A newly-leaked audio recording reveals that oil and gas executives in a private meeting were “giddy” with laughter in the summer of 2017 as they rejoiced over the “unprecedented access” they were being given to the highest levels of the …
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Eric Zuesse
Gallup headlined on March 21st, “Ukraine’s Election: Voters Disenchanted Ahead of Key Vote”, and “World-Low 9% of Ukrainians Confident in Government”. Might the reason for both be that no candidate in the contest is respected by the Ukrainian public, and that only three — the candidates with the least-low public approval — are the only ones who have even a remote chance of winning, and that all three of those candidates are racist-fascists, or hold the ideology of nazism? This will be documented here:
Nazism, which is the ideology of fascism but with a heavy added component of racism, has been doing well in post-‘revolutionary’, or post-2013, or post ‘Maidan’ ‘revolution’, Ukrainian politics. The form of racism that dominates today’s Ukraine is against Russians more than against Jews, and so though the ideology is the same as was Germany’s nazi ideology, its main ethnic target isn’t the same. Some of Ukraine’s leading nazis are, in fact, Jews who hate Russians. Whereas Germany’s nazis wanted to exterminate all Jews, Ukraine’s nazis want to exterminate all Russians. But this is all that Ukraine’s voters are being offered, ever since the democratically elected President was thrown out in February 2014. He was fairly unpopular, but not as despised as the politicians who replaced him and his Government are.
The three top Presidential contenders in the upcoming March 31st election, as shown in all the polling, are:
Yulia Tymoshenko, the former ‘gas princess’ who had been convicted and sent to prison for skimming from Ukraine’s gas monopoly, the National Oil and Gas Company of Ukraine. She had established herself as a passionately anti-Russian Prime Minister and had been the preferred candidate of the Barack Obama U.S. Administration to win the 25 May 2014 election, but that election was instead won by a more moderate anti-Russian, the candy and shipbuilding oligarch Petro Poroshenko, who, as President, continued the ethnic-cleansing campaign that had been started by the interim leader of Ukraine who had been selected as Ukraine’s leader in a famous phone call by Victoria Nuland, who was U.S. President Obama’s top operative planning and executing the February 2014 U.S. coup, which coup overthrew the elected President, who hadn’t been sufficiently anti-Russian to suit U.S. President Obama. When I posted the transcript of that phone call years later, I noted that: “This historically mega-important phone-call, which was posted to the internet a week later, on February 4th — three weeks before the man whom she named there received (just as she had instructed) the appointment to lead the post-coup Ukraine — isn’t even being denied by Washington. Instead, it’s either ignored by them, or else totally misrepresented, in the ‘historical’ accounts by the agents of the U.S. regime.” The person she selected there to rule the interim government was “Yats” Yatsenyuk, Tymoshenko’s choice, who was chosen because if Nuland had appointed Tymoshenko, then Tymoshenko would have been unable to run in the 25 May 2014 Ukrainian Presidential election.
Petro Poroshenko, the incumbent President, and Ukrainian oligarch who had beaten Tymoshenko in the 2014 contest. He continued the ethnic cleansing campaign because unless enough of the voters in the far eastern region of Ukraine — where the elected President who had been ousted had received over 90% of the votes — were killed or else evacuated Ukraine (mostly by fleeing into neighboring Russia), Ukraine would again have an insufficiently anti-Russian Government to satisfy the U.S. Government, which wanted Ukraine in NATO. Consequently, both the Obama Administration and the IMF were strong supporters of continuing the ethnic-cleansing campaign. (And the U.S. regime is also using white phosphorous to burn whole areas to death in Syria, and a French officer who complained about it was punished by the French Government.) That campaign in far-east former Ukraine had enough success so as to ensure continuation of a rabidly anti-Russian Ukrainian Government, in elections such as now are taking place.
Volodmyr Zelenskiy, the popular Ukrainian actor and comedian who played Ukraine’s President on Ukranian TV, in a series telecast on a TV channel that is owned by the Ukrainian oligarch Ihor Kolomoyskyi, who, as a U.S.-appointed governor in eastern Ukraine during Poroshenko’s Presidency, had planned and overseen in Odessa on 2 May 2014 a massacre of opponents of the U.S. coup. Subsequently, Poroshenko fired Kolomoyskyi — an oil and gas oligarch himself — because Kolomoyskyi’s personal team of thugs, which he called his “militia,” had raided the National Oil and Gas Company of Ukraine, in order to expel the new government-appointed chief. So, Kolomoyskyi hates Poroshenko, and is determined that Poroshenko not be re-elected. His preferred candidate, and employee, Zelenskiy, leads in the polling, thus far. Zelenskiy is like a Ukrainian Donald Trump, who also won because he had no plicy-making track-record and he ran against people who did.
Here are recent polling results:
On March 13th, Reuters headlined “Comedian Zelenskiy extends Ukraine presidential poll lead”, and reported SOCIS polling during 5-10 March showed 20.7% for Zelenskiy, 13.2% for Poroshenko, and 11.0% for Tymoshenko.
Wikipedia’s article “Opinion polling for the 2019 Ukrainian presidential election” shows trendlines for each polling organization and for each of the three major candidates. Zelenskiy is now around 25%, and both Poroshenko and Tymoshenko are each around 18%.
Therefore, Zelenskiy seems to be heading into a run-off against either Poroshenko or Tymoshenko.
The Gallup report on March 21st, “World-Low 9% of Ukrainians Confident in Government”, said that:
Currently in the lead — according to other national polls in Ukraine — is comedian and actor Volodymyr Zelensky, who is most widely known for playing the president of Ukraine in the popular television series “Servant of the People.” Like his character on the show, Zelensky is campaigning largely on an anti-corruption platform — which likely resonates with many voters. Incumbent Poroshenko is working to shift the focus off of the many scandals he has been accused of and is taking a hard-line stance, promising to join NATO and reclaim Crimea if he wins re-election. Tymoshenko initially led the large field of candidates but has fallen in the polls recently as rumors regarding her involvement in corrupt deals for natural gas have resurfaced.
However, whoever will ultimately win, will almost certainly continue the U.S. Government’s campaign to get Ukraine admitted into America’s anti-Russian military alliance, NATO, so as to be able to place U.S. missiles close enough to Moscow so that a blitz knockout blow to conquer Russia could — some U.S. strategists hope and believe — become possible.
Obama’s strategy to conquer Russia is being carried forward by his successor, Trump.
Here is additional background on each of the three individuals who is a prospective next President of Ukraine:
Tymoshenko: In a phone-conversation with a political supporter on 18 March 2014, while Tymoshenko was Barack Obama’s and Hillary Clinton’s preferred candidate to replace the democratically elected President of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, whom Obama’s February 2014 entirely illegal and very bloody coup in Ukraine had just recently overthrown, the then Ukrainian candidate to replace Yanukovych, Tymoshenko said “We should take weapons and shoot those God damned Russians along with their leader [Putin]. … I hope that [as Ukraine’s President] I will use all my connections [especially Obama and Clinton], and stir the entire world to action in order to make Russia into a field of scorched earth. … We should burn them with nuclear weapons!” Since Ukraine had no nuclear weapons, she was expressing there the hope that her connections inside the U.S. White House and State Department would produce a Third World War that would terminate Russia.
Poroshenko: The way he carried out the ethnic-cleansing campaign that had been started by the interim leader of Ukraine whom Obama’s agent Victoria Nuland had appointed, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, was to capture and kill all leaders of the resistance, and to bomb and terrorize into submission the residents in the resisting region. Under Yatsenyuk, a system was planned to be patterned upon Hitler’s treatment of Jews, Gypsies and other unwanted people, and it entailed concentration camps, but Poroshenko just wanted the people to die or else escape into Russia, so they’d not be voting in any future Ukrainian election. He also wanted the U.S. to help him to defeat the resistors, so that Ukraine could retake Crimea, which had been part of Ukraine during 1954-2014 but was Russian — and strongly pro-Russian ever since at least 1783. The Soviet dictator, Khruschchev, had been Ukrainian, and he arbitrarily transferred Crimea from Russia to Ukraine in 1954. Obama and Clinton insisted that Khruschev’s arbitrary decision continue to be honored, regardless of what the residents of Crimea wanted. Trump does likewise.
Zelenskiy: His patron, Kolomoyskyi, was one of the two main planners of the 2 May 2014 extermination inside the Odessa Trade Unions building, in which people who had distributed leaflets opposing the coup were trapped and burned and clubbed and shot to death. Like Donald Trump when Trump had run for the U.S. Presidency in 2016 against Clinton, Zelenskiy has no political track-record, but only political blatherings, by which his alleged policy-views can become (however dubiously) inferred by voters. And he seems likely to become Ukraine’s President in the same way that Trump did: by having no actual policymaking track-record, and running against opponent(s) whose policymaking track-records the electorate already know to be rotten.
