Baltic Dry Index. 1523 +38 Brent Crude 57.80
Thomas
Paine
In war/treachery
news, President Trump sold out America’s long term allies the Kurds yesterday.
After his Catalonia default last month, it was hardly surprising, but it gives
the green light to Turkey to finish of the Kurds in Syria’s Idlib province. After reneging on the Iran nuclear
deal, and betraying the Kurds in Kirkuk, who would want to be a US “ally” or
sign an international pact with Washington? Why would North Korea trust any
deal with President Trump’s America? Is Tallinn or Riga really swappable for L.
A.? London or Paris? Our world is getting far more complicated and dangerous
with each passing month.
Below, the never
ending war in the Middle East with America on everyone’s side and none? Did
America just green light Bagdad? Has a new war just broken out? Will Iraq, Iran
and Turkey now finish off the Kurds?
“The outcry against killing women, if you accept killing at all,
is sheer sentimentality. Why is it worse to kill a woman than a man?”
George Orwell
October 16, 2017 / 8:35 AM /
Updated 6 hours ago
Iraqi forces seize oil city Kirkuk from Kurds in bold advance
BAGHDAD/KIRKUK, Iraq (Reuters) - Iraqi government forces
captured the major Kurdish-held oil city of Kirkuk on Monday, responding to a
Kurdish referendum on independence with a bold lightning strike that transforms
the balance of power in the country.
A convoy of armoured vehicles from Iraq’s elite U.S.-trained
Counter-Terrorism Force seized Kirkuk’s provincial government headquarters less
than a day after the operation began, a Reuters reporter in Kirkuk said.
Neither side gave a casualty toll for the operation. But an aid
organisation working in Kirkuk said several Kurdish Peshmerga fighters and
members of the Iraqi forces had been killed in an overnight clash south of
Kirkuk - the only serious fighting reported.
As Iraqi forces advanced, Kurdish operators briefly shut some 350,000
barrels per day of oil output at two large Kirkuk fields, citing security concerns,
oil ministry sources on both sides said. But production resumed shortly
thereafter following an Iraqi threat to seize fields under Kurdish management
if they did not do so, according to the sources.
It was not immediately clear whether or when the Iraqi government would
seek to retake control of all Kirkuk oilfields, a vital source of revenue for
the autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).
The short suspension in production helped push up world oil prices LCOc1
as the shutdown represented more than half of total Kurdish output.[O/R]
Fighting between Baghdad and the Kurds could open an entirely new front
in Iraq’s 14-year-old civil war and potentially draw in regional powers such as
Turkey and Iran.
President Donald Trump said the United States would not take sides in
the clash but expressed disappointment the two sides were in conflict.
The U.S. military said its commanders in Iraq were urging Iraqi and
Kurdish forces to avoid escalation and played down reports of fighting.
“We support the peaceful exercise of joint administration by the central
and regional governments, consistent with the Iraqi constitution, in all
disputed areas,” the U.S. State Department said in a statement.
Trump told reporters at the White House: “We don’t like the fact that
they’re clashing. We’re not taking sides.”
“We’ve had for many years a very good relationship with the Kurds as you
know and we’ve also been on the side of Iraq, even though we should have never
been there in the first place,” he said.
Washington arms and trains both Iraqi federal forces and the Peshmerga to
fight Islamic State militants. THOUSANDS OF KURDS FLEE
A dozen Iraqi armoured vehicles arrived at the provincial
government headquarters in Kirkuk and took up positions nearby, alongside local
police. They pulled down the Kurdish flag and left the Iraqi flag flying.
Thousands of Kurdish civilians fled the city of 1 million
people for fear of reprisals. A Kurdish father of four who was driving out of
Kirkuk towards the Kurdish regional capital Erbil to the north said: “We no
longer feel safe. We hope to return to our home but right now we feel it’s
dangerous for us to stay.”
Crowds of ethnic Turkmen who opposed Kurdish control of the
city were celebrating. Some drove in convoys with Iraqi flags and fired shots
in the air.
“This day should become a holiday, we’re so happy to have gotten rid of Barzani’s party,” said a man celebrating on a motorbike, waving the blue-and-white flag of Iraq’s Turkmen, referring to the Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani.
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Kurdish Oil Tensions Show Iran Was a Trump Sideshow
By Julian
Lee
Oct 15, 2017 3:00 AM EDT (Updated Oct 16, 2017 7:00 AM EDT )
The drama around President Donald Trump and Iran's compliance with the
nuclear deal was always a distraction for the oil world from a more urgent
issue. Rising tensions in northern Iraq could have a much more immediate impact
on oil flows and are already leading prices higher.
