the market value in the S&P 500.
Could fake meat burgers make cows obsolete?
That means that energy giants (and Dow Jones Industrial Average components) Exxon Mobil (XOM) and Chevron (CVX) are not in the fund.
There's also no Amazon (AMZN) (which owns Whole Foods), Walmart (WMT), McDonald's (MCD) or Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway (BRKB), which is the top investor in Kraft Heinz (KHC). That's because these companies sell or make meat-based products and Smith said her firm draws a hard line in the sand when it comes to investing in stocks that profit from the sale of any meat.
"The consumer sector is riddled with animal exploitation and we would prefer that's not the case," Smith said.
What else does the US Vegan Climate ETF own specifically because it is good for the planet?
Smith said Tesla (TSLA), which now has leather-free interiors for its Model 3 and plans to do the same for its upcoming Model Y, is also a holding because the electric car company is both environmentally and animal friendly.
Other top picks include Energizer (ENR), which makes lithium ion batteries in addition to regular ones and Idacorp (IDA), a Boise-based utility that primarily uses hyrdopower to generate electricity.
But Smith conceded that it's a bit of a challenge finding companies that are pure play vegan or green stocks. Beyond Meat rival Impossible Foods is not yet public.
"We're struggling to find plant-based food stocks and we would love to see more," she said.
Nonetheless, the vegan strategy has been a success in its short history. The Beyond Investing index is up about 23% so far in 2019, compared to a 19% jump for the S&P 500.
Still, there are other ways for investors to profit from the push toward plant-based foods and other socially responsible themes.
Jason Escamilla, CEO of investment firm ImpactAdvisor, has a new portfolio simulation website called Vegemizethat helps people pick individual stocks and even bonds from companies that match specific social metrics for things like gender equality and CO₂ emissions.
"We're looking more at what to include and not necessarily exclude," Escamilla said about Vegemize, which launched Monday. "We want to build a portfolio from scratch so investors can have their cake and eat it too."
Presumably, that cake will be flourless and dairy free.
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/09/10/investing/vegan-climate-etf-beyond-investing/index.html
Tanzanian President John Pombe Magufuli has told Ugandan President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni to forego short-term gains in terms of taxing oil companies and focus on the longer-term benefits. Magufuli, who was hosting Museveni at the just concluded Tanzania-Uganda Business Forum in Dar es Salaam on Friday, said tax issues were delaying the oil pipeline project. “We are late. We are still sleepy,” said Magufuli. He made it clear that Uganda should sacrifice some of the short-term gains for the long-term and the Uganda Revenue Authority officials should not delay the project for the benefit of a large population.
Plans to sign the much-awaited Final Investment Decision (FID), which is needed to unlock nearly $10 billion for the development of Uganda's Tilenga and Kingfisher oil projects, and the East African Crude Oil Pipeline came to an abrupt halt after Tullow Oil's failed to sell 21.5 per cent of its stake for $900 million to its partners - France’s Total E&P and China’s Cnooc – collapsed late last week.
At the heart of the dispute was the definition of the amount of money that Tullow Oil was to get from the transaction. Tullow Oil announced that out of the $900 million it would get from the sale of 21.5 per cent of its stake, $700 million would be reinvested in the development stage of Uganda’s oil industry as part of its share of the contribution.
Government, on the other hand, looked at the $700 million as an earning and, therefore, imposed a capital gains tax on it. This difference in opinion would stall the negotiations for a while.
China’s crude oil imports gained about 3% in August from a month earlier, customs data showed on Sunday, buoyed by a recovery in refining margins desite a persistent surplus of oil products and tepid demand.
Shipments of crude oil last month were recorded at 42.17 million tonnes, compared with 41.04 million tonnes in July, data from the General Administration of Customs showed on Sunday. Arrivals were 9.9% higher than 38.38 million tonnes in August last year.
That equates to 9.93 million barrels per day (bpd), from 9.66 million bpd in July, and the highest on a daily basis since April.
Over the first eight months of 2019, China’s crude imports reached 327.8 million tonnes, or 9.85 million bpd, up 9.6% from the same period last year, customs data showed.
Profit margins at refineries have recovered to 200-300 yuan a tonne after falling into negative territory in the first half of this year, but overall the industry remain under pressure due to oil products supplies from big refiners Hengli Petrochemical and Zhejiang Petrochemical.
“Private refineries in Shandong are also facing difficulties in obtaining bank credit, they may not be able to use up their annual crude oil imports quotas,” said Amanda Zhao at JLC Network Technology, a Chinese commodities consultancy, before the data was released.
Meanwhile, Chinese buyers are wary of taking crude oil from Venezuela and Iran due to escalating sanctions slapped by the United States on the two countries.
With growing trade tension with Washington, Beijing in late August imposed 5% tariffs on U.S. crude imports for the first time from September 1.
China’s oil product exports were at 4.08 million tonnes, slowing from 5.49 million tonnes in July, the customs data showed.
Oil product exports in January to August were 42.08 million tonnes, up from 40.22 million tonnes in the same period in 2018.
China’s total gas imports, including liquefied natural gas (LNG) and pipeline imports, hit 8.34 million tonnes in August, up 7.3% from the same month last year and compared to 7.89 million tonnes in July, the data showed. It was the highest seen since January.
The U.S. weekly offshore rig count remained unchanged for the second week in a row, according to a Friday report by Baker Hughes, a GE company.
Baker Hughes Rig Count: U.S. -6 to 898 rigs
U.S. Rig Count is down 6 rigs from last week to 898, with oil rigs down 4 to 738, gas rigs down 2 to 160, and miscellaneous rigs unchanged at 0.
U.S. Rig Count is down 150 rigs from last year’s count of 1,048, with oil rigs down 122, gas rigs down 26, and miscellaneous rigs down 2 to 0.
The U.S. Offshore Rig Count is unchanged at 28 and up 9 rigs year-over-year.
Baker Hughes Rig Count: Canada -3 rigs to 147 rigs
Canada Rig Count is down 3 rigs from last week to 147, with oil rigs down 3 to 102 and gas rigs unchanged at 45.
Canada Rig Count is down 57 rigs from last year’s count of 204, with oil rigs down 31 and gas rigs down 26.
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The ship was photographed off the coast of Syria on Friday and is believed to have been carrying 2.1 million barrels of Iranian crude oil. The UK’s Foreign Office has described the reports of the ship as “deeply troubling”. The UK also said if Iran were to backtrack on their assurances they would be in “violation of international norms and a morally bankrupt course of action”.
The US has said they would impose sanctions on any buyer of the oil. It is thought the ship turned off its transponder in the Mediterranean Sea before travelling to Syria. The tanker sent its last signal giving it location between Cyprus and Syria sailing north last Monday.
The oil tanker was spotted off the coast of Syria
Donald Trump withdrew the US from the Iran deal
The US has been trying to seize the vessel as part of its sanctions targeting the Iranian energy industry. US Treasury official Sigal Mandelker said: “We will continue to put pressure on Iran and as President Trump said there will be no waivers of any kind for Iran’s oil.” Iran’s foreign ministry has said they they have sold oil without identifying to which country. The US has warned any country that if they assist the ship, they would see this as support for a terrorist organisation. READ MORE: Iran news: Europe warned time is running out
Tensions have heightened between Iran and the US
The ship, which was named Grace 1, was stopped by British Royal Marine commandos off Gibraltar on July 4 and in retaliation Iran seized a British-flagged tanker in the Strait of Hormuz two weeks later. The vessel was detained for six weeks and eventually released following objections from the United States when Gibraltar said it trusted it would not head for any countries under EU sanctions. In retaliation, Iran seized a British-flagged tanker in the Strait of Hormuz leading into the Gulf. Assistant to the U.S. President for National Security Affairs (NSA), John Bolton tweeted: “Anyone who said the Adrian Darya-1 wasn’t headed to Syria is in denial. DON'T MISS: World War Three: State with best terrain to ‘protect’ from US-Iran war
British warship fights off 115 ‘intimidating’ confrontations from Iran
Iran vs Israel: Tensions soar as Netanyahu gives a start warning
The Adrian Darya ship was spotted on satellite images
“Tehran thinks it’s more important to fund the murderous Assad regime than provide for its own people. “We can’t talk, but Iran’s not getting any sanctions relief until it stops lying and spreading terror.” Tensions between the US and Iran have been high since Donald Trump pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal.
Tensions have soared in the region after Trump withdrew from the Iran pact
Brazil’s state-run oil company, Petroleo Brasileiro SA, has launched the binding phase of the sale of 41 onshore oil concessions in the coastal states of Bahia and Espirito Santo, according to securities filings on Friday.
Petrobras, as the company is known, will sell 100% of 27 exploration and production concessions in the so-called Polo Cricare area in Espirito Santo, it said. The fields produced 2,800 barrels par day of oil and 11,000 cubic meters per day of natural gas on average in 2018.
In Bahia, the oil company will sell its 14 concessions in the Polo Reconcavo area, where it owns a 100% share in all but two of the blocs, Petrobras said. The concessions recorded average production of 2,800 barrels per day of oil and 588,000 cubic meters per day of natural gas in 2018.
Mexico will maintain a strategy of hedging its oil output against lower prices, the government said in its 2020 budget proposal unveiled on Sunday, adding that state oil company Pemex would also continue a similar but separate hedging program.
The Mexican Finance Ministry’s roughly $1 billion annual oil hedge is considered the world’s largest oil trade. Last week, Reuters reported that Mexico had made the first moves to launch the program by asking banks for quotes.
The budget document said the government had “fiscal shock absorbers” to protect against volatility that could affect public finances, including “a strategy of oil hedges contracted both by Pemex and the federal government to cover oil income against reductions compared to the price” estimated in the budget.
The Pemex hedge is much smaller than the one carried out by the Finance Ministry.
While it is not yet known what price the government and Wall Street banks have agreed on for Mexico’s 2020 hedge, the budget sets a target price of $49 per barrel for its crude export revenue estimates.
The budget blueprint estimates next year’s crude exports at 1.13 million bpd, or nearly 2 percent higher than 2019 levels.
The Finance Ministry based its 2019 hedge calculations on $55 per barrel for Mexican crude.
In a sign of the type of volatility that worries the government, Finance Minister Arturo Herrera said he had been planning until last month to use the same number, but lowered the estimate to reflect the U.S.-China trade war, slower global growth and new rules that limit the use of high sulphur fuel produced by Mexico.
Despite last month’s much-publicized start-up of two new crude oil pipelines from the Permian Basin to the Gulf Coast — Plains All American’s Cactus II and EPIC Crude Holding’s EPIC Pipeline — tangible evidence of how much crude is actually moving on those pipelines has been hard to come by. That’s because crude oil pipelines don’t post daily flow data, like some natural gas pipelines do, and shipper volumes are a closely held secret that often only becomes available long after the fact. However, Cactus II and EPIC both deliver into the Corpus Christi, TX, market area, where a number of export facilities have been waiting to move Permian barrels out into the global market. We’ve been keeping a close eye on Corpus-area docks and have noticed a significant increase in export volumes over the last few days — a clear indication that Permian crude on Cactus II and EPIC has broken through to the global market. Today, we detail a recent rise in Corpus Christi oil export volumes driven by new supply from the Permian Basin.
The Permian Basin has been front-and-center for us lately in this space, as activity there remains robust in both the upstream and midstream energy sectors. Just a few days ago, in Higher Ground, we blogged about how new crude oil and natural gas pipelines are lifting prices for both commodities. One of the major drivers of the price gains on the crude side has been the start of Plains’ Cactus II pipeline, which we profiled recently in Takeaway. In that blog, we also detailed how Cactus II is already interconnected with many of the existing export facilities in the Corpus Christi area. Now, recent data suggests that the volumes being brought in by Cactus II and EPIC — the other new pipeline to Corpus — are starting to show up as crude oil exports. According to data from our Crude Oil Voyager report, outbound shipments of crude from Corpus hit a record last week, suggesting that the expected surge in exports of Permian oil is finally occurring.
First, a quick recap on how Permian oil is getting to the Corpus Christi area. The map in Figure 1 shows the recently completed pipelines from the Permian to Corpus, as well as the under-construction Gray Oak Pipeline. Cactus II (green line) consists of 575 miles of new 26-inch pipeline and extends from the Permian to various delivery points in South Texas. Plains has stated that Cactus II is already complete to Ingleside — just across the bay from Corpus proper — and will be in full service to Corpus itself by the end of the first quarter of 2020. While we don’t know the capacity of Cactus II’s interim service, Plains has sold 585 Mb/d of capacity on the line, which is expandable to 670 Mb/d. The EPIC Pipeline (orange line) has also entered service and delivered its first volumes to Corpus, according to a statement from its operator, EPIC Crude Holdings. While EPIC will eventually be capable of moving 590 Mb/d out of the Permian when it’s in full service early next year, it is currently providing only 400 Mb/d of interim takeaway capacity. Finally, the Gray Oak Pipeline is expected to come online by the end of this year, adding another 900 Mb/d of capacity from the Permian to the Texas Gulf Coast. Gray Oak will make deliveries near Corpus but also extend northea to Sweeny, TX. All told, the two pipelines in operation have added about 1 MMb/d of new capacity; that will grow to over 2 MMb/d by early next year once Gray Oak is commissioned and EPIC reaches full capacity.
Figure 1. Permian Crude Oil Pipeline Projects. Source: RBN
When Permian barrels arrive in South Texas, they have a plethora of export options at Corpus Christi (see Figure 2) and Ingleside (inset of Figure 2). While there are too many crude pipelines, interconnections and export docks in the Corpus area to review in today’s blog, we will hit the highlights as they relate to Cactus II and EPIC. As we mentioned earlier, Cactus II has already been completed to Ingleside, home to two important export facilities: one operated by Flint Hills Resources (light-blue tank icon in inset map) and the other by Moda Midstream (green icon). Moda is also in the midst of a major expansion of crude storage and loading capacity at its terminal, details of which we explained earlier this year in our Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger blog. Cactus II also has an interconnect with two NuStar pipelines in the area that supply NuStar’s export terminal (orange icon in main map) located along the Corpus Christi Ship Channel. In addition, Cactus II can access the Buckeye terminal at Corpus (pink icon) indirectly via an interconnection with Energy Transfer’s Rio Bravo pipeline. Finally, Valero’s terminal (red icon) at Corpus is currently supplied by the Eagle Ford JV Pipeline, which Cactus II will interconnect with sometime this month. The Eagle Ford JV Pipeline is owned in a 50/50 joint venture between Plains and Enterprise Products Partners. For more detail on Cactus II and how it meshes with the other Corpus pipes and docks, you may wish to refer to the aforementioned Takeaway blog.
However, Cactus II isn’t the only game in town, now that EPIC has entered commercial service. While EPIC’s interconnects haven’t quite reached the level of Cactus II’s, the pipeline is already connected with the Moda and Flint Hills terminals in Ingleside. EPIC has also entered the crude export terminal business and is constructing a facility along Corpus’s ship channel (purple tank icon in main map). By late this year, it is expected that EPIC’s new crude oil export terminal will have one dock operational, with a second complete in the second quarter of 2020. EPIC also plans to interconnect in the future with the Valero terminal, as well as a terminal being planned by Pin Oak (yellow icon).
Figure 2. Major Corpus Christi and Ingleside Export Terminals. Source: RBN Energy
Clearly, there’s a lot more to the Corpus Christi area’s crude-related infrastructure than what’s depicted here. If you’re itching for a lot more detail, the folks in our GIS department just created a new wall map showing every Corpus-area pipeline, terminal, and interconnect they could find. For more information on this product, click here.
Data on crude-oil volumes flowing through the new pipelines will be posted in a few weeks to the Texas Railroad Commission’s (RRC) T-1 database (which we track in our weekly Crude Oil Permian report), and we don’t know what those flows have been over the last few days. What we do know, however, is that crude exports out of the Corpus Christi area are starting to pick up in a big way. As shown in Figure 3 below, last week’s exports at Corpus and Ingleside combined (blue line) shot up to a record of over 1 MMb/d (part of the blue line within the dashed green circle). That compares to the year-to-date average of around 500 Mb/d (dashed black line) and a four-week moving average of about 750 Mb/d (dashed red line).
The data certainly suggests a significant increase has occurred, much more than the usual weekly chop in the export numbers. If we use the 750-Mb/d four-week moving average, simple math implies that exports are up about 250 Mb/d over the year-to-date average of 500 Mb/d. With no increase in local refinery demand and stable local production from the Eagle Ford over that period, the export increase in late August was very likely driven by new volumes on Cactus II and EPIC. The gain is even larger if we base our calculation on the last week of data, when exports grew to over 1 MMb/d — an increase of about 500 Mb/d over the average so far for 2019. We should note that these are rough calculations that just get us in the ballpark of what is likely flowing. The more precise answer to how much new crude is flowing into the Corpus area is obfuscated by the reality that those barrels likely spend some time in area storage tanks before being pumped into the hulls of awaiting tankers. That means we will have a better read on the level of increase after we get a few more weeks of export data. Still, the gains so far are impressive.
Figure 3. Corpus Christi and Ingleside Crude Oil Export Volumes. Source: RBN Energy, Bloomberg
There have been questions recently regarding just how quickly exports out of the Corpus Christi area will ramp up. Some of the uncertainty has swirled around the new pipelines’ start dates and initial capacities. Other questions have centered on the unknown capacity of the docks at Corpus Christi and Ingleside, and on storage tank capacity. Even the ability of the waterways used to reach the Gulf of Mexico have fallen under scrutiny. Does one week of exports lay all those concerns to rest? Probably not, but should last week’s surge in export volumes continue to build in the weeks ahead, the crude-oil export infrastructure at Corpus may finally get the benefit of the doubt. It’s certainly an issue — and a set of data — that we will be watching closely here at RBN.
https://rbnenergy.com/break-on-though-corpus-christi-crude-oil-exports-surge-to-a-record
China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC), a leading buyer of Venezuelan oil, will skip cargo loadings for a second month in September as the state oil giant looks to avoid breaching U.S. sanctions, two sources with knowledge of the matter said.
CNPC made a surprise halt last month in loading Venezuelan oil after the Trump administration in early August froze Venezuelan government assets in the U.S. and officials warned companies against dealing with Venezuela’s state-run oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A., or PDVSA.
“CNPC at the group level has made it clear not to load Venezuelan oil,” said one source with direct knowledge of CNPC’s position on Monday, without giving a timeline on how long the suspension would last.
A separate senior Chinese industry source said last month that CNPC interpreted the Trump administration’s executive order as a potential prelude for more extensive sanction measures that could potentially hit CNPC as a leading oil client of Caracas.
The move comes as Russian state oil major Rosneft (ROSN.MM) has become the main trader of Venezuelan crude, shipping oil to other buyers and helping Caracas offset the loss of traditional dealers who are avoiding it for fear of breaching U.S. sanctions, Reuters reported last month.
A PDVSA crude oil loading program seen by Reuters confirms that so far no CNPC cargoes are planned for this month.
The executive order Trump issued on Aug. 5 did not explicitly sanction non-U.S. companies that do business with PDVSA, including partners in crude operations like France’s Total SA (TOTF.PA), as well as Russian and Chinese customers.
However, the order threatens to freeze U.S. assets of any person or company determined to have “materially assisted” the Venezuelan government.
Other Chinese crude oil buyers have also been warned off from making Venezuelan purchases at a recent meeting between the National Development & Reform Commission (NDRC), China’s state planner, and about six independent refineries, according to a source who was briefed on the meeting.
“At the meeting NDRC told these plants, which process (Venezuelan crude) Merey to make bitumen, that there will not be supplies from CNPC and that they should look for replacements to maintain production,” said the source.
The two sources declined to be named due to the sensitive nature of the matter.
Most deliveries of Venezuelan crude oil and refined products to CNPC are to repay billions of dollars Beijing lent to Caracas through oil-for-loan pacts. PDVSA has never failed to deliver crude oil to China to repay debts, although refinancing and grace periods have been agreed over the last decade to ease the debt burden.
Chinese customs data showed China’s Venezuelan crude imports plunged 40% in July to just over 700,000 tonnes, the lowest monthly amount in nearly five years.
Oil extended its advance as U.S. stockpiles were estimated to have dropped and OPEC+ members gathered in the United Arab Emirates ahead of meetings this week.
Futures rose for a fifth day in New York, the longest run of gains since late July. U.S. crude inventories probably declined by 2.8 million barrels last week, according to a Bloomberg analyst survey before government data due Wednesday. In Abu Dhabi, new Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman signaled a continuation of the kingdom’s policy of output restraint.
Crude is still down more than 10% from its peak in April as a prolonged U.S.-China trade war dents the outlook for consumption. Nevertheless, this Thursday’s meeting of the OPEC+ Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee in Abu Dhabi, as well as Prince Abdulaziz’s commitment to maintain Saudi policy, are keeping the market focused on production curbs.
GAS: Natural gas prices expected to stay low through 2024
“The focus is going to be on the macro oil picture; it is going to be on the JMMC meeting,” said Olivier Jakob, managing director of consultants Petromatrix GmbH. “The new Saudi energy minister has not said anything that deviates from the previous policy.”
West Texas Intermediate oil for October delivery advanced 15 cents, or 0.3%, to $58 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange as of 10:47 a.m. London time.
Brent for November settlement rose 16 cents, or 0.3%, to $62.75 a barrel on the ICE Futures Europe Exchange. The global benchmark oil traded at a $4.83 premium to WTI for the same month.
PREVIOUSLY: Oil gains as new Saudi minister signals OPEC+ cuts to continue
“There is nothing radical in Saudi Arabia; we all work for the government, one person comes one person goes,” Prince Abdulaziz said at the World Energy Congress in Abu Dhabi on Monday, his first public comments since he was appointed. Saudi Arabia has shouldered the bulk of OPEC+ production cuts, and is pumping about 500,000 barrels a day less than its agreed cap.
This week sees the publication of three key market reports. The U.S. Department of Energy will publish its monthly Short-Term Energy Outlook later on Tuesday, while the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will release its monthly report on Wednesday and the International Energy Agency’s monthly review is due Thursday.
©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
A new deal between the United States and Iran may be on the horizon as US President Donald Trump just fired US National Security Advisor John Bolton—and oil prices are expected to take a turn for the worse.
"I informed John Bolton last night that his services are no longer needed at the White House. I disagreed strongly with many of his suggestions, as did others in the Administration, and therefore I asked John for his resignation, which was given to me this morning," Trump tweeted on Tuesday.
The move may go a long way to smoothing things out between Iran and the United States—a development that would have been hard to achieve with Bolton in office due to his persistent hardline stance against Iran.
The tensions between Iran and the United States has been played out most elaborately in the oil industry, fraught with oil tanker skirmishes that pulled in other US allies such as the UK. Gibraltar seized an Iranian oil tanker at the request of the United States after it suspected the tanker of carrying sanctioned Iranian oil to sanctioned Syria. Iran then seized a British tanker traveling through the Strait of Hormuz, claiming it had violated maritime laws.
Iran has threatened to close the Strait—the most important oil chokepoint in the world—on numerous occasions since the onset of sanctions, unnerving the oil industry.
While oil prices have weakened on demand fears due to the trade war between China and the United States, the tensions over Iranian oil have limited those losses. Now, with today’s administration reshuffling signaling a warming up to Iran, those trade war fears will run unchecked.
Oil prices had been trading up earlier in the day as OPEC renewed its commitment to the production quotas, and suggesting that it might extend the cuts again. By 12:28pm, WTI started to fall, reaching $57.71 (0.24%), with expectations of gloomier prices to come.
By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com
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The American Petroleum Institute reported late Tuesday that U.S. crude supplies fell by 7.2 million barrels for the week ended Sept. 6, according to sources. The API data also reportedly showed a stockpile decline of 4.5 million barrels in gasoline, while distillate supplies rose by 618,000 barrels.
Inventory data from the Energy Information Administration will be released Wednesday. The EIA data are expected to show crude inventories down by 3.6 million barrels last week, according to a survey of analysts polled by S&P Global Platts. Gasoline supplies are forecast to fall by 1.4 million barrels, while distillate stockpiles are seen higher by 220,000 barrels.
Commodity trader Trafigura’s exports of U.S. crude now account for over a quarter of the country’s total since the new Cactus II pipeline started last month, the company’s co-head of oil said, making the firm the single biggest exporter.
“We touch in excess of 1.5 million barrels per day (bpd) of physical U.S. crude, out of that we export around 500,000 bpd. The rest is domestic,” Ben Luckock told Reuters on the sidelines of the annual Asia Pacific Petroleum Conference (APPEC) in Singapore.
Trafigura signed a long-term agreement with Cactus pipeline operator Plains All American Pipeline LP last year to transport a total of 300,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude and condensate.
It is the first of three large pipelines expected to start up this year from the Permian Basin, the biggest in the United States, and is expected to alleviate a bottleneck that had depressed regional prices for more than a year.
The Geneva-based trading firm expects total U.S. crude exports to hit 3.5 million bpd by the end of this year as other pipelines ramp up though port infrastructure still lags.
U.S. crude oil exports averaged 2.69 million barrels per day (bpd) in July, data from the U.S. Census Bureau showed, not including re-exported foreign crude.
Several major port expansion proposals are pending approval. Trafigura has also proposed to build a new loading terminal at Corpus Christi in Texas capable of loading very large crude carriers.
GREAT ARBITRAGE
Luckock said that the volume is being sold spot for now though there were many people who wanted to buy long-term supplies.
“China has been a big swing buyer. There’s plenty of people that want to term barrels up but at the moment we’re selling to about 20-30 customers,” Luckock said referring to the impact of the U.S.-China trade war.
“It’s one of the great arbitrage barrels. We have tripled our buyers in the last year.”
Last week, the trading arm of China’s Sinopec began reselling some of the crude oil it imports from the United States to buyers in India and South Korea to avoid tariffs Beijing imposed in its trade war with Washington.
“You don’t know what U.S. policy is going to be on a number of key topics. It seems to me that this trade war is going to be an extended affair,” Luckock said.
Concerns over consistent quality have been an issue during the ramp up of U.S. crude production due to the myriad of logistics in getting the oil to the coast. Several cargoes were rejected in South Korea earlier this year and though consistency has improved, many buyers in Europe for instance remain wary of Houston terminals and Eagle Ford, preferring to take Midland.
Trafigura said it can control the stream from “wellhead-to-water”, which creates strong demand for its oil.
Saad Rahim, Trafigura’s chief economist, said European buyers accounted for just over a third of the firm’s exports while Asia was seen taking close to 45% so far this year.
Oil prices jumped higher after the Energy Information Administration reported a draw in crude oil inventories of 6.9 million barrels for the week to September 6. A day earlier, the American Petroleum Institute estimated inventories had shed 7.23 million barrels in the reporting period.
A week earlier, the EIA said inventories had fallen by 4.8 million barrels.
As the market prepares for the next OPEC meeting later this week and many expect an extension and possibly a deepening of production cuts, prices continued to be depressed by the global economic growth fears plaguing the market and the continued rise in U.S. oil production.
The relief granted Brent and WTI by bullish reports about OPEC considering deeper cuts while industry insiders expect healthy demand has been temporary and likely to continue this way until either the trade conflict between the United States and China is resolved or a production outage in any of the less politically stable producing countries makes a dent in global supply.
In the meantime, the weekly EIA reports continue to draw the attention of traders every Wednesday, not jut in crude oil but in gasoline and distillate fuels as well.
Last week, the EIA said, gasoline inventories shed 700,000 barrels, which compared with a 2.4-million-barrel draw a week earlier. Production averaged 10.4 million bpd, versus 10.3 million bpd a week earlier.
Distillate fuel inventories increased by 2.7 million barrels last week, which compared with a decline of 2.5 million barrels a week earlier. Distillate fuel production rose to 5.3 million barrels daily, from 5.2 million bpd in the previous week.
Refineries processed 17.5 million barrels daily, compared with 17.4 million barrels daily in the last week of August.
At the time of writing, Brent crude was trading at $62.83 a barrel and West Texas Intermediate was changing hands at $57.51 a barrel, both modestly up from yesterday’s close.
By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com
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Global oil demand will peak in three years, plateau until around 2030 and then decline sharply, energy adviser DNV GL said in one of the most aggressive forecasts yet for peak oil.
Most oil companies expect demand to peak between the late 2020s and the 2040s. The International Energy Agency (IEA), which advises Western economies on energy policy, does not expect a peak before 2040, with rising petrochemicals and aviation demand more than offsetting declining oil demand for road transportation.
Wednesday’s annual report from DNV GL, which operates in more than 100 countries and advises both oil and renewable energy companies, would appear to be at odds with ongoing investment in developing new oil and gas fields.
“The main reason for forecasting peak oil demand in the early 2020s is our strong belief in the uptake of electric vehicles, as well as a less bullish belief in the growth of petrochemicals,” Sverre Alvik, head of DNV GL’s Energy Transition Outlook (ETO), said in an email to Reuters.
While DNV GL’s latest forecast shows oil demand peaking in 2022, one year sooner than it estimated last year, the difference is marginal and demand is expected to remain relatively flat over the 2020-2028 period, Alvik added.
DNG GL expects electric vehicles to reach 50% of global new car sales in 2032, compared with last year’s forecast of the mid-2030s. By the middle of the century 73% of the global passenger car fleet will be electric-powered, up from 2.5% today, the company estimates.