The U.S. regime praises Ukraine now as a ‘democracy’ (and Americans apparently believe that). Before the U.S. take-over, it was called (by the U.S. Government and its allies) ‘authoritarian’ or ‘a dictatorship’. (That was when Ukraine had a freely elected President, who represented the whole country, instead of a truncated country, without the two regions that have the most strongly pro-Russia voters, who had voted the heaviest for that democratically elected President. The U.S. regime wants to control those regions, too, but without its residents. The U.S. regime wants the land, but not the people. The U.S. wants those people there eliminated. This is the type of ‘democracy’ America now is.)
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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.
March 19, 2019
By Lamine Chikhi and Hamid Ould Ahmed
ALGIERS (Reuters) – Thousands of students, university professors and health workers rallied in Algiers on Tuesday calling for President Abdelaziz Bouteflika to quit, and a new group headed by activists and opposition figures told the army not to interfere.
In the first direct message to the generals from leaders emerging from nearly a month of mass protests against Bouteflika, the National Coordination for Change said the military should “play its constitutional role without interfering in the people’s choice”.
Bouteflika, who has ruled for 20 years, bowed to the protesters last week by announcing he would not stand for another term. But he stopped short of stepping down immediately and said he would stay in office until a new constitution is adopted, effectively extending his present term.
His moves have done nothing to halt demonstrations, which peaked on Friday with hundreds of thousands of protesters on the streets of Algiers and have continued into this week.
“We will not stop our pressure until he (Bouteflika) goes,” said student Ali Adjimi, 23. “The people want you to leave”, read a banner. Others shouted “the people and the army are one.”
The 82-year-old president has rarely been seen in public since suffering a stroke in 2013.
The protesters say he is in no fit health to rule. Djilali Bahi, one of the doctors and other health workers at Tuesday’s demonstration, said: “We are fed up with this system. It must disappear forever.”
ARMY “RESPONSIBILITY”
So far, soldiers have stayed in their barracks during the protests. But on Monday, Chief of Staff Lieutenant-General Ahmed Gaed Salah hinted at a more active role, saying the army should take responsibility for finding a quick solution to the crisis.
Generals have traditionally wielded power behind the scenes in Algeria and have publicly intervened during pivotal moments, including cancelling an election in the early 1990s that Islamists were poised to win, triggering a decade of civil war.
The protest leaders issued their statement titled “Platform of Change” late on Monday, demanding that Bouteflika step down before the end of his term on April 28 and the government resign immediately.
Bouteflika’s newly appointed deputy prime minister, Ramtane Lamamra, has launched a tour of allied countries seeking support. On Tuesday he visited Moscow, long a close military ally of Algeria.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Russia was concerned by the protests: “We see attempts to destabilize the situation, and speak out against any interference in this process,” he said.
Lamamra defended the government’s reform proposals. Bouteflika has agreed to hand over power to an elected president, and the opposition will be allowed to take part in the cabinet that will oversee elections, he said at a joint press conference with Lavrov.
Protesters have been calling for a generation of new leaders to replace a ruling elite dominated by the military, big businessmen with ties to the establishment and veterans of the 1954-1962 war of independence against France.
Algerian authorities have long been adept at manipulating a weak and disorganized opposition. But the mass demonstrations have emboldened well-known figures to lead the reform drive.
Prominent members of the new group include lawyer and activist Mustapha Bouchachi, opposition leader Karim Tabou and former treasury minister Ali Benouari, as well as Mourad Dhina and Kamel Guemazi, who belong to an outlawed Islamist party.
Zoubida Assoul, leader of a small political party, is the only woman in the group so far.
“Bouteflika just trampled on the constitution after he decided to extend his fourth term,” said the National Coordination for Change.
With dark memories of the 1990s civil war which cost an estimated 200,000 lives, many Algerians have long placed a priority on stability.
Bouteflika survived protests during the 2011 “Arab Spring” uprisings that toppled other regional leaders, using oil and gas wealth to buy support and the security services to tamp down dissent. But with the economy disappointing in recent years and a younger generation less fearful of change, he has yet to formulate a strategy that can placate Algerians.
“A free and democratic Algeria,” doctors chanted at the demonstrations.
(Additional reporting by Maria Tsvetkova in Moscow; Writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by Peter Graff)
Authored by Tsvetana Paraskova via Oilprice.com,
Canada is lagging behind other oil producers in tapping its offshore oil and gas resources because of the moratorium on drilling in its Arctic waters in place since 2016 and up for review in 2021, according to Paul Barnes, Atlantic Canada and Arctic director for the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP).
In December 2016, Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that Canadian Arctic waters are indefinitely off limits to new offshore oil and gas licensing, and this ban would be reconsidered every five years through a science-based review.
The recent moves by the U.S. Administration to re-open Arctic Alaska to drilling means that Canada faces “lost opportunities” in exploring its own Arctic waters, The Canadian Pressquoted CAPP’s Barnes as saying.
The Arctic drilling moratorium creates uncertainties in the Canadian oil industry and deprives the country of the chance to compete for investment in exploration, according to Barnes.
Yet, Canada’s Northern Affairs minister Dominic LeBlanc says that the ban is necessary to allow extensive consultations and ensure development that respects environment, The Canadian Press reports.
Just yesterday, CAPP said in a new report that Canada’s abundance of natural resources can help the country’s economy, but only if Canada overcomes the current market challenges by building new pipelines and other energy infrastructure.
The shortage of oil pipelines and liquefied natural gas (LNG) infrastructure “are crippling our ability to compete for global market share,” CAPP said.
“Global energy demand is growing,” CAPP president and CEO Tim McMillan said.
“However, Canada is losing the race to claim a piece of the high-growth market overseas. Without new pipelines, Canada’s oil and natural gas industry can’t compete for a share of the global market,” McMillan noted.
“Before they will invest in Canada, global investors need to see that the Canadian federal and provincial governments are firmly committed to resource development,” said McMillan.
March 15, 2019
By Lamine Chikhi and Hamid Ould Ahmed
ALGIERS (Reuters) – Algeria’s ruling FLN party showed more signs of turning its back on Abdelaziz Bouteflika as new protests against him began on Friday, with one senior party figure saying in an interview overnight the long-serving president was “history now”.
Bouteflika has reversed a decision to stand for another term after mass protests against his rule, but stopped short of stepping down and says he will stay on until a new constitution is adopted. He has been losing allies in recent days since returning from medical treatment in Switzerland.
The remarks by Hocine Kheldoun to Ennahar television late on Thursday were another major setback Bouteflika, who hoped to pacify Algerians by promising to take steps to change the political landscape dominated by a ruling elite for decades.
Kheldoun, a former spokesman for the ruling party, became one of the most senior FLN officials to break with Bouteflika publicly, saying the party had to look forwards and support the aims of demonstrators protesting against Bouteflika.
On Friday, thousands of protesters gathered in central Algiers to keep pressing Bouteflika to step down. Unlike past Fridays, when demonstrations usually peak in the early evening, this time crowds began forming earlier.
“FLN go,” some shouted amid a heavy police presence across the capital.
“Those who think we are tired are wrong. Our protests will not stop,” said doctor Madjid Benzida, 37.
Some parents had brought children: “I want a better future,” said Mohamed Kemime, 10, draped in a national flag.
Tens of thousands of Algerians have staged peaceful protests for weeks, demanding a new era with younger leaders who would offer greater social freedoms and prosperity.
Bouteflika, 82, has been in office for 20 years but has rarely been seen in public since suffering a stroke in 2013. Protesters say he is no longer in a fit state to rule.
“GAME OVER”
A former minister who is familiar with Bouteflika’s inner circle told Reuters that the president could not survive given the pressure building against him.
“Game over. Bouteflika has no choice but to quit now,” the former minister said on condition of anonymity.
Algeria is a major oil and gas producer, but so far exports have not suffered from the unrest. Its biggest oil field Hassi Messaoud and its Hassi Rmel gas field have not been affected, a source from state oil giant Sonatrach told Reuters.
Many Algerians say that the ailing president and other veterans of the 1954-1962 war of independence against France should hand over power to young technocrats who can focus on unemployment, poor services and stamping out corruption.
The military, which has traditionally played a behind-the-scenes power broker role, has distanced itself from Bouteflika and stayed in its barracks throughout the crisis. It is expected to retain influence under all scenarios.
