Baltic Dry Index. 1231 -73 Brent Crude 69.17
Today, due to a power
cut, thank you SSE, a shortened update. With Washington determined to undo the
petro-dollar, an oil shock appears likely shortly ahead. Time to fill up the
cars, vans and trucks, Washington’s oil shock is all to likely to wreak havoc
in global markets, probably crashing the EUSSR. Take advantage of what will
probably just be temporary oil price weakness as we head into winter.
Ominously, the Baltic
Dry Index is sinking fast.
Exclusive - Russia clashes with Western oil buyers over new deals as sanctions loom
November 9, 2018 / 6:07 AM
MOSCOW
(Reuters) - Russian energy majors are putting pressure on Western oil buyers to
use euros instead of dollars for payments and introducing penalty clauses in
contracts as Moscow seeks protection against possible new U.S. sanctions.
The development mirrors a similar stand-off between Western buyers and Russia’s top oil producer, Rosneft (ROSN.MM).
Earlier this week, trading sources told Reuters that Rosneft wants Western oil buyers to pay penalties from 2019 if they fail to pay for supplies in the event that new U.S. sanctions disrupt sales.
Now sources have told Reuters that Surgutneftegaz and Gazprom Neft have
also clashed with their buyers over penalties and the use of euros and other
currencies to replace the dollar in contracts.
“It is part of the same trend - the Russian oil industry is working on
mitigating new sanctions risks. The buyers in turn argue they cannot carry
those risks so we are trying to find compromises,” said one source with a
Western buyer involved in negotiations, asking not to be named as the talks are
confidential.
Russia has been under U.S. and EU sanctions since 2014 when it invaded
Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula. The sanctions have been repeatedly widened to
include new companies and sectors, making it tough for Russian oil firms to
borrow money abroad, raise new capital or develop Arctic and unconventional
deposits.
President Vladimir Putin’s administration has been hoping for a thaw in
relations with the United States since President Donald Trump came to power but
Washington has imposed new sanctions instead, including on some of Russia’s
richest people.
Russian businesses are preparing for a new wave of sanctions expected in
the coming weeks. The firms are trying to diversify away from dollar payments
and tapping Asia for more of their financing and technology needs.
According to four industry sources, Surgutneftegaz asked buyers to be
prepared to switch from dollar to euro payments in contracts, and insisted on
buyers being effectively responsible for any losses arising from sanctions.
“They basically said - sanctions don’t matter. Buyers have to find a way
to pay, or to return purchased goods, or pay penalties,” a source with a big
trading house said.
Gazprom Neft has also asked buyers to use euros in payments and bear
financial responsibility for contract breaches in the case of new sanctions,
according to three sources.
---- Russia supplies over 10 percent of global oil, so drastic sanctions against it could lead to a steep spike in oil prices.
All global oil majors rely on Russia to feed their refineries,
especially in Europe and Asia, and hence they cannot just walk away from annual
contract negotiations if they are unhappy with terms.
More
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally doubled over.
Another day, another bankster
in trouble. Why do these criminal enterprises still have banking licences? To
big to fail or jail.
UBS faces new legal battle in U.S. over mortgage securities
November 8, 2018 / 8:41 AM
NEW
YORK/ZURICH (Reuters) - UBS Group AG (UBSG.S),
Switzerland’s largest bank, faces another potentially costly legal battle as
the U.S. Department of Justice draws up civil charges over the sale of
mortgage-backed securities in the run-up to the 2008 financial crisis.
UBS said on Wednesday it expected to be sued by the Justice Department
as early as Thursday. The bank said the claims were not supported by the facts
or the law and it would contest any complaint vigorously.
Analysts at Zuercher Kantonalbank said it was unclear how long the U.S.
legal case might last and that it was hard to estimate what size fine UBS might
face.
“It strikes us as important, though, that the matter is brought to a
quick conclusion so that clarity prevails,” it said in a research note, keeping
its “market weight” recommendation.
The analysts said they thought more than half of the 1.2 billion Swiss
francs ($1.20 billion) UBS has set aside for non-core legal risks was dedicated
to the U.S. case.
UBS said in its statement on Wednesday it expected the DOJ to seek
unspecified monetary penalties stemming from mortgage securities which date
back to 2006 and 2007.
---- The potential U.S. action is one of the last that deals with alleged misconduct in the sale and pooling of mortgage securities which helped to cause the financial crisis.
Vontobel analysts said UBS’s relatively modest role in the mortgage-backed securities market stood in stark contrast to that of rival banks which had already settled with U.S. authorities.
The DOJ has settled similar claims with Citigroup Inc (C.N), Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE), JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N), Credit Suisse Group (CSGN.S), Morgan Stanley (MS.N), Goldman Sachs (GS.N), Bank of America Corp (BAC.N) and Barclays Plc (BARC.L).