In Norway, where the DNV GL has its headquarters, more than 40% of all new cars sold in the first eight months of this year were electric — the highest proportion in the world. The government wants this to reach 100% by 2025.
Demand for natural gas, which oil companies say could serve as a bridge in the global transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy, is seen surpassing oil demand in 2026 and plateauing in 2033, DNV GL said.
Meanwhile, electricity’s share of the total energy mix is predicted to double by mid-century to 40% of today’s levels, with solar and wind generation accounting for two thirds of electricity output.
Annual power grid spending is forecast to more than double to $1.7 trillion to connect thousands of new solar and wind farms and millions of electric vehicles.
Meanwhile, upstream fossil fuel investment as a proportion of total energy expenditure is seen dropping to 38% from 68%, DNV GL said.
Multiple oil refineries in Europe will be too unprofitable to continue trading once the industry has dealt with sweeping new rules governing shipping fuel that start next year, according to an executive at a UK plant.
Refineries globally are bracing for one of the biggest mandated changes in the the industry’s history – rules forcing the vast majority of ships to use fuel containing less sulfur. The regulations, widely known as IMO 2020, start in January and have been touted as positive for companies that turn crude into more valuable products. But smaller, simpler plants in Europe often churn out excess gasoline, as well as the type of fuel that will soon become outlawed for most vessels.
“Post the shift, I believe some of these old weak refineries will have to shut down,” Srinivasalu Thangapandian, the chief executive officer of Stanlow-oil refinery owner Essar Oil UK, said in an interview in Singapore. “Fuel oil is going to be negative and gasoline, you see margins of almost zero sometimes. Europe is heavily oversupplied in gasoline.”
The refineries hardest hit would be those designed to devote almost half their production to gasoline, and as much as 14% to high sulfur fuel oil, he said, adding that Stanlow won’t suffer the same pressures because it churns out smaller proportions of those fuels.
Still, analysts at Wood Mackenzie Ltd. and Facts Global Energy said Europe’s refineries – long pressured by expanding capacity elsewhere in the world – may be able to continue a while longer. A surge in capacity in the Middle East and Asia in the mid-2020s is what would be most likely to force halts in Europe, they said.
“EU demand for gasoline is falling but Asian demand is growing, albeit slowly,” said Steve Sawyer, London-based head of refining at Facts Global Energy.
And while Europe’s older refineries will miss out on some of the margin boost from IMO 2020 for diesel-like fuels, they still stand to gain from changing crude prices that mean certain types of oil that they process will fall in price – such as Russia’s Urals, said Alan Gelder, London-based vice president of refining, chemicals and oil markets at Wood Mackenzie.
Some Mediterranean plants could reduce their operating rates if exports to the East struggle, but Gelder said he doesn’t see earnings falling far enough to justify any closures.
“If exports to Asia are proving difficult there will be run cuts,” he said. “But we see the current weakness in margins as very short term, margins won’t fall to rationalization levels.”
Another factor that could help struggling European refiners is a delay in starting up new refining capacity. While a giant new plant in Nigeria is currently slated to start producing in late 2020, it may take a little longer than that to be fully up and running, delaying increased competition for European operators, Gelder said.
“The future of EU refining will largely depend on how refinery investment goes in the Middle East and Asia,” FGE’s Sawyer said. “If it continues aplenty, then some EU refiners will be in trouble post-2025 as there will be too much capacity globally. If the Middle East and Asia show some restraint it might not be too bad, although margins will be at a lower level than those over the last few years.”
Output from U.S. shale fields will lift the country’s oil production by 1.3 million barrels per day this year, according to consultancy Rystad Energy.
U.S. production will rise next year by 1.1 million bpd, slightly above U.S. government forecasts of around 990,000 bpd.
The consultancy expects U.S. oil and condensate production to hit 12.9 million bpd in December and 14 million bpd by the end of 2020.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration expects output in 2020 to rise to 13.23 million bpd.
Rystad expects 2020 to be “not too rosy but not too bleak” for the oil industry, said Bjornar Tonhaugen, head of oil market research, with U.S. oil prices between $50 and $55 per barrel in 2020, with international prices around $60 per barrel.
Despite concerns about a possible global recession, crude demand will benefit from tougher rules on sulfur emissions from ships that will come into effect next year, Tonhaugen said.
U.S. crude output has surged thanks to the Permian basin in Texas and New Mexico, the country’s biggest oil field. The U.S. is now the world’s largest producer, ahead of Saudi Arabia and Russia.
But the rate of growth has slowed, with U.S. energy firms reducing the number of oil rigs operating for the ninth straight month to its lowest since January 2018. Producers face pressure from investors to return cash in the form of dividends or share buybacks, and are trimming budgets to try to spend within cash flow.
New production from countries including Norway and Brazil, along with U.S. output, will add around 2 million new bpd to the global market from non-OPEC countries and their partners, according to Rystad, pressuring the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to continue production cuts.
OPEC, Russia and other producers have since Jan. 1 implemented a deal to cut output by 1.2 million bpd. The alliance, known as OPEC+, in July renewed the pact until March 2020 and a committee reviewing the pact meets on Thursday.
Norwegian oil and gas company Equinor is progressing oil spill recovery at the South Riding Point terminal in the Bahamas after the impact of Hurricane Dorian.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Dorian, Equinor said earlier this week it would clean up the oil spills from its South Riding Point oil terminal, spilled due to damage caused by the hurricane.
In an update on Wednesday, Equinor said that there was no observed leakage of oil to the sea from the terminal.
Equinor informed on Thursday that an onshore team had started to recover oil and move it into tank storage.
“A response team continues to assess the damage and plan the recovery work. Initial recovery assets have been deployed and additional machinery and equipment is being added,” the Norwegian company said.
Equinor also noted that recovery was expected to be significantly stepped up over the coming days in close dialogue with local authorities.
It is still Equinor’s assessment that no oil is leaking from the terminal. An area with suspected oil spill in open water has now been confirmed to be a patch of seaweed.
Another area with potential product 70-80 kilometers north east of the terminal on the other side of the island has been observed from air and results are being processed. Currently, there are no indications that the terminal is the source for this.
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The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD) has granted DEA Norge, a Norwegian unit of Wintershall Dea, a drilling permit for a wildcat well located in the Norwegian Sea.
The well 6611/1-1 will be drilled from the West Hercules drilling rig after completing the drilling of wildcat well 32/4-2 for Equinor in production license 921.
The drilling program for well 6611/1-1 relates to the drilling of wildcat wells in production licence 896. DEA Norge is the operator with an ownership interest of 40 percent. Other licensees are Petoro, Lundin Norway, and Equinor, each with an ownership interest of 20 percent.
The area in this license consists of the eastern part of block 6610/2 and blocks 6610/3, 6611/1 and 6611/2. The well will be drilled about 150 kilometers northeast of the Norne field, and about 150 kilometers southwess of Bodø.
Production license 896 was awarded on February 10, 2017 in APA 2016. This is the first exploration well to be drilled in the license.
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Oil prices are likely to head towards $50/b in the next six months in light of the global economic slowdown, unless OPEC makes larger production cuts, Ben Luckock, co-head of oil trading at commodities trading house Trafigura, told S&P Global Platts on the sidelines of the APPEC conference over September 9-11 in Singapore.
"We are worried about the underlying sort of macro-economic set of fundamentals. We see a number of bearish headwinds from the market, which exacerbated by a trade war does not seem to be coming to a conclusion anytime soon," Luckock said in an interview.
He added that trade uncertainty between the US and China is especially a concern when "an international commodity trader cannot assess how the trade war is going based on whether a phone call is made for a meeting set in a month's time," highlighting the unpredictability the Trump administration has brought to the market.
Trafigura's downbeat assessment of the oil market is a far cry from last year's APPEC when oil traders warned of the possibility of $100/b oil on the back of sanctions on Iran and healthy oil demand. Since then, demand growth has slowed with S&P Global Platts Analytics putting oil demand on "negative watch", while Iran's supply shortfall was offset first by waivers and then by record US production growth.
STRAIT OF HORMUZ
Indeed, even geopolitical tensions across the Middle East, with a number of incidents near the strategically important Strait of Hormuz in recent months failed to move the dial on oil prices, a point Luckock was keen to make.
"It shows you how problematic the market is right now and even that [incidents near the Strait of Hormuz] cannot help the market get ahead of itself," he noted, suggesting that the glut will be tough to shift. The Strait of Hormuz is the most important oil chokepoint with more than 20% of global petroleum liquids demand flowing through the narrow waterway.
Overwhelmingly bearish economic sentiment has sent oil prices spiraling lower. They are now 20% below their 2019 high seen in late April. OPEC's continued commitment to keep crude production limited, in conjunction with US economic sanctions on Iran and Venezuela had lifted front-month ICE Brent crude futures above the $75/b mark in April.
However, oil prices turned lower as Beijing's counter tariffs on US goods announced last month prompted energy and financial market participants to unwind their long paper positions on concerns over a wider slowdown in China as the trade row escalates and its detrimental impact on oil demand.
Brent futures fell below $56/b on August 7, the lowest level since January 7. The front-month futures contract was last quoted at $62.41/b at 0212 GMT Wednesday.
$70/B OIL AHEAD
Luckock does see the market turning upwards after six months, but whether OPEC, Russia and its allies have the patience and confidence in a recovery is open to question as it heads into a key monitoring committee meeting on Thursday.
The OPEC pact has agreed to cut 1.2 million b/d until the end of the first quarter of 2020, with Saudi Arabia trying its best to accelerate the market rebalancing by cutting close to 600,000 b/d more than its agreed quota according to Platts' OPEC monthly survey.
However, some OPEC members such as Iraq and Nigeria have been laggards in complying with their quotas.
"I think OPEC has been pretty good but...I think they need to do more than they are currently rather than less," Luckock said. Oil prices have been hovering just above the $60/b mark, but have ticked upwards on an improved US oil stock picture, which may encourage OPEC to stay on its current course.
The trader was upbeat for the early part of the next decade, predicting buyers and sellers in the industry will converge around a return to $70/b oil. "In the medium to longer term of two to five years the market should return to a price somewhere in the 70s/b, that kind of range. That's a good price for the oil industry as a whole looking forward."
OPEC on Wednesday cut its forecast for growth in world oil demand in 2020 due to an economic slowdown, an outlook the producer group said highlighted the need for ongoing efforts to prevent a new glut of crude.
In a monthly report, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries said oil demand worldwide would expand by 1.08 million barrels per day, 60,000 bpd less than previously estimated, and indicated the market would be in surplus.
The weaker outlook amid a U.S.-China trade war and Brexit could press the case for OPEC and its allies to maintain or adjust their policy of cutting output. Iraq said ministers would on Thursday discuss whether deeper cuts were needed.
OPEC, in the report, lowered its forecast for world economic growth in 2020 to 3.1% from 3.2% and said next year’s increase in oil demand would be outpaced by “strong growth” in supply from rival producers such as the United States.
“This highlights the shared responsibility of all producing countries to support oil market stability to avoid unwanted volatility and a potential relapse into market imbalance,” the report said.
OPEC, Russia and other producers have since Jan. 1 implemented a deal to cut output by 1.2 million bpd. The alliance, known as OPEC+, in July renewed the pact until March 2020 and a committee reviewing the pact meets on Thursday.
Oil prices LCOc1 pared an earlier gain after the report was released to sit just below $63 a barrel. Despite the OPEC-led cut, oil has tumbled from April’s 2019 peak above $75, pressured by trade concerns and an economic slowdown.
The report said oil inventories in industrialized economies fell in July, a development that could ease OPEC concern over a possible glut.
Even so, stocks in July exceeded the five-year average - a yardstick OPEC watches closely - by 36 million barrels.
SUPPLY RISING
OPEC and its partners have been limiting supply since 2017, helping to clear a glut that built up in 2014-2016 when producers pumped at will, and revive prices.
The policy has given a sustained boost to U.S. shale and other rival supply, and the report suggests the world will need less OPEC crude next year.
Demand for OPEC crude will average 29.40 million bpd in 2020, OPEC said, down 1.2 million bpd from this year.
OPEC said its oil output in August rose, however, by 136,000 bpd to 29.74 million bpd according to figures the group collects from secondary sources. It was the first increase this year. Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Nigeria boosted supply.
Top exporter Saudi Arabia told OPEC that the kingdom raised August output by just over 200,000 bpd to 9.789 million bpd. Saudi Arabia continues to pump far less than its quota of 10.311 bpd.
Thanks in part to Saudi restraint, producers are still over-complying with the supply-cutting deal. Losses in Iran and Venezuela, two OPEC members facing U.S. sanctions, have widened the supply reduction. August’s increase, however, puts OPEC output further above the 2020 demand forecast.
The report suggests there will be a 2020 supply surplus of 340,000 bpd if OPEC keeps pumping at August’s rate and other things remain equal, more than the surplus forecast in last month’s report.
Russia’s finance ministry has in principle approved tax breaks for developing the Priobskoye oilfield, Russia’s largest, to oil giants Rosneft and Gazprom Neft, Alexei Sazanov, head of the ministry’s tax department said on Thursday.
He added that tax breaks for the oil companies could last for 10 years but no start date had yet been agreed.
Sazanov told reporters Russia’s budget should be compensated for revenue it will lose due to the tax breaks for Priobskoye and the finance ministry proposed to introduce a mineral extraction tax (MET) for associated petroleum gas (APG) for the oil industry, but no political decision on MET had been made.
The finance ministry is open to discussions on raising other taxes on the oil industry in order to compensate the budget instead of introducing a MET on APG, Sazanov said.
Output at Priobskoye is around 500,000 barrels per day.
Optimum Petroleum and Lekoil, partners in the Ogo discovery located in OPL 310 block offshore Nigeria, have been granted a three-year extension of the license from the country’s authorities.
Lekoil informed on Friday that, pursuant to a letter dated September 4, 2019, the Federal Government of Nigeria and the Ministry of Petroleum Resources had approved the extension of OPL 310’s exploration license for three years.
This is subject to the holders of the license paying an extension fee of $7.5 million within 90 days effective from August 2, 2019, according to Lekoil.
Lekoil expects to fund 100 percent of the license fee from a mix of existing financial resources and a potential funding partner as previously reported at the end of August 2019.
Both Optimum Petroleum Development Company and Lekoil Nigeria Limited (acting through its wholly owned subsidiary, Mayfair Assets and Trust Limited) have agreed to progress the appraisal of the block and subsequent conversion to an Oil Mining License (OML) at the end of the exploration period, as soon as practicable.
Following a successful appraisal, a full field development (FFD) program will be undertaken for which Lekoil and Optimum are in advanced discussions with a potential funding partner.
Lekan Akinyanmi, Lekoil CEO, commented, “We are pleased to be working efficiently with Optimum and the Nigerian Department of Petroleum Resources to ensure timely approvals for our upcoming drilling and work program(s) and we now look forward to unlocking significant value from the asset for all stakeholders, who we thank for their continued patience and support through this prolonged process.”
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عُقد يومي 4 و 5 سبتمبر 2019 بمقر شركة مليته للنفط والغاز بطرابلس الاجتماع الفني الثاني بين المؤسسة الوطنية للنفط وشركة مليته وشركة إيني شمال أفريقيا ، وذلك لمناقشة نشاطات شركة مليته للنفط والغاز ومشاريعها الحالية وبرامجها للعام 2020، إضافة إلى المصروفات الفعلية في 2019 والمقترحة للعام القادم.
حيث تم خلال اليوم الأولّ مناقشة أداء الحقول واحتياطاتها النفطية ومعدلات الإنتاج المتوقعة من النفط والغاز الحر والمصاحب للعشر سنوات القادمة والميزانيات المعتمدة بالخصوص. كما تطرّق الحضور إلى مختلف المشاريع التي تقوم الشركة بتنفيذها لزيادة الانتاج وضمان استمرار العمليات، بما في ذلك الدراسات المكمنية والمعملية ومشاريع الحفر التطويري وصيانة الآبار واصلاحها.
وقد تمّ خلال اليوم الثاني مناقشة نشاط ادارة الصحة و السلامة و البيئة، حيث شدّدت المؤسسة الوطنية للنفط على أهمية الالتزام التام بمعايير السلامة والصحة المهنية، بما يضمن توفير بيئة عمل آمنة للعاملين بكافّة المواقع والحقول النفطية. كما قامت الشركة باستعراض مشاريع التسهيلات السطحية، إضافة إلى مناقشة المرحلة الثانية من مشروع بحر السلام و مراحل تطوير التركيبين A&E .
وحضـر الاجتمـاع من جانب المـؤسسة الوطنية للنفط، السيد نجمي كريم، مدير إدارة الصيانة والمشاريع، و السيد أنور عقيل، مدير إدارة الإنتاج، والسيد نورالدين الشقمان، مدير ادارة تطوير الاحتياطي، إضافة إلى عدد من المختصين من الإدارات الفنية والمالية و البيئة وممثلين عن شركة تقنية للاعمال الهندسية ومعهد النفط الليبي. كما حضر عن شركة مليته للنفط والغاز كلّ من السيد محمد قشوط، رئيس لجنة الادارة المكلف، والسيد انور الشهلول، عضو لجنة الادارة، والسيد أمحمد عرفة، عضو لجنة الادارة عن الشريك، وعدد من المدراء العامين و مدراء الإدارات والمختصين، وممثلي الطرف الثاني عبر الدائرة المغلقة من مالطا.
The domestic fuel prices are determined broadly by the global crude oil and rupee-dollar forex rates.
State-run oil marketing companies cut petrol prices on Sunday, marking a fourth straight day of reduction in rates. With effect from 6 am on Sunday, the price of petrol was at Rs. 71.71 per litre in Delhi, Rs. 74.44 per litre in Kolkata, Rs. 77.40 per litre in Mumbai and Rs. 74.51 per litre in Chennai, according to Indian Oil Corporation's (IOC) website. Petrol prices were cut by 6 paise per litre in the four metros compared to the previous day's rates, data from Indian Oil showed.
However, the rate of diesel was unchanged across metros. Diesel prices stood at Rs. 65.09 per litre in Delhi, Rs. 67.50 per litre in Kolkata, Rs. 68.26 per litre in Mumbai and Rs. 68.79 per litre in Chennai.
State-run oil marketing companies such as Indian Oil Corporation, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum review the domestic fuel prices on a daily basis and any revisions are implemented at the fuel stations with effect from 6 am.
The domestic fuel prices are determined broadly by the global crude oil and rupee-dollar forex rates.
Globally, oil prices rose above $61 a barrel on Friday after the head of the US Federal Reserve said the central bank will act "as appropriate" to sustain an economic expansion in the world's biggest economy that has been pressured by uncertainty over global trade, reported news agency Reuters.
Brent crude, the global benchmark, settled at $61.54 a barrel, up 59 cents, or 1 per cent, while US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude ended 0.4 per cent higher at $56.52.
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قامت شركة البريقة لتسويق النفط، وهي إحدى الشركات التابعة للمؤسسة الوطنية للنفط، بإخلاء موظفيها من مستودع مطار معيتيقة ، وذلك بعد تعرض وحدة الإطفاء فيه للقصف يوم الجمعة 6 سبتمبر 2019.
حيث قامت شركة البريقة لتسويق النفط بسحب جميع صهاريج التخزين والشاحنات المخصصة لتزويد الطائرات بالوقود التابعة لها بسبب خطر القصف الشديد. فيما أبقت على سيارة واحدة من أجل تأمين امدادات طائرات الإسعاف الطائر. كما تم كذلك إخلاء الموظفين غير الأساسيين حفاظا على سلامتهم.
وإذ تدين المؤسسة الوطنية للنفط بشدة هذا القصف الأخير الذي استهدف منشآت المؤسسة وموظفيها، فإنها تشدد على ضرورة وقف إطلاق النار والأعمال العدائية، وتدعو كافة الأطراف إلى احترام التزاماتهم التي يفرضها القانون الدولي، بما في ذلك عدم استهداف المنشآت المدنية والنفطية.
Against the backdrop of the energy transition, European utilities are re-evaluating their exposure across the gas value chain.
Research Director, Europe Gas
The European gas landscape continues to evolve. LNG oversupply has finally materialised – flooding European markets. And as Russian pipe exports persist, hub prices have crashed. Our latest figures show that these low prices are set to continue.
Meanwhile, resilient demand and declining indigenous production mean Europe’s import dependency is growing. And the global emphasis on a low-carbon future is a driving force of industry-wide change.
European utilities retain several incumbency advantages. They hold long-term contracts, established customer relationships and access to infrastructure. And an inherent understanding of Europe's complex regulatory environment.
However, they also have the most to lose. The increasingly competitive market is evolving at pace. Companies with gas exposure face a number of threats – but opportunities still exist. As the energy transition takes hold, utilities are re-evaluating their exposure across the gas value chain.
Decarbonisation is altering Europe’s corporate landscape
Many European utilities are narrowing their focus, with a growing number scaling back or exiting the upstream space. In July 2019, Edison sold its exploration and production operations – the sale aligning with parent EDF's intent to position itself for the energy transition. RWE divested its upstream business in 2015, followed by Orsted and Engie in 2017 and VNG in 2018. Centrica has reaffirmed its intention to exit upstream by the end of 2020.
Upstream and coal divestments have been the first disposals on the agenda, alongside brand repositioning. But the shift has also extended to LNG. Engie’s dramatic transition was underpinned by selling its LNG business to Total amid its strategic shift to a low-carbon future. Iberdrola, too, recently sold its LNG business to Pavilion Energy.
Other players are taking a different stance. Uniper and RWE are actively pursuing options for LNG import capacity in Germany. EDF, Centrica and RWE have all established cooperation agreements with Japanese utilities, looking to exploit cross-basin opportunities.
How are European utilities buying gas and LNG today?
While some utilities have increased their LNG spot purchasing activity, in many cases this is primarily to hedge customer positions. That said, many are retaining the traditional business model: buying pipeline gas volumes for their legacy home markets.
Margins are thinner than ever. As gas production from the UK and Netherlands continues to decline, the options to buy pipeline gas have reduced. Equinor is marketing increasing volumes of its gas on the spot market. Gazprom is increasingly using its subsidiaries, Wingas and Gazprom Marketing & Trading – as well as its blossoming Electronic Sales Platform – to reinforce market share.
Nonetheless, Europe's requirement for gas imports continues to expand – so opportunities will emerge, as our long-term outlook shows. We believe that by 2030, Europe will need to import over 400bcm of gas per year, up from almost 310bcm in 2018.
Only 12% of Europe’s imports by 2030 will be piped from North Africa and through the southern corridor. This will leave a significant gap for Russian piped supply and LNG to fill.
Russia’s response to Europe’s changing marketplace
Russia has long stood as Europe’s largest gas supplier. But new gas pipeline development growth is looking unlikely beyond the Nord Stream 2 and TurkStream projects which start in 2020. And uncertainty continues to cloud the future of Ukraine transit.
For Russia to further increase its footprint in the European as well as the global gas market, the country needs to revise its traditional export model. Expanding LNG is the answer. It will help to derisk against political tensions with Europe and provide Russia with flexibility against the backdrop of the EU’s decarbonisation objectives. Russia’s journey from piped to LNG exports will increase global exposure while providing flexibility and opportunity to respond more quickly to price and market signals. Importantly, new LNG projects in the Arctic are economically competitive against other options.
Return of the FID: another LNG wave awaits
Russia isn't the only major gas producer looking to expand its LNG footprint. We still expect a record number of global LNG FIDs this year.
What does this mean for European utilities?
European utilities will be courted by a growing number of sellers marketing long-term LNG volumes from pre-FID LNG supply projects. But it will be complicated for these utilities to agree upon pricing terms to support a subsequent LNG wave. The European gas market is increasingly dominated by hub pricing. This poses a challenge for utilities, as LNG is widely priced through oil-indexation, or at Henry Hub.
US LNG suppliers like the liquidity of Europe. But European utilities’ appetite for Henry Hub price risk is limited – and likely to remain so. Resolving this impasse may be possible through more creative deals. If utilities don’t find a way, they run the risk of losing significant market share to LNG portfolio players and commodity traders.
But equally, US LNG sellers will be weary of significant LNG volumes being marketed by competing projects in Qatar, Russia and Mozambique. Will they be willing to price LNG into European hubs?
https://www.woodmac.com/news/opinion/do-european-utilities-still-have-an-appetite-for-lng/
Cooper Energy has made a new gas field discovery with the exploration well Annie-1 in the Otway basin offshore Victoria.
The well is located in VIC/P44 where Cooper Energy is the operator and 50% interest holder and Mitsui E & P Australia also holds a 50% interest.
The Diamond Offshore-operated semi-submersible rig Ocean Monarch started mobilization from the Gippsland basin to the Otway basin offshore Australia to drill two offshore gas exploration wells for Cooper in late July. The rig started drilling the Annie-1 gas exploration well in early August.
In a statement on Friday, Cooper said that the well had reached total depth (TD) of 2,442 meters measured depth rotary table (MDRT) at 9:00 am AEST on September 4, 2019.
Within the Annie-1 borehole, the Waarre C and Waarre A Formation sandstones productive in the Otway basin were penetrated. The Waarre C primary target was encountered at 2,241 meters MDRT, comprising a gross gas column of 70 meters with gas-on-rock at its base. The net pay thickness is 62 meters.
The deeper Waarre A sandstone was encountered at 2,341 meters MDRT and was water wet. The analysis was carried out using Logging While Drilling (LWD) data. Wireline logging operations to collect pressure and sample data required to inform resource volume estimates and to determine gas composition have been completed. Data collected in Annie-1 is consistent with adjacent analogue producing fields. Laboratory analysis to confirm gas composition is to be conducted.
Cooper Energy Managing Director David Maxwell described the Annie gas discovery as a solid and promising result from the first well in the program.
“Annie-1 is the first offshore gas exploration well Cooper Energy has drilled in Australia and the first of an $80 million drill campaign by the Joint Venture this year to find new gas supply for south-east Australia.
“We are very pleased with the success at Annie. It is very encouraging for future exploration in the offshore Otway basin and for our strategy to build gas production around the hub of the existing Minerva Gas Plant.
“Preliminary analysis of the geological data from Annie-1 is consistent with the mid-range of our pre-drill estimates. In the coming months, we will complete the subsurface assessments and analysis of data to refine our estimates of field size and to inform decisions regarding field development,” said Maxwell.
The Annie gas discovery is the first by an offshore well in the Otway basin in 11 years, with the most recent being the nearby Netherby gas field in 2008. Annie-1 is located approximately 9 km offshore Victoria in a water depth of 58 meters. The field is located between the producing Henry (15 km west) and depleted Minerva (11 km east) gas fields.
Cooper Energy and Mitsui E & P Australia currently produce gas from the nearby Casino, Henry and Netherby fields. The presence of subsea infrastructure and future access to the existing Minerva Gas Plant enables the development economics for field discoveries in the region. The timing of any development will depend on rig scheduling for the drilling of a development well. With this proviso, a favorable decision on field development could result in the commencement of production from the Annie gas field in the latter half of calendar 2021.
The Diamond Offshore Ocean Monarch drilling rig is about to start preparations to plug and abandon Annie-1. Following this, the rig is scheduled to move to drill the second well in the two well program, Elanora-1 in VIC/L24, 23 km southwest of Annie-1.
https://www.offshoreenergytoday.com/cooper-makes-new-gas-field-discovery-in-otway-basin/
Oil major ExxonMobil said on Friday it had signed an exclusivity agreement with Var Energi for negotiations regarding a possible sale of Exxon’s Norwegian upstream assets.
An acquisition of Exxon’s production assets in Norway would cement Var Energi’s position as the second largest petroleum producer in Norway after Equinor, excluding state-owned Petoro, which manages government stakes in offshore licenses.
Reuters reported on Sept. 5 that Exxon had agreed to sell its stakes in around 20 partner-operated fields, two years after selling its operated assets.
Exxon confirmed the exclusive talks to Reuters on Friday and said that a final sales agreement has yet to be signed.
In 2018, Exxon’s net production from fields off Norway was 158,000 barrels of oil equivalents per day (boepd), data from the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate showed.
Var Energi, almost 70% owned by Eni, produced net 169,000 boepd from five operated and 14 partner-operated fields last year, the company has said.
Var, which was established last year by merging Eni’s assets in Norway with Norwegian oil firm Point Resources, has previously said it aimed to boost its net output to 250,000 boepd in the early 2020s.
Exxon is also considering selling its assets in the British North Sea after more than 50 years, industry sources told Reuters last month.
The oil major has been focusing more in recent years to growing its onshore U.S. shale production, especially in the Permian basin, as well as developing large oil discoveries in Guyana.
The total tally of U.S. rigs drilling for oil and gas fell below 900 this week for the first time since 2017 as oilfield activity continues to slow.
Oklahoma and Texas led yet another dip in the nationwide rig count as drilling activity has steadily declined since the beginning of this year.
The rig count fell by six down this week down to 898 rigs, including 738 of them that are drilling for crude oil. The rest are primarily seeking natural gas, according to the weekly count collected by Baker Hughes, a GE company.
Oklahoma, which has seen its rig count plummet by 45 percent in just 12 months, lost five rigs for the week, while Texas declined by three rigs, including two from the Permian Basin. North Dakota, with its Bakken shale, was the only state to add to its drilling rig tally.