Algeria was relatively untouched when the 2011 “Arab Spring” uprisings swept away veteran autocrats in the Arab world. Bouteflika and his allies, effective manipulators of the opposition, managed to avoid major unrest by spending oil money on the population, handing out low interest loans and housing.
Bouteflika was credited with ending a civil war against Islamist insurgents in which tens of thousands of people were killed in the 1990s, and many Algerians long accepted heavy-handed rule as the price of stability.
But the public has lost patience with deteriorating economic conditions and the ruling party’s failure to make the transition to a new generation despite the president’s failing health.
(Writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by Peter Graff)
March 12, 2019
By Bozorgmehr Sharafedin
LONDON (Reuters) – Hardline cleric Ebrahim Raisi has swiftly emerged as one of Iran’s most powerful figures and a contender to succeed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Last week, he was named chief of the judiciary and on Tuesday he was elected deputy chief of the 88-member Assembly of Experts, the clerical body responsible for choosing the supreme leader.
As head of the judiciary, a post to which he was appointed by Khamenei, Raisi holds significant power in a country that has long used its powerful legal system to crack down on political dissent.
In that post he replaced Ayatollah Sadeq Amoli Larijani, another potential candidate for the supreme leader post. Larijani also ran for the position of deputy chief of the Assembly of Experts but failed, suggesting his hopes of leading Iran could be fading.
Larijani is accused by rights groups of condoning widespread violations of the rights of political detainees.
“Larijani’s work as the head of judiciary was not acceptable,” Iranian Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi told Reuters.
“But to replace him with Raisi, who had a role in the past in extrajudicial execution and massacre of political prisoners, will taint the judiciary even more … It is replacing bad with worse.”
As deputy prosecutor in Tehran in 1988, Raisi helped oversee the execution of political prisoners.
Larijani has said his country’s judiciary is one of the fairest in the world, while Iran says its legal system is independent and not influenced by political interests.
AUDIO TAPE
Raisi ran in presidential elections in 2017, criticizing pragmatist President Hassan Rouhani for signing a deal with the United States and other powers to curb Iran’s nuclear program in return for lifting sanctions.
In a fiery election speech, Rouhani accused Raisi of being a pawn of the security services and said Iranians would not vote for “those who have only known how to execute and jail people”.
Raisi’s failure in the elections was widely attributed to a then 28-year-old audio tape which surfaced in 2016 and purportedly highlighted his role in the executions of thousands of political prisoners in 1988.
In the recording, Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, the deputy supreme leader at the time, said the executions included “pregnant women and 15-year-old girls” and were the “biggest crimes committed by the Islamic Republic”.
Montazeri’s son was arrested and sentenced to jail for release of the tape. Raisi prosecuted the case.
Raisi said last year that the trials of political prisoners were fair, and he should be rewarded for eliminating the armed opposition in the early years of the revolution.
“It’s my honor that I fought against hypocrisy,” Raisi said, using a term Iranian officials use when referring to the main opposition groups of the 1980s.
In a report in 2018, Amnesty International said the lowest estimates put the number executed at around 5,000.
“The real number could be higher, especially because little is still known about the names and details of those who were rearrested in 1988 and extrajudicially executed in secret soon after arrest.”
Raisi’s office could not immediately be reached for comment.
AMBITIOUS CLERIC
Although Raisi failed in the 2017 elections, he has remained outspoken, expressing his conservative views on the economy and foreign policy.
Echoing the views of Khamenei, Raisi has said Iran should be self-sufficient in production of essential goods, so it can resist against Western sanctions on its missile program and regional military presence.
“Raisi is in Khamenei’s circle of trust. He has been one of Khamenei’s students and his thoughts are very close to the Supreme Leader’s,” former lawmaker Jamileh Kadivar told Reuters.
Raisi was not well known until 2016 when Khamenei appointed him the custodian of Astan Qods Razavi, a multi-billion dollar religious conglomerate that owns mines, textile factories, a pharmaceutical plant and even major oil and gas firms.
Although some believe Raisi lacks the charisma to replace Khamenei, he shares his deep distrust of the West, limiting U.S. chances of pressuring Tehran to change its domestic and foreign policies if he becomes supreme leader.
RISE TO POWER
Raisi was born into a religious family in Mashhad, Iran’s second biggest city and home to some of its most sacred sites. He lost his father at the age of five, but followed his footsteps to become a cleric.
As a young student at a religious seminary in the holy city of Qom, he took part in protests against the Western-backed Shah.
After the 1979 Islamic revolution, Raisi’s contacts with top religious leaders in Qom made him a trusted figure in the judiciary. He was deputy head of the judiciary for ten years before being appointed prosecutor-general in 2014.
Last June, Raisi said “internal threats to the Islamic Republic are more dangerous than external threats”, a clear signal that he would not tolerate dissent.
Yet Raisi, a father of two, has in the past surprised many by his unconventional initiatives.
Although his father-in-law, a hardline cleric, banned concerts in Mashhad, Raisi met an Iranian rapper during his election campaign and said music can be used to promote religious ideas.
He is also one of the few senior clerics who has publicly spoken about his wife, a university professor, saying women should be encouraged to work and help society move forward.
Larijani’s appointment as the head of the judiciary in 2009 coincided with an uprising in Iran when millions of people came to the streets to protest against the disputed election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the biggest unrest in the Islamic Republic since the 1979 revolution.
Hundreds of protesters, activists, journalists and opposition figures were arrested and put on mass trials shown on state television.
Raisi, then deputy head of the judiciary, defended the execution of a dozen protesters in 2009, saying they were linked to “anti-revolutionary” and “terrorist” groups.
(Reporting by Bozorgmehr Sharafedin; Editing by Babak Dehghanpisheh and Giles Elgood)
Authored by Cyril Widdershoven via Oilprice.com,
Another big step has been taken to end the hydrocarbon era, if the decision by Norway’s sovereign wealth fund to dump oil stocks and investments is a sign on the wall. After the news broke, “fossil free” NGOs and others declared the Norwegian SWF Government Pension Fund (or “Oil Fund”) decision to divest as a major victory for the Green Movement. Norway’s official reaction is, however, that the pension fund has chosen to divest its oil and gas related stocks the coming years due to financial considerations.
No links have been made to environmental or climate change issues in the decision making process. Still, there are signals that oil companies are facing a steep uphill battle, if the Norwegian decision is translated into policy in the next couple of months. Norway’s “Oil Fund”, holding assets of around $1 trillion worldwide, is seen by institutional investors as a beacon. Still, the Norwegian decision needs to be assessed on its merits, and not on political statements or NGO assessments, forgetting the fact that the full financial structure of the fund has been, and partly is still, based on Norway’s enormous oil and gas revenues. At the same time, Norway’s decision-making process also seems to be influenced by national elections.
The decision by the “Oil Fund” was already in the offing since 2017, when Norway’s Central Bank called for the divestment of oil stocks in order to reduce the Norwegian state’s exposure to the volatile oil sector. The official statement that the decision has been made on purely financial arguments is however disputable. The oil and gas sector has been rather volatile the last couple of years, but overall, the returns on investments in international oil and gas companies and services have been in principle very good. At the same time, most pension funds have been very active the last decades in oil and gas futures markets, where hefty profits were sometimes even the main basis for the yields on investments being presented to the respective shareholders, aka the contributors and pensioners.
Norwegian officials also have been referring to the fact that there is a major threat to the sustainability of the global oil and gas sector. To hold this assessment of the global oil market as a real and possibly main factor to divest oil-related stocks and bonds is very strange. The profitability of the hydrocarbon sectors in the world is still not under pressure. Some even argue that due to current lack in investments in upstream, or divestments of assets by institutional investors, the remaining operators and service companies are looking at very profitable short- and mid-term future. With higher oil prices expected in the mid-term, the yields on investments are not at all under pressure. Most analysis even predict a possible supply gap in the next few years as demand is still set to increase to maybe 120-130 million bpd. Investments in high-tech service providers and E&Ps could still churn out fat profits.
Some aspects are maybe playing a much bigger role than currently is being addressed. The Norwegian fund has been showing low returns on investments. As reported several days ago, the fund released its results over 2018. In the report, the fund stated that it returned -6.1% in 2018, largely due to weak equity markets. This resulted in a loss of 485 billion kroner, bringing total assets to 8.25 trillion Norwegian kroner or $945 billion in total, in comparison to a return of 13.6% in 2017. Overall net returns for the five years ended Dec. 31 was 4.75% and 8.3% over the 10-year period. In 2018 the fund made a return of -9.5% on its equities (63% of the fund’s allocation), in comparison to 19.4% in 2017. A fixed-income allocation of 30.7% added 0.6% for the year vs. a 3.3% gain for 2017. Analysts indicated at that time that changes will be made soon inside of the fund.