The collapse of so-called Islamic State in Iraq ought to be a cause for
celebration and national renewal. Instead, it has dragged the country to the
brink of a civil war. The ousting of insurgents from their last strongholds in
northern Iraq has brought the Iraqi military and Iranian-backed militias into
direct conflict with forces loyal to the Kurdish Regional Government in the oil
fields around Kirkuk.
Iraqi forces have moved to regain control of oil fields close to the city
of Kirkuk and seized control of the city's refinery over the weekend. They have
accused the KRG of deploying fighters from the Turkish PKK organization, in
what they see as a declaration of war against Iraq. Futures in London
rose as much as 1.7 percent after gaining 2.8 percent last week.
Although the northern fields produce much less than those in the south
of the country they are nonetheless important, both economically and
strategically, to the Kurdish and Baghdad governments alike. At immediate risk
is around 120,000 barrels a day of oil produced by the KRG from fields claimed
by Baghdad. A further 60,000 barrels a day is still produced by the
Baghdad-controlled North Oil Company and exported through a Kurdish pipeline.
If Turkey were to close the pipeline -- which runs to an export terminal on its
Mediterranean coast -- the disruption could be much bigger.
In trade war news,
Europe just fired back at Washington and Boeing. Canada’s Bombardier just got
cover to take on Boeing globally.
Airbus to Buy Majority Stake in Bombardier C Series Jet Program
By Frederic Tomesco, Josh Wingrove, and Rick CloughWithout putting up a dime at closing, Airbus will take just over half of a partnership controlling the C Series. The European planemaker’s marketing muscle boosts the viability of the all-new aircraft after more than $6 billion in development costs forced Bombardier to rely on government assistance.
The deal also thrusts Airbus into the middle of a bitter trade spat between the Canadian manufacturer and Boeing. Following a Boeing complaint that Bombardier sold 75 of its C Series jets to Delta Air Lines Inc. for “absurdly low prices,” President Donald Trump’s administration slapped the aircraft with import duties of 300 percent in recent weeks -- roiling U.S. relations with Canada and the U.K., where Bombardier makes the plane’s wings.
In a potential effort to circumvent the tariffs, Airbus will add another final assembly line for the C Series at its factory in Mobile, Alabama. The facility will serve U.S. customers and complement production in Canada, according to a company statement late Monday.
“This is a program that has been waiting for a deus ex machina, and wow, it really got one,” Richard Aboulafia, an aerospace analyst at Teal Group, said in an interview. The deal casts Airbus as a global player while Boeing comes off as “a bit shortsighted and protectionist. It makes Boeing look like they’ve been playing tic tac toe against a chess master.”
Boeing fell less than 1 percent to $257.50 after the close of regular trading in New York. The company’s 67 percent advance this year through Monday leads the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Bombardier has climbed 9.7 percent this year while Airbus has gained 23 percent.
It’s too soon to say if the new Alabama production line would enable the C Series to avoid U.S. tariffs. The duties were applied to C Series planes “regardless of whether they enter the United States fully or partially assembled,” according to a U.S. government fact sheet on the matter. Boeing said Airbus and Bombardier were just trying to get around the restrictions.
“This looks like a questionable deal between two heavily state-subsidized competitors to skirt the recent findings of the U.S. government,” Boeing, the world’s largest aerospace company, said in an emailed statement. “Our position remains that everyone should play by the same rules for free and fair trade to work.”
----“Airbus gives the program security,” he said of the C Series in a telephone interview. Whereas some customers may have wavered previously because they couldn’t be sure of long-term customer support from the manufacturer, Airbus’s industrial heft changes the equation, he said.
Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau discussed the deal Monday evening in a phone call, according to a statement from Trudeau’s office that provided no details of the conversation.
----By adding the C Series to its lineup of larger jetliners, Toulouse, France-based Airbus gains a new dimension for its portfolio while offering access to a fuel-efficient aircraft with advanced technology, large windows and over-sized middle seats. The C Series is operated by carriers such as Deutsche Lufthansa AG’s Swiss unit.
More
In other news,
Toronto leads the way in high rise fire safety. Will London follow, following
their disastrous London Fire Brigade advice to “remain in place” at the
Grenfell Tower fire, which cost so many victims their lives? Will the London
Fire Brigade face “corporate manslaughter” charges?
Toronto highrise tenants will soon know if they’re ‘living in a fire trap’
Tenants in highrise buildings will be able to access the results of fire code inspections by year’s end, Toronto Fire Services promises, after many left “incredibly scared” following the Grenfell Tower fire in London, England, that killed at least 80 people.
By May Warren Metro Mon., Oct. 16, 2017
Toronto highrise tenants will be able to see how their buildings fared on recent fire code inspections by the end of the year, Toronto Fire Services pledged Friday.
The news follows a Metro investigation earlier this year on one man’s frustrating fight to get information about his own building’s fire code inspection.
He was told to file a freedom of information request, a complicated and sometimes expensive process with a labyrinth of bureaucracy.