Oil prices remain muted with the U.S. benchmark sitting above $56 per barrel.
Texas is still home to 438 active rigs, nearly half of the nation's total. West Texas' booming Permian Basin, which extends into New Mexico, accounts for 427 rigs all by itself. The Permian makes up 58 percent of all the oil-drilling rigs in the country.
The total count is up from an all-time low of 404 rigs in May 2016.
However, with this week's dip, the oil rig count is down 54 percent from its peak of 1,609 in October 2014, before oil prices first began plummeting. However, rigs today are able to drill more wells than before and to deeper depths to produce more oil and gas. That's largely why the U.S. is producing record volumes of crude oil and natural gas.
According to Reuters, Oil Search Ltd has announced that it is restoring production of oil and condensate at its Papua New Guinea operations, as storage tank space becomes available.
The company has reportedly said that priority will now be given to restoring production from its PNG LNG operations.
After damage was caused to its mooring system in mid-August, Reuters claims Oil Search cut back production from the oil fields it operates due to limited storage capacity in its liquids export system. The cause of the damage has not been disclosed.
According to Reuters, the operator of the PNG LNG project, Exxon Mobil Corp., also partially decreased its production.
https://www.lngindustry.com/liquefaction/09092019/production-being-restored-at-png-operations/
Mexico will hedge its oil production against low prices, the government said in its budget proposal for next financial year, and Pemex will conduct its own hedge.
Reuters reports that the Finance Ministry had referred to the hedge as one of several “fiscal shock absorbers” to prevent adverse effects on public finances from too low international oil prices.
The shock absorbers, according to the proposal, envisaged “a strategy of oil hedges contracted both by Pemex and the federal government to cover oil income against reductions compared to the price,”
The Mexico oil hedge is the most famous one, with investment banks vying every year for a role in it. Worth around US$1 billion, it is done every year and is believed to be the largest oil trade.
The deal is the most secretive in the oil world and is followed closely by banks as a sort of weathervane for oil prices. A handful of these are directly involved in the hedge: Mexico buys put options on oil from them and from oil supermajors in a series of about 50 transactions.
Earlier this year, in July, Reuters reported that Wall Street had started preparing for the Mexican hedge. The agency quoted traders and brokers as saying crude oil future and options has seen an increase in the past week, which suggests that the time of the hedge was near.
This year’s oil sales in Mexico were hedged at US$55 per barrel, with the total value of the put options bought standing at US$1.23 billion.
The 2020 budget proposal has set a target price of US$49 per barrel for oil exports and while the government has not yet agreed the price per barrel for the hedge, the budget price suggests increased wariness of oil price fluctuations and the prospects for benchmarks in the near term.
By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com
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Following the market opening Monday, the Dow traded up 0.24% to 26,861.71 while the NASDAQ fell 0.05% to 8,098.77. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.15% to 2,983.05.
Leading and Lagging Sectors
Energy shares climbed 1% on Monday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Callon Petroleum Company (NYSE: CPE), up 9%, and Range Resources Corporation (NYSE: RRC), up 9%.
In trading on Monday, health care shares fell 0.8%.
Top Headline
Alcoa Corporation (NYSE: AA) announced it will cut staff and eliminate its business unit structure and consolidate sales, procurement and other commercial capabilities at an enterprise level effective Nov. 1.
Under the new operating model, the Alcoa executive team will be streamlined from 12 to seven people directly reporting to the CEO. The new structure will reduce overhead and “increase connectivity’ between the company's plants and leadership.
Equities Trading UP
ACADIA Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: ACAD) shares shot up 58% to $37.56 after the company announced its Harmony Phase 3 Trial met its primary endpoint.
Shares of Changyou.com Limited (NASDAQ: CYOU) got a boost, shooting up 51% to $8.91 after the company announced it received a preliminary non-binding proposal to acquire the company from Sohu for $10 per ADS.
Cesca Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ: KOOL) shares were also up, gaining 28% to $4.51 after the company announced it entered into a global distribution agreement with ThermoGenesis to distribute its X-Series products. Also the company's 8K showed a supply agreement with Corning.
Equities Trading DOWN
Neurotrope, Inc. (NASDAQ: NTRP) shares tumbled 80% to $0.895 after the company announced that its Phase 2 study of Bryostatin-1 in moderate to severe Alzheimer's disease did not achieve statistical significance in its primary endpoint.
Shares of PaySign, Inc. (NASDAQ: PAYS) were down 19% to $9.76 after the company cut its preliminary FY19 sales guidance from $38-$40 million to $35-$37 million. The company cited delays in onboarding of the new plasma industry programs planned for Q1 and Q2.
Repligen Corporation (NASDAQ: RGEN) was down, falling 12% to $81.64. Repligen will move to the S&P MidCap 400, effective Monday, September 23.
Commodities
In commodity news, oil traded up 0.5% to $56.82, while gold traded up 0.3% to $1,520.00.
Silver traded up 1% Monday to $18.315, while copper fell 0.6% to $2.6185.
Euro zone
European shares were mixed today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 fell 0.1%, the Spanish Ibex Index rose 0.2%, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index rose 0.1%. Meanwhile, the German DAX rose 0.3% and the French CAC 40 slipped 0.1% while UK shares fell 0.6%.
Economics
The Treasury is set to auction 3-and 6-month bills at 11:30 a.m. ET.
The TD Ameritrade Investor Movement Index for August is schedule for release at 12:30 p.m. ET.
Data on consumer credit for July will be released at 3:00 p.m. ET.
The worldwide offshore rig count in August 2019 decreased by ten units sequentially, but increased by 41 unit year-over-year, according to reports by Baker Hughes, a GE company.
BHGE splits its rig counts into international and North America rig counts, which combined make the worldwide rig count.
Baker Hughes reported on Monday that the international rig count for August 2019 was 1,138, down 24 from the 1,162 counted in July 2019, and up 130 from the 1,008 counted in August 2018.
The international offshore rig count for August 2019 was 244, down 11 from the 255 counted in July 2019, and up 32 from the 212 counted in August 2018.
Looking at separate regions, Asia Pacific region had the highest number of offshore rigs during August 2019, totaling 92 units. This is down two rigs from 94 in July 2019 and up 4 rigs from August 2018.
In the Middle East region, there were 53 rigs during August 2019, down 4 from July 2019 and up 2 from August 2018.
Europe took the third place in the offshore rig count for August 2019 with 51 active units followed by Latin America with 30 and Africa with 18 active units.
In North America, the offshore rig count in August 2019 was 29, up one rig from July 2019 and up 9 rigs from August 2018.
The average U.S. rig count for August 2019 was 926, down 29 from the 955 counted in July 2019, and down 124 from the 1,050 counted in August 2018.
The average Canadian rig count for August 2019 was 142, up 21 from the 121 counted in July 2019, and down 78 from the 220 counted in August 2018.
The worldwide rig count for August 2019 was 2,206, down 32 from the 2,238 counted in July 2019, and down 72 from the 2,278 counted in August 2018.
The worldwide offshore rig count for August 2019 was 273 for August 2019, down 10 from 283 in July 2019, and up 41 rigs from 232 in August 2018.
Offshore Energy Today Staff
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Underground mine development at Canada-headquartered Ivanhoe Mines’ Kamoa-Kakula copper mine, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, has reached the edge of the high-grade ore within the deposit as mining advances toward zones in excess of 8% copper.
The advancement of the first connecting underground drift, designed to tunnel through the centre of the high-grade orebody and open up the mine's initial mineral reserves, has reached the edge of the high-grade ore.
Grades of about 4% copper have been returned from sampling. Grades are expected to increase considerably as the development crews advance the drifts towards the deposit’s central mining zones that are in excess of 8% copper.
“This intersection marks a significant milestone in the context of our exploration and development efforts at Kamoa-Kakula that began more than 13 years ago,” says Kamoa-Kakula copper project geology manager David Edwards.
“Now that you can see and touch Kakula’s high-grade copper ore, it really hits home that we are well on our way towards building the first of multiple high-grade copper mines in the area.”
Mine and processing plant construction is also progressing well and remains on track for first copper concentrate production in the third quarter of 2021.
EDITED BY: Chanel de Bruyn
Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor Online
Washington — The US Department of Energy has awarded contracts for nearly 9.88 million barrels of Strategic Petroleum Reserve crude to four US companies with deliveries set to take place in October and November, the DOE said Monday.
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Contracts were awarded to Marathon Petroleum, Motiva Enterprises, Phillips 66 and Shell Trading (US).
DOE did not immediately release details of these contracts, including the dollar amounts paid.
DOE said that nine companies submitted a total of 73 bids.
The oil sold includes: nearly 4.93 million barrels from the West Hackberry site; 3.85 million barrels from the Big Hill site; and 1.1 million barrels from the Bryan Mound site.
The sale covers the fiscal 2020 SPR sale requirements in the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 and the Consolidated Appropriations, 2018 Act.
As of August 30, the SPR held 644.8 million barrels of crude in four sites in Texas and Louisiana, including 250.3 million barrels of sweet crude and 394.5 million barrels of sour crude, according to DOE. The SPR has an authorized capacity of 713.5 million barrels of oil.
In March, DOE sold 4.32 million barrels of sweet crude from the SPR, part of a $2 billion modernization plan for the reserve, and the latest in an estimated 290 million barrels of congressionally-mandated sales from the SPR through fiscal 2027.
-- Brian Scheid, brian.scheid@spglobal.com
-- Edited by Richard Rubin, newsdesk@spglobal.com
Recent headlines heralding the death of the U.S. shale boom are greatly exaggerated.
But the fever pitch pace of shale development and U.S. production growth is slowing and it’s difficult to envision the sector returning to the same heights reached over the past two years.
A slowdown was inevitable. Annual production growth of 1.5 million to 2 million barrels a day is not sustainable, especially with so many producers burning through cash and relying on debt to fund their operations.
Even Wall Street has its limits, and investors finally grew tired of independent producers outspending their cash flows – even when they deliver impressive growth rates.
So shale stocks are in the doghouse with equity prices for the top players down more than 33 percent over the past 12 months and their smaller peers down by over 60 percent
America’s shale industry has matured and that means it’s time to deliver solid returns to investors through dividends and stock buybacks or face the chopping block.
Some smaller, highly-leveraged exploration and production firms likely won’t be able to refinance when their debts come due in the next two years.
Activity in bond markets has been ugly for shale recently. Average bond yields for mid-sized independents have jumped from under 8 percent last year to nearly 9.5 percent this year. The amount of debt issued by the sector year-to-date is down 80 percent.
The weakest companies will be forced into bankruptcy or be pushed into mergers with less-leveraged players. But any industry consolidation will be tempered by the current lack of investor enthusiasm for shale. Translation: Sellers should not expect big premiums for their assets.
Rather than an era of takeovers, we could see a trend of “take-unders” in the coming months. The PDC Energy recent $1.7 billion all-stock acquisition of rival SRC Energy could be the new emerging template for shale mergers and acquisitions. The deal involved no premium for SRC Energy’s shareholders, only the promise of a more efficient and larger owner
For shale companies this means that capital discipline and living within their means is a reality that is here to stay. Ignore it at your peril
This holds big ramifications for the future trajectory of domestic oil production, particularly since independent producers currently account for over 80 percent of output
What this means is that “short-cycle” shale production will be less responsive to rising oil prices. Any surplus cash flow from higher-than-expected oil prices will be diverted to the pockets of investors.
On the flip side, U.S. oil production looks more vulnerable to falling prices than previously thought.
If prices drop below budgeted leve
ls – around $50 for West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for most independents – companies will have to reduce their capital spending and trim back production targets. That’s just the new reality for producers who are seeing their access to capital markets close and their investors demand higher returns.
We can already see the effects of this new operating reality in oil production data.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) forecasts domestic crude oil production will average 12.3 million barrels a day in 2019 – an increase of around 1.2 million barrels a day from last year – and 13.3 million barrels a day in 2020.
That’s impressive growth. But a closer look reveals that U.S. production has flat-lined at around 12 million barrels a day since late last year, with July output at 11.7 million barrels a day due to losses related to Hurricane Barry.
It would not be surprising to see EIA ultimately revise its forecasts downward, perhaps to a growth rate considerably under 1 million barrels a day for 2020, particularly with oil prices wobbling amid global economic concerns. The WTI benchmark is struggling to hold prices above $55 amid fears of falling demand due to the ongoing U.S.-China trade war
Drilling and fracking activity has slowed markedly in the second half of this year. The U.S. oil rig count now stands at 742, its lowest level since the beginning of 2018 and about 16 percent lower than where it was at the end of last year, according to Baker Hughes
Executives in the oil services sector, where my company Canary LLC operates, have started to take notice of the change on the ground. And when drilling and development action slows, a production response typically follows, albeit with a bit of a time lag
Capital investment is falling. Investment bank Barclays said in a report this week that it expects North American E&P spending to decline by 15 percent in the second half of this year compared to the first half, with capex seen as remaining flat to down 5 percent in 2020.
It’s not all doom and gloom for shale. Major oil companies, firms with some of the strongest balance sheets in the world, are increasingly committed to the sector. They have boosted their positions in shale substantially over the last few years and now count among the most active players in these basins, including the Permian in West Texas and New Mexico.
Companies like Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Royal Dutch Shell and BP are banking on shale to deliver significant production growth in the coming years, and they won’t be deterred by softening capital market activity or lower prices.
As these stronger players seize more shale assets, the entire sector’s production outlook will become more certain. The majors will bring greater predictability to a play that has surprised and confounded the member countries of the OPEC cartel in recent years.
OPEC, in turn, should have a better handle on how to manage the global oil market. This will be critical in the near term as the global economy slows and demand for oil falls.
Shale is saying goodbye to its fast-paced, high-flying glory days, but with stronger players in the driver’s seat it has a more secure future.
And with most experts believing U.S. oil production won’t peak until it hits 15 million barrels a day, there’s plenty of room for growth – even if it happens at a more measured pace in 2020 and beyond.
https://www.oilandgas360.com/no-shales-not-dying-its-just-maturing/
Repsol in advanced talks to buy Exxon assets in Gulf of Mexico - sources
Spanish oil giant Repsol SA is in advanced talks to acquire some deepwater assets in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico from Exxon Mobil Corp for about $1 billion, three people familiar with the matter said on Monday.
The deal would be a boon to Exxon’s plans to accelerate asset sales, as it seeks to raise cash to return to shareholders and fund major projects. Suppressed oil prices have weighed on the appetite of oil majors to buy such assets.
There is no certainty a deal will be agreed, the sources said. The transaction would require approval from partners in the assets, who may have preferential rights to buy them, said two of the sources.
The sources asked not to be identified because the matter is confidential. Representatives for Exxon and Repsol declined to comment.
Exxon began the process to jettison Gulf of Mexico assets last year with advice from JPMorgan Chase & Co, Reuters reported last October.
According to a document seen by Reuters dated Fall/Winter 2018, Exxon was marketing nine assets. These included its 50% stake in the large Julia oil field, which it operates, as well a 9.4% piece of the Heidelberg field and 23% of the Lucius oil and gas field, both of which are now operated by Occidental Petroleum Corp.
The exact number of assets that Exxon would sell to Repsol could not be learned.
The Irving, Texas-based company is trimming its portfolio to focus on promising acreage in offshore areas such as Guyana and Brazil, and onshore in the Permian Basin of Texas and New Mexico. This includes in the Gulf of Mexico, once considered a reliable basin for oil exploration and production.
Exxon’s Chief Executive Darren Woods said earlier this year the company was targeting $15 billion through 2021 from asset sales, although securing divestments has been difficult at a time when many oil developers, especially in the United States, are eschewing purchases to focus on existing portfolios.
However, the world’s largest publicly traded energy company said last week it was in exclusive talks with Var Energi in relation to Exxon’s Norwegian upstream assets, confirming a Reuters story that the duo were close to a $4 billion deal.
Paulson & Co, a large Callong shareholder, said it plans to vote against the acquisition of Carrizo. Paulson also urged Callon to pursue a sales of the company.
In a letter to Callon's board of directors, Paulson said Callon's stock has lost 36% since the acquisition deal was announced, Callon would lost its valuation as a "pure play" Permian producer, the premium paid for Carrizo is unjustifiable given its "inferior" assets and Callon's shares could be worth 64% more than current prices through a sale of the company.
Callon had announced on July 15 a deal to buy Carrizo in an all-stock deal valued at $3.2 billion. Paulson said Monday it owned 21.6 million Callon shares, or 9.5% of the shares outstanding.
Suncor Energy Inc. (SU - Free Report) recently announced that it will install two cogeneration units at its Oil Sands Base Plant by replacing its coke-fired boilers. The deal worth C$1.4 billion is an initiative to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 25%.
This new installation will generate steam for Suncor Energy’s bitumen extraction and operational upgrades.
Further, the natural gas-fuelled cogeneration units will produce 800 megawatts of power, which will be transmitted to the electricity grid in Alberta. Notably, the power to be generated is equivalent to 8% of the current electricity requirement in the Western Canadian province.
Currently, Suncor is transmitting 450 megawatts using its existing cogeneration plants to Alberta, per Reuters. The source added that this new Base Plant development will help the company triple this power generation.
Importantly, the low-carbon power to be generated by this Canadian company is equivalent to removing 550,000 cars from the road.
Along with GHG emissions, the cogeneration units are envisaged to lower sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions from its base plant by 45% and 15%, respectively.
The requirement of flue gas desulphurization (FGD) unit for controlling sulphur emissions will also no longer persist. As a result, there will be 20% reduction in the water volume, which the company extracts from the Athabasca River.
The project, planned to come online in the second half of 2023, will help the company reach its target of increasing C$2 billion in free fund flow.
BP said Tuesday it is launching a new system of gas cloud imaging and aerial drones to monitor and help reduce methane emissions around the world.
The British energy major said it will deploy a system of continuous measurement of methane emissions for all of its new major projects worldwide and that it will use frequent drone flights to detect methane emissions at its existing wells ranging from West Texas' Permian Basin to the United Kingdom's North Sea.
Methane is a potent greenhouse gas and the primary component of natural gas. Methane emissions have long been considered the Achilles' heel of the natural gas sector and the argument that gas is a cleaner-burning energy alternative to both coal and crude oil.
The booming Permian, for instance, has undergone a massive increase in methane emissions from natural gas flaring and venting in recent years, driven by higher activity and a lack of gas pipelines near the oil wells. Companies mostly only drill for the more valuable crude oil in the Permian, but associated gas comes out of the wells. Many companies opt to simply burn much of the gas away at the wellhead rather than possibly lose money transporting and selling the cheap gas.
"For gas to play its fullest role in the energy transition, we have to keep it in the pipe," said Gordon Birrell, BP's chief operating officer for production, transformation and carbon. "This new technology will help us do that by detecting methane emissions in real time. The faster and more accurately we can identify and measure leaks, the better we can respond and, informed by the data collected, work to prevent them."
The continuous measurement on new projects, including technology called gas cloud imaging, has been pilot tested and installed at BP's giant natural gas Khazzan field in Oman.
RELATED: Permian methane emissions back on the rise after small dip
With all these new technologies, inspections that used to take seven days will now only take 30 minutes, BP said.
While BP very recently rolled out drone inspections at shale wells, BP also just successfully tested drone monitoring at its Clair oilfield in the North Sea.
Using advanced sensor technology originally designed by NASA for the Mars Curiosity Rover with a fixed-wing drone, BP said it broke the UK's record for the longest commercial drone flight. The specialty drone system will monitor all of BP's North Sea sites in 2020.
The success follows the U.S. rollout of a major leak detection drone program at BP's shale operations. BP is now using drone-mounted leak detection technologies to survey up to 1,500 well sites every month.
BP is growing in the Permian and other shale basins along with other Big Oil giants like Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Royal Dutch Shell and others like Houston's Occidental Petroleum.
BP said the drone flights identity the source and size of methane leaks and issue work orders to fix them. The technicians in the field are dispatched and equipped with augmented reality technology – or smart glasses – which enables them to virtually link to technical support in the office.
"BP is committed to taking a leading role in addressing the methane challenge and we are seeing that digital technologies can expand the scale of our methane emissions reduction programs," said Dave Lawler, BP's shale chief executive.
A recent acceleration in commissioning activity on Kinder Morgan's Gulf Coast Express Pipeline is giving Permian Basin natural gas producers some long-awaited relief at the wellhead this month.
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Sign Up Last week, CEO Steve Kean said the new pipeline is already taking just over 1 Bcf/d from receipt points in West Texas and remains on schedule for an early startup by September 20.
"We're getting the final work done on compressor stations, meter stations ... we've packed the line, we're in commissioning. We're going to get the thing started as fast as reasonably possible," Kean said Wednesday from the Barclays 2019 CEO Energy-Power Conference in New York.
Permian Basin producers are taking notice.
Over the past month, spot prices at Waha have averaged $1.08/MMBtu, briefly settling as high as $1.55/MMBtu in mid-August. Even in the intraday cash market, prices have remained in positive territory, dipping at their lowest to 20 cents on August 9, S&P Global Platts data shows.
Recent constraints on gas production appear to be easing, too.
In mid-August output briefly surpassed 9.3 Bcf/d, hitting its highest since March. In September, Permian production has averaged about 9 Bcf/d, which is up 5% from the second quarter, when negative pricing in the Permian became increasingly frequent.
At its highest, Permian production briefly topped 9.8 Bcf/d last December when strong local and regional heating demand helped to absorb the record volumes.
FORWARDS
As Kinder Morgan's 2 Bcf/d Permian-to-Gulf Coast pipeline edges closer to service, confidence appears to be growing that the project will boost cash prices for West Texas producers.
Following Kean's comments Wednesday, Waha calendar-month forwards prices for October climbed to $1.72/MMBtu, their highest since late May.
Prices for November, December and January made similar gains, rising to the upper-$1.80s/MMBtu, the low-$2.00s/MMBtu and the low-$2.10s/MMBtu, respectively, S&P Global Platts most recently assessed M2Ms forwards data shows.
OUTLOOK
With constrained Permian production likely to quickly fill Kinder Morgan's Gulf Coast Express Pipeline, many producers are now closely watching progress on the developer's second project: the 2.1 Bcf/d Permian Highway Pipeline.
According to Kean, the project remains on schedule for an early fourth quarter startup in 2020 after overcoming some land-acquisition and permitting challenges in the Texas Hill country this year.
Along with the 2 Bcf/d Whistler Pipeline, being jointly developed by MPLX, WhiteWater Midstream, Stonepeak Infrastructure Partners and West Texas Gas, Permian takeaway projects that have reached FID currently total about 6 Bcf/d.
According to Platts Analytics, that new capacity should be sufficient to keep the Permian debottlenecked through the early 2020s.
Still, Kinder Morgan believes there is room for more midstream capacity growth. In addition to two smaller "crossover" projects, aimed at debottlenecking the Texas intrastate system, the midstream developer is pursuing a third production takeaway project, the Permian Pass.
According to Kean, a growing sentiment of retrenchment in the producer community has complicated the timing on FID for the project, which requires firm transportation commitments to advance.
Regardless of the ultimate timing on FID, Kean is confident that Permian Pass, and possibly a fourth Permian production-takeaway pipeline, will be built in the 2020s.
https://www.spglobal.com/platts/en/market-insights/latest-news/natural-gas/090919-analysis-permian-price-production-pressures-ease-on-faster-gulf-coast-express-commissioning
Plans to start exporting gas from Israel to Egypt are on track but further steps are still needed before exports can commence, Egyptian petroleum minister Tarek El Molla said on Monday.
“Everything is agreed on ... countries (involved) have already given their blessings. There is no issue in that,” Molla told reporters during an energy conference in UAE’s Abu Dhabi.
“It’s a multilateral deal, a gas deal and a pipeline deal so it is a little bit a lengthy process. That’s why it is taking a little bit of time.”
The gas will be supplied via the East Mediterranean Gas (EMG) subsea pipeline following a landmark $15 billion export deal struck last year.
The pipeline operator has signed a deal to use a terminal belonging to Israel’s Europe Asia Pipeline Company (EAPC), one of the final hurdles before starting exports, the companies said on Sunday.
Molla also said Egypt’s Damietta liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant would restart operations as planned before the end of the year.
The plant in northern Egypt has been idled for years due to lack of gas supply amid a dispute with Union Fenosa Gas (UFG), a joint venture between Spain’s Gas Natural and Italy’s Eni.
Damietta is 80% owned by UFG, with the remaining 20% split evenly between the state-owned Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company and the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation.
Egypt’s gas production will rise by next year to around 7.5 billion cubic feet (bcf) per day from 7 bcf per day for the current year, the minister said, with priority to meet domestic needs rather than exports.
Qatar Petroleum has shortlisted several Big Oil firms willing to buy a stake in Qatar’s mega project to expand its liquefied natural gas (LNG) export capacity, and will look at what the majors could offer in exchange for a piece of the project, the head of the Qatari state-held company told Reuters in an interview published on Monday.
Qatar has announced plans to increase its LNG production capacity by 43 percent—from 77 million tons annually now to 110 million tons a year. The new export capacity includes expansion projects set to be completed in 2024. Qatar will be competing with Australia and the United States over the next few years for the world’s top LNG exporter title.
Qatar has already sent to international oil companies invitations to bid on the mega project, and if it decides to do it with partners, it will announce the decision in early 2020, Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi, Minister of State for Energy Affairs and president and chief executive at Qatar Petroleum, told Reuters.
“We like the partnership model for many benefits. But because we don’t need the partners, what’s going out is basically a set of criteria that we have, to demonstrate to us what added value we get for Qatar if you come in,” Kaabi said, noting that the companies could be willing to give Qatar stakes in projects or upstream developments outside Qatar in exchange for a stake in the Qatari LNG expansion.
The manager of Qatar Petroleum, however, did not disclose which majors had been shortlisted to bid on the expansion of the North Field gas facilities.
Shell, Total, Exxon, Chevron, and Eni are all said to be vying for a piece of Qatar’s expansion, Reuters reported last month.
To compete on the global LNG market, Qatar will look to sign more long-term supply agreements, including in Europe, Kaabi told Reuters.
Last week, Qatar Petroleum signed a long-term agreement for LNG unloading services at the Zeebrugge LNG Terminal in Belgium with natural gas transport company Fluxys Belgium.
“Qatar Petroleum has long invested in and anchored LNG receiving terminal capacity in Europe, a key gas market, as part of our supply destination portfolio diversification strategy,” Kaabi said in a statement.
General Electric (GE.N) is looking to raise up to $3 billion in sale of majority-owned Baker Hughes (BHGE.N) shares, resulting in a reduction of the U.S industrial conglomerate’s stake in the oilfield services provider to less than 50%, Baker Hughes said on Tuesday.
Shares of Baker Hughes, in which GE owned an about 50.4% stake as of June 30, fell 3.7% to $23.20 in after hours trading, while GE’s were marginally up at $9.15.
GE had long planned to sell down its stake in Baker Hughes.
But the issue came under scrutiny last month when Madoff whistleblower Harry Markopolos issued a lengthy report that alleged in part that GE was improperly counting Baker Hughes’ income, capital and cash in GE’s financial statements.
GE has said its accounting was appropriate since it is the majority shareholder.
Baker Hughes said GE would sell up to 120.75 million shares, including over-allotment option, of Baker Hughes’ Class A common in a secondary offering. Baker Hughes will additionally repurchase $250 million of Class B common stock from GE in a private transaction.
GE currently owns about 522 million shares of Baker Hughes, and has said previously that a reduction in its ownership interest below 50% in Baker Hughes will result in GE ‘deconsolidating’ its oil and gas business.
GE’s cash generation has failed to keep pace with earnings in recent years, causing the company to cut its dividend and divest non-core assets in order to raise billions of dollars in cash to meet its financial obligations.
Baker Hughes said the deal would also shrink the industrial conglomerate’s presence on the oilfield services company’s board to one seat from five.
General Electric wants John Rice to be its designated member on the Baker Hughes board, while Lorenzo Simonelli and Geoffrey Beattie are expected to continue as directors, but not as GE representatives.
Mexican national oil company Pemex will offer a new set of oilfield service contracts to interested firms, the finance minister said on Tuesday, as it embarks on the challenge of ramping up production by 17% to meet 2020 budget targets.
Pemex will open bidding between the end of this year and early next year for 15 so-called integrated exploration and extraction contracts (CSIEE), the same model of service contracts the firm is using to develop another 20 priority projects mostly clustered in the southern Gulf of Mexico.
Finance Minister Arturo Herrera touted the contracts as public-private partnerships in an interview with broadcaster Televisa.
But the contracts, which do not offer equity stakes in Pemex projects or a share of production or profits, were greeted with skepticism from industry experts.
“This looks to me like a step backwards,” said Pablo Medina, a Mexico City-based oil analyst with Welligence. He noted that the contracts pay a fixed fee per barrel produced under a base scenario that can rise if more oil is produced.
“The competition for capital in Latin America is intense and many countries are offering more attractive terms than before,” he said.
Mexico’s previous government lured a wide range of international oil majors by offering dozens of contracts sharing both risks and rewards, something the service contracts do not do.