The oil fund holds $37bn of shares in oil companies such as BP, Shell and France’s Total. The first indications given by Norwegian officials are that the fund will not be divesting yet its stakes in these large oil majors which both explore for and refine oil, such as Shell, BP, Exxon and Total. The main focus of this divestment will be smaller independent oil firms. The fund holds around $8 billion in them. Even though NGOs and fossil free investors are hailing the decision by the fund as a major victory, it should not be forgotten that the Norwegian fund holds 67% of Equinor, Norway’s oil and gas giant, formerly known as Statoil. In stark contrast to this, the fund will be gradually phase out its investments in companies such as Chesapeake Energy and China’s CNOOC.
The fund’s divestments also will take several years to be completed. The main reason for this slow divestment policy is a pure financial one. By slowly pushing the stocks on to the market, the fund hopes to be able not to destroy too much value or disrupt the market.
Still, one can bet on it that most oil and gas CFOs will be having a short and tiring weekend. After the news emerged that the “Oil Fund” is considering to become the “Green Fund”, red lights will have gone on inside of the headquarters of Schlumberger, Halliburton, Aker and others. A continuing build-up of NGO and governmental pressure in the West is trying to end the ‘oil and gas era’. The Norwegian decision is not the first, as an ever-growing list of pension funds and institutional investors in the US, UK and EU, are openly ending their support for the fossil sector. This movement will put increased pressure on privately owned companies looking for financing of their future projects. This development is not only impacting the financing of future projects but is also putting increased pressure on the overall share value of these companies. At a time of immense demand for energy and petroleum products, these movements are not the right ones.
Some even could state that pension funds, set up to support future financial returns for their major shareholders, the pensioners, are shooting themselves in their own feet. The movement to divest in fossil fuel companies puts not only future energy supplies at risk, but also the financial situation of the funds themselves. Without going into an ideological discussion, pension funds should be taking a prudent and future proof investment strategy, in which the financial situation of their main stakeholders should not be risked. Following a global divestment hype of fossil shares and bonds, these very returns could be at risk. Not only by destroying shareholder value, as share prices will plunge, but also by disrupting affordable future energy supplies. Maybe it will be best, as a shareholder, to use your voting rights to entice or force companies to address future energy supplies and a sustainable economic future at the same time. By ruling out fossil fuels as a whole, these goals are not going to be met.
Source: Michelle Moons
“It’s probably becoming obvious to you too that the choice we face could not be clearer,” Pence said. “It is remarkable to think that as we gather today, many liberals in Washington, DC, are openly advocating an economic system that has impoverished millions around the world.”
“Under the guise of what’s called Medicare for All or the Green New Deal, liberals in Washington, DC, and in the national debate are embracing the same tired economic theories that have impoverished nations and have stifled the liberties of millions,” said the vice president. “And that system is socialism.”
“What they’re actually offering is just more of the same — it’s more taxes, more spending, and more government, and less freedom,” Pence charged.
He continued:
But I say from my heart what Americans have known for generations:
It was freedom, not socialism, that gave us the most prosperous economy in the history of the world.
It was freedom, not socialism, that ended slavery, won two world wars, and stands today as a beacon of hope for all the world.
It was freedom, not socialism, that’s moving us beyond the prejudices of the past to create a more perfect union and extend the blessings of liberty to every American.
And it was freedom, not socialism, that gave us the highest quality of life, the cleanest environment on Earth, and improved the health and wellbeing of millions around the world.
So we must say, as the president has said, America will never be a socialist country.
The oil and gas group applauded the assertions.
They laughed after the vice president said, “The truth is, what Medicare for All really means is quality health care for none. And the only thing green about the Green New Deal is how much green it’s going to cost all of us if they ever pass it into law.”
Pence quoted former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s famous saying: “The trouble with Socialism is [you] eventually run out of other people’s money.” The group broke out in laughter and applause.
Pence recently traveled to Colombia where he held an event with leaders of several South American nations standing together against the socialist regime of Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela.
President Donald Trump’s administration has officially acknowledged Juan Guaido as the interim President of Venezuela to replace embattled president Maduro. Pence’s visit came days after Maduro regime forces blocked deliveries of supplies to the suffering people of Venezuela. The clash between Maduro’s forces and supply deliveries resulted in multiple deaths and the burning of supplies.
Michelle Moons is a White House Correspondent for Breitbart News — follow on Twitter @MichelleDiana and Facebook.
Authored by Scott McConnell via The American Conservative,
Recent unrest there now threatens France, with possibly another migration wave on the way.
After surviving several assassination attempts by French partisans of Algérie Française , Charles de Gaulle in March 1962 signed a peace agreement ending French sovereignty over Algeria. The war for Algerian independence had been long and vicious, marked by terrorism and torture. Everyone who mattered in French politics believed in 1954 that Algeria was an integral part of France, to be defended at all cost. But by 1962, their view had changed. With cold realism, de Gaulle remarked of the conflict, now in its seventh year, “As for France, it will be necessary for her now to interest herself in something else.”
France did fine after granting independence to Algeria. Algeria less so. The Algerians who had taken the side of France, fought in its army, or served as administrators of the Algerian government fared terribly—many suffered appalling deaths at the hands of the vengeful victors. According to Alistair Horne’s Savage War of Peace , 15,000 were killed in the summer after the March armistice.
An important reason de Gaulle broke with his conservative army supporters and became determined to negotiate Algerian independence was that he thought the French and Algerians were fundamentally different peoples. For him, Algérie Française, the “France of a hundred million” supplemented by Algeria’s population and vast reserves of oil and gas, was total fantasy. His colleague Alain Peyrefitte quoted him as saying privately in 1959 that you could mix Arabs and French together, but like oil and vinegar in a bottle, after a while they would inevitably separate.He worried that an Algérie Française would lead inevitably to his home village of Colombey-les-Deux-Églises being transformed into Colombey-Les-Deux-Mosquées.
Nevertheless, Algeria after independence remained tightly connected to France economically, not least as a principal source of “temporary” factory workers, a migration that began during the Algerian war itself. Even as the need for factory labor diminished, France instituted family reunification provisions to allow workers to marry and bring their wives to France, a provision no subsequent president was able to undo. There are now some three million Algerians in France with French or dual citizenship. France’s relationship with the Algerian government is privileged—every French president makes a state visit to Algeria in his first year of office. Trade is mutually important and Algeria plays a critical role in French African policy, as it borders Mali, Niger, and Libya. Basically everyone paying attention in France, except perhaps for Islamist militants, fears deeply the prospect of destabilization or unrest in Algeria.
But it might be coming nonetheless. Abdelaziz Bouteflika, Algeria’s president, suffered a serious stroke six years ago and now seldom appears in public. Nonetheless at age 82, he (or those who speak for him) are insisting that he run for a fifth presidential term. Since Algeria’s elections are less than free, with the ruling party in full control of ballot access and vote counting, that means his victory is preordained. Since the Bouteflika announcement, hundreds of thousands of Algerians have taken to the streets in spirited but peaceful protests in cities across the country. They’ve been joined by their brethren in French cities.
Few seem to know the true balance of forces in Algerian politics: there is a powerful state apparatus linked to the army, but no strong political parties. Islamists won the first round of legislative elections in 1991, which provoked the army to stage a coup that set off a brutal civil war. Six years later, a party linked to the army won legislative elections, and in 1999, Bouteflika won the presidency and initiated a form of national reunification through amnesty. It is this Bouteflika, a young vanguard of Algeria’s liberation movement in the 1960s, a conciliatory figure after the civil war of the 1990s, and now the octogenarian figurehead of a regime widely seen as corrupt, who sits atop Algeria’s structure like a cork on a bottle. And no one knows what will happen when the cork is removed.
In France, President Emmanuel Macron’s government last week recalled its ambassador for consultations, and regional specialists are saying, perhaps wishfully, that the Islamists are not nearly as popular as they were in the ’90s. No one quite knows what the relevant analogies are. The Arab Spring, which led eventually to a military dictatorship in Egypt and a savage civil war in Syria, hardly seems promising. Nor does the revolt against Libya’s Moammar Gaddafi, which led, after France supported the rebels, to his death and the breakdown of Libya as a functioning state. The sad fact is that there are few attractive models for governmental succession in Arab world (one might look hopefully to Tunisia, though it’s a tiny country compared to Algeria).
