Friday 15 May 2015

Open Office Edition

Baltic Dry Index. 637 +03 Brent Crude 66.73
LIR Gold Target in 2019: $30,000. Revised due to QE programs.
Due to continuing problems with MS Office, hopefully to be sorted out later today by Microsoft's “level two” team, this is a test update using Apache's Open Office program. Who said that the Dunkirk spirit is dead in Great Britain. Many thanks to George in Canada for pointing me to Open Office. Have a great weekend everyone. Mine is likely to be busy.

Apache Open Office https://www.openoffice.org/why/index.html

China’s Yuan May Draw $1 Trillion on Getting IMF Reserve Status

5:23 AM BST May 15, 2015
At least $1 trillion of global reserves will switch into Chinese assets if the International Monetary Fund endorses the yuan as a reserve currency this year, according to Standard Chartered Plc and AXA Investment Managers.

People’s Bank of China officials have called for the IMF to include the yuan in its reserve basket -- which consists of the dollar, euro, pound and yen -- in a review later this year. An inclusion could spur as much as 6.2 trillion yuan ($999 billion) of net purchases of China’s onshore bonds by end-2020, Standard Chartered estimates. AXA Investment Managers says about 10 percent of the $11.6 trillion of global reserves will flow into yuan assets. It didn’t give a timeframe.

“What is significant is the seal of approval by the IMF that the yuan has internationalized as a reserve currency,” Aidan Yao, senior emerging-market economist at AXA Investment, said in a briefing in Hong Kong on Thursday. “It could trigger a reallocation of global reserves portfolios.”

China is making the yuan more freely usable in order to be included in the IMF’s Special Drawing Rights basket, PBOC Governor Zhou Xiaochuan said in Washington on April 18. The currency failed to qualify in a 2010 review.

The yuan reclaimed fifth place in global payments this March, according to the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication. Standard Chartered said the Chinese currency has a 60 percent chance of getting reserve status this year.
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Germans pile into gold amid G7 Greek eurozone default fears

Economic uncertainty in Europe and fear of a Greek default are turning people to buy gold bars and coins

By Andrew Critchlow, Commodities editor 9:59AM BST 14 May 2015
German investors have piled into gold bars and coins in the first quarter of the year as a hedge against European Central Bank policy and the threat of a Greek default bringing down the eurozone.

Latest figures from the World Gold Council show that Germans increased their buying of gold coins and bars of bullion by 20pc to 32.2 tonnes in the last quarter, the highest rate of purchases seen in a year.

The strong buying of gold - which is traditionally seen by investors as a safe-haven asset - was seen across Europe amid growing uncertainty over central bank policy and the standoff between Athens and its creditors.

"This was the strongest start in Europe for gold coins and bars that we have seen since 2011," Alistair Hewitt, head of market intelligence at the World Gold Council told The Telegraph. "German investors are fretting over the ECB, Greece and Ukraine."

On the wider market, the World Gold Council revealed that total demand in the first quarter fell 1pc to 1,079 tonnes compared with the same period last year.
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At the Comex silver depositories Thursday final figures were: Registered 60.14 Moz, Eligible 117.44 Moz, Total 177.58 Moz.

Crooks and Scoundrels Corner

The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally doubled over.

Not the usual suspects today. Today how a UK Bed & Breakfast outfit looks like taking over a speculative, Belize, oil exploration company. Personally when I stay away from home, from experience I try to stay away from “traditional English cooking.”

B&B owner may be forced to buy Belize oil company after her son accidentally purchased almost half of its shares

Wednesday 13 May 2015
As the long standing owner of the Wyche Keep Country House, a three-room lodging nestling in the majestic Malvern Hills, Judith Williams is unlikely to have spent much time considering the pros and cons of oil exploration in Belize.
But the B&B proprietor may soon be adding New World Oil and Gas to her suddenly expanding business portfolio, after her son accidentally purchased almost half of the company’s shares in her name.
When he bought just over 342 million shares in the Jersey-based energy company through a broker last month, Christopher Williams apparently believed he was taking only a 10 per cent stake in the firm. But as its proposed £1.5 million share placing had not yet concluded, his mother’s stake now stands at 48.7 per cent.
Unfortunately for Mrs Williams, the City watchdog that supervises takeovers and mergers has now ruled that she may have to make a mandatory bid for the rest of the company – which may cost her hundreds of thousands of pounds.
In the event that Mrs Williams receives delivery of shares…she will then have an obligation to extend an offer to the shareholders of New World Oil Group,” the Takeover Panel said in a statement.
New World, which is listed on the London Stock Exchange’s international market for smaller growing companies, is currently exploring the viability of three oil and gas projects in Belize and western Denmark. It is also “actively identifying exploitation opportunities” in Africa, South America and South East Asia.
While the firm may have looked an attractive investment for Mrs Williams’ son, its work is rather remote from her own expertise, which according to her B&B’s website lies in serving up “traditional English cooking” for her guests as they enjoy candlelit dinners with views of the Malvern Hills and the Cotswolds.
Described as a “historic hilltop hideaway”, Wyche Keep was built by the family of Sir Stanley Baldwin, the Conservative Prime Minister. Dinner guests can enjoy its “large luxurious lounge” which has a beamed ceiling and open fireplace, or go for a stroll in its Edwardian garden.
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Squeezing New World Oil & Gas, after a reminder from the LSE