---- UBS originated $1.5 billion of U.S. residential mortgages in a $5 trillion market and lost more than $45 billion when the housing market collapsed, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters.
In a court case in France, which UBS has chosen not settle, the bank is
fighting money laundering and tax fraud charges over allegations it helped
wealthy clients avoid taxes in France. UBS denies the charges.
If found guilty of money laundering, UBS could be fined up to 5 billion
euros ($5.71 billion). It could also face damages awarded to the French taxman
for the missing revenue, while its executives risk jail time.
The French state has asked for 1.6 billion euros in damages, which UBS
has called excessive.
During the French investigation, UBS turned down a settlement offer of
1.1 billion euros made by the authorities, judicial sources have said.
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?
Graphene takes a step towards renewable fuel
Date:
November 7, 2018
Source:
Linköping University
Summary:
Researchers are working to develop a method to convert water and carbon dioxide
to the renewable energy of the future, using the energy from the sun and
graphene applied to the surface of cubic silicon carbide. They have now taken
an important step towards this goal, and developed a method that makes it
possible to produce graphene with several layers in a tightly controlled
process.
The research group has also shown that graphene acts as a superconductor
in certain conditions. Their results have been published in the scientific
journals Carbon and Nano Letters.
Carbon, oxygen and hydrogen. These are the three elements you would get
if you took apart molecules of carbon dioxide and water. The same elements are
the building blocks of chemical substances that we use for fuel, such as
ethanol and methane. The conversion of carbon dioxide and water to renewable
fuel, if possible, would provide an alternative to fossil fuels, and contribute
to reducing our emission of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Jianwu Sun,
senior lecturer at Linköping University, is trying to find a way to do just
that.
The first step is to develop the material they plan to use. Researchers
at Linköping University have previously developed a world-leading method to
produce cubic silicon carbide, which consists of silicon and carbon. The cubic
form has the ability to capture energy from the sun and create charge carriers.
This is, however, not sufficient. Graphene, one of the thinnest materials ever
produced, plays a key role in the project. The material comprises a single
layer of carbon atoms bound to each other in a hexagonal lattice. Graphene has
a high ability to conduct an electric current, a property that would be useful
for solar energy conversion. It also has several unique properties, and
possible uses of graphene are being extensively studied all over the world.
In recent years, the researchers have attempted to improve the process
by which graphene grows on a surface in order to control the properties of the
graphene. Their recent progress is described in an article in the scientific
journal Carbon.
"It is relatively easy to grow one layer of graphene on silicon
carbide. But it's a greater challenge to grow large-area uniform graphene that
consists of several layers on top of each other. We have now shown that it is
possible to grow uniform graphene that consists of up to four layers in a
controlled manner," says Jianwu Sun, of the Department of Physics,
Chemistry and Biology at Linköping University.
One of the difficulties posed by multilayer graphene is that the surface
becomes uneven when different numbers of layers grow at different locations.
The edge when one layer ends has the form of a tiny, nanoscale, staircase. For
the researchers, who want large flat areas, these steps are a problem. It is
particularly problematic when steps collect in one location, like a wrongly
built staircase in which several steps have been united to form one large step.
The researchers have now found a way to remove these united large steps by
growing the graphene at a carefully controlled temperature. Furthermore, the
researchers have shown that their method makes it possible to control how many
layers the graphene will contain. This is the first key step in an ongoing
research project whose goal is to make fuel from water and carbon dioxide.
In a closely related article in the journal Nano Letters, the
researchers describe investigations into the electronic properties of
multilayer graphene grown on cubic silicon carbide.
----Theoretical
calculations had predicted that multilayer graphene would have superconductive
properties, provided that the layers are arranged in a particular way. In the
new study, the researchers demonstrate experimentally for the first time that
this is the case. Superconducting materials are used in, among other things,
superconducting magnets -- extremely powerful magnets found in magnet resonance
cameras for medical investigations, and in particle accelerators for research.
There are many potential areas of application for superconductors, such as
electrical supply lines with zero energy loss, and high-speed trains that float
on a magnetic field. Their use is currently limited by the inability to produce
superconductors that function at room temperature: currently available
superconductors function only at extremely low temperatures.
Another weekend and a post mortem on the US
elections. How did the Democrats manage to virtually blow it? What happened to their much touted tidal
wave? Have a great weekend everyone.
Normal service at the weekend.
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished October.
DJIA: 25,116 +176 Down. NASDAQ:
7,306 +232 Down. SP500: 2,712 +146 Down. All three slow indexes went sharply down in
October, suggesting there’s more of the correction to come.
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