The Franco-Algerian novelist Boualem Sansal captures well the ambiguity many feel. In a recent interview for Le Figaro, he welcomed massive peaceful demonstrations as the lifting of lethargy from a people who deserve better government than they have. He noted that Algeria is a rich country with a large number of educated and talented people. But he asked, “how does one pass to the next stage, of organizing free elections, repairing the damage done by 57 years of dictatorship and corruption, putting the country to back to work, providing a social blueprint. Who is going to lead that? Another Bouteflika produced in a lab of the security services? A committee of public safety? A helpful prophet?”
Sansal added that Islamists are always waiting in the wings, numerous and organized and determined. Algeria, he adds, is a conservative Muslim country.Salafism is a powerful force there, one the government has spent billions trying to counter through the development of a “true” Islam, building countless air conditioned mosques to rival the extremists. The result is that huge patches of the populace devote themselves daily to various forms of exorcism and have scant connection to modernity.
Sansal (and most other commentators) insist that the army’s power won’t fail—it controls the country completely and is determined to resist any Islamist challenge. But he also acknowledges that it never really won the civil war of the 1990s, that the Islamists were never defeated politically.
If Algeria were to collapse into chaos, France would be destabilized as well. The civil war resulted in a huge migration surge; this time it would be larger.Among the migrants would be a large number of Islamists, and illegal immigration would mean the French couldn’t control everyone who would come. And France, at least some quarters, is already an Islamic Republic in embryo.
Macron recognizes that Algeria could become the iceberg that drowns his presidency, easily surpassing his bodyguard scandal (the Benalla affair) and the Gilets Jaunes. His administration seems torn between public displays of political correctness and worries about Islamicization. During the campaign, he made a grand gesture of accusing France of “crimes against humanity” during the colonial period, then walked the statement back. One of his key legislative allies said recently there was no real difference between the Muslim headscarf and a headband worn by Catholic schoolgirls, only to rebuked by a top female cabinet member who observed that “no woman in the world has been stoned for not wearing a headband.”
Official France repeats over and over its support for Algerian self-determination while fearing that Algerians will make a terrible choice, one that deprives France of a valuable strategic partner and unleashes an unmanageable migration wave. The conservative journals are full of admonitions about the need for tough-minded realism while offering few suggestions as to what this might entail. France’s population was 17 times Algeria’s in 1830, the year of colonial conquest. Now it is less than double. De Gaulle was right to say that in liberating Algeria, France would have to find something else to worry about. But 57 years later, it is proving not so easy.
Authored by Tim Daiss via Oilprice.com,
Vietnam can’t seem to get a break. The country lies just beneath China, its giant neighbor to the north, and shares many of the same socialist ideals that Beijing promulgates. However, Sino-Vietnamese relations have been a source of tension for years dating back to the colonization of Vietnam by China centuries ago – a historical fact that the average Vietnamese citizen has never forgotten. Even after the protracted and costly war between North Vietnam and the U.S.-backed South Vietnamese government, that ended more than 40 years ago, China (which had proven a valuable ally for Hanoi during the war) turned on its smaller communist ally and invaded the country in 1979. It was a brief but bloody border war which showed Beijing that Vietnam could still hold its own.
Fast forward several decades and Hanoi is still trying to placate Beijing while at the same time rapidly improving relations with one-time adversary Washington. In fact, U.S.- Vietnamese relations, both trade and bilateral, have improved so much recently that the two sides could now arguably be called allies in the Asia-Pacific region. Of course, much of that alliance, similar in some respects to the decades-old U.S. alliance with Saudi Arabia, is born of necessity. The U.S.-Saudi alliance was berthed in the aftermath of World War 2, held together amid shared concerns during the cold war, and remains amid worries over Iranian hegemony ambitions in the Middle East. The U.S.-Vietnamese alliance is largely held together over the mutual aim of both Washington and Hanoi to keep China’s economic and military ambitions in check in the Asia-Pacific region, particularly in the volatile South China Sea, where Beijing claims as much as 90 percent of the troubled body of water.
However, Hanoi’s angst with Beijing isn’t just political, it also related to Vietnam’s energy sector.
China’s increased muscle-flexing in the region has negatively impacted Vietnam’s ability to develop its own offshore natural gas resources.
Last March, according to a BBC report at the time, state-owned Petro Vietnam ordered Spanish energy firm Repsol to suspend an oil and gas project, which was in its final stages, off the country’s southeast coast within Vietnam’s, own 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ). The pull-out cost Repsol some $200mn in lost investment, an amount that the company has to date been unsuccessful at recouping. It was the second time in less than a year that Hanoi had bowed to Chinese pressure in its own waters. In July 2017, Hanoi also ordered Repsol to stop oil drilling operations at an adjacent location, Block 136/3, in response to what media at the time called “threats from China.” The geopolitical squabble in 2017 came just days after Repsol reportedly made a major gas discovery in the area.
Consequently, to offset both its blockage of developing its own gas resources and to help Vietnam meet its growing energy demand amid stellar economic growth, the country needs to turn to renewables. However, it’s still in the early stages of developing renewable energy sources and needs to introduce more incentive policies to attract more investment, media in the country reported last week, citing both domestic and international experts.
Hoang Quoc Vuong, Vietnam’s deputy minister of industry and trade, said that the rapid increase in energy demand and consumption of around 10 percent per year is having negative impacts on the environment, exhausting natural resources and also impacting the country’s energy security. Nonetheless, he reasoned, Vietnam’s clean energy development still has limitations, including unstable supply, difficulty in energy transmission and high costs. He added that the ministry was studying solutions to efficiently develop renewable energy towards a low-carbon economy.
For more than a decade, Vietnam’s economic growth has been second only to China as the country continues to develop and modernize. According to a report by the country’s Central Economic Commission, Vietnam’s economic growth stood at 7.08 percent last year. Vietnam ranks second among Southeast Asian countries with a total power system capacity of nearly 50,000 MW and is ranked 23rd on a global scale.
However, Vuong added that it’s necessary for Vietnam to develop a structure of energy supply sources, including hydroelectric, thermoelectric and renewables. Promoting an energy transition towards a low-carbon economy was critical, he said. By the end of last year, total hydropower capacity in the country of more than 90 million reached 22,000 MW, while solar capacity and wind power capacity is estimated to reach 1,000 MW and 1,500 MW, respectively. Vuong added that the ministry was also receiving a number of proposals to develop wind and solar power projects in the country.
However, hurdles remain to achieve those goals. The International Energy Agency (IEA) recently said that Vietnam in the early stages of developing renewable energy, thus the government needed to develop appropriate mechanisms to reduce risks for investors in renewable energy development. Pham Huong Giang, deputy head of the Renewable Energy Department under the Ministry of Industry and Trade, said the ministry was studying mechanisms to promote investment in developing renewable energy.
March 6, 2019
By Jennifer Hiller
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Exxon Mobil Corp plans to boost capital spending for several years, CEO Darren Woods said on Wednesday, and the largest U.S. oil company’s shares fell after he laid out a strategy to “lean in” while the rest of the industry cuts back.
Exxon shares fell more than 1 percent after the company told analysts attending its annual investor meeting that it plans to lift spending by 10 percent or more for the next several years as rivals are sidelining equipment and capping spending to boost shareholder returns.
Woods defended the strategy of “leaning in as our competitors are leaning back,” saying the best time to buy into projects is not when everyone else is active. “You do it when everybody else is at home,” Woods said.
Exxon’s plans include a big bet on U.S. shale, where output has surged in recent years, making the United States the world’s largest oil producer.
Exxon shares finished down 91 cents at $79.28 on Wednesday. The stock has underperformed rivals for years and Woods faces challenges to boost investor confidence. He took over as chief executive in 2017, with a mission to boost sagging production and repair missteps made under former CEO Rex Tillerson, including expensive bets on natural gas and Russia.
Capital spending will rise to $33 billion to $35 billion next year from $30 billion this year and from $23.1 billion in Woods’ first year as CEO.
“With investors increasingly pressuring energy companies to return cash to shareholders, it is no surprise that the higher capital budget was not positively received by the market,” said Muhammed Ghulam, energy analyst with Raymond James.
Over the last five years, Exxon shares have posted a total return of negative 0.16 percent, lagging total returns of 32 percent at Chevron Corp and 54 percent at BP PLC over the same period, while the benchmark S&P 500 index has gained 48 percent, according to Refinitiv Eikon data.
BIG BETS ON SHALE
Exxon’s output has declined in nine of the last 10 quarters, but the company now forecasts continued production gains. It has placed one of its biggest bets on drilling in the Permian Basin of Texas and New Mexico, the largest U.S. shale field.
