Baltic Dry Index. 961 Dec 23. Brent
Crude 56.82
"It is always the best policy to speak the truth, unless of course, you are an exceptionally good liar."
Jerome K. Jerome.
It is day three of the liars and cheaters cartel oil cuts but has anyone actually cut back any oil production? Words are cheap, and all say that they will cut, but on day three no one seems to have actually cut production yet. Below Reuters covers the cheats. The trouble seems to be that the oil producers are all too polite. “After you. No! After you!”
Oil prices rise as markets eye OPEC, non-OPEC production cuts
Oil prices rose in the first trading hours of 2017, buoyed by hopes that
a deal between OPEC and non-OPEC members to cut production, which kicked in on
Sunday, will be effective in draining the global supply glut.
International Brent crude oil prices LCOc1 were trading up 31 cents, or
0.55 percent, at $57.13 a barrel at 0203 GMT on Tuesday - close to last year's
high of $57.89 per barrel, hit on Dec. 12. Oil markets were closed on Monday
after the New Year's holiday.
U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) CLc1 crude oil prices were
up 32 cents, or 0.6 percent, at $54.04, not far from last year's high of $54.51
reached on Dec. 12.
Jan. 1 marked the official start of the deal agreed by the Organization
of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and non-OPEC member countries such as
Russia in November last year to reduce output by almost 1.8 million barrels per
day.
Market watchers said January will serve as an indicator for whether the
agreement will stick.
"Markets will be looking for anecdotal evidence for production
cuts," said Ric Spooner, chief market analyst at Sydney's CMC Markets.
"The most likely scenario is OPEC and non-OPEC member countries will be
committed to the deal, especially in early stages."
Libya, one of two OPEC member countries exempt from cuts, increased its
production to 685,000 barrels per day (bpd) as of Sunday, up from around
600,000 a day in December, according to an official from the National Oil
Corporation (NOC).
Elsewhere in OPEC, member country Oman told customers last week that it
will cut its crude term allocation volumes by 5 percent in March.
Non-OPEC member Russia's oil production
in December remained unchanged at 11.21 million bpd, but it was preparing to
cut output by 300,000 bpd in the first half of 2017 in its contribution to the
production cut accord.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-global-oil-idUSKBN14N00L
Russian oil output in December stays at record highs
Russian oil production in December stood unchanged at 11.21 million
barrels per day (bpd), flat month on
month and at its highest in almost 30
years, energy ministry data showed on Monday.
Russia is preparing to cut output by 300,000 bpd during the first half
of 2017 as a part of a global pact with OPEC aimed at rebalancing the market.
Oil prices ended at $56.82 last year, more doubling from lows hit early
last year.
In tonnes, production rose to 47.402 million in December from 45.884
million in November.
In 2016 in total, output reached 547.499 tonnes, or 10.96 million bpd,
up from 10.72 million in 2015.
According to preliminary data, which excludes some producing units at
some firms, output month on month was slightly down at Rosneft, including
Bashneft, and at Gazprom Neft.
Lukoil, Tatneft and production-sharing agreements showed an increase.
The Russian energy ministry has said that its planned output reduction
would be gradual as production cannot be cut abruptly due to weather and
technological conditions.
More
Saudi cabinet stresses need to implement oil output cut: statement
Saudi Arabia stressed on Monday the importance of co-operation among oil
producers to abide by a decision in November to cut production.
OPEC agreed in November its first oil output cuts since 2008 after Saudi
Arabia accepted "a big hit" on its production and dropped its demand
that arch-rival Iran slash output.
"The council (of ministers)...asserted the importance of stability
and coordination and increased cooperation between member states and commitment
to implement the agreement to cut production reached last November," the
cabinet said in a statement carried by state news agency SPA.
In the never ending EUSSR banking
crisis, desperation time in Italy. Each delay only reduces the remaining rescuers
bid as the non performing bad debts get worse.
Sale of small Italian banks to UBI delayed at Commission's request: sources
The sale of Banca Etruria, Banca Marche and CariChieti to UBI, Italy's fifth-largest lender, was expected to be finalised by the end of 2016.
These three banks and a fourth, CariFerrara, were rescued from bankruptcy in 2015 but Italy is now struggling to find buyers for them after rejecting bids from private equity funds over the summer.
