Hung Up.

Baltic Dry Index. 3608 +140

LIR Gold Target by 2019: $3,000.

They came, they saw, they voted, and the UK Parliament ended up hung up in a draw. The great Liberal-Democrat revival went the way of all great Lib-Dem revivals before it as sensible UK voters voted against joining the Euro, opening up the floodgates to immigration, letting illegal immigrants work, and disarming 1930s style in the face of a rapidly changing world. The voters sent them back to the next Parliament to rethink their policies, with 5 fewer seats rather than the extra 40 they expected to win. But thanks to the gross over representation of Scotland and Wales, often in small electorate seats held by die hard unreformed socialists, the Conservatives were denied an overall majority.

Now the horse trading begins, although it's difficult to see a natural fit among any of the parties. If the LIB-Dems prop up the failed old socialist, Gordon Brown Labour Party, an alliance of the losers thwarts the wishes of the majority party and even worse, the strange bedfellows alliance's 81 Welsh and Scottish MPs would be dictating to England were the majority of the voters actually live and pay taxes, and where the Conservatives won a majority of 296 to 234 combined. I predict that the English majority wouldn't stand for it and would likely wipe out the Lib-Dems in the following election. Yet there is no obvious fit with the Tories. The conservatives don't want the Euro, want to keep the nuclear deterrent, restrict immigration, bring back devolved power from Europe and avoid the Euro like the plague. Any pact with the Tories is destined to fail, as the LIB-Dem leadership can't deliver their block vote on hard issues. The UK has just added to an EU descending to hell. More on Monday. But stay long precious metals.

In continental Europe, a lot now depends on how German voters vote tomorrow. If all goes wrong, Chancellor Merkel will become yet another lame duck European leader in office but barely in power. Meanwhile the EU sovereign debt problem doesn't go away. I suspect it will be main issue all across the summer, returning again and again, as each botch job fix is seen to be irrelevant to the underlying insolvency problem. More on that next week too.

In better news, BP's botch job in the Gulf of Mexico, has arrived over the leaking oil well and is about to be placed into position and the 5,000 foot riser attached. If all works as intended, the "funnel" is expected to catch 85% of all the leaking oil and gas. Well maybe, and I'm sure that BP's top engineers have done all the sums and simulations, employing the finest super computers and mathematical modelling, I just suspect that it won't quite work out in practice or for very long. Hopefully BP will prove me wrong. Below, the latest updates from the Gulf of Oil.

Crews position massive dome over Gulf leak

Methane gas bubble blamed for rig blast

By MONICA HATCHER, SHARON HONG and JENNIFER A. DLOUHY
HOUSTON CHRONICLE May 7, 2010, 11:36PM

BP crews Friday positioned a 100-ton, four-story containment dome over the major leak site of an out-of-control oil well, an effort that offered the most immediate hope of corralling a spill that already has closed Gulf of Mexico fishing and threatens the environment onshore.

Meanwhile, crews using containment booms, chemical dispersants and controlled burns attacked the massive spill that, for the most part, still gathered off the coast although some oil has made landfall off the Chandeleur barrier islands in Louisiana.

----In new developments on Friday, the Associated Press reported that workers told BP investigators that the rig blast was triggered by a bubble of methane gas that escaped from the well and shot up the drill column, expanding quickly before exploding.

Some of the best weather since the spill began allowed response teams to burn off as much as 9,000 barrels of oil and vacuum 8,000 barrels of oil-and-water mixture from the surface late this week, the Coast Guard said.

"We are making progress, that's for sure," said Petty Officer Brandon Blackwell.

Nonetheless, as the rust-hued spill grew, moved and changed shape, the federal agency that regulates coastal waters and wildlife closed a larger swath of the Gulf to commercial and recreational fishing on Friday and extended restrictions in affected areas from next Wednesday to May 17. The new area represents about 5 percent of Gulf waters, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said.

----In new developments on Friday, the Associated Press reported that workers told BP investigators that the rig blast was triggered by a bubble of methane gas that escaped from the well and shot up the drill column, expanding quickly before exploding.

Some of the best weather since the spill began allowed response teams to burn off as much as 9,000 barrels of oil and vacuum 8,000 barrels of oil-and-water mixture from the surface late this week, the Coast Guard said.

"We are making progress, that's for sure," said Petty Officer Brandon Blackwell.

Nonetheless, as the rust-hued spill grew, moved and changed shape, the federal agency that regulates coastal waters and wildlife closed a larger swath of the Gulf to commercial and recreational fishing on Friday and extended restrictions in affected areas from next Wednesday to May 17. The new area represents about 5 percent of Gulf waters, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/deepwaterhorizon/6995454.html

 

Rig owner Transocean gets insurance payments

By CHRIS KAHN ASSOCIATED PRESS May 5, 2010, 10:52PM

Transocean said Wednesday that it has received $401  million in insurance payments for its oil rig that exploded and sank two weeks ago in the Gulf of Mexico.

Transocean also said in a regulatory filing that it has received a request from the Justice Department to preserve information about the rig explosion on April 20. Company executives have been asked to participate in congressional hearings. The company is based in Switzerland but has major offices in Houston.

Eleven people died in the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon. The well it was drilling also ruptured.

Transocean also said that its net income slid 28 percent in the first three months of the year.

The company cited lower contract revenues for rigs that both drill in deeper waters and those that drill closer to shore.

The results do not include charges related to the Deepwater Horizon rig, which Transocean leased to BP. It exploded on April 20 and sank about 40 miles off the Louisiana coast. The well ruptured and has been gushing an estimated 210,000 gallons of oil each day.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/6992073.html

Click on the link below, to get the latest update a very good technical description in layman's terms of what went on.

Heading Out's Oil Spill Update - Including Oil Spill Discussion - May 7

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6442#more

More on Monday.

GI.