President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s 2020 budget blueprint, unveiled on Sunday, forecasts Mexican production, almost all from Pemex, of 1.95 million barrels per day of oil, up 17% from current levels. That target follows 14 straight years of slumping output thanks to a mixture of ageing fields and a lack of investment.
The government says it has already stemmed the decline and is now confident production will quickly rebound thanks to a strategy of investing in easier-to-reach shallow water and onshore fields rather than the longer-term deepwater projects.
“What makes us feel optimistic regarding production?” Herrera asked. “Pemex’s change in strategy wherein it is investing more in shallow waters and on land where it is easier to extract,” he said, referring to tax breaks and a federal government cash injection outlined in the budget.
PEMEX IN CONTROL
The budget calls for a $26.8 billion Pemex budget overall, up about 9% compared with this year. Herrera stressed an additional $4.4 billion in support for the firm, including tax breaks and a capital injection of $2.35 billion.
However, credit rating agency Moody’s analyst Ariane Ortiz-Bollin said in a statement earlier this week that the budget proposal underestimates the amount of funding that Pemex may require going forward.
The nine-month-old Lopez Obrador administration has canceled auctions to pick joint ventures partners for Pemex that would give private companies a greater stake in projects, as well as separate oil auctions that allowed oil majors to operate exploration and production projects on their own.
Both were seen as a way to help reverse the slide in Pemex’s production by attracting significant outside investment from private partners.
A business plan published by Pemex earlier this year says the service contracts could extend up to 20 years, paying a fee set in U.S. dollars that can vary based on the complexity of the project and based on production achieved. In all cases, Pemex would not cede control of the operatorship of the projects.
The world’s most indebted oil company, Pemex is at risk of a second downgrade of its bonds to so-called junk status after Fitch did so in June, which would trigger forced selling of bonds worth billions of dollars.
Herrera said the government will “defend the credit rating” of Pemex, assuring the firm has money to invest and managing its debt profile so it is “more adequate.”
Donald Trump and his top officials reportedly discussed the possibility of easing sanctions on Iran on Monday, as a means of engineering a meeting with Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, at this month’s UN general assembly.
According to the account by Bloomberg News, the then national security adviser, John Bolton, argued forcefully against such a meeting, a day before his abrupt departure from the White House.
His removal followed deep differences with Trump over the president’s wish to score some quick diplomatic successes, by meeting Rouhani, the Taliban and other US adversaries.
According to the Bloomberg account, the treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, argued for a lifting of sanctions as a means of restarting negotiations with Iran. Asked on Wednesday on whether he would meet Rouhani, Trump said: “We’ll see what happens.”
“I do believe they’d like to make a deal,” the president said.
McKinsey launches Global Gas and LNG Outlook to 2035
McKinsey Energy Insights has launched its Global Gas and LNG Outlook to 2035, revealing that gas is the only fossil fuel expected to continuously rise in demand through to 2035, and setting out a vision of a very different gas and LNG market dynamic.
According to McKinsey, the report reveals that, last year, China became the world’s largest importer of gas and LNG, overtaking Japan, and second biggest importer of LNG, overtaking South Korea. McKinsey expects demand to continue increasing in the region, with China, ASEAN, and South Asia to account for 95% of global LNG demand growth until at least 2035. In addition to this, McKinsey claims total gas demand is set to increase by 0.9% per year, while Asian gas demand is set to rise by 2.1% per year in the same period, driven primarily by power and gas-intensive industries.
On the supply side, over 50% of the global growth of 635 billion m3 by 2035 is predicted to be driven by the US – adding 380 billion m3 – followed by Russia (+110 billion m3) and Africa (+110 billion m3). Meanwhile, Europe and the Rest of Asia’s gas supply is forecast to decline rapidly.
Rahul Gupta, Associate Partner at McKinsey Energy Insights, said: “We’ll look back at this as a milestone year, when China became the world’s biggest LNG importer and we saw the highest volume of liquefaction projects taking FID. In many ways, that sets the tone through to 2035: Asian economies in the ascendancy – led by China – with growing energy demand; the US continuing to rank highly for both supply and demand; but on the supply side Europe and Asia’s second-tier economies falling away. Overall though, this is a growth story for gas and LNG.”
Finally, the report claims that the construction of new pipelines will add over 200 billion m3 of cross-border gas capacity by 2025, with the US and Russia retaining their positions as major piped gas exporters. Three US-Mexico projects reaching a total of 60 billion m3 are set to be completed by the end of 2019 – the biggest set of pipeline projects set be completed by 2025 globally. The world’s second largest set of pipeline projects expected to be completed by 2025 is Nord Stream 2, reaching a total of 55 billion m3 by 2020.
Dumitru Dediu, Partner at McKinsey Energy Insights, said: “In the last 12 months, a record volume of LNG projects took FID (over 60 million tpy, or 20% of today’s market), pushing the LNG supply-demand balance into the late 2020s. Looking ahead, only 1 in 10 proposed LNG projects will take FID, with over 100 LNG projects totaling 1100 million tpy of capacity competing to fill the 125 million tpy supply gap by 2035.”
According to McKinsey, the Global Gas and LNG Outlook to 2035 covers the global gas demand outlook, supply outlook and changes in cross-border capacity.
Australian oil and gas producer Woodside expects to reduce its stakes in Australia’s Scarborough gas field and Canada’s Kitimat liquefied natural gas project, which would help it reduce its capital expenditure, its chief executive told Reuters.
Woodside is Australia’s biggest independent oil and gas producer and holds a 75% stake in the Scarborough gas field and 50% in the Kitimat project.
“We just look at that and say from capital management and risk management point of view we would rather hold less equity. It also helps us fund through this next expenditure cycle if we can reduce our capital requirement,” chief executive Peter Coleman told Reuters.
Widowmaker gas bet is back on
Widowmaker gas bet is back on as U.S. traders see winter crunch. March-April spread has widened 70% over past two weeks.
@StuartLWallace
2019 was supposed to be a milestone year for U.S. LNG exports. And to a degree, it has been. Natural gas pipeline deliveries to liquefaction and export terminals have peaked above 6.5 Bcf/d in the past couple of weeks and averaged about 6 Bcf/d for that period, up nearly 2 Bcf/d from where they started this year and more than twice where they stood at this time a year ago. But the growth has come haltingly as under-construction projects have faced a number of setbacks and delays. Moreover, the longer-term, “second-wave” export projects still in the early stages of development and looking to pass “go” are facing challenges of their own, including global oversupply and collapsed margins. Today, we begin a short series providing an update on where U.S. LNG export demand and new projects stand.
We said earlier this year in Let It Flow that, with U.S. natural gas production levels near all-time highs and storage injections running strong, LNG exports were bound to be a critical balancing item for the domestic gas market this year. And that they have been, especially given the relatively mild summer weather, which has dampened gas demand growth from the U.S. power generation sector. In fact, demand from LNG exports has been the single biggest driver of demand growth this injection season to date (April through August). While power demand managed to set record highs in most months, as well as on a seasonal average basis this summer, those gains have been relatively modest, up just 0.4 Bcf/d year-on-year this injection season, and overall net U.S. consumption has grown little more than 1 Bcf/d total year-on-year for that same period. By comparison, gas pipeline deliveries to the LNG terminals for liquefaction and export have averaged 5.3 Bcf/d this injection season so far (again, April through August), up 2.1 Bcf/d (66%) year-on-year. (Exports to Mexico also are up slightly — 0.3 Bcf/d — year-on-year.)
Market expectations for LNG exports heading into 2019 were bullish, with several new liquefaction trains targeting completion in the first and second quarters, including trains at brand-new facilities. But a combination of weather-related and other construction delays, as well as hiccups during testing and commissioning, have postponed some of the export capacity that was to be online and taking feedgas consistently by now. That’s on top of the demand loss from seasonal maintenance work at Cheniere Energy’s Sabine Pass LNG, which already had five liquefaction trains regularly consuming feedgas coming into 2019.
In addition, early-development projects awaiting federal approvals and/or final investment decisions (FIDs) also have faced headwinds in recent months. As we discussed in our Catch A Wave series, these massive, multibillion-dollar projects have to jump through multiple regulatory and financial hoops before they can be greenlighted, among them Department of Energy (DOE) approval to export to free-trade-agreement (FTA) and non-FTA countries, as well as the environmental and procedural go-ahead from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to proceed with construction. These are fraught with uncertainty, particularly as to the timing of when they’ll come through — and that’s all the more true for the second-wave projects, which, unlike the first wave (conversions of existing import facilities), in many cases are sited and being developed at greenfield locations. FERC authorizations initially accelerated in 2019, with a number of projects receiving their final approvals to proceed. But progress slowed in the second quarter. FERC aims to make final decisions on projects within 90 days of issuing its environmental review, and five of the six proposed terminals that were due for a decision in the June/July timeframe are still waiting for word. (We’ll get into the breakdown of these projects in the next part of this series.)
Then there are the market factors. Before the developers can move forward, they need the financial and capacity commitments to fund the project, which can range from securing capital investment through partnerships and other arrangements, to lining up commitments for the liquefaction capacity in order to ensure high utilization of the facility once it comes online. The second-wave projects, many of the greenfield variety, are bigger in scope and more expensive to complete than the first-wave brownfield facilities. But they’re also now contending with an increasingly challenging global market. In the immediate term, price spreads to international destinations in Europe and Asia have collapsed in recent months, and concerns about worsening oversupply conditions longer term — not to mention the escalating U.S.-China trade war — have delayed the projects’ timelines for closing the deals necessary to reach FID. We’ll come back to these international market dynamics in more detail in a later blog. For today, we focus on existing capacity utilization and new capacity additions that have taken shape in 2019.
Earlier this year, we had noted that feedgas flows are likely to be volatile in 2019 as multiple new liquefaction trains undergo testing and are commissioned, and that’s played out as expected. Feedgas demand at two of the facilities — the five-train Sabine Pass LNG (blue layer in Figure 1) and Dominion’s one-train Cove Point terminal (orange layer) — has been relatively stable, save for two lengthy maintenance-related outages at Sabine Pass in late March/early April of this year and again in early August. (An extreme polar vortex weather event and pipeline outage also caused a drop in feedgas flows in early February.) Cheniere’s Corpus Christi liquefaction project (yellow layer in the graph) also progressed more or less as expected. Train 1 was approved to start full service March 1, and Train 2 achieved substantial completion last week, both pretty much on schedule — not surprising given Cheniere’s (and its contractor Bechtel’s) record of early or on-time completions for previous trains. Flows to the Corpus Christi facility have been consistently near 1.5 Bcf/d in recent weeks. But the timing of feedgas demand growth from the other new trains — at Freeport LNG (navy blue layer), Elba Liquefaction (red layer) and Cameron LNG (green layer) — has been a moving target.
Figure 1. U.S. LNG Feedgas Deliveries by Terminal. Source: RBN’s LNG Voyager
Freeport LNG
The first of three initial 5.1-MMtpa (million metric tons per annum) liquefaction trains at Freeport LNG — located at the brownfield import facility at Quintana Island near Freeport, TX (50 miles south of Houston) — was originally expected online in late 2018, with the next two trains due in 2019. That would have amounted to at least ~700 MMcf/d of incremental feedgas demand by the start of 2019, to a total of 2 Bcf/d by the end of 2019. It hasn’t quite worked out that way. The timeline slipped when Hurricane Harvey made landfall in late August 2017, and the subsequent flooding led to construction delays. By April 2018, the developer had shifted the schedule by nearly a year, pushing the target in-service date for Train 1 to September 2019, with Trains 2 and 3 due four and eight months later, respectively. And as of March 2019, the company said it expected to receive first feedgas flows in April/May — the first step towards powering up the liquefaction process — then produce first LNG in July, and begin commercial service by September. But the project hit more snags during the ramp-up process.
As Figure 2 indicates, the terminal briefly received some nominal volumes of gas for a handful of days in April and May, but it wasn’t until mid-July that consistent deliveries began. Then, on August 1, the project received federal approval to export commissioning cargoes. But as Freeport was starting up its liquefaction process, the facility experienced a gas leak from a flare bypass vent line, requiring repairs and a design change. That leak eventually led to an investigation by the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), which issued a draft safety order on August 29, citing vulnerabilities with the pipeline and weld used in the failed segment and proposing several corrective actions, including a complete inventory of similar piping used at the site. Freeport already has identified about 1,400 feet of 6-inch-diameter piping that it said may need to be replaced. Some days after that leak, a gasket rupture and refrigerant leak again disrupted the production process, pushing the possibility of a first export cargo to late August. Thus, it wasn’t until August 19 that the facility was producing LNG at a sustained level and feedgas intake rose. Then, in late August, with two tankers waiting offshore, the facility reported yet another mechanical issue that caused the main cryogenic heat exchanger to go offline.
Feedgas intake at the terminal has remained at less than half of the train’s capacity (again, ~700 MMcf/d), coming in at about 250 MMcf/d on most days in the past couple of weeks. Despite all the pitfalls, however, the facility did manage to load and ship its first Train 1 commissioning cargo — aboard the LNG Jurojin — on September 3.
Figure 2. Feedgas Flows to Freeport LNG. Source: RBN’s LNG Voyager
Freeport was targeting Train 1’s full service by the end of September, but with the recent delays and potential pipe replacement work, it’s possible that timing could slip once again. As for the two other trains, Freeport LNG in a September 3 press release reaffirmed their timing, saying that Train 2 is progressing through the pre-commissioning stage toward an in-service in January 2020, while Train 3 is nearing completion with a target in-service of May 2020.
Elba Liquefaction
The commissioning of 10 modular “mini-trains” (totaling a capacity of 2.5 MMtpa, or ~350 MMcf/d) is also under way at the brownfield Elba Island liquefaction project in Chatham County, GA. [The project is owned and operated by Kinder Morgan in partnership with EIG Global Partners (49%), and is fully subscribed by Shell.] Testing of the facility’s ancillary systems kicked off in late January 2019, and by early March, the project was approved to introduce feedgas. Kinder Morgan had expected the first of the 10 trains to be online by the end of the first quarter of 2019, with the final units to be commercialized by the end of the year.
The timing initially slipped by about a month — the developer on April 22 requested approval to bring the first unit online May 1. But the approval didn’t come at that time, and regulatory filings indicated that FERC instead put in place pre-conditions that had to be met. The developer subsequently also encountered issues with the cold box while testing Unit #1 that had to be resolved before submitting another request for approval to start the first unit. In that request, which was made on August 8, the developer requested permission to start service for the first unit by August 16. The approval has yet to come through. In the meantime, the project had begun commissioning units #2 and #3. However, activity at the site was disrupted again when Hurricane Dorian prompted a mandatory evacuation earlier last week. (The facility didn’t experience any damage and workers have since returned to continue work at the site.) After ramping up to nearly 40 MMcf/d in mid-July, feedgas flows to Elba (Figure 3) trended downward to a low point of less than 10 MMcf/d in the second half of August. Volumes briefly resumed near the 30-MMcf/d level in the interim but then tapered to zero starting last Wednesday.
Figure 3. Feedgas Flows to Elba Liquefaction. Source: RBN’s LNG Voyager
Cameron LNG
Cameron LNG in Louisiana — a partnership of Sempra LNG, Mitsui & Co., Mitsubishi Corporation, Total, and NYK Line — was expecting to bring online all three of its Phase 1 trains (4-MMtpa, or 500 MMcf/d, each) this year, with Train 1’s first LNG production and completion due sometime in the second quarter of 2019. Train 1 did in fact produce first LNG and its first commissioning cargo at the end of May, but delays pushed commercial operations into the third quarter. Final FERC authorization to begin commercial operations came July 26. With that hand, feedgas deliveries to the facility resumed August 2, and the first commercial cargo departed the plant August 5. Weather and construction delays also mean that trains 2 and 3 are now expected to come online in the first and second quarters of 2020, respectively. Sempra agreed with its contractor –– McDermott International in a joint venture with Chiyoda –– to pay incentive bonuses for completing trains 2 and 3 on time. Feedgas deliveries to the facility (Figure 4) first ramped up in earnest in April (2019) and have followed the stop-and-start pattern typical of the commissioning process, but we would expect flows to stabilize near the 600-MMcf/d level now that Train 1 is commercialized.
Figure 4. Feedgas Flows to Cameron LNG. Source: RBN’s LNG Voyager
Overall, it’s safe to say that between weather, construction and regulatory logistics, these projects have had a tough go of it. With the slower pace of capacity additions, demand growth from LNG exports has been less than expected. When we looked at the project timelines at the beginning of 2019 (see Let Me Move You, Part 4), it looked like LNG feedgas demand would exceed 9 Bcf/d by the end of the year. But with several of those trains originally expected in 2019 now pushed into 2020, exports may be hard-pressed to reach much past 7 Bcf/d by December 2019.
biofuels
Organizations Supporting Conversion of Organic Waste to Renewable Energy Launch New Educational Platform
Educational non-profit organization RNG Global Initiative and the Coalition for Renewable Natural Gas have jointly announced a new learning platform dedicated to public education of the environmental and economic benefits resulting from converting local organic waste into renewable natural gas as a clean energy solution.
The organizations made the announcement in front of 350 participants during the first day of RNG WORKS 2019, the annual two-day Technical Workshop & Trade Expo, hosted this year in Nashville, Tennessee.
Using local organic waste sources as a renewable, sustainable solution to decarbonize each of our society’s end-uses for natural gas is a common-sense, increasing global trend that we have just scratched the surface of in North America. Yet the RNG solution has an established history, using technologies proven for decades in the U.S., Canada and Europe.
Most energy users and many energy decision-makers are still building familiarity with the facts regarding the history and benefits of RNG production and use. When used to fuel vehicles, RNG has proven to have the lowest carbon lifecycle emissions of all transportation fuel options currently available in many markets.
While more than 100 North American sites have started producing renewable natural gas since the early 1980s – and more than half of those in just the past four years – greater opportunities remain. Using our potential RNG resources could annually replace seven billion gallons of diesel used in transportation, and, in the U.S. alone, could create 70,000 or more new clean energy jobs with salaries often two to three times the national median.
Europe Gazprom
Topics:
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In 2016, the EU executive raised a cap on Gazprom’s use of Opal, which carries gas from the Nord Stream pipeline that crosses the Baltic Sea to customers in Germany and the Czech Republic.Polish state-run gas firm PGNiG took legal action against that decision, which opened the way for Russian plans to expand Nord Stream’s capacity and bypass both Ukraine and Poland as a gas transit route.“The General Court annuls the Commission decision approving the modification of the exemption regime for the operation of the Opal gas pipeline,” the European Court of Justice said in a statement. “That decision was adopted in breach of the principle of energy solidarity.”Poland, which imports most of its gas from Russia, criticized the Commission’s move saying it threatened gas supplies to central and eastern Europe.“The court has agreed with our arguments,” Polish Energy Minister Krzysztof Tchorzewski told reporters on Tuesday.The Opal decision as well as Gazprom’s plan to build a Nord Stream 2 pipeline, play into fears of the Polish conservative government which sees pacts between its powerful neighbours, Germany and Russia, as an existential threat.
panorama
Bristol launches search for partner to deliver UK’s first carbon neutral city
Led by Bristol City Council and Bristol Energy, the city’s energy company, City Leap will establish a joint venture with another organisation or group of organisations to support the delivery of the UK’s first carbon neutral city by 2030.
“City Leap is a world first” said Mayor of Bristol Marvin Rees. “We are creating a decarbonised local energy system that Bristol can be proud of. City Leap is leading the way on carbon reduction, while at the same time addressing important social and economic challenges. The inclusion of Bristol Energy is integral to delivering smart energy propositions utilising City Leap’s projects by weaving a number of technologies together, helping to ensure that the company continues to deliver clean energy and social value for local people”.
Following its unveiling last year, City Leap quickly attracted interest from over 180 local, national and international organisations, including technology firms, investors, community organisations as well as innovative energy and infrastructure developers. The procurement process will now run for a number of months.
City Leap will support the Mayor’s ambitions for Bristol to be carbon neutral by 2030. Over £50 million has been invested in Bristol’s low-carbon and renewable projects since 2012, and the council has cut its own emissions by 71 percent since 2005.
Bristol Energy will have a key role in City Leap. As a formal part of the joint venture, the utility will deliver smart energy propositions, such as local tariffs and innovative services, designed to cut carbon and reduce peak energy demand.
In return, the utility will benefit from external investment, significantly reducing its reliance on council funding, while ensuring important social value continues to be delivered to local people.
Marek Majewicz, Managing Director of Bristol Energy, added that City Leap will help us deliver a sustainable energy company with social value at its heart. From community heat networks, to energy innovation in social housing, the substantial investment from the partnership will enable everyone in Bristol to benefit from low carbon, renewable energy projects. Mr Majewicz also said that Bristol Energy is already working on a wide range of innovative projects and that the company is looking forward to harnessing low-carbon technologies for the good of the city and its customers.
For additional information:
Bristol City Council Energy Service
Russia’s gas giant Gazprom is raising its borrowing target for this year 2.4 times to US$11.1 billion (725 billion Russian rubles), a source familiar with the plan told Russia’s news agency Interfax.
Gazprom is currently reviewing its budget after the end of the first half of the year and has decided to raise the borrowing target from US$4.56 billion (298 billion rubles) to US$11.1 billion (725 billion Russian rubles), the source said.
Gazprom has said that it is moving to a policy to refinance debt with new borrowings.
Last year, the Russian gas giant—which holds more than a third of the gas market in Europe—raised its borrowing program after reviewing it halfway through the year to US$11.3 billion (740 billion rubles) from the initially planned borrowings worth US$6.4 billion (417 billion rubles).
Despite the significant increase in the borrowing program for 2019, Gazprom’s investment program stays practically unchanged after the budget review, according to Interfax.
Gazprom’s financial results for the second quarter of 2019 showed at the end of August that as of Q2, the company’s total debt maturity profile consisted of 13 percent of debt maturing in less than a year, 18 percent of its debt is due within one to two years, 44 percent of Gazprom’s debt matures in two to five years, and 25 percent of its debt has maturity dates more than five years from now.
Meanwhile, Maros Sefcovic, the European Commission Vice President in charge of the Energy Union, said on Monday that he would host on September 19 the trilateral EU-Russia-Ukraine talks on the gas transit agreement for Russia shipping gas through Ukraine onto Europe.
“I am convinced that progress would send a strong positive signal to market as well as consumers ahead of the winter season,” Sefcovic said on Twitter.
The current ten-year gas transit agreement between Russia and Ukraine expires at the end of this year. Russia has been building pipelines to Europe and Turkey that bypass Ukraine—TurkStream and Nord Stream 2. Ukraine, for its part, is a key transit country for Russian gas westwards to Europe and relies on the gas transit fees.
The talks between Ukraine and Gazprom on the gas transit to Europe have been complicated by the tense relationship between Ukraine and Russia. As the deadline to striking a new transit deal approaches, Ukraine has been filling up gas storage to higher than usual levels in case supplies from Russia were interrupted.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
At a dusty drilling site east of San Antonio, shale producer EOG Resources Inc recently completed its latest well using a new technology developed by a small services firm that promises to slash the cost of each by $200,000.
The technology, called electric fracking and powered by natural gas from EOG’s own wells instead of costly diesel fuel, shows how shale producers keep finding new ways to cut costs in the face of pressures to improve their returns.
E-frac, as the new technology is called, is being adopted by EOG, Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Exxon Mobil Corp and others because of its potential to lower costs, reduce air pollution and operate much quieter than conventional diesel-powered frac fleets. Investment bank Tudor, Pickering Holt & Co analyst George O’Leary estimates e-fracs could lop off up to $350,000 from the cost of shale wells that run $6 million to $8 million apiece.
But these systems can cost oilfield service companies up to twice as much to build compared to conventional frac fleets. A rapid uptake could worsen the economics for a sector already cutting staff and idling equipment as oil producers pare their spending. That leaves this potentially breakthrough technology to small providers without the means to fully exploit it.
ONE-SIDED SAVINGS Jeff Miller, chief executive of Halliburton Co, the top U.S. provider of fracking services, said his firm has tested the technology but has no desire to promote it.
“Halliburton will be really slow around frac,” Miller said, referring to the costs of updating diesel systems to electric. Converting the industry’s 500 frac fleets would cost $30 billion, he estimated, too steep a price for oilfield firms, he said.
He recently advised an oil producer interested in the technology that the benefits of deploying e-fracs “work for you, they don’t work for us,” he said at Barclays energy conference this month.
Halliburton, Schlumberger NV and others have idled scores of diesel-powered fleets this year as producers cut spending due to flat to lower oil and gas prices. Consultancy Primary Vision estimates the number of active fleets in the U.S. fell 19% since April to around 390.
Halliburton cut 8% of its North American workforce and reported second-quarter profit fell 85% over the year-ago period in part because of equipment writedowns and severance costs due to weak demand for its frac service.
“Every week that goes by I get more and more negative about e-frac due to the harsh imbalance between the benefits achieved by the oil company and the costs incurred by the service company,” said Richard Spears, a consultant to top oilfield services suppliers.
Schlumberger paid $430 million in late 2017 to acquire a diesel-powered frac fleet from rival Weatherford International, hoping to expand shale services. A spokesperson declined to comment on e-frac.
This month newly-named CEO Olivier Le Peuch disclosed plans to write down investments that were “based on a much higher activity outlook with the ambition of achieving economies of scale.”
“HARD TO JUSTIFY”
E-frac supplier Evolution Well Services, which supplied the equipment and crew for EOG’s Eagle Ford shale operation, is one of a handful of smaller oilfield firms pioneering the systems.
Evolution operates six e-frac fleets - mobile collections of high-pressure pumps powered by gas turbine generators - and plans to roll out a seventh next year. U.S. Well Services, another e-frac provider, has agreements with Apache Corp and Shell. Conventional pressure pumper ProPetro Holding Corp also announced plans to bring a handful of e-frac fleets to the market.
“We’d kind of would like to” build more systems without firm customer contracts, said Ben Bodishbaugh, CEO of Evolution, the only purely e-frac provider in North America. “But in this market it’s hard to justify,” he said.
The reason: e-frac fleets can cost up to $60 million apiece because they rely on pricey gas turbines similar to those that run utilities to generate electricity, compared with as little as $30 million for a diesel-motor powered fleet. Evolution would not say how much its fleets cost, but noted it is below $60 million.
“It’s a bad time for service companies to be ramping up very capital intensive service offerings,” said Josh Young, chief investment officer with energy investor Bison Interests. “People always feel pressure to invest in the next new things, but sometimes you shouldn’t be investing in any of the things.”
Companies like Evolution and U.S. Well Services that already have e-frac fleets would be winners if the technology takes off, analysts from investment banker Tudor Pickering Holt & Co predict. E-frac accounts for about 3% of active fleets, and could reach between 25% and 33% in the next five years, Tudor estimated.
EOG began testing Evolution’s gear in late 2016, and signed a multi-year agreement about six months later. The shale company, well known for its use of cutting edge technology, runs four of Evolution’s fleets and plans to add a fifth next year.
The agreement with Evolution “is an example of how we continue to find innovative solutions to both reduce our environmental footprint and improve the profitability of our business,” said Billy Helms, EOG’s chief operating officer. EOG is among the handful of top shale producers that generate more cash than they consume in drilling and shareholder dividends.
NO SOOT, LESS NOISE
At its Smiley, Texas, oil and gas well site, EOG’s crew carried on casual conversations despite the whir of e-frac pumps. No one wears ear protection, which is common at conventional diesel fleets, and the towering white silos holding frac sand were gleaming during a visit in August. At a conventional frac site just up the road, the towers were black from diesel exhaust.
Evolution’s Bodishbaugh said some oil and gas firms see less polluting e-frac as improving their standing with investors who rate environmental, social and governance (ESG) attributes in their investments.
“I’d say this year we’ve probably had more inbounds calls on the emissions profile than the economic savings,” he said.
Paul Mecray III, a managing director for investment firm Tower Bridge Advisors who follows major service companies, said e-frac will only catch on if overall demand for oilfield services recovers.
“While it may be a good thing longer term, I think it will take a lot longer to catch on than people think,” he said.
The European Commission has approved state support for six offshore wind farms in France.
The projects are the 450MW Courseulles, 498MW Fecamp, 480MW Saint-Nazaire and 496MW each Noirmoutier, Le Treport and Saint-Brieuc wind farms.
The commission found support to be in line with EU state aid rules, with the developments in line with EU energy and climate goals without unduly distorting competition in the single market.
Support will come in the form of feed-in tariffs over of 20 years.
Construction of the first of the projects is due to start this year and they should be operational by 2022, the commission said.
Earlier this week, the Court of State – the highest court of appeal in France – rejected appeals taken by environmental organisations against Courseulles and Fecamp, paving the way for construction.
Eyeing the huge solar potential in Himachal Pradesh, the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), New Delhi-based research and advocacy body, has launched a special initiative, ‘Solar in Schools’ in Shimla in partnership with the Himachal Pradesh Council for Science, Technology and Environment (HIMCOSTE).
The initiative was launched here on Friday at a workshop to sensitize teachers about the use of renewable energy.
According to Ranjita Menon, programme director of CSE’s Environment Education Unit, “ Solar in Schools would aim to bring about a change in the way energy is consumed in schools. More importantly, it would try to enhance the understanding of energy management amongst students and the need to transition to cleaner energy alternatives with lower environmental impacts.”