UBI has expressed an interest in buying three of the lenders, but set conditions including for the banks' new non-performing loans to be taken off their balance sheets and the option to use its own internal risk models to weigh the lenders' assets.
Before the deal is concluded, the Commission has asked Italy's resolution fund, which owns the banks, to ask the rejected bidders if they are still interested, the people said.
"It's a necessary step linked to legal issues and requested by Brussels to ensure a competitive process, also given the fact that UBI's offer is worse than the old proposals," one of the sources said.
The Commission had no comment, while the ECB declined to comment.
More
Elsewhere in Europe the countries that
use the Rhine and Danube rivers are off to a low water 2017 start. If it
continues it will act as a drag to the continents economy.
Shallow water again troubles Rhine, Danube shipping in Germany
Shallow water after dry weather in December continues to prevent cargo
vessels from sailing fully loaded on the Rhine and Danube rivers in Germany,
traders said on Monday.
All of the Rhine and Danube in Germany is too shallow for normal
sailings with some barges in central Germany only able to sail 30 percent full,
they said.
Loads are being divided among several vessels instead of being carried
by a single craft, increasing transport costs for cargo owners.
"This is a cost problem. Cargo is still being delivered but it has
to be transferred to land transport," one German grain trader said.
Mostly dry weather is forecast in river catchment areas in Germany and
Switzerland in coming days and little immediate improvement in water levels is
in sight.
The Rhine is an important shipping route for commodities including
grains, minerals, coal and oil products including heating oil. The Danube is a
major route for east European grain exports, especially maize, to western
Europe.
In America, the Republicans get back to
business as usual.
U.S. House Republicans weaken ethics body as they return to Congress
Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives agreed on Monday to
weaken a nonpartisan ethics watchdog on the grounds it had grown too intrusive,
prompting Democrats to charge they were scaling back independent oversight
ahead of a new legislative session.
As they returned to Washington following a holiday break, House
Republicans voted in a closed-door meeting to place the Office of Congressional
Ethics under the oversight of the House Ethics Committee, giving lawmakers
greater control over an independent body charged with investigating their
behavior.
The measure was added to a broader rules package that is expected to
pass when the House formally convenes on Tuesday.
The ethics office was created in 2008 following several corruption
scandals, but some lawmakers have charged in recent years that it has been too
quick to investigate complaints lodged by outside partisan groups.
The body will now have to deliver its reports to lawmakers, rather than
releasing them directly to the public, according to a summary released by
Republican Representative Bob Goodlatte. It will be renamed the Office of
Congressional Complaint Review.
"The OCE has a serious and important role in the House, and this
amendment does nothing to impede their work," said Goodlatte, who
sponsored the measure.
House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, who created the ethics office
while House speaker following complaints that lawmakers were unable to
effectively police themselves, said Republicans were eliminating the only
independent body charged with monitoring their actions.
"Evidently, ethics are the first casualty of the new Republican
Congress," Pelosi said in a statement.
More
Why did I take up stealing? To live better, to own things I couldn't afford, to acquire this good taste that you now enjoy and which I should be very reluctant to give up.
Cary Grant. To Catch A Thief. Republican.
At the Comex silver depositories Friday
final figures were: Registered 26.93 Moz, Eligible 156.53 Moz,
Total 183.46 Moz.
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally
doubled over.
Today, Mrs Merkel ducks Davos. It’s an election
year, I suppose.
Germany's Merkel to skip Davos on eve of Trump presidency
German Chancellor Angela Merkel is steering clear of the World Economic Forum in Davos, a meeting expected to be
dominated by debate over the looming presidency of Donald Trump and rising
public anger with elites and globalization.
Merkel has been a regular at the annual gathering of political leaders,
CEOs and celebrities, traveling to the snowy resort in the Swiss Alps seven
times since becoming chancellor in 2005.
But her spokesman told Reuters she had decided not to attend for a
second straight year. This year's conference runs from Jan. 17-20 under the
banner "Responsive and Responsible Leadership". Trump's inauguration
coincides with the last day of the conference.
"It's true that a Davos trip was being considered, but we never
confirmed it, so this is not a cancellation," the spokesman said.