Toronto Fire Services Chief Matthew Pegg acknowledged at Friday’s tenant issues committee meeting that in the past the process has been “very cumbersome” and “not effective and efficient.”
Read more: Toronto tenants left in the dark on fire inspections
“We understand that there is a need to improve open access to data,” added deputy fire chief Jim Jessop.
Jessop said the goal is to provide tenants living in highrise buildings information from January 2017 to present on the date Toronto Fire was in their building, a copy of noted violations if any, and the date violations were cleared.
Notices of violations will only be posted online once the file has been closed by Toronto Fire. The department is already required by law to post certain orders and notices in buildings after fire inspections.
All highrise buildings were inspected in 2016 for fire code violations,
Jessop said, but he did not have offhand a breakdown of the number of
violations and which buildings they were in.
Money for the open data initiative is already built into Toronto Fire
Service’s 2018 budget request, which has not yet been approved by council.
Chief Pegg did not have a dollar figure for how much it would cost.
Tenant issues committee chair Councillor Josh Matlow said he heard from
many concerned tenants who were “incredibly scared by what they saw” following
the tragic Grenfell Tower fire in London, England, that killed at least 80
people.
“When they tried to address that fear and access knowledge and access
information, they found that it was this absurdly frustrating process,” he told
the committee.
“They could not know within a reasonable period of time, with any sort
of rational process, as to whether or not their building was safe.”
Matlow applauded fire services for making an effort to be more
transparent, as did Geordie Dent, executive director of the Federation of Metro
Tenants’ Associations.
“I think it’s great because many tenants just want to ensure that
they’re not living in a death trap, and I think rightly feel that they deserve
to know that,” he said in an interview after the meeting.
“This has actually been an ongoing issue for years but the bigger
problem is there’s been no central database, there’s been no place you can
service this information,” he added.
Finally
here we go again, destroying God’s gift to humanity. How long before our
eco-system collapses, starting with the Gulf of Mexico?
Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill May Be Largest Since 2010 BP Disaster
By Nico Grant
An oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico last week may be the
largest in the U.S. since the 2010 blowout at BP Plc’s Macondo well that
sank the Deepwater Horizon rig.
The Delta House floating production facility about 40 miles (64 kilometers) southeast of Venice, Louisiana, released 7,950 to 9,350 barrels of oil from early Wednesday to Thursday morning, according to closely held operator LLOG Exploration Co. That would make it the largest spill in more than seven years, data from the U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement show, even though it’s a fraction of the millions of barrels ejected in the 2010 incident.
The LLOG spill was triggered by a fracture in a flowline jumper, Rick Fowler, the company’s vice president for deepwater projects, said in an email. That’s a short pipeline used to connect nearby subsea structures. Multiple barriers placed on either side of the fracture stopped the release, but the the flowline jumper hasn’t yet been repaired, Fowler said.
Oil production from Delta House dropped to around 57,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day from more than 90,000 before the spill, he said. The subsea system affected by the fracture was shut in, though nearby connected systems weren’t. The fracture wasn’t caused by Hurricane Nate and there were no associated injuries, he said.
BSEE, the federal agency which regulates offshore energy and mineral extraction, started a five-member panel investigation into the cause of the spill, according to an online statement. The members, including inspectors, engineers and accident investigators, will issue their findings and make recommendations.
----The Delta House platform, floating in 4,500 feet of water, came online in April 2015 with peak capacity of 100,000 barrels a day of oil and 240 million cubic feet a day of national gas. Its oil output enters the Heavy Lousiana Sweet crude pool.
The 2010 blowout and explosion at the Deepwater Horizon ultradeep-sea drilling rig off the coast of Louisiana left 11 workers dead and set off the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history. BSEE, an agency of the Interior Department, was established in the wake of the incident as part of reforms designed to separate federal regulatory responsibilities from lease sales and revenue generation.
Combinations of wickedness would overwhelm the world, by the advantage which licentious principles afford, did not those who have long practised perfidy grow faithless to each other.
Samuel
Johnson
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally doubled over.
Today, finally some realism enters Brexit. How can
you negotiate anything with an EC run by Juncker, 5 EU preening jealous
Presidents, a veto wielding EU “parliament,” a rump-EU of 27 veto wielding national
Parliaments, plus the veto wielding Belgian Walloonatics. Leaving means leaving,
even if a few rent-seeking, leveraged gambling banksters have to leave London for
unsafe Paris, dour Frankfurt, or the Siberia of Luxembourg. Good luck getting
ECB bailout cash during the next crash.
If the financial
system goes down, our business is going down and, trust me, yours and everyone else's is going down, too.
Lloyd
Blankfein’s CEO Goldman Sachs, threat 2008. “Mr. Goldman Sacks.”
Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Say They’re Assuming a ‘Hard Brexit’
By Stephen Morris
October 16, 2017, 12:04 AM GMT+1
Goldman
Sachs Group Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. are bracing for a “hard
Brexit” as they seek to protect their access to the European Union once Britain
leaves the bloc in 2019, according to top executives.“We are now assuming a hard Brexit with additional conservative assumptions,” Faryar Shirzad, Goldman Sachs’s co-head of government affairs, said Saturday in Washington. “Until we are told otherwise through tangible, meaningful, reliable declarations of some sort then we just have to keep moving forwards” with the most pessimistic contingency plans.
Also speaking in the U.S. capital during the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund was Daniel Pinto, head of JPMorgan’s investment bank. He too said he’s readying for a “no-deal” scenario that doesn’t allow banks to easily conduct business across the Continent from operations based in London.
“We need to continue servicing clients, and so that’s what we are going for,” Pinto said. “Two years is a very short period of time.”
Brexit was a major topic as finance ministers, central bankers and executives from around the world gathered in recent days to discuss economic trends and risks. Global banking leaders are growing concerned that the U.K. will spin out of the EU without a long-term trade deal in place. New York-based Goldman Sachs has about 6,000 staff in the U.K., and JPMorgan has 16,000.
Read more: Banks’ Brexit moving costs are seen topping $500 million each
That’s prompting firms to explore alternate European locations, intensifying pressure on Prime Minister Theresa May’s government to secure a transitional arrangement with the EU to extend existing trading rules until a permanent trade pact is sealed.
“Talk of a standstill arrangement is encouraging,” but Goldman Sachs wants to see evidence it will happen, Shirzad said during a panel discussion.
More
Technology 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?
Power-to-Gas for Renewables Integration Is on the Rise
October 13, 2017
Power-to-gas (P2G)—the conversion of electrical power into gaseous energy
carriers—is a quickly improving and potentially disruptive energy conversion
technology. It offers many of the same services of other energy storage
technologies and has the added ability to be stored for long periods in the
form of a useful commodity fuel product, hydrogen. The hydrogen economy has had
false starts before thanks in part to high costs and infrastructure challenges.
P2G is primed for significant growth in coming years as demand for clean
hydrogen grows, electrolyzer capital costs fall, and cheap renewable energy
bathes the grid.P2G provides a variety of services to the electric grid for renewables integration. While these services can also be provided by most grid-tied storage technologies, P2G has unique attributes that can give it an edge. Seasonal energy storage—of interest in places like California where a record 80 GWh of renewable power was curtailed in the windy and sunny month of March—is an application well-suited for P2G, since long-term storage capacity can be scaled up by adding low tech tanks.
Researchers at the University of California, Irvine’s Advanced Power and Energy Program found that hydrogen energy storage systems can have lower capital costs than lithium-ion batteries for discharge durations of more than about 20 hours—a duration easily exceeded in the months-long seasonal storage arena. Electrolyzers can also ramp production up or down on command and maintain that new state for a nearly indefinite period, functioning as a demand response (DR) resource. For example, within seconds, a 10-MW electrolyzer operating at a steady 5 MW can look like a load (by ramping to 10 MW) or a generator (by dropping to 0 MW). ITM Power, an electrolyzer vendor, identifies three value streams in the example of electrolyzers operating on the UK’s National Grid:
In
another possible P2G monetization route, Arizona utility APS recently announced
a reverse DR program designed to avoid the curtailment of renewables. As curtailment grows in various high
renewables areas, access to cheap or free electricity is also expected to grow.
Table 1 outlines some of the applications for P2G:
----Some argue that P2G should exclude transport end-uses and refer only to energy end-uses for the gas, such as injection into the natural gas grid or onsite storage for future power production. However, the broader definition is an affirmation of the benefits P2G brings to the electric grid and renewables integration regardless of the end-use for the gas. Indeed, Navigant Research anticipates that the transportation segment, where hydrogen is often valued most highly, will jump-start P2G demand and help drive down electrolyzer and other infrastructure costs. As costs fall, growth is expected in the non-transport segments where gas is less precious: first industrial hydrogen, then onsite energy storage and natural gas grid injection.
Deals and deployments have surged across a variety of sectors in recent years. Many electrolyzer vendors have record backlogs. Electrolyzers are being deployed at light duty fuel cell EV (FCV) hydrogen fueling stations in growing numbers in California, Germany, Japan, and elsewhere. In late 2016, Proton OnSite announced the world’s largest proton exchange membrane (PEM) electrolyzer deal, consisting of 13 MW of electrolyzers being used for fuel cell buses in China’s Guangdong province.
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“Socialism
only works in two places: Heaven where they don’t need it and hell where they
already have it.”
Ronald
Reagan.
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished September
DJIA: 22,405 +223 Up. NASDAQ: 6,496 +274 Up. SP500: 2,519 +179 Up.
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