The initiative is being piloted through CSE’s Green Schools Programme (GSP) which has been working closely with HIMCOSTE since 2012 to promote ecological literacy in schools.
“Schools depend on conventional sources to meet their energy requirements, but a shift to renewable energy will go a long way in providing both environmental and economic benefits,” said Menon.
Some schools that are part of the GSP network have adopted alternate sources of energy such as solar roof top (SRT) systems or using bio-pellets in place of LPG, but these are few and far between.
The GSP 2018 environmental audit of 1,700 schools revealed that only 13 per cent of schools operate on solar energy.
In Himachal Pradesh, of the 114 schools that participated in the GSP Audit 2018, only 16 claimed to have installed solar energy systems. Many of the schools were burning biomass or wood (mainly for cooking mid-day meals).
According to CSE researchers, Himachal Pradesh has huge solar potential, though estimations vary widely.
Himachal Pradesh is also one of the 11 special category states that can claim 70 per cent of the project cost as Central Financial Assistance under the National Solar Mission, making it viable for schools.
Solar in Schools will be piloted first in Shimla, and will be rolled out in phases.
The participating schools will submit an energy audit of their schools to identify the sources of energy used. For schools where solar panels have already been installed effort will be made to enhance the students’ understanding of the value of the solar installations.
“The Shimla pilot is a step towards addressing the existing gaps and the learnings from the pilot will help develop a model renewable energy awareness campaign among schools, with the potential to upscale at a national level,” said Menon.
The initiative will also provide a unique educational opportunity for students to learn about technologies that have ecological benefits, added Menon.
Are you intimidated by the cost and complexity of installing solar power on your truck, van, or camper? I know I was, but with a little help from my friends at Go Fast Campers, I think I’ve figured out a solution that’s surprisingly cheap, extremely effective, and easy to install.
Why Solar?
Your vehicle provides power while it’s running. Most new vehicles give you both 12-volt DC and 110-volt AC outlets, which means you can easily recharge your gadgets or run accessories, like off-road lights, an air compressor, and even a fridge, without any hassle beyond bolting those things to your rig. But all that changes once you switch your vehicle off.
In the past, the solution to power when your car was off was a dual-battery setup, in which a vehicle’s electrical functions were split into a complicated mess that was both expensive and a hassle to install. Plus, modifying the extremely complex electrical systems of modern vehicles invariably creates additional points of potential failure. By decreasing the reliability and serviceability of your rig, such setups actually compromised a vehicle’s ability to facilitate adventure.
In recent years, innovations like LED lighting, lithium-ion batteries, and battery monitors incorporated into refrigerators have also reduced the loads placed on your vehicle’s battery during engine-off operation, and they’ve increased the potential capacity of that battery, further reducing the need for one of those dual-battery situations.
But one important use case for engine-off power remains: long-term operation of a fridge-freezer, a luxury that’s become increasingly important for my vehicle-based camping trips. Not only does it allow me to take nice food off-grid for longer periods but also bring along the raw meat that I feed my three large dogs daily and keep anything I catch during my hunting and fishing trips as fresh as possible. I installed this solar-power setup specifically to enable a very large fridge-freezer to keep ice frozen indefinitely.
Which Vehicles Will This Work On?
Technically, anything. But you’re going to need to be able to mount a solar panel or two to the roof in a semipermanent fashion and drill a hole in said roof so you can pass cables through it. For that reason, something like a pickup-bed topper, camper, or trailer is probably a better candidate than a Subaru.
I’ve mounted my solar system to the Go Fast Camper in the back of my 2019 Ford Ranger. Being able to install this setup so easily, without compromising my bed’s load space or the carrying capacity of the camper’s roof, is one of the reasons I think a Go Fast Camper mounted in the bed of a midsize pickup creates the ultimate practical adventuremobile.
The Parts You’ll Need
Because my goal is to keep both 35-liter compartments on my fridge-freezer continuously frozen at zero degrees, I went with two 100-watt solar panels. If you’re just trying to bring ice cream and cold beer on a camping trip, or using a smaller fridge, you’ll find that just one of those panels is adequate for your needs.
I’m using cheap Renogy panels from Amazon. At just $113 apiece, they’re extremely affordable, while a predrilled aluminum frame makes them lightweight and easy to mount. Renogy claims they’re designed to last through decades of outdoor use, but even if that doesn’t end up being the case, and even if their actual output is closer to 75 watts, that’s still great value.
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You’ll need to connect those panels to your power cable, and this pair of Y-branch parallel adaptors will get the job done, while offering IP67-level waterproofness, all for a grand total of $8.
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Those adaptors connect the power cable to this BougeRV10AWG extension cable, to carry power down to your bed. It’s also IP67-rated, offers way more power than the panels are capable of producing, and costs $30 for 20 feet. That’s longer than you’ll need, which allows you to route the cable out of the way, along your vehicle’s interior contours.
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Drill a hole in your roof to pass those cables through, and cap that hole with a waterproof housing. This little $18 cover provides waterproof housings for two cables and mounts with 3M sticky pads that I backed up with a continuous bead of silicone.
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Finally, you’ll want to attach a DC connector, so you can plug those cables into whatever power-management device you chose to run. This one’s $12.
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You’ll also need some way in which to mount the panels to your roof (I used Go Fast Campers’ new Beef Rack crossbars) and a few odds and ends from the hardware store, like straps and bolts. Everyone’s solution here will differ, but it won’t be hard to figure out.
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What Do You Do with That Power?
Of course, creating a flow of power into your truck bed is only half the solution. You’ll also want to capture, retain, and distribute that power. Traditionally, that’s required a charge controller, batteries, and an inverter to transform DC to AC power. All three components have not only been expensive, but they also haven’t played nicely with each other, leading to limitations with both reliability and practicality.
Fortunately, Dometic has solved those issues with its new PLB40 portable battery ($850). The PLB40 integrates a charge controller with a battery specifically tailored to the unique power needs of portable fridge-freezers, and it supports flow-through charging, meaning it can recharge itself while also providing power to devices. In short, all I need to do to permanently run my Dometic CFX75DZW is plug the solar panels into battery, then connect that to the fridge. It’s that simple.
Dometic chose to omit a power inverter from the PLB40 to save size and weight, but it can still run a separate inverter (like the kind you’d plug into your car’s cigarette lighter) if you need to power AC gadgets like a laptop. It also built the PLB40’s battery cells from lithium-ion phosphate rather than the typical lithium-ion chemistry, to better enable them to handle the significant power needs of a fridge-freezer. Where a big unit like my 70-liter fridge will quickly trigger low-voltage warnings and turn itself off if I try to run it on a lithium-ion battery, the PLB40 will continue to power that fridge down to an indicated 0 percent charge, even while protecting itself from extreme temperatures, low voltage, and other harmful conditions.
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Real-World Testing
Just like coolers, fridge-freezers have to work hardest when they’re empty. So I hooked all this up in the back of my Ranger and set both empty compartments of the CFX75DZW to 0 degrees. Then I proceeded to use my truck normally around town for a solid week in August. I made no effort to park in direct sunlight; I just kept parking overnight in my driveway, which is shaded for half the day, and running my usual errands. The battery would typically charge to over 90 percent capacity while running that freezer in its hardest-possible-duty cycle, then discharge to around 10 percent overnight—not a huge margin for error, but it worked. Whether the freezer is loaded up with ice or I’m parked all day in an empty sagebrush expanse, all this should have no trouble running continuously throughout multi-day hunting trips, allowing me to return to the truck with both fresh meat and still frozen ice.
More often this simply means that I never have to worry about connecting the fridge to my vehicle’s power supply. I haven’t had to splice into any of the truck’s electric cables, I don’t have to worry about waking up in the morning to a dead vehicle battery, and I’ll always have a cold beer ready at the end of a hard day. Plus, the fridge and battery disconnect and can be removed easily, so I’m free to use my truck bed as a truck bed whenever I need to—no hard-mounted battery compartment gets in the way. I’ve obtained a significant added luxury without sacrificing any of my stock truck’s reliability, and at a cost that would have been unbelievable just a handful of years ago.
Next week I’m taking my setup elk hunting. I’ll be away from the truck and in the backcountry for seven days. I plan to pack the fridge-freezer full of ice the night before I leave, and if I’m able to get back to the truck with several hundred pounds of fresh meat, I’ll be able to load everything into my gigantic 220-liter Yeti, complete with rock-solid ice for the daylong drive home.
In March, my fiancée and I are driving down to southern Baja to get married, camping along the way there and back for our honeymoon. We’ll be able to enjoy plenty of fresh food and cold drinks and feed our dogs raw meat the whole way, all without compromising the reliability of our truck as we pass through some seriously remote areas.
Is such a ridiculous amount of off-grid refrigeration a luxury? Absolutely. Does it add to our ability to enjoy the outdoors? Ask us that when we’re roasting a fresh elk backstrap over a fire, while watching a sunset from our very own private beach in Mexico.
Indiana sees surge in wind power despite lack of standards
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Indiana has experienced a surge in wind farm construction during the past decade that's given the state the nation's 12th-highest number of wind turbines.
But some renewable energy advocates say Indiana risks being outpaced by other states unless it does more to encourage commercial wind power, the Indianapolis Business Journal reported.
Since 2008, developers have installed more than 1,000 wind turbines across Indiana, primarily on 16 large wind farms that produce 2,317 megawatts of electricity — enough to power more than 1 million homes.
Another 1,130 megawatts of new wind capacity are under construction or in advanced development across the state, from modest projects to major wind farms.
That's caught the eye of the American Wind Energy Association, which represents wind-power project developers and equipment suppliers. The Washington, D.C.-based trade association said in August that it would host its 2021 CleanPower conference and trade show in Indianapolis, based on the "immense potential Indiana has to be among the leading states for wind energy."
But renewable energy advocate say Indiana needs clear, uniform rules on locating wind farms to attract more investments.
Indiana also has no renewable-energy standard. Such standards already in place in 29 other states require that a certain percentage of the electricity that utilities sell comes from renewable resources.
Indiana's lack of a renewable-energy standard shows that the state "could be a little bit more progressive" in encouraging the development of clean energy sources, said Ben Inskeep, senior energy policy analyst in Indianapolis with EQ Research, a North Carolina-based clean-energy consulting firm.
Adopting a standard would create a guaranteed market for renewable-energy companies, said Kerwin Olson, executive director of Citizens Action Coalition of Indiana.
"It's time for Indiana to step it up and put policies in place which encourage the development of renewable-energy projects, or we will continue to lose big to states like Iowa and Texas, which recognize the enormous economic benefits that wind can provide," he said.
A decade ago, Indiana had almost no commercial wind power beyond a few small windmills that pumped water on farms. But the wind industry has boomed since then, driven largely by falling costs and rising demand by large customers and utilities for renewable energy.
Indiana ranks 12th among states for wind power, owing in part to its flat terrain that leads to higher wind speeds, especially across northern Indiana, according to the American Wind Energy Association.
Wind power accounts for 5% of Indiana's electricity, while coal generates 70% of Indiana's power.
Coal power generation has fallen as utilities replace coal-burning power plants with cleaner or cheaper energy sources, such as natural gas, solar and wind, but Indiana is still the nation's second-largest state in coal consumption.
Some of Indiana's biggest advocates of wind power are electric utilities. Last year, Northern Indiana Public Service Co. said it would retire four of its five remaining coal-fired electric burning units within five years and the other within a decade. The Merrillville-based utility plans to generate 65% of its power from wind, solar and other renewables by 2028.
But a growing number of Indiana communities have restricted wind farms, saying they are too large and intrusive. In May, northwestern Indiana's Tippecanoe County banned wind turbines taller than 140 feet (42 meters) — in effect rejecting commercial turbines that often tower 300 feet (91 meters) to 600 feet (282 meters) high, after some residents complained about potential harm to property values.
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Information from: Indianapolis Business Journal, http://www.ibj.com
China’s new installations of solar power are expected to slow considerably this year and over the next five years as the industry comes to terms with a new subsidy-free era, the chief executive of a leading domestic solar manufacturer told Reuters.
“I think from now until 2025 we are probably looking at 20-25 gigawatts (GW) per year,” Eric Luo of GCL System Integration Technology (GCL) said on the sidelines of the Fortune Sustainability forum in the southwest province of Yunnan. “It is purely market driven.”
China’s new solar installations hit a record 53 GW in 2017, but slowed to 41 GW in 2018 after the government announced a massive scaling-back of subsidies in order to ease pressures on the transmission system and reduce a subsidy payment backlog estimated at more than 100 billion yuan ($14 billion).
New additions hit 11.4 GW in the first half of this year, and Luo said it was highly unlikely that would increase in the second half.
Most new installations in 2019 have been unsubsidised, and that was now the industry norm, he said.
Falling domestic installations have raised fears of overcapacity among solar equipment manufacturers, with volumes still rising, but Luo said the additional production could be absorbed by a 25% annual increase in overseas demand.
He estimated global demand for solar equipment would reach 115-120 gigawatts this year, including around 25 GW of domestic Chinese demand. That compares with around 80 GW two years ago.
GCL and others are taking advantage of a global boom that could bring the share of renewables in the world’s total generation capacity to 80% by 2050, according to Norwegian energy firm Statkraft.
The transformation will be driven by the shift to new energy vehicles, the spread of power transmission systems in China and elsewhere and further declines in manufacturing and installation costs, the company said in a report released on Friday.
While China, the world’s biggest energy consumer, is still building new coal-fired power stations, these concentrate emissions and allow for controls to be implemented, compared with, for example, families directly burning coal for heating, Statkraft chief executive, Christian Rynning-Tonnesen told Reuters.
They also pave the way for a switch to renewables at a later date.
GCL’s Luo said lower solar costs made solar a more feasible proposition, especially in undeveloped countries.
“There is no economic feasibility to install coal or natural gas power plants. There is a resource shortage and no one wants to invest in traditional energy,” he said.
Larger Noida, Uttar Pradesh:
Union Minister for Surroundings, Forest and Local weather Change, Prakash Javadekar this morning stated that India has already achieved half of its renewable power manufacturing goal.
The federal government plans to attain 175GW of renewable power capability by 2022 as a part of its local weather commitments. Reportedly, India presently has an put in renewable power capability of round 80 gigawatts.
Mr Javadekar was addressing the 14th Convention of Events (COP14) to United Nations Conference to Fight Desertification (UNCCD) in Larger Noida.
“The world did not believe it when we announced our renewable energy target of 175 GW, which will be 40 per cent of our total energy capacity. However, we have already achieved half of our target,” he stated.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Prime Minister of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Ralph Gonsalves had been additionally current on the occasion.
“We are party to the Paris Agreement. The commitment of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, towards sustainable development, is full and complete. He also played a leading road at the Paris summit,” Mr Javadekar stated.
He stated that the Modi authorities has additionally levied a tax on coal manufacturing, promoted e-vehicles by providing varied tax concessions and arrange a brand new ministry to sort out the water shortage within the nation.
“We will come out with an ambitious and appropriate Delhi Declaration tomorrow, which will ensure speedy restoration for degraded land for sustainable growth,” Mr Javadekar stated.
He added that delegation from round 200 international locations has participated within the occasion.
UNCCD was adopted in Paris on June 17, 1994, and was ratified by 196 international locations and the European Union. India had ratified the UNCCD Conference in 1996.
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The second phase of Formosa 1 will comprise 20 Siemens Gamesa 6MW offshore wind turbines. 10 of these have now been installed, and six of them have started gradually generating power.
When the first of the new wind turbines started generating clean renewable energy, it set a new milestone for Taiwan's offshore wind industry and marked the first step towards achieving the Taiwanese government's ambitions of installing 5.7GW offshore wind by 2025.
Wind turbine commissioning is the last stage before the completion of an offshore wind farm. Before commercial operation, each wind turbine needs to go through a power generation test lasting between 10 to 14 days to complete the commissioning stage. The 20 wind turbines for the second phase of Formosa 1 are expected to be fully operational within the next two months.
Matthias Bausenwein, Formosa 1 Chairman and President of Ørsted Asia-Pacific, says: 'First power from the second phase of Formosa 1 is a major milestone for the project before completion. An achievement by the Formosa 1 team and all our supply chain partners. Together with our joint venture partners, JERA, Macquarie Capital and Swancor, we'll keep devoting our efforts to building Taiwan's first offshore wind farm on time and within budget. Formosa 1 is committed to producing significant amounts of clean energy and contribute to Taiwan's energy transition.'
The Formosa 1 offshore wind farm includes two phases: two 4MW wind turbines were installed in October 2016 for the first phase and officially entered commercial operation in April 2017. The second phase involves the installation of 20 6MW wind turbines. Formosa 1 is located approximately 2-6km off the coast of Miaoli County. The total power generation capacity for Formosa 1 is 128MW, enabling it to supply 128,000 Taiwanese households with clean renewable energy.
The Formosa 1 offshore wind farm is owned by Ørsted (35%), JERA (32.5%), Macquarie Capital (25%), and Swancor Renewable Energy (7.5%).
NYSE- and TSX-listed Barrick Gold has sold its interest in copper and gold explorer Royal Road Minerals for gross proceeds of C$4.29-million.
The major sold its 22 576 161 shares, or 10.7% interest, in a pre-arranged trade executed through the TSX-V at C$0.19 a share.
As a result of the disposition, Barrick does not have beneficial ownership of, or control or direction over, any ordinary shares of the South America-focused exploration company.
Meanwhile, Royal Road on Tuesday provided an exploration update for its Guintar-Niverengo-Margaritas (GNM) gold project in Colombia.
The GNM title and title application areas were acquired through the company’s recently completed purchase of Northern Colombia Holdings, an affiliate of South Africa-headquartered major AngloGold Ashanti.
The GNM project area comprises two title areas (Guintar and Niverengo) and one title application area (Margaritas), totalling about 3 280 ha in the Middle Cauca belt.
The Guintar area is an artisanal mining district with more than 50 known historic underground adits developed on steeply dipping east-west oriented gold mineralised vein structures.
AngloGold started work on the project area in 2015 and completed two scout drilling campaigns for a total of 5 662 m on the Guintar and Niverengo titles.
Royal Road has completed an initial reconnaissance review of the GNM area and of drill core from Guintar and Niverengo.
“We are excited by the potential in the GNM area and have commenced a programme of re-logging and re-interpretation of geology and geophysics with a plan to commence follow-up drilling in the fourth quarter of this year,” commented Royal Road president and CEO Tim Coughlin in a statement.
More people have access to electricity than ever before, but the world is falling short of its sustainable energy goals
Despite significant progress in recent years, the world is falling short of meeting the global energy targets set in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) for 2030. Ensuring affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all by 2030 remains possible but will require more sustained efforts, particularly to reach some of the world’s poorest populations and to improve energy sustainability, according to a new report produced by the International Energy Agency (IEA), the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD), the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO).
Notable progress has been made on energy access in recent years, with the number of people living without electricity dropping to roughly 840 million from 1 billion in 2016 and 1.2 billion in 2010. India, Bangladesh, Kenya and Myanmar are among countries that made the most progress since 2010. However, without more sustained and stepped-up actions, 650 million people will still be left without access to electricity in 2030. Nine out of 10 of them will be living in sub-Saharan Africa.
Tracking SDG7: The Energy Progress Report also shows that great efforts have been made to deploy renewable energy technology for electricity generation and to improve energy efficiency across the world. Nonetheless, access to clean cooking solutions and the use of renewable energy in heat generation and transport are still lagging far behind the goals. Maintaining and extending the pace of progress in all regions and sectors will require stronger political commitment, long-term energy planning, increased private financing and adequate policy and fiscal incentives to spur faster deployment of new technologies.
The report tracks global, regional and country progress on the three targets of SDG7: access to energy and clean cooking, renewable energy and energy efficiency. It identifies priorities for action and best practices that have proven successful in helping policymakers and development partners understand what is needed to overcome challenges.
Here are the key highlights for each target. Findings are based on official national-level data and measure global progress through 2017.
Access to electricity: Following a decade of steady progress, the global electrification rate reached 89 percent and 153 million people gained access to electricity each year. However, the biggest challenge remains in the most remote areas globally and in sub-Saharan Africa where 573 million people still live in the dark. To connect the poorest and hardest to reach households, off-grid solutions, including solar lighting, solar home systems, and increasingly mini grids, will be crucial. Globally, at least 34 million people in 2017 gained access to basic electricity services through off-grid technologies. The report also reinforces the importance of reliability and affordability for sustainable energy access.
Clean cooking: Almost three billion people remain without access to clean cooking in 2017, residing mainly in Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. This lack of clean cooking access continues to pose serious health and socioeconomic concerns. Under current and planned policies, the number of people without access would be 2.2 billion in 2030, with significant impact on health, environment, and gender equality.
Renewables accounted for 17.5% of global total energy consumption in 2016 versus 16.6% in 2010. Renewables have been increasing rapidly in electricity generation but have made less headway into energy consumption for heat and transport. A substantial further increase of renewable energy is needed for energy systems to become affordable, reliable and sustainable, focusing on modern uses. As renewables become mainstream, policies need to cover the integration of renewables into the broader energy system and take into account the socio-economic impacts affecting the sustainability and pace of the transition.
Energy efficiency improvements have been more sustained in recent years, thanks to concerted policy efforts in large economies. However, the global rate of primary energy intensity improvement still lags behind, and estimates suggest there has been a significant slowdown in 2017 and 2018. Strengthening mandatory energy efficiency policies, providing targeted fiscal or financial incentives, leveraging market-based mechanisms, and providing high-quality information about energy efficiency will be central to meet the goal.
“We need to do more to put the world on track to meet all SDG7 targets. I am particularly concerned by the dramatic lack of access to reliable, modern and sustainable energy in certain parts of the world, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, a region where we need to really concentrate our efforts. The IEA will continue to cooperate with countries and organizations to make sure that successful solutions are efficiently deployed so that the sustainable energy revolution leaves no one behind.”
- Dr Fatih Birol, Executive Director, International Energy Agency
“The progress we have seen over the last few years is encouraging- the number of people without access to electricity has dropped to 840 million- but we still have a great deal of work to do as much of this population lives in the poorest countries and most remote locations. Over the last five years the World Bank has committed $5 billion to access programs, whether it is on- or off-grid, and we will continue to scale up. The successes in several countries in Africa and Asia show the way. This report demonstrates the importance of sound planning, integrating grid and off-grid approaches, a focus on affordability and reliability, and addressing gender inequalities.”
- Riccardo Puliti, Senior Director for Energy and Extractives at the World Bank
“Renewable energy and energy efficiency are key to sustainable development, enabling energy access, spurring economic growth, creating employment and improving health. We can extend the energy transition to all countries and ensure that the benefits reach the most vulnerable communities. IRENA will strengthen engagement with our Membership and key partners to facilitate on-the-ground solutions to build a sustainable energy future for the benefits of all humankind.”
- Francesco La Camera, Director-General of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA)
“This report shows the progress achieved so far on SDG7 using comprehensive data compiled by the five collaborating international agencies. Despite the advancements towards Goal 7, progress is insufficient to meet the 2030 Agenda’s energy-related goals and targets. This is especially true for developing countries, least developed countries, landlocked developing countries, and small island developing States. Moreover, gaps in official statistics abound for these countries, and they need investments in energy statistical systems to obtain better data to inform policy accurately and drive sustainable development.”
- Stefan Schweinfest, Director, United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD)
“Around 3 billion people lack access to clean cooking solutions and the progress is too slow to achieve the universal access goal, by 2030. This poses a big threat to health and exacerbates inequality, especially towards women and children. Targeted actions should be taken to prevent some 4 million deaths per year particularly from pneumonia, heart disease, stroke, lung disease and cancer, attributed to household air pollution. Although challenging, fast progress can be achieved through political and financial commitment towards expanding access to reliable and affordable supply of clean cooking solution.”
- Dr Maria Neira, Director, Department of Public Health, Environmental and Social Determinants of Health World Health Organization (WHO)
It is the fourth edition of this report, formerly known as the Global Tracking Framework (GTF). This year’s edition was chaired by the International Energy Agency.
The report can be downloaded at http://trackingSDG7.esmap.org/ Funding for the report was provided by the World Bank’s Energy Sector Management Assistance Program (ESMAP).
Source: Xinhua| 2019-09-11 22:53:46|Editor: huaxia
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A man walks alongside a bus during the presentation of the Chinese-made electric buses in city of Cali, Columbia, September 10, 2019. (Xinhua/Jhon Paz)
A ceremony to inaugurate the 26 electric and 21 gas-powered buses drew officials from the government and mass transit system, including Cali Mayor Maurice Armitage, who hailed the event as "a step in the right direction" for sustainable urban development in Cali.
CALI, Colombia, Sept. 11 (Xinhua) -- A fleet of Chinese-made electric and gas-powered buses Tuesday joined the mass transit system in Cali, the third largest city in Colombia.
A ceremony to inaugurate the 26 electric and 21 gas-powered buses drew officials from the government and mass transit system, including Cali Mayor Maurice Armitage, who hailed the event as "a step in the right direction" for sustainable urban development in Cali.
"While Cali does not have the degree of pollution that cities like Medellin and Bogota have, purchasing these vehicles is the first step towards establishing an ecological city and preventing (environmental) deterioration," said Armitage.
The city plans to introduce more electric buses in the near future, he added.
"These first 26 electric buses are the pride of Cali. Another 110 buses will arrive in a month and a half, and we will seek to close the bidding on another 300 buses by the end of the year," said Armitage.
Eduardo Bellini, manager of "Blanco y Negro Masivo" (Black and White Mass Transit), a private transportation operator that works for the city's mass transit system, said the new vehicles his company bought from Chinese firm Sunwin are designed with features to improve riding experience.
"These are very comfortable zero-pollution buses that are easy to access for passengers, with low, comfortable platforms and air-conditioning," said Bellini.
"In fact, the only noise you can hear inside the vehicle is the sound of air-conditioning. Its engine is completely silent," said Bellini.
The buses also feature seats with USB ports and energy-saving LED lighting. Passengers can charge their mobiles and other gadgets while commuting.
"The Chinese have been driving the evolution of this technology. They are the developers of this technology on a large scale," said Bellini.
Also present at the event were representatives of Sunwin, including engineer Zhao Qingzhen, who said each bus is designed to be safe and inclusive, taking into account local conditions and needs.
"The vehicle has a sophisticated surveillance system (and) boarding and de-boarding platforms for the disabled," said Zhao.
"It is designed especially for the conditions of Cali. It is modern and adapts well to local culture," added Zhao.
Cali resident Zaira Munosca said she supported the city's decision to introduce the Chinese-made electric buses.
"It contributes to the environment ... by doing away with fossil fuels. I'm very happy to see these electric buses being used," said Munosca. ■
Chinese lithium miner Tianqi, one of the world’s top producers of the white metal, has shelved plans to complete a A$300 million ($205m) second phase expansion at the world’s largest lithium hydroxide plant as an oversupply of the commodity continues to drive down prices.
The company, which officially opened up the first stage of its Kwinana plant on Tuesday, said the decision was made to focus on completing the facility’s initial phase rather than as a response to market conditions.
“We just had so many people on site and so much construction activity happening that we really wanted to just focus on getting stage one complete (…) That happened at the same time as the market has softened a little,” Tianqi Australia’s general manager, Phil Thick, said.
THE CHINESE MINER HAS FROZEN WORK ON A PARTIALLY-BUILT ITS A$300 MILLION ($205M) SECOND STAGE OF THE KWINANA PLANT TO FOCUS ON COMMISSIONING AND COMPLETING STAGE ONE BY THE END OF OCTOBER.
At full production, Kwinana is expected to produce 48,000 tonnes of battery-grade lithium hydroxide a year, treating spodumene concentrate coming from Tianqi’s half-owned Greenbushes mine, south-east of Perth.
The facility is a major step for Western Australia which has struggled to attract and develop secondary processing opportunities for the billions of dollars of minerals mined across the state.
Lithium, one of the key ingredient for batteries that power electric vehicles (EVs) and high tech devices, was Western Australia’s sixth largest mine production in 2018.
News of the delay comes after Tianqi and Albemarle Corp (NYSE: ALB), the world’s No. 1 lithium miner, last month postponed a planned expansion of their Greenbushes lithium project.
The US-based lithium giant also revised a deal to buy into Australia’s Mineral Resources’ (ASX: MIN) Wodgina lithium mine and said it would delay building 75,000 tonnes of processing capacity at Kemerton, also in Australia.
Chile’s Chemical and Mining Society (SQM), the world’s second largest lithium producer, has also shown the impact of weak prices. Last month, it posted a 47.5% drop in profit to $70.2 million during the second quarter of this year, from $133.9 million in 2018.
Prices for lithium carbonate, the most common type used in EV batteries, doubled over 2016 and 2017. Since then, they have fallen by more than 40% over the past year, to around $9.25 per kg at the end of July.
The sharp drop has been driven by an “avalanche” of new supply and China’s changes to its subsidies to EV makers, commodity research group CRU said in August.