The independent oil companies that launched the Permian boom are reducing drilling rigs and cutting spending in response to investor demands to rein in expenses while Exxon and other majors are cranking up investments in the oilfield.
Woods argued that more investment was justified because global demand is rising for oil and gas, and that the declining output of existing wells must be replaced.
“This is a compelling case for industry as a whole,” Woods said.
This week, Exxon and rival Chevron released dueling Permian output projections. Exxon said its Permian production could hit 1 million barrels of oil and gas per day as early as 2024, up from its previous estimate of 600,000 by 2025.
Both companies have boasted of superior technology to overcome one of shale’s biggest hurdles: rapid declines in production rates. New well production in the Permian was about 600 bpd per rig as of February, down from nearly 760 bpd in mid-2016, according to U.S. Energy Department data.
Woods said Exxon can earn a double-digit return in the Permian even at $35-per-barrel oil. It expects annual cash flow from overall operations to reach $60 billion in 2025, on assumption of $60 per barrel international oil prices.
GRAPHIC – Exxon returns lag Big Oil peers: https://tmsnrt.rs/2C2CuvZ
Other major investments for Exxon include offshore projects in Brazil and Guyana, and from global investments in liquefied natural gas.
Exxon, which faces investor pressure to trim its assets, said it would divest $15 billion in holdings over the next three years.
Exxon needs to “convince the market that higher spending today translates to higher returns to shareholders over time,” which could be helped by increased asset sales, said Biraj Borkhataria, analyst with RBC Europe Limited, in a note to clients.
Analysts and investors have pressured Exxon to be more open and transparent. Woods opened Wednesday’s analyst meeting by saying he had spent “quite a bit of time engaging with our shareholders,” in the last year. Last month, for the first time, he joined the quarterly earnings call to discuss results.
(Additional reporting by John Benny and Debroop Roy in Bengaluru; Editing by David Gregorio and Sonya Hepinstall)
US shale companies’ decision to drill thousands of new wells closely together – and close to already existing wells – is turning out to be a bust; worse, this approach is hurting the performance of wells already in existence, posing an even greater threat to the already struggling industry. In order to keep the United States as an energy supplying powerhouse, shale companies have pitched bunching wells in close proximity, hoping they would produce as much as older ones, allowing companies to extract more oil overall while maintaining good results from each well.
These types of predictions helped fuel investor interest in shale companies, who raised nearly $57 billion from equity and debt financing in 2016 – up from $34 billion five years earlier, when oil was over $110 per barrel. In 2016, oil prices dipped below $30 a barrel at one point.
And now – surprise – the actual results from these wells are finally coming in and they are quite disappointing.
Newer wells that have been set up near older wells were found to pump less oil and gas, and engineers warn that these new wells could produce as much as 50% less in some circumstances. This is not what investors – who contributed to the billions in capital used by these companies back in 2016 – want to hear.
Making matters worse, newer wells often interfere with the output of older wells because creating too many holes in dense rock formations can damage nearby wells and make it harder for oil to seep out. The “child” wells could also cause permanent damage to older “parent” wells. This is known in the industry as the “parent-child” well problem. Billionaire Harold Hamm, who founded shale driller Continental Resources, said last year: “Shale producers across the country are finding you can get a lot of interference, one well to the other. Laying out a whole lot of wells can get you in trouble.”
Some of the biggest names in shale, including Devon Energy, EOG Resources and Concho Resources, have already disclosed that they are suffering from this problem. As a result, they and many others could be forced to take massive write-downs if they have to downsize their already optimistic estimates from drill sites.
Companies continue to try and find the perfect balance between using single wells that are operating at peak productivity and multiple wells that can provide better returns.
Laredo Petroleum is a great example. Two years ago, it was valued at more than $3 billion and was a strong advocate for packing wells into the Permian Basin. Its CEO Randy Foutch said a year ago that the company could drill 32 wells per drilling unit, with each producing an average of 1.3 million barrels of oil and gas. In November, the company announced that wells it had fracked in 2018 were producing 11% less than projected, in part due to “parent-child” issues.
Laredo spokesman Ron Hagood told the WSJ: “We tightened spacing during 2017 and 2018 to increase location inventory and resource recovery in our highest-return formations, and we achieved this goal.”
The company’s market value has fallen about 75% to $800 million since the end of 2016. Goal achieved?
Incidentally, we first reported that shale companies may be facing “catastrophic failure ahead” back in October of 2018. Days before that report, we said that shale companies had a “glaring problem”. We concluded that the glaring problem with 2018’s poor financial results was that 2018 was supposed to be the year that the shale industry finally turned a corner.
Earlier in 2018, the International Energy Agency had painted a rosy portrait of U.S. shale, arguing in a report that “higher prices and operational improvements are putting the US shale sector on track to achieve positive free cash flow in 2018 for the first time ever.”
Now, it all appears to have been a “pipe” – or rather “milkshake” – dream.
Authored by Cyril Widdershoven via Oilprice.com,
Egypt’s oil and gas future looks very bright. The large scale concessions awarded during the EGYPS2019 conference in Cairo, 11-13 February, shows the appetite of IOCs, such as Shell, BP and ENI in this emerging energy hotspot.
After years of a major slump, partly due to continuing payment and security issues, the Pharaohs are again back in the top league. Continuing concerns about security in Egypt’s Western Desert or the Sinai no longer seem to be a breaking point for investors. At the second day of EGYPS2019 the announcement of five onshore and offshore licenses by EGPC, as presented by Egypt’s minister of energy Tarek El Molla, has created a very bright future for the North African oil and gas producer. The success story of the offshore deepwater gas field Zohr, operated by Italian oil major ENI, could be supported further by positive results from current exploration efforts in the offshore Noor field. If expectations are met, a new gas hub could be in the making, combining Cypriot and Israeli production with Egypt’s existing LNG infrastructure.
(Click to enlarge)
The long awaited results of the Egyptian natural gas holding company EGAS were announced on the 12th of February. Dutch oil major Shell was awarded 3 concessions, all crude blocks in sector 7 West Fayoum, sector 9 South East of Horus, and sector 10 South AbuSnan. Italian oil major ENI, currently in the news with regards to its major offshore gas projects Zohr and Noor, was awarded sector 11 East of Siwa, while sector 2 went to the General Petroleum Company, sector 4 to Neptune Energy, and sector 5 North Beni Suef to Merlon International.
With regards to the Egyptian gas prospects, American oil giant ExxonMobil, which hasn’t been very active in Egypt for years, reentered the North African country by winning the north of Amreya Marine Company concession area. The North Sidi Gaber, as well as North El Fanar areas, went to Shell and Petronas. The North West Sherbin concession has been awarded to British oil major BP and Eni.
The re-emergence of major IOC interest should be not underestimated. Egypt’s former rough period, especially during and after the Arabic Spring and the rule of Muslim Brotherhood president Mursi and the military coup shortly after, has had a very negative impact on upstream projects. Most IOCs and independents working in Egypt at the time, were affected by security threats and delayed payments, resulting in a major slowdown in operations. The current success of ENI, and the improving political and security situation seems to have changed the sentiment. Shell and ExxonMobil’s participation could be a game changer.
Cairo’s dreams about becoming an energy hub, and supplying European markets, are once again alive and kicking. Shell’s Egypt Chairman Gasser Hanter reiterated this. Hanter stated at EGYPS2019 that ‘Egypt’s Idku and Damietta LNG export plants are likely to remain the low-cost option for East Mediterranean gas producers looking to export”. He expects that, soon, it will become very clear to the other participants in the East Med that the Egyptian option has the best commercial and strategic factors. The Shell official is very optimistic with regard to the willingness of Israel and Cyprus to consider the Egyptian option. Some developments are expected around the East Mediterranean Gas Forum meeting in March in Cairo. At present, provisional agreements have been signed between Cyprus and Egypt to pipe gas from Cyprus’ field Aphrodite to Egypt. Israel has already a gas export deal with Egypt. The deal was set up by Egypt’s Dolphinus Holdings, which expects to import 64 Bcm/year of gas from Israel over a 10-year period. Noble Energy and Israel’s Delek, two prominent producers in the Tamar and Leviathan fields, have agreed to buy a stake in the idled East Mediterranean Gas pipeline. Shell reiterated at EGYPS2019 that the economics of Egypt’s export plants remained compelling, suggesting any other future liquefaction projects in the region may struggle. The underlying economics are clear, as the LNG liquefaction plants in Idku and Damietta already exist, removing the possible multibillion investments needed if choosing other options.