May 08 08:57
Top of Form
Bottom of Form
A market notice from the London Stock Exchange on Thursday reminded member firms of their settlement obligations under its rules, prompted by what it describes as “settlement delays in relation to transactions in New World Oil & Gas.”
The tiny Aim listed oil exploration group, you may remember, is the possible subject of a failure to read the small print short squeeze. Details on the strange situation below, but two things to conclude from the LSE’s statement: regulators are keeping a close eye on this one, but aren’t likely to step in and stop any squeeze.
The debacle began last week when New World announced a £1.5m placing, via a four for one stock placing. Heavy trading followed — multiples of the 0.7bn shares in issue — and some of those transactions are thought to have been sales on extended settlement terms due to be satisfied with new stock issued in the placing.
The problem? A group of shareholders intend to block the placing, which would leave sellers scrambling for shares from the 0.7bn in existence, not the 3.6bn they had anticipated. As an alternative, the company has said it is seeking advice on the allotment of shares “via a rights offering or otherwise”, which would bail out anyone at risk of a squeeze if the new shares could be put into shareholder hands before the end of the month when T+20 trades are expected to settle.
----If the shareholder, described as “Mrs Judith Williams”, has acquired 342,328,669 shares already, well that is very nearly half of the shares outstanding and could require an offer to be made for all the shares outstanding, under Takeover Panel rules. Ooops.
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Wyche Keep Country House.

New World Oil and Gas.


Solar & Related Update.

With events happening fast in the development of solar power, I’ve added this new section. Updates as they get reported.

Could this be the world's most efficient solar electricity system?

Wednesday 13 May 2015 07.00 BST
Using military technology and a zero-emission engine invented by a 19th-century Scot, Swedish firm seeks to revolutionise solar energy production.
A new solar electricity generation system that developers claim is the most efficient in the world, is being tested in South Africa’s Kalahari desert.
The Swedish company behind the project - which combines military technology with an idea developed by a 19th-century Scottish engineer and clergyman - says it is on the verge of building its first commercial installation.
In the remote Northern Cape province, huge mirrors reflect the sun across the brown Kalahari sand. This is the test site for Swedish company Ripasso, which is using the intense South African sun and local manufacturing know-how to develop their cutting-edge kit.
Our whole team in South Africa has been hired locally, and our new systems have all been built with local South African labour. It works great,” says CEO Gunnar Larsson.
This is the only working small-scale concentrated solar energy system of its kind in the world. 34% of the sun’s energy hitting the mirrors is converted directly to grid-available electric power, compared to roughly half that for standard solar panels. Traditional photovoltaic panels are able to turn about 23% of the solar energy that strikes them into electricity, but this is cut to around 15% before it is usable by the grid.
---- The technology works by using the mirrors as giant lenses that focus the sun’s energy to a tiny hot point, which in turn drives a zero-emission Stirling engine.
The Stirling engine was developed by Reverend Robert Stirling in Edinburgh in 1816 as an alternative to the steam engine. It uses alternate heating and cooling of an enclosed gas to drive pistons, which turn a flywheel. Because of the material limitations at the time, the engine was not commercially developed until 1988, when Swedish defence contractor Kokums started making them for submarines.
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Stirling engine

A Stirling engine is a heat engine that operates by cyclic compression and expansion of air or other gas (the working fluid) at different temperatures, such that there is a net conversion of heat energy to mechanical work.[1][2] More specifically, the Stirling engine is a closed-cycle regenerative heat engine with a permanently gaseous working fluid. Closed-cycle, in this context, means a thermodynamic system in which the working fluid is permanently contained within the system, and regenerative describes the use of a specific type of internal heat exchanger and thermal store, known as the regenerator. The inclusion of a regenerator differentiates the Stirling engine from other closed cycle hot air engines.
Originally conceived in 1816 as an industrial prime mover to rival the steam engine, its practical use was largely confined to low-power domestic applications for over a century.[3]
The Stirling engine is noted for high efficiency compared to steam engines,[4] quiet operation, and its ability to use almost any heat source. The heat energy source is generated external to the Stirling engine rather than by internal combustion as with the otto cycle or diesel cycle engines. Because the Stirling engine is compatible with alternative and renewable energy sources it could become increasingly significant as the price of conventional fuels rises, and also in light of concerns such as peak oil and climate change. This engine is currently exciting interest as the core component of micro combined heat and power (CHP) units, in which it is more efficient and safer than a comparable steam engine
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I want to share something with you: The three little sentences that will get you through life. Number 1: Cover for me. Number 2: Oh, good idea, Boss! Number 3: It was like that when I got here.

Greece, with apologies to Homer Simpson.

The monthly Coppock Indicators finished April

DJIA: +112 Down. NASDAQ: +198 Down. SP500: +150 Down.

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