Australian producers, which account for nearly half of the world’s mined lithium supply, have said they don’t expect a significant market improvement through year-end.
https://www.mining.com/tianqi-puts-worlds-biggest-lithium-plant-expansion-on-hold/
A closed-loop recycling system for lithium-ion batteries from electric vehicles (EV) is the objective of a new project supported by the environmental services group Suez, the chemicals giant BASF and the mining and metallurgy group Eramet. Together with the EU, the three companies are providing a total of €4.7m. The funding is to be used for the large-scale development of a process and the establishment of an integrated industrial sector ranging from the collection of old batteries to the production of new electrode materials. The "ReLieVe" research project will run for two years starting in January 2020.
With the development of new recycling capacity for lithium-ion batteries, the project partners are responding to the rapidly growing electric mobility market. But the project is also intended to ad-dress the issue of securing the supply of raw materials required for the energy transition in Europe.
Norway’s Kongsberg has been contracted to provide a hybrid power upgrade for the Tidewater-owned offshore supply vessel (OSV) Bailey Tide.
Kongsberg said on Thursday it would deliver and install a hybrid power solution including K-Pos dynamic positioning, an integrated automation system, and an advanced generator supervisor upgrades designed to improve energy efficiency, optimize power management and enhance vessel positioning maneuvers.
According to the company, the hybrid solution will substantially cut operational costs by helping to reduce the vessel’s fuel consumption.
The upgrade will be accompanied with the installation of a Kongsberg Information Management System, which will give Tidewater Marine and its sub-suppliers continuous data access, both onboard and onshore.
The company added that the work on the Bailey Tide’s upgrade had already started, and was expected to be completed before May 2020.
Deepak Thomas, Kongsberg Maritime Singapore sales manager, said: “We are hugely looking forward to collaborating with Tidewater on this project continuing to deliver the best energy solutions in the maritime sector while simultaneously respecting all environmental requirements.”
Jeff Gorski, COO of Tidewater Marine, added: “Kongsberg’s comprehensive hybrid upgrade positions us as a pioneer in the OSV sector in helping our clients to meet strict environmental regulations, due to be introduced in 2020, for decreasing CO2, NOx, and SOx emissions.”
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biogas
California’s Capstone Lands French Biogas-to-Energy Project
The microturbine package will operate on renewable biogas from the methane generated from agricultural green waste, cow manure, and pig manure. The Capstone C400S will be coupled with an exhaust fired heat exchanger and will utilize the biogas to produce electricity that will be put back on the local French electrical grid while the thermal energy generated from the microturbine exhaust will feed a nearby hospital.
France has strict ecological regulations, which Capstone microturbines are able to meet, helping to reduce the impact on the environment.
The renewable energy market has traditionally been Capstone’s third-largest market vertical and represented 7 percent of revenue in fiscal 2019. However, in May the company announced a 9.6 MW renewable energy biogas order which was the largest order received by Capstone in the company’s history. The market for biogas and renewable natural gas (RNG) are gaining popularity as customers continue to look for ways to create a lower-carbon environment and a clean energy future.
“Capstone is excited to be an essential part of the development of these biogas projects and helping create renewable biogas-to-energy and renewable natural gas-to-energy projects as the new fuels of choice in the green economy,” said Darren Jamison, Capstone’s President and Chief Executive Officer.
“Capstone microturbines were the logical choice as our technology is flexible with the ability to turn units off to match variations in the methane that is produced,” said Jim Crouse, Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Capstone. “This built-in flexibility also provides higher efficiency as compared to a single, large, traditional power generation solution."
Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy (SGRE) has begun construction of the world’s largest wind turbine blade test stand in Aalborg, Denmark. The site will be capable of performing full-scale tests on the next generations of SGRE rotor blades and is expected to be fully operational before the end of 2019.
This significant R&D investment in extensive testing will represent additional savings for SGRE’s clients in the future. Such high value-adding R&D activities enable the company to significantly reduce the risk of technical issues and simultaneously deliver wind turbines that are innovative and reliable.
“The first tests will be on the 94 meter-long blades for the SG 10.0-193 DD offshore wind turbine, which are almost the same length as one soccer field. We are however building the test stand to accommodate the blade sizes that we will see in the future”, said Vicente García Muñoz, Head of Validation Means Management at SGRE.
The gigantic structure in Aalborg will have more steel rebar reinforcement per square meter than a wind turbine foundation, so that it has the capability to accelerate the test and prove full reliability over the lifetime of the blade in the shortest possible time, while full respecting IEC regulations.
https://www.siemensgamesa.com/en-int/newsroom/2019/09/190912-siemens-gamesa-offshore-test-stand
Canadian miner Cameco (CCO.TO) said it will hold down output until uranium prices recover and it could cut production further, although nuclear reactor life extensions in France and newbuilds in China, the UAE and Britain bring some hope.
Since the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, Japan, Germany and other countries have closed dozens of reactors, which has depressed demand for nuclear fuel and forced miners to close or mothball mines as uranium prices plunged.
From a $140/pound high in 2007 and about $70 just before Fukushima, uranium fell to a low of $18/lb in 2016 and has since recovered slightly to $25 today UXXc1 as miners cut output.
A World Nuclear Association (WNA) report released on Thursday showed that world uranium production dropped from 62,200 tonnes in 2016 to 53,500 tonnes in 2018, with Canada, the world second-biggest producer, cutting output in half to 7,000 tonnes.
“We are not restarting mines until we see a better market and we may close more capacity, although no decision has been taken yet,” Cameco CEO Tim Gitzel told Reuters at the WNA’s annual conference.
Cameco earned a net profit of C$166 million after a loss of C$205 million in 2017, and has closed four mines and shed 2,000 workers.
Kazakhstan, the world’s top producer with output of 21,700 tonnes in 2018, has already said it will keep 2020-2021 output stable at 2019 levels, Gitzel said.
“The industry has been too slow to respond to falling demand,” state-owned uranium miner Kazatomprom’s strategy officer Riaz Rizvi said at the WNA conference.
Gitzel said Chinese uranium demand will be a major, if unpredictable, driver in uranium demand. In 2003-2007, as China embarked on a major nuclear reactor construction programme, it drove up uranium prices to a peak of $140/lb, from about $10/lb in the late 90s.
In 2010, China again caused a price spike as it bought some 150 million pounds of uranium in a month, the equivalent of one year’s global output, Gitzel said.
Since then, China has started building its own uranium supply chain. In Namibia, it started the Husab mine and in Nov. 2018 China National Uranium Corp bought the Rossing mine in Namibia from Rio Tinto (RIO.AX) (RIO.L). reut.rs/2lG5LqY
Despite the uranium glut, Namibian output rose from 3,500 tonnes in 2016 to 5,500 tonnes last year and now accounts for more than 10% of world uranium output.
The WNA’s Nuclear Fuel Report estimates that uranium demand will rise from 67,600 tonnes in 2019 to 84,850 tonnes in 2030 and 100,000 tonnes in 2040.
The head of French nuclear regulator ASN told French daily Le Figaro that at least five EDF nuclear reactors might be affected by welding anomalies being investigated and that ASN will rule on the next steps within a month.
ASN said on Tuesday it had found problems with weldings on the steam generators of some existing reactors.
FRANCE'S tourist beaches are being overrun with toxic slime which experts say can kill sunbathers and swimmers within seconds.
The green algae releases poisonous gases when trodden on causing those nearby to faint and suffer cardiac arrest, say reports.
4 A woman looks at bungalows cordoned off because of 'killer' algae in the Vallais beach, near Saint-Brieuc Credit: Getty - Contributor
4 This summer, six Brittany beaches were closed because of a mass of dangerous algae Credit: Getty - Contributor
At least three people and dozens of animals have already died, but some fear other deaths may have been mistakenly passed off as drownings. In July, we reported how an 18-year-old died after inhaling toxic fumes from what environmentalists believe was hydrogen sulphide poisoning. The toxic matter now covers the shoreline near Saint-Brieuc, in Brittany, as a result of surplus fertiliser from nearby fields leaking into the sea, it's been claimed. “It’s a shame this place has come to be associated with death,” said André Ollivro, an environmental activist who warned that large amounts of green algae can “kill you in seconds.”
How dangerous is hydrogen sulphide from rotting seaweed? Hydrogen sulphide is released from seaweed and algae when it starts to decompose. It has the characteristic foul odour of rotten eggs. The poisonous colourless gas can attack the nervous and respiratory system. In fatal cases, the gas paralyses breathing and induces death. It has been linked to the deaths of animals such as boars, horses and dogs. Environmental experts have linked high levels of nitrates in rivers and estuaries from intensive farming methods to the increase in the rotting algae. In 2016 a jogger collapsed and died on a beach in Brittany covered in sea lettuce. The sludge has washed up on the shores for decades, but environmentalists say the problem has worsened this summer due to the “exceptional” hot weather, according to France 24. “The influx of green algae began very early, there were few storms and June was a relatively wet month, which caused more water to flow from agricultural areas and thus more green algae,” a spokesperson for the Saint-Brieuc town hall told reporters. This summer, six Brittany beaches were closed because of a mass of dangerous algae - over fears it could claim more lives. The authorities are now collecting the algae with bulldozers and transporting it to treatment centres. Residents have complained about the stench emanating from these facilities, with some claiming the smell is so powerful it wakes them up at night. However, others are increasingly concerned the true death toll from the algae may be far higher than believed. “Around 20 people die on the coast each year, often swept away with currents, but the question is: could some of those people have fainted from toxic gas from seaweed before being swept out?” Inès Léraud, who probed the problem, told the Guardian. 4 A tractor removes green algae on the beach in Saint-Michel-en-Grêve, western France Credit: AFP - Getty
4 At least three people and dozens of animals have already died from inhaling fumes in the area Credit: Getty - Contributor
U.S. fertilizer company Mosaic Co (MOS.N) said on Monday it would idle its Louisiana phosphates operations to cut production by about 500,000 tonnes in 2019 as more imports into the country have pushed down prices.
Prices of the crucial fertilizer ingredient have been have been under pressure since late 2018 as demand remains weak and capacity expansions in Morocco and Saudi Arabia have increased output and exports.
Mosaic also said it would temporarily curtail potash production at Colonsay mine in Saskatchewan. In June, it had permanently closed its Plant City phosphates facility in Florida, as it looks to cut costs amid weak global phosphate market conditions.
The output curtailment, effective Oct.1, will reduce high phosphate fertilizer inventories, Mosaic said.
The company said it continues to expect strong fall fertilizer application in North America, and a “more balanced global supply-and-demand picture to emerge by 2020”.
Mosaic also said its Brazilian unit, Mosaic Fertilizantes, would cut another $200 million of costs by 2022, adding that the unit had already taken steps to cut at least $275 million of costs in 2019.
The Plymouth, Minnesota-headquartered company was forced to cut its full-year earnings forecast last month as rains and flooding in the United States hit volumes and phosphates margins.
Mosaic also said on Monday that it plans to start buying back $250 million of shares.
By Jonathan Ahl
Holly Bickmeyer and cattle on the small farm she manages. She wants control over large livestock operations to stay local.
Holly Bickmeyer is worried about what a large livestock operation would do if it moves in next door.
She points to the small lake in front of her house on the 20-head cattle farm she operates in Maries County.
“Sinkholes open up all the time,” Bickmeyer said. “You see the lake that’s in my front yard here? If somebody builds a hog operation at the end of my driveway, I would be concerned about that waste getting into the groundwater and I walk out one day and all my bass are dead.”
Bickmeyer said that’s why she wants her local county commissioners to decide if concentrated animal feeding operations, also known as CAFOs, can locate nearby.
Missouri lawmakers passed a bill last session that would restrict counties’ ability to block CAFOs from locating within their borders.
It was set to take effect in August, but a lawsuit filed by the Cedar County Commission, Cooper County Health Department, Friends of Responsible Agriculture and two private citizens led to a delay.
The lawsuit says the state law takes away counties’ rights to protect their citizens and violates other pre-existing state laws.
Proponents say state regulation is needed to take local politics out of the decision-making process when it comes to CAFOs.
Bickmeyer said she trusts the local officials she knows and had the chance to vote for.
“I would expect my county commissioners to look very closely at the science and the studies that have been done and look at places like Iowa. We don’t want to be Iowa,” Bickmeyer said.
Iowa, along with Kansas, Illinois and Wisconsin, are the Midwest states that have similar laws on the books — putting large livestock operations under state control instead of local governments.
Daniel Andersen, professor of agricultural engineering at Iowa State University, said the rules have worked well in Iowa, because it’s taken the politics out of locating large livestock operations.
“I think there is something nice about consistency and uniformity of regulations. And it creates a situation where it is what you know, and not who you know, when you get an operation that is permitted or not permitted,” Andersen said.
Proponents of the bill in Missouri have said too many counties have made knee-jerk reactions to a small number of neighbors complaining about the smell and traffic that comes along with a large livestock operation, and put unfair restrictions in place.
“It takes a certain amount of expertise; these are scientific questions, and counties don’t have that expertise and so they adopt these ... poorly written regulations.” Blake Hurst, Missouri Farm Bureau President
Missouri Farm Bureau President Blake Hurst said that’s why the state needed to step in, to make things fair.
“If somebody has a history of a neighbor-to-neighbor conflict, all at once it becomes an environmental issue, it’s all over the local paper, and it’s just not a good way to regulate an industry,” Hurst said. “And I think we are making progress on to something that is more public and transparent.”
Hurst also said the state has the ability to protect land like Bickmeyer’s better than a county.
“It takes a certain amount of expertise; these are scientific questions, and counties don’t have that expertise and so they adopt these — what they basically do is adopt these poorly written regulations,” Hurst said.
Taking something from local to statewide control does not sit well with some local elected officials.
We think we know more about what’s going on in our county, and we know what would be best for it, as opposed to folks from afar." Randy Phelps, Phelps County Commissioner
Randy Verkamp, a county commissioner in Phelps County, said it happens too often that the state steps in on what should be a local matter.
“In the balance, we think we know more about what’s going on in our county, and we know what would be best for it, as opposed to folks from afar, and that would include most of our representatives, and the senators and the Legislature,” Verkamp said. “We’re big fans of local control.”
But Verkamp said he concedes that counties exist because the state created them, and ultimately, the state gets to make the rules.
“The law is the law,” Verkamp said.
A judge will have to determine the next step. A hearing on the future of the lawsuit and the law taking effect will be held Sept. 16 in Cole County.
Follow Jonathan on Twitter: @JonathanAhl
Send questions and comments about this story to feedback@stlpublicradio.org
Canada’s Nutrien, the world’s biggest producer of potash fertilizer, is temporarily laying off workers at three of its Saskatchewan mines in response to a short-term slowdown in global markets.
The company said late on Wednesday that it expected to take production downtime at its Allan, Lanigan and Vanscoy mines starting in November.
The shutdowns may last up to eight weeks and will affect between 480 to 750 people, according to the union representing workers at two of the sites.
SHUTDOWNS AT ALLAN, LANIGAN AND VANSCOY MINES MAY LAST UP TO EIGHT WEEKS AND AFFECT BETWEEN 480 TO 750 PEOPLE.
The Saskatoon-based company said if all three facilities were to remain idle for two months, potash production could be reduced by roughly 700,000 tonnes.
The measure could cut into the company’s before-tax earnings by up to $150 million, it said.
Nutrien, created by the merger of Potash Corp. and Agrium, remains optimist on potash demand for 2020 despite current market weakness.
“We remain focused on a gradual ramp-up of production to meet demand and to ensure we operate the safest, most reliable and efficient potash business in the world,” it said in the statement.
The miner lowered its forecast earnings for the year in July to reflect the impact of wet weather on US planting and other factors that would reduce demand for potash in North America, China and India.
Belarus, one of the world’s largest potash exporters, warned earlier this month that it was planning to cut production of the crop nutrient by almost a third within the next three to four months due to weak global demand.
In August, potash major Mosaic Co. said it would indefinitely shutter its Colonsay mine east of Saskatoon, resulting in around 350 layoffs.
https://www.mining.com/potash-giant-nutrien-to-briefly-shut-down-three-mines-lay-off-hundreds/
For weeks, a debate over where to get the best chicken sandwich has waged between Popeyes, Chick-fil-A and the chicken-eating public at large. But KFC, another chicken giant with a global reach, is working on its own agenda: a plant-based “chicken” that proved so popular in a sales test that it sold out in a single day.
“It’s confusing, but it’s also delicious,” read a tweet from KFC on Monday announcing the sale of Beyond Fried Chicken, created with the help of the company Beyond Meat, at a single location in Atlanta. In about five hours on Tuesday, a KFC representative said, the restaurant sold as many plant-based boneless wings and nuggets as it would sell of its popular popcorn chicken in an entire week. (A “Kentucky Fried Miracle,” the company declared.)
The representative said the company started “talking with various plant-based suppliers this spring” and “decided to launch this very initial, limited test in Atlanta to gauge interest in plant-based options from KFC customers.”
Is a national rollout imminent? Not quite. The company now plans to evaluate the results of Tuesday’s test, and customer feedback, to determine what comes next, the representative said.
With the test, KFC joined several other major fast-food companies in dabbling in making meat alternatives more mainstream. Most are using either Beyond Meat’s products or those made by Impossible Foods to replace the meat in their most popular products — the Burger King Whopper, a White Castle slider and so on.
Is the idea to turn everyone into a vegetarian? Not exactly. But studies have shown that eating less meat could help both the environment and your health, and that could be making people a little more interested in cutting back.
“Our target customers for this product were flexitarians looking to incorporate plant-based choices into their diets,” the KFC representative said.
Here’s a look at what some of those companies are selling.
In April, Burger King began testing its plant-based Impossible Whopper in St. Louis and later in other markets around the United States. This month, it took the sandwich nationwide.
The Impossible Whopper, made by Impossible Foods, is billed as “100% Whopper, 0% beef” and features a flame-grilled patty topped with tomatoes, onions, lettuce, mayonnaise, ketchup and pickles on a sesame seed bun. The sandwich is 630 calories and contains 34 grams of fat and 25 grams of protein, according to nutritional information on Burger King’s website. (A regular Whopper has 660 calories, 40 grams of fat and 28 grams of protein.)
The traditional breakfast sandwich got a makeover when Dunkin’ teamed up with Beyond Meat to serve the Beyond Sausage Breakfast Sandwich in July — but it’s currently available only in Manhattan.
The patty is served on an English muffin with egg and American cheese, and has 10 grams of plant-based protein.
[Read more about the unique foods being offered at fast-food chains, including Arby’s answers to plant-based meat.]
White Castle began offering the Impossible Slider in April 2018 in 140 locations in New York, New Jersey and Chicago, the company said. By September, the plant-based slider, made by Impossible Foods, had been rolled out nationwide. On the one-year anniversary of its initial offering, White Castle announced that a newly formulated Impossible Slider was available in all its restaurants.
The slider comes with smoked Cheddar cheese and is 240 calorieswith 11 grams of protein. White Castle does not offer a vegan cheese for the slider, but said it was working to find an option.
The burger chain Carl’s Jr., based in Tennessee, introduced its own vegan patty at the beginning of the year. It worked with Beyond Meat to create the Beyond Famous Star, a plant-based version of the restaurant’s Famous Star burger, a release said.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/28/business/kfc-beyond-meat-vegan-chicken.html
Privately run Chinese firms bought at least 10 boatloads of U.S. soybeans on Thursday, the country’s most significant purchases since at least June, traders said, ahead of high-level talks next month aimed at ending a bilateral trade war that has lasted more than a year.
The soybean purchases, which at more than 600,000 tonnes were the largest by Chinese private importers in more than a year, are slated for shipment from U.S. Pacific Northwest export terminals from October to December, two traders with knowledge of the deals said.
The purchases were another indication that trade tensions between Washington and Beijing could be easing, after hitting a low last month when China suspended all U.S. farm product purchases in response to threats by President Donald Trump to impose more tariffs on Chinese goods.
Benchmark Chicago Board of Trade soybean futures <0#S:> jumped to one-month highs on Thursday, with the actively traded November contract SX9 in its steepest rally since May.
Beijing this week renewed a promise to buy U.S. agricultural goods such as pork and soybeans, the most valuable U.S. farm export. Large agricultural product purchases are a key U.S. stipulation for a trade deal, but the two sides remain far apart on other issues. .
Thursday’s soybean deals were the largest among private Chinese importers since Beijing raised import tariffs by 25% on U.S. soybeans in July 2018 in retaliation for U.S. duties on Chinese goods. Duties were raised an additional 5% this month.
Other soybean purchases over the past year have been made almost exclusively by state-owned Chinese firms which are exempted from the steep import tariffs.
Beijing in July offered to exempt five private crushers from import tariffs on U.S. beans arriving by the end of the year, but very few deals took place before buying was suspended.
Earlier on Thursday Beijing said Chinese companies were inquiring about prices of agricultural goods.
“I’m impressed that the day they allow their commercial interests to come back and buy from the United States, here we’ve got this much sold immediately,” said Jack Scoville, vice president with Price Futures Group in Chicago.
“Clearly, they’re trying to show what they can do if we get back to somewhat of a normal trade relationship,” he said.
Also on Thursday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) reported China bought 10,878 tonnes of U.S. pork in the week ended September 5, the most in a single week since May.
U.S. meat traders have been anticipating a pork shortage in China due to an outbreak of African swine fever, a fatal pig disease that has reduced the Chinese herd by a third since it arrived in the country more than a year ago. China is therefore willing to make some U.S. purchases despite a 72% tariff.
U.S. soybean exports to China, the world’s top buyer, have plummeted during the bitter bilateral dispute, with swelling supplies sending prices to near-decade lows and U.S. farmers struggling to turn a profit.
China has largely turned to South America for soybeans since the trade war began. U.S. soybean sales to China in 2018 dropped 74% from the previous year to a 16-year low.
Integra Resources Corp., a development stage company, engages in the acquisition, exploration, and development of mineral properties in the Americas. The company explores for base metal, gold, and silver deposits. Its primary focus is the DeLamar project that consists of DeLamar and Florida Mountain gold and silver deposits located in the Owyhee County mining district in southwestern Idaho. The company was formerly known as Mag Copper Limited and changed its name to Integra Resources Corp. in August 2017. Integra Resources Corp. was incorporated in 1997 and is headquartered in Vancouver, Canada.
MarketBeat Community Rating for Integra Resources (CVE ITR)
Community Ranking: 2.8 out of 5 ( ) Outperform Votes: 9 (Vote Outperform) Underperform Votes: 7 (Vote Underperform) Total Votes: 16
MarketBeat's community ratings are surveys of what our community members think about Integra Resources and other stocks. Vote "Outperform" if you believe ITR will outperform the S&P 500 over the long term. Vote "Underperform" if you believe ITR will underperform the S&P 500 over the long term. You may vote once every thirty days.
It said last week the programme was "transforming" its Boddington gold operation in Western Australia, such as the strategy to reduce the number of annual plant shutdowns from four to three.
"We continue to be laser-focused on long-term value creation for all of our stakeholders," Newmont Goldcorp said in its blog.
"Our technology programme also continues to accelerate based on value and viability, and we're applying lessons learned to inform our approach as we move forward."
The enlarged company, which merged with Goldcorp earlier this year, is targeting stable production of 6-7 million ounces of gold annually "over [a] decades-long time horizon".
Newmont has experienced various issues at former Goldcorp assets.
Newmont's share price performance in 2019 has lagged behind the other gold mega-merger of Barrick Gold and Randgold Resources, which came into effect on January 1.
Newmont's share price is up 14.36% year-to-date and it has a market capitalisation of $31.7 billion.
Barrick's New York-traded shares, under the GOLD ticker, are up 31.98% over the same period, giving it a similar market value of $31.3 billion.
The two majors formed a joint venture over some of their Nevada operations mid-year, with the agreement ending a hostile takeover bid by Barrick which had threatened Newmont's Goldcorp merger.
Alexco Resource Corp. engages in the mineral exploration, and mine development and operational activities primarily in Yukon Territory, Canada. The company explores for silver, lead, and zinc deposits. It primarily owns 100% interests in the Keno Hill Silver District project comprising the Flame & Moth, Bermingham, Lucky Queen, Bellekeno, and Onek deposits, as well as 703 surveyed quartz mining leases and 866 unsurveyed quartz mining claims, and 2 crown grants covering an area of 237.44 square kilometers located in Yukon Territory. The company also provides mine and industrial site related environmental services, including management of the regulatory and environmental permitting process, environmental assessments, and reclamation and closure planning in Canada, the United States, and internationally. Alexco Resource Corp. was incorporated in 2004 and is headquartered in Vancouver, Canada.
MarketBeat Community Rating for Alexco Resource (NASDAQ AXU)
Community Ranking: 2.3 out of 5 ( ) Outperform Votes: 19 (Vote Outperform) Underperform Votes: 23 (Vote Underperform) Total Votes: 42
MarketBeat's community ratings are surveys of what our community members think about Alexco Resource and other stocks. Vote "Outperform" if you believe AXU will outperform the S&P 500 over the long term. Vote "Underperform" if you believe AXU will underperform the S&P 500 over the long term. You may vote once every thirty days.
Chesapeake Energy Corporation (NYSE:CHK) is a stock to watch today. At current price of $1.63, the shares have already added 0.05 points (3.25% higher) from its previous close of $1.58. The stock sets an active trading volume day with a reported 2275123 contracts so far this session. CHK shares had a relatively better volume day versus average trading capacity of 48.76 million shares, but with a 1.62 billion float and a 2.6% run over a week, it’s definitely worth keeping an eye on. The one year price forecast for CHK stock indicates that the average analyst price target is $2.03 per share. This means the stock has a potential increase of 24.54% from where the CHK share price has been trading recently which is between $1.5 and $1.6. There are some brokerage firms that offer lower targets than the average, with one of them, even setting their price target at $0.5.
The most recent news story about the stock that appeared in Yahoo Finance‘s news section was titled “Chesapeake Energy (CHK) Stock Sinks As Market Gains: What You Should Know” and dated September 06, 2019.
During the recent trading session for Chesapeake Energy Corporation (NYSE:CHK), the company witnessed their stock rise $0.24 over a week and surge $0.24 from the price 20 days ago. When compared to their established 52-week high of $4.98, the high they recorded in their recent session happens to be lower. Their established 52-week high was attained by the company on 09/10/18. The recent low of $1.26 stood for a -67.24% since 07/08/19, a data which is good for most investors who are looking to take advantage of the stock’s recent rise. A beta of 2.48 is also allocated to the stock. Since the beta is greater than one, it implies that the stock is more volatile than the market, a data that traders are keeping close attention to.
Looking at the current readings for Chesapeake Energy Corporation, the two-week RSI stands at 54.08. This figure suggests that CHK stock, for now, is neutral, meaning that the shares are stable in terms of price movement. The stochastic readings, on the other hand, based on the current CHK readings is similarly very revealing as it has a stochastic reading of 75.31% at this stage. This figure means that CHK share price today is being oversold.
Technical chart claims that Chesapeake Energy Corporation (CHK) would settle between $1.62/share to $1.66/share level. However, if the stock price goes below the $1.52 mark, then the market for Chesapeake Energy Corporation becomes much weaker. If that happens, the stock price might even plunge as low as $1.46 for its downside target. The stock is currently in the green zone of MACD, with the indicator reading 0.11. Traders are always alerted for the move of a stock above or below the zero line due to the fact that the reading is an indicator of the position of the short-term average relative to the long-term average. If the MACD is above the zero line, then the short-term average relative is above that of the long-term average, thus implying an upward momentum. Vice versa is the case if the MACD is below the zero line.
Analysts at Raymond James lowered their recommendation on shares of CHK from Outperform to Mkt Perform in their opinion released on August 08. Morgan Stanley analysts bumped their rating on Chesapeake Energy Corporation (NYSE:CHK) stock from Equal-Weight to Overweight in a separate flash note issued to investors on June 28. Analysts at Argus lowered the stock to a Sell call from its previous Hold recommendation, in a research note that dated back to May 09.
CHK equity has an average rating of 3.27, with the figure leaning towards a bullish end. 15 analysts who tracked the company were contacted by Reuters. Amongst them, 8 rated the stock as a hold while the remaining 7 were split even though not equally. Some analysts rate the stock as a buy or a strong buy while others rated it as a sell. 2 analysts rated Chesapeake Energy Corporation (NYSE:CHK) as a buy or a strong buy while 5 advised that investors should desist from purchasing the stock or sell them if they already own the company’s stock.
Moving on, CHK stock price is currently trading at 0X forward 12-month Consensus EPS estimates, and its P/E ratio is 3.59 while for the average stock in the same group, the multiple is 9.46. Chesapeake Energy Corporation current P/B ratio of 1.01 means it is trading at a premium against its industry’s 0.67.
Chesapeake Energy Corporation (CHK)’s current-quarter revenues are projected to climb by nearly 0.11% to hit $1.2 billion, based on current Zacks Consensus Estimate. The firm’s full-year revenues are expected to expand by over -6.12% from $5.16 billion to a noteworthy $4.84 billion. At the other end of the current quarter income statement, Chesapeake Energy Corporation is expected to see its adjusted earnings surge by roughly -142.11% to hit $-0.08 per share. For the fiscal year, CHK’s earnings are projected to climb by roughly -128.89% to hit $-0.26 per share.
SOFIA (Bulgaria), September 9 (SeeNews) - Canadian mineral exploration and development company Velocity Minerals said on Monday that drill results from an additional 15 holes at the Rozino gold deposit in southeast Bulgaria have continued to expand the mineralized envelope.