In addition to the IOCs interest, Arab oil & gas company Dana Gas also stated to expect major new discoveries. Dana’s CEO Patrick Allman-Ward stated at EGYPS2019 that his company will start drilling in 2019 in an area it says could become Egypt’s next giant Mediterranean gas field, after seismic data pointed to reserves as large as 20 trillion cubic feet. First drilling operations will be conducted in an area that is expected to hold 406 Tcf. The targeted area is part of the North Arish field, which is located in the East Med.
The year 2019 could become the Red Sea Year, as Egyptian sources indicate that the Egyptian company Ganoub El Wadi Petroleum Company (Ganope) is expected soon to launch its delayed bid round for offshore Red Sea. The last days rumors have been floating around, especially after that Egypt’s minister of energy Tarek El Molla indicated a bid round on the 12thof February at EGYPS2019. El Molla stated bluntly that 2019 will be the Red Sea Year. This was also stated by Abed Ezz El Regal, CEO of EGPC. The bid round was expected earlier, but was delayed at the end of 2018 by Ganope. The Red Sea has become a major focus area for EGPC and others, after that Cairo was able to reach a maritime demarcation agreement with Saudi Arabia. Ganope’s CEO Mohamed Abdul Azim stated that his company is expected to drill nine new wells. Based on the Red Sea geophysical data, which has been acquired lately by a 2D, 10,000 square kilometer survey by Schlumberger, a bid round is expected to be announced within the next days. The prospectivity of the Red Sea is expected to be very interesting, as already shown by several projects on the other side of the sea in Saudi Arabia.
A possible combined effort between Saudi Arabia and Egypt is still in the offing, as some projects could be combined. For sure, Egyptian and Saudi drilling operations could be combined, taking advantage of the growing offshore drilling JVs of bother countries. The ongoing Saudi Aramco-Rowan JV (ARO) at the International Maritime Industries (IMI) Ras Al Khair Shipyard projects, also could be combined with Egyptian parties. Some new builds or upgrades for the Red Sea arena would be feasible to be done in Egyptian shipyards too.
February 24, 2019
By Sofia Christensen and Juliette Jabkhiro
DAKAR/FATICK, Senegal (Reuters) – Senegalese voters headed to the polls on Sunday for an election President Macky Sall is expected to win after strong economic growth in his first term, although rights groups criticize him for squeezing out rivals.
Senegal’s small fish-exporting economy expanded more than 6 percent last year, one of the highest rates in Africa, driven by an ambitious reform and development plan that included the construction of a new railway.
The 57-year-old president has spoken confidently of winning a second term and promised to deliver universal healthcare and better access to education.
Supporters chanted ‘Ole, Ole’ and flashed ‘V’ for victory signs, as Sall cast his vote in his hometown of Fatick.
“The elected president will have to be the president of all Senegal. I hope this president will be me,” he said.
About 6.5 million people are registered to vote at polling stations that opened at 8 a.m. (0800 GMT) and close at 6 p.m. Official results are due out on Friday with a run-off for the top two on March 24 if no one secures a majority.
After voting in Fatick, pensioner Adama Sakho, 81, said he believed Sall would win in the first round, praising his social spending policies.
“I’m retired, and now in one month I receive the same amount of money I used to make in three months,” he said. “He has the hand of God. Everything he touches gets realized. And he brings luck, because it’s during his reign that we found oil and gas.”
There are hopes of an oil and gas boom in Senegal as energy majors develop previously untapped fields off its Atlantic coast.
FIVE CANDIDATES
Opinion polls are banned in the run-up to the vote, but a survey by a Senegalese data company in November gave Sall 45 percent support. Of his four rivals now lined up in the smallest field of candidates since 1988, none had more than 16 percent.
Despite Sall’s popularity, some citizens question whether a high-speed train, new motorways and a swanky conference center will benefit average citizens in the former French colony of 15 million people where the average income is less than $200 a month.
Many people do not have reliable water or power supplies.
University professor Bakary Manga, 43, said he would vote for opposition candidate Ousmane Sonko as he was disappointed in Sall’s first term.
“It was a big nonsense with him. The cost of his projects is excessive, we can do much better with much less,” he said as he queued at a polling station in Dakar.
Rights groups have criticized the exclusion of two popular candidates from the race in the West African nation that has long been viewed as the region’s most stable democracy. It has seen peaceful transitions of power since independence in 1960.
Former mayor of Dakar, Khalifa Sall and Karim Wade, son of former President Abdoulaye Wade who was in power from 2000 to 2012, were barred from running due to corruption convictions.
The former president himself said in a statement the vote was being rigged and told supporters of his son to boycott the poll.
The government has dismissed the criticism, promising a free and fair vote.
The remaining challengers are Sonko, a former tax inspector who is popular among the youth, as well as third-time contender and former Prime Minister Idrissa Seck. Lawyer Madicke Niang and IT professor Issa Sall are also running.
Sonko told supporters at his final rally on Thursday that he would congratulate Sall if the vote was fair. “But if he steals the victory, I ask the youth to walk to the presidential palace and chase him out,” he said.
At least one person was killed this month in clashes between Sall’s backers and his opponents in the southeastern city of Tambacounda, but campaigning has been largely peaceful.
(Writing by Sofia Christensen and Alessandra Prentice; Editing by Edward McAllister and Keith Weir)
February 24, 2019
By Stanley Carvalho
ABU DHABI (Reuters) – Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) has sealed a $4 billion midstream pipeline infrastructure deal with U.S. investment firms KKR and BlackRock, the government-owned company said on Sunday.
ADNOC has been expanding through strategic partnerships since 2017. Last month it won a combined $5.8 billion investment from Italy’s Eni and Austria’s OMV for a stake in its refining business to establish a new trading operation owned by the three partners.
The latest deal follows ADNOC’s capital markets debut with its Abu Dhabi Crude Oil Pipeline bond, the IPO of ADNOC Distribution and other initiatives.
A new entity called ADNOC Oil Pipelines will lease the oil company’s interest in 18 pipelines, transporting crude oil and condensates across ADNOC’s upstream concessions for a 23-year period, ADNOC said in a statement.
The 18 pipelines have a total length of over 750 km and capacity of 13 million barrels per day.
Funds managed by KKR and BlackRock will form a consortium to hold a 40 percent stake in the entity, with ADNOC owning the rest. ADNOC will have sovereignty over the pipelines and management of pipeline operations.
The deal, expected to close in the third quarter of 2019, will result in upfront proceeds of some $4 billion to ADNOC.
The statement cited Sultan al-Jaber, ADNOC group CEO, as saying the deal validated ADNOC’s approach of “unlocking value from its portfolio of assets while retaining control over their ownership and operation”.
BlackRock is investing through its Global Energy & Power Infrastructure Fund series while KKR’s investment is through its third Global Infrastructure Investors Fund, the statement said.
“We believe that today’s agreement among ADNOC, BlackRock and KKR will be followed by many more such partnerships to invest in the future growth of the region,” said BlackRock CEO Laurence Fink.
This is KKR’s first direct investment in the region, co-CEO Henry Kravis said, adding that there is substantial potential for more.
ADNOC has undergone major changes since al-Jaber’s appointment in 2016, embarking on privatization, oil trading and expanded partnerships with strategic investors.
“I think the approach taken here by ADNOC reflects a desire to monetize assets they have under their control,” said Edward Bell, director of commodities research at Emirates NBD.
“So I think it reflects an attempt to realize the value of the infrastructure they have in place more than a strategic shift into midstream oil and gas.”
ADNOC produces about 3 million barrels of oil and 10.5 billion cubic feet of raw gas a day.
(Reporting by Stanley Carvalho; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky and David Goodman)
February 22, 2019
ALGIERS (Reuters) – Thousands of people in cities across Algeria marched on Friday to protest against President Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s plan to seek a fifth term and police used tear gas to disperse crowds in the capital.
The 81-year-old Bouteflika, in office since 1999, will contest the April 18 presidential election despite concerns over his health. He has been seen in public only a handful of times since suffering a stroke in 2013.
“No to Bouteflika and no to Said,” a crowd chanted while marching through the center of Algiers. The president’s youngest brother Said Bouteflika is a presidential adviser.
Reuters journalists filmed riot police firing tear gas over a crowd that ran to escape.
Publicized on social media, the demonstrations went ahead despite mosque preachers warning of possible violence.
“We and the security (forces) are brothers,” some protesters called in the capital.
Protests were held in at least five other cities, including Oran, Tizi Ouzou, Bejaia, Annaba and Setif, news website TSA said, citing witnesses and posting videos.
Bouteflika’s re-election bid comes after the ruling FLN party picked him as its official presidential candidate. Several political parties, trade unions and business organizations have already said they would back him, and he is expected to win easily as the opposition remains weak and divided.