It is the first time Merkel has missed Davos two years in a row since
taking office over 11 years ago and her absence may come as a disappointment to
the organizers because her reputation as a steady, principled leader fits well
with the theme of this year's conference.
The German government declined to say what scheduling conflict was
preventing her from attending, nor would it say whether the decision might be
linked to the truck attack on a Berlin Christmas market that killed 12 people
in mid-December.
But after the Brexit vote in Britain and the election of Trump were
attributed to rising public anger with the political establishment and
globalization, leaders may be more reluctant than usual to travel to a
conference at a plush ski resort that has become synonymous with the global
elite.
One European official suggested that the prospect of having to address
questions about Trump days before he enters the White House might also have
dissuaded Merkel, whose politics is at odds with the president-elect on a broad
range of issues, from immigration and trade, to Russia and climate change.
More
Solar
& Related Update.
With events
happening fast in the development of solar power and graphene, I’ve added this
section. Updates as they get reported. Is converting sunlight to usable cheap
AC or DC energy mankind’s future from the 21st century onwards? DC?
A quantum computer next?
Bright future for energy devices
Date:
December 20, 2016
Source:
Michigan Technological University
Summary:
A new material embeds sodium metal in carbon and could improve electrode
performance in energy devices. Scientists ran tests on the sodium-embedded
carbon and it performed better than graphene in dye-sensitized solar cells and
supercapacitors.
A little sodium goes a long way. At least that's the case in
carbon-based energy technology. Specifically, embedding sodium in carbon materials
can tremendously improve electrodes.
A research team led by Yun Hang Hu, the Charles and Carroll McArthur
Professor of materials science and engineering at Michigan Tech, created a
brand-new way to synthesize sodium-embedded carbon nanowalls. Previously, the
material was only theoretical and the journal Nano Letters recently
published this invention.
High electrical conductivity and large accessible surface area, which
are required for ideal electrode materials in energy devices, are opposed to each
other in current materials. Amorphous carbon has low conductivity but large
surface area. Graphite, on the other hand, has high conductivity but low
surface area. Three-dimensional graphene has the best of both properties -- and
the sodium-embedded carbon invented by Hu at Michigan Tech is even better.
"Sodium-embedded carbon's conductivity is two orders of magnitude
larger than three-dimensional graphene," Hu says. "The nanowall
structure, with all its channels and pores, also has a large accessible surface
area comparable to graphene."
This is different from metal-doped carbon where metals are simply on the
surface of carbon and are easily oxidized; embedding a metal in the actual
carbon structure helps protect it. To make such a dream material, Hu and his
team had to create a new process. They used a temperature-controlled reaction
between sodium metal and carbon monoxide to create a black carbon powder that
trapped sodium atoms. Furthermore, in collaboration with researchers at
University of Michigan and University of Texas at Austin, they demonstrated
that the sodium was embedded inside the carbon instead of adhered on the
surface of the carbon. The team then tested the material in several energy
devices.
In the dye-sensitized solar cell world, every tenth of a percent counts
in making devices more efficient and commercially viable. In the study, the
platinum-based solar cell reached a power conversion efficiency of 7.89
percent, which is considered standard. In comparison, the solar cell using Hu's
sodium-embedded carbon reached efficiencies of 11.03 percent.
Supercapacitors can accept and deliver charges much faster than
rechargeable batteries and are ideal for cars, trains, elevators and other
heavy-duty equipment. The power of their electrical punch is measured in farads
(F); the material's density, in grams (g), also matters.
Activated carbon is commonly used for supercapacitors; it packs a 71 F
g-1 punch. Three-dimensional graphene has more power with a 112 F g-1
measurement. Sodium-embedded carbon knocks them both out of the ring with a 145
F g-1 measurement. Plus, after 5,000 charge/discharge cycles, the material
retains a 96.4 percent capacity, which indicates electrode stability.
Hu says innovation in energy devices is in great demand. He sees a bright
future for sodium-embedded carbon and the improvements it offers in solar tech,
batteries, fuel cells, and supercapacitors.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/12/161220175546.htmThe monthly Coppock Indicators finished December
DJIA: 19763
+74 Up NASDAQ: 5383 +70 Up. SP500: 2239 +75 Up
No comments:
Post a Comment