“The excellent drill results we have recently received at Rozino continue to build our confidence in this deposit. In particular, the results from drill hole RDD-130 include the best intersection ever discovered in the deposit,” Stuart Mills, Velocity’s vice president exploration at Velocity said in a statement.
The drilling results will be used to generate an updated mineral resource estimate, which will be the basis for engineering studies associated with a planned pre-feasibility study (PFS). The resource drill programme for the PFS is nearing its successful completion, Mills added.
Drilling will be completed as scheduled in early September, the company said.
Last month, Velocity announced that it received positive drill results for an additional 27 drill holes completed at the Rozino gold deposit.
Velocity's 2019 drill programme at Rozino envisages a total of 12,000 m to 14,000 m of drilling, which will include exploration drilling to expand the resource base, as well as resource definition and infill drilling. The programme also envisages an additional 1,000 m of drilling regionally to begin testing structural targets located close to the Rozino deposit.
In March, Velocity Minerals closed a 9 million Canadian dollars ($6.8 million/6.2 million euro) strategic investment with Atlantic Gold Corporation and its unit 1193490 B.C. Ltd, with the proceeds to be used to fund the advancement of the Rozino gold project.
Velocity Minerals completed the acquisition of 70% interest in Bulgaria's Tintyava Property, which holds the Rozino gold deposit, from local company Gorubso-Kardzhali earlier this year, through delivery of a PEA. Velocity Minerals also has option agreements with Gorubso-Kardzhali to earn 70% stakes in the 388-hectare Momchil property in southeast Bulgaria, which includes the Obichnik gold project, and the 194-hectare Nadezhda property, which holds the Makendontsi gold project.
(1 euro = 1.45 Canadian dollars)
Silvercorp Metals Inc., together with its subsidiaries, engages in the acquisition, exploration, development, and mining of precious and base metal mineral properties in China. Its flagship project is the Ying silver-lead-zinc project located in the Ying Mining District in Henan Province, China. The company was formerly known as SKN Resources Ltd. and changed its name to Silvercorp Metals Inc. in May 2005. Silvercorp Metals Inc. is headquartered in Vancouver, Canada.
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Alexco Resource Corp. engages in the mineral exploration, and mine development and operational activities primarily in Yukon Territory, Canada. The company explores for silver, lead, and zinc deposits. It primarily owns 100% interests in the Keno Hill Silver District project comprising the Flame & Moth, Bermingham, Lucky Queen, Bellekeno, and Onek deposits, as well as 703 surveyed quartz mining leases and 866 unsurveyed quartz mining claims, and 2 crown grants covering an area of 237.44 square kilometers located in Yukon Territory. The company also provides mine and industrial site related environmental services, including management of the regulatory and environmental permitting process, environmental assessments, and reclamation and closure planning in Canada, the United States, and internationally. Alexco Resource Corp. was incorporated in 2004 and is headquartered in Vancouver, Canada.
MarketBeat Community Rating for Alexco Resource (NASDAQ AXU)
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Timberline Resources Corporation engages in the exploration and development of mineral properties in the United States. The company primarily explores for gold and silver deposits. It holds interests in the Eureka property covering an area of approximately 16,000 acres located in the southern part of the Eureka mining district of Eureka county, Nevada; the Elder Creek property covering approximately 9,600 acres located in northern Nevada; and the ICBM (Paiute) Project consisting of approximately 1,346 acres located in the Battle Mountain Mining District, Lander and Humboldt Counties, Nevada. The company was formerly known as Silver Crystal Mines, Inc. and changed its name to Timberline Resources Corporation in February 2004. Timberline Resources Corporation was incorporated in 1968 and is headquartered in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho.
MarketBeat Community Rating for Timberline Resources (OTCMKTS TLRS)
Community Ranking: 2.2 out of 5 ( ) Outperform Votes: 47 (Vote Outperform) Underperform Votes: 59 (Vote Underperform) Total Votes: 106
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The Fund seeks to match as closely as possible the price and yield performance of the AMEX Gold Miners Index. The Fund, utilizing a passive or indexing investment approach, attempts to approximate the investment performance of the Index by investing in a portfolio of stocks that generally replicate the Index.
Basic Details Issuer Van Eck Fund NameVanEck Vectors Gold Miners ETF Tax ClassificationRegulated Investment Company SymbolNYSEARCA:GDX Inception Date5/16/2006 Fund ManagerHao-Hung Peter Liao, Guo Hua Jason Jin WebN/A PhoneN/A Fund Focus Asset ClassEquity BenchmarkNYSE Arca Gold Miners Index CategorySector FocusBasic Materials Development LevelBlended Development RegionGlobal Fund Statistics Assets Under Management$11.49 billion Average Daily Volume$64.76 million Discount/Premium-0.18% ETF Expenses Management Fee0.50% Other Expenses0.02% Total Expenses0.52% Fee Waiver0.00% Net Expenses0.52% Administrator, Advisor and Custodian AdministratorVan Eck Associates Corporation AdvisorVan Eck Associates Corporation CustodianThe Bank of New York Mellon Corporation DistributorVan Eck Securities Corporation Transfer AgentThe Bank of New York Mellon Corporation Trustee Lead Market Maker AMEX:GDX Rates by TradingView Receive GDX News and Ratings via Email Sign-up to receive the latest news and ratings for GDX and its competitors with MarketBeat's FREE daily newsletter.
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Equinor has received consents from the Petroleum Safety Authority (PSA) to use the facilities on the Vigdis and Tordis fields – both located in the North Sea off Norway – beyond their original operating life.
Consent for operation of the Vigdis field expires on March 9, 2024. In order to recover the remaining reserves from the field, Equinor, the operator, has applied for consent to extend the operating life of the facilities on the field.
In a report on Tuesday, the PSA said it had granted consent for the use of the facilities on the Vigdis field until December 31, 2040.
Vigdis is a field located in the Tampen area in the northern part of the North Sea, between the Snorre, Statfjord, and Gullfaks fields. The water depth in the area is 280 meters. Vigdis was discovered in 1986, and the plan for development and operation (PDO) was approved in 1994. The field has been developed with seven subsea templates and two satellite wells connected to the Snorre A platform. Production started in 1997.
Consent for operation of the Tordis field expires on December 31, 2019. In order to recover the remaining reserves from the field, Equinor has applied for consent to extend the operating life of the facilities on the field.
The safety authority has now granted consent for the use of the facilities on the Tordis field until December 31, 2036.
Tordis is a field in the Tampen area in the northern part of the North Sea, between the Statfjord and Gullfaks fields. The water depth in the area is 150-220 meters. Tordis was discovered in 1987, and the plan for development and operation (PDO) was approved in 1991.
The field has been developed with a central subsea manifold tied-back to Gullfaks C, which also supplies water for injection. Seven single-well satellites and two subsea templates are tied-back to the manifold. Production started in 1994.
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VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Sept. 11, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Almadex Minerals Ltd. ("Almadex" or the "Company") (TSX-V: "DEX") is pleased to announce that it has optioned 60% of its Ponderosa project (the "Project") to 1201361 BC LTD. ("Optionee"), a private B.C. company at arms-length to Almadex.
Under the terms of the agreement, Optionee can acquire a 60% interest in the Project by:
Issuing Almadex 5% of its issued capital on a fully diluted basis on closing, with a top-up to this amount at the time of a "liquidity event";
Completing $500,000 in work, including 500 metres of drilling, on the Project within three years, and;
Completing a "liquidity event" within four years.
Amongst other things, a "liquidity event" is some form of transaction which results in the Optionee's, or its affiliates', common shares becoming publicly traded on a recognized stock exchange.
Upon completion of the 60% earn-in, Almadex and the Optionee have agreed to immediately form a 40/60 joint venture for the purpose of carrying out further exploration work on the Project with Optionee as operator and straight line dilution for failure to participate in work programs. If either party's participating interest falls below 10%, their interest will be converted into a 2% net smelter returns royalty.
Almadex, its predecessors and partners have worked in the Spences Bridge area since about 2002. J. Duane Poliquin, Chairman of Almadex, stated, "We have now optioned all of our Spences Bridge property holdings to partners, and look forward to active exploration on our properties over the coming years".
About Almadex
Almadex Minerals Ltd. is an exploration company that holds a large mineral portfolio consisting of projects and NSR royalties in Canada, the U.S., and Mexico. This portfolio is the direct result of over 35 years of prospecting and deal-making by Almadex's management team. The Company owns a number of portable diamond drill rigs, enabling it to conduct cost effective first pass exploration drilling in house.
On behalf of the Board of Directors,
"Morgan Poliquin"
Morgan J. Poliquin, Ph.D., P.Eng.
President, CEO and Director
Almadex Minerals Ltd.
Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
This news release includes forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties. All statements within it, other than statements of historical fact, are to be considered forward looking. Although the Company believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those in forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements include market prices, exploitation and exploration successes, permitting, continued availability of capital and financing, and general economic, market or business conditions. There can be no assurances that such statements will prove accurate and, therefore, readers are advised to rely on their own evaluation of such uncertainties. We do not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements, other than as required pursuant to applicable securities laws.
Contact Information:
Almadex Minerals Ltd.
Tel. 604.689.7644
Email: info@almadexminerals.com
http://www.almadexminerals.com/
Source: Almadex Minerals Ltd.
iShares Gold Trust (the Trust) is to own gold transferred to the Trust in exchange for shares issued by the Trust (Shares). Each Share represents a fractional undivided beneficial interest in the net assets of the Trust. The assets of the Trust consist of gold held by the Trust's custodian on behalf of the Trust. The sponsor of the Trust is iShares Delaware Trust Sponsor LLC (the Sponsor), which is an indirect subsidiary of BlackRock, Inc. The trustee of the Trust is The Bank of New York Mellon (the Trustee) and the custodian of the Trust is JPMorgan Chase Bank N.A., London branch (the Custodian). The activities of the Trust are limited to issuing Baskets of Shares in exchange for the gold deposited with the Custodian as consideration; selling gold as necessary to cover the Sponsor's fee, Trust expenses not assumed by the Sponsor and other liabilities, and delivering gold in exchange for Baskets of Shares surrendered for redemption. The Trust is not actively managed.
Basic Details Issuer iShares Fund NameiShares Gold Trust Tax ClassificationGrantor Trust SymbolNYSEARCA:IAU Inception Date1/21/2005 Fund Manager http://www.ishares.com/ Web Phone+1-415-6704879 Fund Focus Asset ClassCommodities BenchmarkLBMA Gold Price CategoryPrecious Metals FocusGold Development LevelBlended Development RegionGlobal Fund Statistics Assets Under Management$15.86 billion Average Daily Volume$25.81 million Discount/Premium-0.11% ETF Expenses Management Fee0.25% Other Expenses0.00% Total Expenses0.25% Fee Waiver0.00% Net Expenses0.25% Administrator, Advisor and Custodian AdministratorState Street Bank and Trust Company AdvisorBlackRock Fund Advisors CustodianJPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., London Branch DistributorBlackRock Investments, LLC Transfer AgentThe Bank of New York Mellon Corporation TrusteeThe Bank of New York Mellon Corporation Lead Market MakerVirtu Financial AMEX:IAU Rates by TradingView Receive IAU News and Ratings via Email Sign-up to receive the latest news and ratings for IAU and its competitors with MarketBeat's FREE daily newsletter.
iShares Gold Trust (NYSEARCA:IAU) Frequently Asked Questions What is iShares Gold Trust's stock symbol? iShares Gold Trust trades on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE)ARCA under the ticker symbol "IAU." Has iShares Gold Trust been receiving favorable news coverage? Headlines about IAU stock have trended somewhat positive on Wednesday, InfoTrie Sentiment reports. The research firm ranks the sentiment of news coverage by analyzing more than six thousand news and blog sources in real time. The firm ranks coverage of publicly-traded companies on a scale of negative five to positive five, with scores closest to five being the most favorable. iShares Gold Trust earned a daily sentiment score of 0.9 on InfoTrie's scale. They also gave media coverage about the exchange traded fund a news buzz of 1.0 out of 10, indicating that recent news coverage is extremely unlikely to have an impact on the stock's share price in the immediate future. View News Stories for iShares Gold Trust. What other stocks do shareholders of iShares Gold Trust own? Based on aggregate information from My MarketBeat watchlists, some companies that other iShares Gold Trust investors own include SPDR Gold Shares (GLD), Cisco Systems (CSCO), AbbVie (ABBV), General Electric (GE), Intel (INTC), Alibaba Group (BABA), NVIDIA (NVDA), Allergan (AGN), Freeport-McMoRan (FCX) and Tesla (TSLA). Who are iShares Gold Trust's key executives? Patrick J. Dunne , President, Chief Executive Officer of the Sponsor
, Jack Gee , Chief Financial Officer, Chief Operating Officer, Director of the Manager
, Charles C. S. Park , Chief Financial Officer, Director of the Sponsor
, Philip J. Jensen , Director of the Sponsor
, Peter F. Landini , Director of the Sponsor
, Kimun Lee , Director of the Sponsor
, Paul C. Lohrey , Director of the Sponsor iShares Gold Trust's management team includes the folowing people: Who are iShares Gold Trust's major shareholders? iShares Gold Trust's stock is owned by many different of retail and institutional investors. Top institutional investors include Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Holdings Inc. (9.68%), Charles Schwab Investment Advisory Inc. (5.93%), Bank of America Corp DE (3.00%), Morgan Stanley (2.39%), International Value Advisers LLC (1.60%) and UBS Group AG (1.26%). Which major investors are selling iShares Gold Trust stock? IAU stock was sold by a variety of institutional investors in the last quarter, including BlackRock Inc., Bailard Inc., American Investment Services Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co., International Value Advisers LLC, Foster & Motley Inc., Gibson Capital LLC and Cohen & Steers Inc.. Which major investors are buying iShares Gold Trust stock? IAU stock was bought by a variety of institutional investors in the last quarter, including Charles Schwab Investment Advisory Inc., Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Holdings Inc., UBS Group AG, Bank of America Corp DE, Morgan Stanley, Royal Bank of Canada, Titan Capital Management LLC CA and Nadler Financial Group Inc.. How do I buy shares of iShares Gold Trust? Shares of IAU can be purchased through any online brokerage account. Popular online brokerages with access to the U.S. stock market include Vanguard Brokerage Services, TD Ameritrade, E*TRADE, Robinhood, Fidelity and Charles Schwab. What is iShares Gold Trust's stock price today? One share of IAU stock can currently be purchased for approximately $14.30. How big of a company is iShares Gold Trust? iShares Gold Trust has a market capitalization of $15.83 billion. View Additional Information About iShares Gold Trust. What is iShares Gold Trust's official website? The official website for iShares Gold Trust is http://www.ishares.com/. How can I contact iShares Gold Trust? iShares Gold Trust's mailing address is 400 Howard St, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94105, United States. The exchange traded fund can be reached via phone at +1-415-6704879.
MarketBeat Community Rating for iShares Gold Trust (NYSEARCA IAU)
Community Ranking: 2.3 out of 5 ( ) Outperform Votes: 80 (Vote Outperform) Underperform Votes: 94 (Vote Underperform) Total Votes: 174
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The company is looking to commission a small-scale mine in South Korea within the next 12 months with development partner Bluebird Merchant Ventures.
Southern Gold Ltd's ( ) joint venture (JV) partner has advised that the Permit to Develop for the Gubong Gold Mine has been approved by South Korea's Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE).
Formal documentation relating to the approval will be received from MOTIE over the next few weeks.
This is the first permit to develop issued to a foreign operator since Indochina Goldfields, which changed its name to in 1999, received approval for the Eunsan gold deposit in the late 1990s.
Investors responded positively to the news with shares up as much as 15% to an intra-day high of 23 cents, a new 12-month high.
“Important milestone for joint venture”
Managing director Simon Mitchell said: “This is a very important milestone for the joint venture, and I congratulate Bluebird as operators in securing the permit to develop for Gubong, the first in many years for a foreign operator, at least as far as we are aware.
“This approval paves the way for the joint venture to take the Gubong project forward and target fist gold pour in 2020, another very important milestone that is now closer to the being achieved.”
Southern Gold and Bluebird each hold a 50% equity interest in Singaporean company Gubong Project JV Co Ltd which in turn holds 100% of South Korean company Gubong Project Co Ltd.
A similar corporate JV arrangement is in place for the Kochang project, which is still in the approval process for its permit to develop.
An update on the status of this project will be provided as soon as notification is received from regulators, which is expected over the coming months.
Rapid approval process
Mitchell added: “Compared to other regulatory systems this is an extremely rapid approval process, taking less than one year since its initial submission.
“The South Korean centralised regulatory approach has resulted in an efficient turnaround while retaining a comprehensive review system.
“This bodes well to other future potential developments that will be in Southern Gold’s pipeline down the track.”
The Fund seeks to match as closely as possible the price and yield performance of the AMEX Gold Miners Index. The Fund, utilizing a passive or indexing investment approach, attempts to approximate the investment performance of the Index by investing in a portfolio of stocks that generally replicate the Index.
Basic Details Issuer Van Eck Fund NameVanEck Vectors Gold Miners ETF Tax ClassificationRegulated Investment Company SymbolNYSEARCA:GDX Inception Date5/16/2006 Fund ManagerHao-Hung Peter Liao, Guo Hua Jason Jin WebN/A PhoneN/A Fund Focus Asset ClassEquity BenchmarkNYSE Arca Gold Miners Index CategorySector FocusBasic Materials Development LevelBlended Development RegionGlobal Fund Statistics Assets Under Management$11.34 billion Average Daily Volume$64.96 million Discount/Premium-0.05% ETF Expenses Management Fee0.50% Other Expenses0.02% Total Expenses0.52% Fee Waiver0.00% Net Expenses0.52% Administrator, Advisor and Custodian AdministratorVan Eck Associates Corporation AdvisorVan Eck Associates Corporation CustodianThe Bank of New York Mellon Corporation DistributorVan Eck Securities Corporation Transfer AgentThe Bank of New York Mellon Corporation Trustee Lead Market Maker AMEX:GDX Rates by TradingView Receive GDX News and Ratings via Email Sign-up to receive the latest news and ratings for GDX and its competitors with MarketBeat's FREE daily newsletter.
MarketBeat Community Rating for VanEck Vectors Gold Miners ETF (NYSEARCA GDX)
Community Ranking: 2.5 out of 5 ( ) Outperform Votes: 142 (Vote Outperform) Underperform Votes: 139 (Vote Underperform) Total Votes: 281
MarketBeat's community ratings are surveys of what our community members think about VanEck Vectors Gold Miners ETF and other stocks. Vote "Outperform" if you believe GDX will outperform the S&P 500 over the long term. Vote "Underperform" if you believe GDX will underperform the S&P 500 over the long term. You may vote once every thirty days.
Silvercorp Metals Inc., together with its subsidiaries, engages in the acquisition, exploration, development, and mining of precious and base metal mineral properties in China. Its flagship project is the Ying silver-lead-zinc project located in the Ying Mining District in Henan Province, China. The company was formerly known as SKN Resources Ltd. and changed its name to Silvercorp Metals Inc. in May 2005. Silvercorp Metals Inc. is headquartered in Vancouver, Canada.
MarketBeat Community Rating for Silvercorp Metals (TSE SVM)
Community Ranking: 2.2 out of 5 ( ) Outperform Votes: 85 (Vote Outperform) Underperform Votes: 104 (Vote Underperform) Total Votes: 189
MarketBeat's community ratings are surveys of what our community members think about Silvercorp Metals and other stocks. Vote "Outperform" if you believe SVM will outperform the S&P 500 over the long term. Vote "Underperform" if you believe SVM will underperform the S&P 500 over the long term. You may vote once every thirty days.
NovaGold Resources Inc. explores for and develops mineral properties in Canada and the United States. The company primarily explores for gold, silver, and copper deposits. It primarily holds a 50% interest in the Donlin Gold property that covers an area of 71,420 acres located in the Kuskokwim region of southwestern Alaska. It also holds a 50% interest in the Galore Creek property, a copper-gold-silver project covering an area of 293,837 acres in northwestern British Columbia. The company was formerly known as NovaCan Mining Resources (1985) Limited and changed its name to NovaGold Resources Inc. in March 1987. NovaGold Resources Inc. was founded in 1984 and is based in Vancouver, Canada.
MarketBeat Community Rating for Novagold Resources (NASDAQ NG)
Community Ranking: 2.2 out of 5 ( ) Outperform Votes: 29 (Vote Outperform) Underperform Votes: 38 (Vote Underperform) Total Votes: 67
MarketBeat's community ratings are surveys of what our community members think about Novagold Resources and other stocks. Vote "Outperform" if you believe NG will outperform the S&P 500 over the long term. Vote "Underperform" if you believe NG will underperform the S&P 500 over the long term. You may vote once every thirty days.
The Fund seeks to match as closely as possible the price and yield performance of the AMEX Gold Miners Index. The Fund, utilizing a passive or indexing investment approach, attempts to approximate the investment performance of the Index by investing in a portfolio of stocks that generally replicate the Index.
Basic Details Issuer Van Eck Fund NameVanEck Vectors Gold Miners ETF Tax ClassificationRegulated Investment Company SymbolNYSEARCA:GDX Inception Date5/16/2006 Fund ManagerHao-Hung Peter Liao, Guo Hua Jason Jin WebN/A PhoneN/A Fund Focus Asset ClassEquity BenchmarkNYSE Arca Gold Miners Index CategorySector FocusBasic Materials Development LevelBlended Development RegionGlobal Fund Statistics Assets Under Management$11.60 billion Average Daily Volume$65.27 million Discount/Premium0.06% ETF Expenses Management Fee0.50% Other Expenses0.02% Total Expenses0.52% Fee Waiver0.00% Net Expenses0.52% Administrator, Advisor and Custodian AdministratorVan Eck Associates Corporation AdvisorVan Eck Associates Corporation CustodianThe Bank of New York Mellon Corporation DistributorVan Eck Securities Corporation Transfer AgentThe Bank of New York Mellon Corporation Trustee Lead Market Maker AMEX:GDX Rates by TradingView Receive GDX News and Ratings via Email Sign-up to receive the latest news and ratings for GDX and its competitors with MarketBeat's FREE daily newsletter.
MarketBeat Community Rating for VanEck Vectors Gold Miners ETF (NYSEARCA GDX)
Community Ranking: 2.5 out of 5 ( ) Outperform Votes: 142 (Vote Outperform) Underperform Votes: 139 (Vote Underperform) Total Votes: 281
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Two JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N) employees, including a top metals trading executive, have been placed on leave in response to a U.S. criminal investigation into the bank’s metals trading practices, according to a source familiar with the matter.
Michael Nowak and Gregg Smith are on leave, the source said on Thursday, making them the third and fourth JPMorgan employees to be connected to the criminal investigation that has resulted in guilty pleas from two former JPMorgan metals traders.
Nowak is a managing director and global head of base and precious metals trading in New York for the bank, according to his LinkedIn profile. Smith’s title could not be learned.
Nowak was placed on leave around late August, the source said.
Neither Nowak nor Smith have been charged with a crime.
Attorneys for Nowak did not respond to a request for comment. A call to Smith’s number at the bank was answered by an employee at the metals desk who directed questions to the bank’s public relations department. Reuters could not learn the identity of his lawyer.
A spokesman for the Department of Justice declined to comment.
JPMorgan, one of the largest gold trading banks in the world, said in an August regulatory filing it is “responding to and cooperating with” investigations by various authorities, including the Department of Justice, relating to trading practices in the metals markets.
Spoofing involves placing bids to buy or offers to sell contracts with the intent to cancel them before execution. By creating an illusion of demand, spoofers can influence prices to benefit their market positions.
There has been a surge in spoofing-related prosecutions in recent years. Bank of America Corp’s (BAC.N) Merrill Lynch commodities unit, for example, paid $25 million in July to resolve actions by the U.S. Commodities Futures Trading Commission and Department of Justice for precious metals spoofing trades between 2008 and 2014.
The Department of Justice already secured guilty pleas from two former JPMorgan metals traders, Christiaan Trunz and John Edmonds. The announcement of their pleas, in August 2019 and October 2018, respectively, indicated that they had collaborated on spoofing with their supervisors, who were not named.
Trunz placed “thousands” of orders he did not plan to execute for gold, silver, platinum and palladium futures contracts between 2007 and 2016, and had learned to spoof from more senior traders, the Department of Justice said in August, adding that he was cooperating with “the ongoing investigation.”
Nowak and another former JPMorgan trader, Robert Gottlieb, are named as defendants in at least one other civil suit related to metals spoofing at JPMorgan. A December 2018 class action complaint, for example, said that Edmonds, Nowak, Gottlieb and others made hundreds of spoof orders or more as “part of a conspiracy” with the bank and other internal traders.
An attorney for Gottlieb did not respond to a request for comment. Koch Industries Inc, Gottlieb’s last known employer, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
JPMorgan has also been sued separately by a group of investors, who said they lost money as a result of the bank spoofing its trades. In one of the lawsuits brought against the bank by Daniel Shak, a metals trader, Shak estimated he suffered immediate losses of around $25 million after he was forced to liquidate his position as a result of JPMorgan’s market manipulation, a court document showed.
The civil suits against JPMorgan have been stayed pending the Department of Justice probe.
Papua New Guinea wants to keep 40% of gold produced from the proposed Wafi-Golpu project, the country’s commerce minister said, creating a potential hurdle to an agreement with co-owners Newcrest Mining and Harmony Gold.
The miners had been hoping to secure a mining lease over the major gold and copper deposit earlier this year, before a change in PNG’s leadership and a shift in minerals policy led to delays.
“We’d like to see Newcrest come to the negotiating table on this,” PNG’s Minister for Commerce and Industry Wera Mori told Reuters in a phone interview late on Thursday.
“They get 60% of the production, we get 40%. If they don’t like it we’ll mine it ourselves - we own the resources.”
Mori said that the government could offer concessions on duties and taxes as part of the negotiations and he said he was confident a deal would be struck.
Newcrest and Harmony each own 50% of Wafi-Golpu, while the PNG government has the right to purchase an equity interest.
A spokesman for Newcrest said that Mori’s opinions did not reflect the view of the PNG cabinet.
“The Minister for Commerce has nothing to do with mining. He has no accountability or involvement with negotiations with resource companies,” the spokesman said.
“We know Minister Mori well and look forward to discussing this matter with him further,” he added.
Located near the port city of Lae, the project is forecast to hit an annual production peak in 2025 of 320,000 ounces of gold and 150,000 tonnes of copper, according to the project website.
The proposed policy changes are part of a push by the South Pacific archipelago to transform its mineral-rich economy amid a perceived lack of benefits flowing from resources projects back to communities.
PNG is also negotiating to take a bigger share of the Porgera gold mine as part of lease-renewal talks with joint venture partners Barrick Gold Corp and Zijin Mining Group.
It has also sought concessions from French giant Total SA over a $13 billion plan to expand gas exports.
The Wafi-Golpu gold would be processed in-country, creating a downstream industry for PNG, Mori said.
Mori told Reuters that PNG wanted to build up its gold bullion reserves, acting as a peg for its kina currency.
PNG’s central bank currently fixes its currency to a narrow U.S. dollar band, propping up the kina’s value while creating a shortage of dollars available in the Pacific nation.
“When the stock market crashes we lose value,” he said.
“But if the stock market crashes and we have gold, the gold price goes up.”
Operations across Chinese manufacturers of copper tubes and pipes slowed more than expected in August, showed an SMM survey, as inventories remained high and as the heat wave went on for a shorter period than previous years.
The average operating rate across copper tube and pipe producers in China fell for a fourth month in row in August, losing 7.2 percentage points from July to 73.04%, according to the SMM survey released on Friday September 6.
On a year-over-year basis, the rate declined 6.75 percentage points. The survey covered 19 producers, with total capacity of 2.13 million mt on an annualised basis.
Major copper tube/pipe users, air-conditioner producers, often enter a low season in August, when some of them conduct maintenance. Longer-than-usual maintenance this year also led to the weaker-than-expected operations at AC producers. The sluggish property sector, meanwhile, failed to offer some support.
Sharply weaker consumption, together with stockpiling when the escalation of US-China trade tensions pulled copper prices lower, bolstered raw material inventories at copper tube and pipe producers last month.
The ratio of raw material inventory to output climbed 2.12 percentage points month on month to 16.62% last month.
The operating rate at Chinese manufacturers of copper tubes and pipes is expected to rebound 3.68 percentage points month on month to 76.72% in September, as producers recover from maintenance and stockpile for the fourth quarter.
A traditional high consumption season in September-October will also be a driver of copper tube and pipe production.
September’s operating rate will likely rise 4.77 percentage points from a year ago.
China’s unwrought copper imports fell in August after a bounce in the previous month, customs data showed on Sunday, as a slowdown in the world’s top copper consumer raises concerns over demand for the metal, while aluminium exports also dipped.
Arrivals of unwrought copper, including anode, refined and semi-finished copper products into China stood at 404,000 tonnes last month, the General Administration of Customs said. That was down 3.8% from 420,000 tonnes in July and also down 3.8% year-on-year.
The decline came despite copper prices in China being mostly high enough in August for traders to make a profit by buying on the London Metal Exchange, the global price benchmark, and selling on China’s Shanghai Futures Exchange, encouraging bookings of physical copper imports into China.
But factory activity in China, which is embroiled in a bruising trade war with the United States, shrank for a fourth straight month in August, according to an official survey, in a bearish sign for the manufacturing sector that is a key source of copper demand.
“While the economic data has been a little bit weak, some of the more end-use sectors (for copper) have shown signs of recovery,” said Daniel Hynes, commodities strategist at ANZ, before the data was released.
China’s imports of copper concentrate CNC-COPORE-IMP, or partially processed copper ore, came in at 1.815 million tonnes in August, down 12.5% from the previous month’s record high of 2.07 million tonnes but up 9.3% year-on-year.
“There has been a general, ongoing shift in the type of copper China has been importing,” because of expanding smelting capacity that can process concentrate, Hynes said, noting that - taking unwrought and concentrate imports together - apparent consumption of copper units had grown this year.
Meanwhile, China’s aluminium exports fell 4.3% in August from the previous month despite a weaker yuan as unexpected production outages at two key smelters meant there was less metal available for overseas shipments.
China, the world’s top aluminium producer, last month exported 466,000 tonnes of unwrought aluminium, including primary metal, alloy and semi-finished products.
The total was the lowest since February and was also down 9.9% from August 2018.
Commodities trader Trafigura Group used its influence at Nyrstar, one of the world’s biggest zinc refiners, to undermine the company and unfairly enrich itself, a group of Nyrstar shareholders has alleged.
Through its sway on the board and management committee, Trafigura was able to negotiate lopsided contracts that effectively drained cash from Nyrstar since 2016, contributing to the company’s collapse, the shareholders said in a recent lawsuit in Belgium.
"Nyrstar has defended itself in open court against the unsubstantiated allegations made by a small group of shareholders," said Benoit Allemeersch, a lawyer representing the company in Belgian court. "These claims are nothing new and entirely incorrect."
Documents related to the case, which include contracts between Nyrstar and Trafigura and an analysis by one of the shareholders, shed light on the complex relationship between the two companies. Before a debt restructuring this year that led to Trafigura taking control of Nyrstar’s assets, the privately held trading house was the company’s biggest shareholder, as well as its main supplier and customer.
The nature of the commercial agreements between Nyrstar and Trafigura has long been the subject of speculation among insiders in the metals industry, but until now the exact details have been unknown.
The shareholders say Trafigura’s influence resulted in Nyrstar’s senior executives entering into commercial agreements that were disadvantageous, compounding the strain on its balance sheet caused by a heavy debt load and adverse conditions in the zinc market.
The contracts “confirmed our main suspicion, which was that Trafigura was in a position to exploit or make an abuse of its economic control,” said Laurent Arnauts, a lawyer who said he’s representing about 100 Nyrstar investors.
‘MATERIAL ERRORS’
The statements made by the shareholders contain "a lot of material errors and simple insinuations," according to Nyrstar lawyer Allemeersch.
While commodities merchants often have close commercial ties with producers, senior metals traders who viewed the agreements and were unconnected to the shareholder lawsuit said the terms were unusually onerous for Nyrstar and favorable to Trafigura. The deals also raise questions about Trafigura’s level of influence at the company.
The top issues raised by the shareholders’ group relate to steep commercial discounts given to Trafigura and certain clauses the shareholders say give it preference. In the supply deal for semi-refined ores known as concentrates, Nyrstar accepted processing fees that were far below prevailing industry rates, putting operating margins under strain, according to an analysis by Kris Vansanten, a shareholder and founder of Quanteus Group.
"A smelter every year fights for every dollar he can get per ton of zinc. Reducing that significantly with Trafigura is at the least very, very strange," said Julien De Wilde, a former Nyrstar chairman who left the company in 2016 as Trafigura brought in its slate of directors.
A contract that allowed Trafigura to buy finished metal at a significant discount to prevailing spot-market rates also appears to have put Trafigura at an uncommon advantage, one person familiar with Nyrstar’s prior commercial arrangements said.
In June, Nyrstar’s chief Hilmar Rode said in a call with investors that the terms reflected market conditions, as well as the company’s weakened financial state and need for additional investment, which Trafigura provided. Without the rights issue, Nyrstar could have faced insolvency, Rode said.
"There were very stark choices at that time," he said, according to a transcript of the call.
The Quanteus report also highlighted parts of the contracts that it says gave Trafigura the upper hand. For example, clauses that allowed the trading house to cancel the deal and gave it the first right of refusal of metal volumes in certain cases. The agreement also set out circumstances in which Trafigura could withhold large quantities of metal from Nyrstar.
“If you look at the investment case on the website of Nyrstar, it says our financial agreements are supportive for the investment case, but the reality was quite different,” Vansanten said by phone from Brussels.
NYRSTAR’S DOWNFALL
To be sure, Nyrstar’s history of financial troubles dates back to around 2010, when management embarked on a debt-fueled run of mining acquisitions. As zinc prices plummeted 26% in 2018, the company started bleeding cash and it became clear that it wouldn’t be able to make a bond repayment. Nyrstar has said asset writedowns, “severe deterioration” in the global economy and lower zinc treatment charges were among the reasons for its collapse.
The court case led by shareholders -- angry about the 97% plunge in Nyrstar’s share price since the start of 2018 -- is one of many headaches facing Trafigura. In the debt restructuring announced in April, Trafigura said it would infuse the company with fresh cash and stabilize operations, while other shareholders were awarded 2% of the reorganized group.
COURT BATTLE
The shareholder group won a court decision to postpone a vote on Nyrstar’s accounts, and is preparing to file broader proceedings to pursue damages, Arnauts said. Nyrstar’s lawyer Allemeersch said the Belgian court dismissed other claims made by the group.
"If further claims are filed, we’ll fully and forcefully defend them in court," said Allemeersch.
Another part of the shareholder allegations is that Nyrstar’s executive chairman, Martyn Konig, may not have acted impartially in an earlier role as an independent director. Konig also serves as a consultant adviser to T Wealth, the family office that manages investments for Trafigura’s senior executives. Before joining the Nyrstar board, he was chief investment officer of T Wealth.
“I have no other relationship with Trafigura and T Wealth is completely independent from Trafigura,” Konig said in a Q&A with investors in June.
The issues now threaten to bring further scrutiny of Trafigura’s role in the management of the company, as well as the opaque world of commodities deals. In June, the trading house was criticized by Iceberg Research, the short seller that targeted Noble Group before its collapse, over how it values some assets. Trafigura said at the time that it’s always followed a “conservative approach.”
THE BIG CONTRACT
Trafigura signed the long-term sales and purchase agreements with Nyrstar in 2015, putting it in a position to supply about a quarter of the company’s raw-material needs and buy more than a third of its metal output. Historically, the size of the metal offtake contract made it one of the industry’s biggest and most coveted trophies -- a prize previously handled by Noble Group and Glencore.
Trafigura has consistently said that it invested in Nyrstar because of its positive view of the zinc market and supported the company’s strategic plans. In the June call with investors, Nyrstar CEO Rode said decisions about the zinc offtake agreement were made independently.
"Nyrstar was not in a strong position at the end of 2015," said Rode, who plans to leave the company at the end of this month.
“The board did the best possible negotiation to achieve an arm’s length result,” he said. “Arm’s length in terms of a negotiation is something that also represents the relative strengths of the counterparties.”
Rode also pointed to improvements in Nyrstar’s performance in 2018 from 2017, saying the company was able to stabilize its debt levels. But in the end, he said the company was blindsided by the sharp decline in zinc prices.
Luhut Pandjaitan, coordinating minister of Indonesia, reportedly said that the country is mulling accelerating the implementation of the ban on exports of bauxite, the raw material used to produce aluminium. Ending exports of bauxite is currently slated for 2022.
The Southeast Asian country said at the end of August that it will restrict nickel ore exports from January 2020, two years earlier than the previous timetable. This sparked fears of supply shortages and bolstered prices of the ingredient for stainless steel and lithium-ion batteries used to power electric vehicles.
China imported 1.32 million mt of bauxite from Indonesia in July, accounting for 14% of the total, showed SMM calculations based on Customs data.
Production of refined nickel in China came in at 12,670 mt in August, up 0.56% from July and 11.36% from August 2018, showed an SMM survey.
A smelter in Gansu put its one production line under maintenance for about a month ending at the middle of August. This impacted production by some 1,000 mt.
Nickel production is expected to rise to 14,000 mt in September, as greater profit margins encourage smelters to shift from nickel sulphate production to nickel metal after nickel prices soared. This includes smelters in Gansu and Shandong.
Output of nickel pig iron (NPI) in China rose 4.82% from a month ago to a record high of 53,200 mt in Ni content in August, showed an SMM survey, as high profit margins prompted smelters to ramp up operations.
August’s NPI output was up 38.22% from a year ago, as environmental pressure subdued production in the same period last year.
As smelters in major producing hubs such as Shandong and Inner Mongolia stepped up production on high profits, output of high-grade NPI grew 5.62% from July to 46,000 mt in Ni content last month.
Output of low-grade materials, meanwhile, held stable at 7,200 mt in Ni content.
NPI production is expected to shrink 0.18% month on month to 53,100 mt in September, as output of high-grade materials declining 0.56% to 45,700 mt.
Production of low-grade NPI will likely rise 2.22% to 73,700 mt, as some smelters in the north recover.
Overall NPI production will rise 28.38% from a year ago in September.
China produced 9,876 mt in Ni content of nickel sulphate in August, which translated to 44,900 mt in physical content.
This was up 16.6% from a year ago and 1.66% from a month ago, bolstered by the ramp-up of newly-commissioned capacity and recovery from production curtailments.
The growth in production, however, was limited by production cuts at some integrated producers of nickel sulphate and precursor, who procured nickel sulphate for production instead of producing nickel sulphate from nickel briquette or powder on its own, as the latter will incur losses.
Demand from new energy vehicle batteries improved last month, but has yet to recover to levels seen before the government subsidy cuts took effect in late June.
Despite poor demand, output of electroplating-grade nickel sulphate held stable last month.
Producers’ shift from nickel sulphate to pure nickel is expected to lower output of nickel sulphate by 5.48% from August to 42,400 mt, or 9,335 mt in Ni content, in September. Prices of battery-grade nickel sulphate have been lower than those for pure nickel for months.
https://news.metal.com/newscontent/100971104/npi-production-rises-to-record-high-in-aug/
zoom Jean Cahuzac, Subsea 7 CEO; Source: Subsea 7
UK subsea engineering and construction services company Subsea 7 has informed that Jean Cahuzac will retire from his position as CEO at the end of this year.
Cahuzac will be succeeded from January 1, 2020, by John Evans, who is currently COO, Subsea 7 said on Tuesday.
According to the company, Jean Cahuzac has been in the industry for 41 years and CEO for Subsea 7 since 2008, having previously worked for Transocean and Schlumberger. Following his retirement as CEO, Cahuzac will continue as a non-executive director of the company.
John Evans has been COO of Subsea 7 since he joined the company in 2005 and has over 30 years’ experience in the offshore energy services industry. Evans previously worked for KBR in a number of general management, commercial, and operational roles.
Kristian Siem, Subsea 7 Chairman, said: “The board would like to thank Jean for his leadership over many years and the valuable contribution that he has made to the company. We are fortunate that John Evans, who has a deep understanding of the business and a wealth of experience, will succeed Jean as CEO and the Board looks forward to working directly with him.”
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Philippine nickel miners are likely to ramp up ore output by next year, but their production capacity is limited by a number of factors, including government-imposed mining curbs, the head of the local industry lobby group said on Wednesday.
The Southeast Asian nation's nickel ore output may rise in 2020 mining season, but the volume is unlikely to return to the 2014 record-high level of about 50 million tonnes, said Dante Bravo, president of the Philippine Nickel Industry Association.
The Mines and Geoscienses Bureau (MGB), the industry watchdog under the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), limits the land that miners can develop at any one time under new rules introduced in September last year to protect the environment.
"I don't think we will return to that level because the DENR has already imposed this area limit that you can mine, and there is no new mine that's being opened," Bravo told reporters on the sidelines of a Philippine mining conference.
"We are limited also by the weather," said Bravo, who is also president of the Philippines' second-biggest nickel ore exporter Global Ferronickel Holdings Inc.
The mining season in the Philippines usually starts in April and ends in October. Mining and shipping operations are halted towards the end of the year until the first quarter of the following year because of strong rains and winds in the mining region.
The Philippines was the world's second-largest producer of nickel ore in 2018, selling most of its output to top buyer China.
In 2020, when last year's top producer Indonesia is due to ban its ore exports, China is expected to rely mainly on nickel ore from the Philippines, according to analysts.
Indonesia said earlier this month it will stop nickel ore exports from January 1, 2020, two years earlier than initially flagged as it speeds up efforts to process more of its resources at home.
Speculation about the ban and the eventual confirmation by Indonesian authorities had fuelled a rally in nickel prices in recent weeks.
"When you have higher prices, even lower grades can be saleable already unlike before," Bravo said.
"But I won't say it's minimal. We'll see," he said about the prospective increase in Philippine ore output.
"Each mining company has its own mining plans and, of course, they would want at this time to optimize the use of their resources, so they have to do it carefully," he said.
Indonesia’s energy ministry has approved a new recommendation for a unit of Freeport McMoran Inc to raise copper concentrate exports to 700,000 tonnes until March 2020, an official told reporters on Friday
The new recommendation is much higher than the initial approval for shipments of 198,282 tonnes of copper concentrates, said Yunus Saefulhak, the ministry’s director of minerals
Freeport’s Grasberg mine is expected to produce 1.2 million tonnes of copper concentrates this year, he said
Saefulhak said Freeport could export more “due to optimisation of its open pit mine”
Russia has launched the third export line at its largest coal terminal in the Far East region, loading the first cargo for Indian company JSW Steel, Vostochny Port said on Thursday.
Russia and India are forging closer ties amid chilling relations between Moscow and the West over the Ukrainian crisis, Moscow’s alleged meddling in the elections in the United States and other issues.
The two nations are targeting $30 billion of annual trade by 2025. Indian investors are interested in investing in Russia’s coal industry, the head of Russia’s RDIF sovereign wealth fund said on Wednesday.
Indian coal producer Coal India signed a deal to mine coking coal in Russia’s Far East, while private company H-Energy is looking at buying liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Novatek on a long-term basis, companies said this week. Vostochny Port on the Russian Pacific coast said in its statement that launching the third line at the coal terminal doubled the port’s loading capacity to 50 million to 55 million tonnes per year.
Vostochny Port is part of the private coal producer Kuzbassrazrezugol, co-owned by businessmen Iskander Makhmudov and Andrei Bokarev.
China’s construction sector consumed two-thirds of China’s incremental steel production over January-July, with the stronger-than-expected property market remaining the biggest steel demand driver, according to the China Iron & Steel Association.
China’s net steel exports decreased by almost 200,000 mt year on year over January-July, while its crude steel production increased by 48 million mt year on year, suggesting that the output rise was absorbed by domestic demand, according to Chinese media quoting CISA vice-chairman Luo Tiejun on Thursday.
However, Luo said China’s steel demand over the longer-term would plateau and therefore the industry should be careful about investing too much in the steel sector and associated industries.
According to the National Bureau of Statistics, China’s fixed asset investment in the ferrous smelting and processing sector over January-July increased by 37.8% year on year, up from 13.8% in 2018, and a big jump from minus 7.1% in 2017.
Though China’s property construction sector has been strong enough to absorb additional steel production in 2019, its slowdown is inevitable as Chinese regulators have curtailed lending to developers and refrained from cutting mortgage rates.
Land purchases by Chinese developers over January-July dropped 29.4% year on year, indicating the steel demand pipeline is thinning out.
On Wednesday, during China’s State Council meeting, Premier Li Keqiang urged the “timely use” of bank deposit reserve ratio cuts, dropping a hint to the market that China would further lower the cost of borrowing to support the economy.
However, steel traders said any boost from a further reserve ratio cut for steel demand would be limited, as China has become hawkish about the property sector. The manufacturing sector remains constrained by a lack of investor confidence due to global trade tensions; the NBS manufacturing purchasing managers’ index for August showed the sector was technically in contraction.
The traders expect new home building starts to be robust into the first half of 2020, but the outlook may become grim afterwards.
US sheet mill outage plans are piling up through the remainder of the year, totaling at least 100 days of cuts among various mills, according to S&P Global Platts analysis.
Most major US flat-rolled steel producers have some sort of scheduled maintenance planned through the remainder of the year with nearly two-thirds of the outages expected in October. The total rated capacity to be removed from the market will be between 630,000 st and 701,000 st. Capacity levels are based on the Association for Iron and Steel Technology data and industry estimates.
AK Steel Dearborn in Michigan is set to undergo an outage in October which is “expected to be less than 20 days,” according to a spokeswoman for the company. If the outage for a blast furnace reline goes a full 20 days it would remove an estimated 180,000 st of rated production.
ArcelorMittal USA also has downtime planned at its Burns Harbor, Indiana mill equating to nearly 150,000 st over a 20-day period, as well as over 40,000 st down over a 10-day period at its sheet mill in Cleveland. The company could not be reached for comment.
Nucor and Steel Dynamics have two outages slated for October. Nucor’s Hickman, Arkansas mill is set to go down for 10 days, which equates to 82,000 st of melt capacity, while SDI’s Butler, Indiana mill will be down for four days equating to 32,000 st, according to market sources.
SDI and North Star Bluescope are set to take downtime in November. SDI’s Columbus, Mississippi outage is scheduled for four days totaling 36,800 st of rated capacity while North Star’s Delta, Ohio mill will be out for five days totaling 30,000 st.
Nucor will reportedly have two more outages in December. Nucor Gallatin in Kentucky is slated to go down for 10 days in early December, removing 43,000 st from the market, while Nucor Decatur (Alabama) is planned to be down for a week removing 48,000 st.
Nucor has scheduled downtime at its Crawfordsville, Indiana mill but the timing is uncertain. The outage was initially scheduled to begin in early September but there were indications it had been pushed into the fourth quarter. It was slated to be down for 14 days which totals 91,000 st of total melt.
https://www.hellenicshippingnews.com/us-sheet-mill-outages-piling-up-through-year-end/
The Indonesian government on Monday lowered the coal benchmark price (HBA) for September to $65.79 per tonne, the lowest since October 2016, an energy ministry spokesman said.
The previous month’s benchmark price, which the government uses to calculate a miner’s royalties, was $72.67 per tonne.
The weaker September benchmark was due to pressure from increased coal supply in China and India, as well as falling demand from the European continent, ministry spokesman Agung Pribadi said.
State utility PLN will purchase coal from miners at the HBA price level, instead of the $70 price cap the government imposed on thermal coal sold domestically to power stations, Pribadi said.
PLN has estimated it would consume 97 million tonnes of coal in 2019 and 109 million tonnes in 2020, a company official said last month.
The HBA is a monthly average of the Argus-Indonesia Coal Index (ICI-1), the Platts Kalimantan 5,900 assessment, the Newcastle Export Index and the globalCOAL Newcastle index from the previous month.
Draft guidelines, which focus on the actions companies should take to maintain water supply and “protect the environment from their operations” during a drought, were updated this month.
The Environment Agency (EA) says it has reviewed the updated draft internally but that it wants like to consult with the organisations and individuals affected by the guidelines.
The regulator is required to formally review and update its drought plan guidance every five years.
According to the guidance, drought plans should have close links with water companies’ Water Resources Management Plans (WRMP) and align with regional water resources plans. WRMPs should also set out what demand and supply options firms will use to secure supplies during droughts of various return periods, types and severities.Water firms must have also appraised and justified those options and selected those that are the best economically, socially and environmentally.
Compared with WRMPs, the agency says the drought plan should be more tactical and set out the actions firms will take to manage supplies in a drought, and include some worked examples.
The planned submission date for all draft drought plans will be January 2021. The EA expects final plans to be published by April 2022.
Droughts are expected to become more frequent in England. The National Drought Group (NDG) said in June that that there is “growing concern” about water supplies, with some parts of the country experiencing below average rainfall since winter 2016.
The consultation, which opened yesterday, runs until 9 September.
A Brazilian iron ore startup backed by a Kazakh mining company is in talks with several potential joint venture partners who would help finance a $2.6 billion mine project, its chief executive said on Tuesday.
Bamin, backed by unlisted global mining and metals group Eurasian Resources Group, is talking to a consortium comprising three different Chinese companies, CEO Eduardo Ledsham told Reuters, confirming earlier media reports.
But he added that the company is also in “advanced negotiations” with three other potential investors drawn by surging iron ore prices, an increase partially fueled by the deadly Vale SA tailings dam disaster in January.
“We don’t have an exclusive arrangement with the Chinese,” Ledsham said. “We now have other options as a result of the changes in the iron ore market, which increased interest in the project.”
Ledsham, a former Vale executive, declined to identify the parties, citing confidentiality accords.
As part of the mining project in the northeastern state of Bahia, Bamin would partially finance a rail line to take ore to the coast and the company would pay the entire cost of building a $1 billion port to export it.
The mine project was first planned in 2005, during a commodities boom that lifted iron ore prices to more than $180 per tonne, compared with current levels of around $90.
Still, Bamin expects to have an internal cost of about $28 per tonne between mining the iron ore and shipping it to port, Ledsham said, giving the company an ample profit margin even if prices fall.
Ledsham said he is confident that a May 2020 scheduled auction for the concession rights for the planned freight train will proceed as planned despite past delays, especially given the pro-mining stance of far right President Jair Bolsonaro’s administration.
“We’re seeing a will to make things happen,” said Ledsham, who previously headed up Brazil’s mineral geological survey.
The project, which will start producing iron ore in the first half of 2025 if all goes well, will use a downstream tailings dam to process the metal, a decision that pre-dated a regulatory ban on the “upstream” variety involved in two lethal accidents at Vale mines in less than four years.
“We want to be the reference in terms of safety,” Ledsham said.
The U.S. steel industry’s crude steel production for the week ending Sept. 7 fell 1.7% compared with production for the same week in 2018, according to the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI).
Steel production for the week ending Sept. 7 totaled an estimated 1.84 million net tons at a capacity utilization rate of 78.8%. The production total marked a decline compared with the 1.87 million net tons produced during the same week of 2018 at a capacity utilization rate of 79.6%.
Meanwhile, production for the week ending Sept. 7, 2019, was down 0.8% from the previous week, when production reached 1.85 million net tons at a capacity utilization rate of 79.5%.
Production for the year to date (i.e., through Sept. 7, 2019) was 67.15 million net tons at a capacity utilization rate of 80.8%. The year-to-date production total marks a 4.0% increase from production during the same period in 2018, which checked in at 64.59 million net tons (at a capacity utilization rate of 77.5%).
Broken down by region, production totals for the week ending Sept. 7, 2019, checked in at:
• Northeast: 214,000 tons
• Great Lakes: 686,000 tons
• Midwest: 190,000 tons
• Southern: 672,000 tons
• Western: 73,000 tons
Last week, citing the Commerce Department’s most recent Steel Import Monitoring and Analysis (SIMA) data, AISI reported August steel import permit applications totaled 2.13 million net tons, down 40.8% from the 3.61 million permit tons recorded in July.
For the first eight months of 2019, total and finished steel imports were 20.80 million net tons and 15.30 million net tons, which marked declines of 13.0% and 16.0%, respectively, compared with the first eight months of 2018.
According to the SIMA data, finished steel import market share in August reached an estimated 19%, just under the 20% market share recorded during the year to date.
https://www.hellenicshippingnews.com/u-s-steel-sector-production-falls-1-7-year-over-year/
Production of stainless steel in China grew in August for a second straight month, rising 2.93% from July to 2.6 million mt, showed an SMM survey.
August’s output was 18.03% higher than the corresponding month of 2018.
#300-series accounted for 1.23 million mt, up 5.13% from a month ago and 8.01% from a year ago.
Output of #200-series rose 1.34% month on month to 981,000 mt, and that of #400-series inched up 0.26% to 391,000 mt.
https://news.metal.com/newscontent/100972022/china-stainless-steel-output-grows-29-in-aug/
At a time when exports are battling a global slowdown, the latest restriction on steel product imports will add to the woes of India’s engineering goods exporters, said the Engineering Export Promotion Council (EEPC). Steel is raw material for engineering goods companies.
In a letter to Union Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal, EEPC Chairman Ravi Sehgal said a Directorate General of Foreign Trade notification of September 5, in the name of Steel Import Monitoring System, has mandated compulsory registration for import of most of the steel products — under Chapter 72 and few products under Chapter 73 and 86 of ITC (HS).
While compulsory registration will monitor steel product inflow into the country, the specifications seem unwarranted, the engineering exporters’ body said. The notification states that an importer can apply for registration between the 60th day and the 15th day before the expected date of arrival of consignment. For this, registration fee has also been specified.
“Registration is fine (as it monitors imports) but why levy the fee? It only adds to the input cost of the importer. The fee part is discouraging. There is no rationale behind this move,” said Suranjan Gupta, executive director, EEPC India.
Steel products are imported in bulk quantities with a minimum lot size of 50-100 tonne. The registration fee to be levied will be a certain percentage of the imported quantity.
The restriction of not registering later than 15th day before the expected date of arrival of consignment is another hurdle, said Gupta. “In the case of neighbouring countries like Dubai and some others we get to know of consignment arrival only 4-5 days in advance, how do we meet the 15th day criterion in such a scenario?” he added.
Meanwhile, engineering exports have declined by around 2 per cent during April-July. Bouncing back may be difficult given the fact that the European Union has further slashed the quota on steel products shipped from India. Also, the imposition of Section 232 and withdrawal of Generalized System of Preferences by the US has restricted exports to the major market.
Under these circumstances, any rise in prices or restrictions on steel imports would add to the problems of the engineering exporters, said the letter.
The letter mentioned that while it is believed that the system has been brought in on the lines of the US “Enforcement and Compliance Steel Import Monitoring and Analysis System (SIMA), it should be noted that there is no application fee for the SIMA licence for imports. The licence may be filled out up to 60 days prior to the date of importation/expected date of entry and will be valid for 75 days.
“We are okay with making the system an import monitoring system but the specifications are making it an import restriction system,” said Gupta.
India’s engineering exports account for 25 percent of the total exports. Any move that would curtail the country’s exports would only add to industry issues amid slowing GDP growth which hit a 6-year low of 5 per cent for the first quarter of this fiscal year.
The Chinese city of Tangshan has ordered steel mills and other industrial companies to curb output or emissions for four days as the mid-autumn public holidays begin, according to two sources and a document seen by Reuters, continuing wider efforts to tackle air pollution.
The move comes after China’s top steelmaking city registered a drop in air quality since the end of last month. The air quality index (AQI) has exceeded 100 for eight days so far this month, according to data traced by China’s Ecology and Environment Ministry, having averaged about 74 over Aug. 13-31.
Steel, cement, coke and thermal power companies are all affected by restrictions imposed by the smog-prone city’s environment regulator.
Tangshan, located about 150 km east of Beijing, had already imposed restrictions on the industrial sector for the whole of September and early October.
The additional curbs for the Mid-Autumn Festival holiday require plants of Tangsteel Co and Tangyin Steel to have only one sintering machine running from noon on Sept. 11 to noon on Sept. 15, according to the notice viewed by Reuters.
A sintering plant uses heat to process iron ore ahead of smelting into steel.
Steelmakers Tangsteel and Tangyin Steel did not answer calls from Reuters.
Coke plants, meanwhile, have been ordered to suspend all wet coke quenching and replace this by coke dry quenching, which has lower CO2 emissions and thermal energy loss, during the four-day period.
Cement companies with one cement kiln have been asked to limit output by 40%. Those with two or more kilns have been asked to reduce production by 50%.
Beijing is desperate to minimize pollution across northern parts of the country and keep the Chinese capital safer before celebrations of its 70th anniversary on Oct. 1.
Dalian iron ore futures climbed nearly 4% on Thursday to their highest in five weeks, extending gains in anticipation of some restocking demand for the steelmaking raw material ahead of holidays in China.
Declining iron ore shipments into China and signs of easing trade frictions between Washington and Beijing added fuel to the rally, outweighing market talks about intensified output restrictions in top steel-producing city of Tangshan.
The most-traded iron ore on the Dalian Commodity Exchange , for January 2020 delivery, rose as much as 3.9% to 681 yuan ($96.08) a tonne, its highest since Aug. 7. It ended up 3.7% at 680 yuan.
The benchmark contract logged its second consecutive gain on a weekly basis.
Financial markets in China are closed on Friday for the nation’s Mid-Autumn Festival.
Amid declining iron ore seaborne arrivals, purchases of the material may pick up due to some restocking demand of steel mills ahead of the country’s National Day celebrations in early October, said Richard Lu, senior analyst at metals consultancy CRU in Beijing.
Sentiment was buoyed by the latest news regarding the U.S.-China trade dispute, he said, with U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday welcoming China’s decision to exempt some U.S. anti-cancer drugs and other goods from its tariffs.
As a “gesture of good will”, Trump announced a short delay to scheduled tariff hikes on billions worth of Chinese goods.
“It will definitely strengthen market confidence and reduce the worries,” Lu said.
The bruising trade war has raised concerns about future demand for steel not only in China, the world’s top producer and consumer of the construction and manufacturing material. China is also among the biggest exporters of steel products.