Strikes and protests over social and economic grievances are frequent in Algeria, but are generally localized and do not touch on national politics.
More than a quarter of Algerians under 30 are unemployed, according to official figures, and many feel disconnected from a ruling elite made up of veteran fighters from Algeria’s 1954-1962 independence war with France.
While the “Arab Spring” protests of 2011 toppled leaders in fellow North African countries Tunisia and Egypt, Algerian security forces managed to contain those mass demonstrations.
The government was able to further calm tensions by increasing spending as oil and gas revenues, the country’s lifeline, flowed freely from crude sold at $100 a barrel.
Bouteflika’s office said late on Thursday that he would travel to Switzerland on Sunday for “routine medical checks”, without giving further details. He has traveled before to Geneva for medical tests.
Bouteflika remains popular with many Algerians, who credit him with ending a long civil war by offering an amnesty to former Islamist militant fighters.
His re-election would provide short-term stability for the FLN, the army and business tycoons, and postpone a potentially difficult succession.
Algeria is a key gas supplier to Europe and an ally of the United States in the fight against Islamist militants in the Sahel region of North Africa.
(Writing by Ulf Laessing; Editing by Gareth Jones, Peter Graff and Raissa Kasolowsky)
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has promised a “fourth transformation” of the Mexican state and is taking back control of the national oil and gas firm. Workers, indigenous groups, and the environmental movement in Mexico and internationally can push the …
The post Mexico’s Energy Transformation? appeared first on Global Research.
February 13, 2019
By Dmitry Zhdannikov, Herbert Lash and Saeed Azhar
LONDON/NEW YORK/DUBAI (Reuters) – When news emerged that Qatar may have unwittingly helped bail out a New York skyscraper owned by the family of Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law, eyebrows were raised in Doha.
Kushner, a senior White House adviser, was a close ally of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman – a key architect of a regional boycott against Qatar, which Riyadh accuses of sponsoring terrorism. Doha denies the charge.
Brookfield, a global property investor in which the Qatari government has placed investments, struck a deal last year that rescued the Kushner Companies’ 666 Fifth Avenue tower in Manhattan from financial straits.
The bailout, in which Doha played no part and first learned about in the media, has prompted a rethink of how the gas-rich kingdom invests money abroad via its giant sovereign wealth fund, two sources with knowledge of the matter told Reuters.
The country has decided that the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) will aim to avoid putting money in funds or other investment vehicles it does not have full control over, according to the sources, who are familiar with the QIA’s strategy.
“Qatar started looking into how its name got involved into the deal and found out it was because of a fund it co-owned,” said one of the sources. “So QIA ultimately triggered a strategy revamp.”
A QIA spokesman said: “QIA had absolutely no involvement in the 666 Fifth Avenue development and the claims about QIA’s investment strategy are not true. There has been no change in investment strategy with regards to taking majority control.”
The QIA did not address other detailed questions from Reuters including about its future investments via funds and any desire to have more control over those money flows.
Canada’s Brookfield Asset Management Inc bailed out 666 Fifth Avenue via its real estate unit Brookfield Property Partners, in which the QIA acquired a 9 percent stake five years ago. Both parent and unit declined to comment.
The QIA’s strategic shift was made late last year, according to the sources. It offers a rare insight into the thinking of one of the world’s most secretive sovereign wealth funds.
The revamp could have significant implications for the global investment scene because the QIA is one of the world’s largest state investors, with more than $320 billion under management.
The wealth fund has poured money into the West over the past decade, including rescuing British and Swiss banks during the 2008 financial crisis and investing in landmarks like New York’s Plaza Hotel and the Savoy Hotel and Harrods store in London.
QATARI BOYCOTT
Kushner was chief executive of Kushner Companies when it acquired 666 Fifth Avenue in 2007 for $1.8 billion, a record at the time for a Manhattan office building. It has been a drag on his family’s real estate company ever since.
The debt-laden skyscraper was bailed out by Brookfield last August, when it took a 99-year lease on the property, paying the rent for 99 years upfront. Financial terms were not disclosed.
The QIA bought a 9 percent stake in Brookfield Property Partners, which is known as BPY and is listed in Toronto and New York, for $1.8 billion in 2014.
BPY has about $87 billion in assets, part of more than $330 billion managed by its parent Brookfield. The stake purchase by QIA was in line with its strategy to boost investments in prime U.S. property. The investment gave QIA no seat on the board of BPY.
The Qatari wealth fund was not involved in the 666 Fifth Avenue deal, a source close to Brookfield Asset Management told Reuters. There was no requirement for Brookfield to inform the QIA beforehand.
The rescue rankled with Doha, according to the two sources familiar with the QIA’s strategy, because Kushner – married to U.S. President Trump’s daughter Ivanka – had long been one of the key supporters in Washington of the Saudi crown prince, who is the king’s favorite son and heir to the throne.
Prince Mohammed was a prime mover in leading regional states to severing links with its neighbor Qatar and embargoing the small nation since mid-2017. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Bahrain accuse Qatar of sponsoring terrorism. Doha denies the allegation and says the other countries simply want to strip it of its sovereignty.
“There is no upside in investing through funds for someone like QIA. Qatar wants full visibility into where its money goes,” said the second source familiar with the QIA’s strategy.
He added that one of the reasons for Doha’s concerns about the deal was that it might have been seen as an attempt by Qatar to influence the Trump administration, which was not the case.
The QIA will not wind down existing investments with Brookfield or others, but will rather no longer invest in similar deals, according to the two sources.
The source close to Brookfield said relations with the QIA were still strong.
STILL GOING BIG
The QIA’s strategic revamp also followed a reshuffle at the top of the fund last November when its long-serving chief, Sheikh Abdullah bin Mohamed bin Saud al-Thani, was replaced by its former head of risk management, Mansour Ibrahim al-Mahmoud. Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani was named QIA chairman.
Qatar, whose wealth comes from the world’s largest exports of liquefied gas, does not provide data on how much money it places with external fund managers.
“What we have seen lately is that it has have not been placing much,” said a Western fund manager who regularly sources money from wealth funds. “Either they are investing themselves or they are just sitting on a lot of cash.”
The Qatar shift in its approach reflects a wider trend among sovereign wealth funds to reduce reliance on external investment managers, in an attempt to keep tighter control over their money.
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, for example, said last year that 55 percent of its assets were managed by external managers in 2017, down from 60 percent the year before.
Yet, even if the QIA is being more cautious in its choice of investment vehicles, there is little indication that its appetite for big international acquisitions has diminished.
In December, new QIA chief Mahmoud told Reuters the fund was focusing on “classic” investments in the West such as real estate and financial institutions, and would also accelerate investment in technology and healthcare.
“The instructions from the top are to go out and do big deals,” said a Western banker who has held talks with Qatari officials.
He said QIA’s dealmaking had not stopped even during the height of the Gulf embargo, which initially forced the fund to put in about half of the $43 billion injected by public-sector firms into Qatari banks to mitigate the impact of outflows.
With oil and gas prices growing over the past two years, Qatar has not departed from what it is best known for – snapping up big-name properties.
In 2017, QIA pledged to ramp up its investments in Britain to 35 billion pounds ($45 billion) from 30 billion. Since then, it has spent about 1.7 billion pounds on real estate and another 1.1 billion on infrastructure in the country.
In recent months, Qatar has bought New York’s Plaza and London’s Grosvenor House hotels.
($1 = 0.7724 pounds)
(Additional reporting by Eric Knecht; Writing by Dmitry Zhdannikov; Editing by Pravin Char)
Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Asia Times,
Kazakhstan, which lies at the center of Eurasian integration, is a mix of privatization and protectionism, where the state welfare fund is trying to cut state domination in some industries and protect others
Kazakhstan sits at the heartland of the Great Game of the 21st century, which is all about Eurasia interconnectivity and integration. Astana is a member of both the China-driven New Silk Roads, or Belt and Road Initiative, and the Russia-led Eurasia Economic Union.
Kazakhstan, the “snow leopard economy” as branded by President Nursultan Nazarbayev over the past decade, could not be more quintessentially Eurasian, its landlocked steppes crisscrossed by 60% of China to Europe rail cargo.
The country also functions as a sort of massive power station for the New Silk Roads, overflowing with oil and gas but also significantly investing in solar, wind and nuclear power.
Astana happens to be the only financial hub between Moscow and Beijing, boasting the Astana International Financial Centre, where the Shanghai Stock Exchange is a major investor and Chinese banks and businesses are listed.
A fascinating mix of privatization and protectionism is also in play.
Samruk Kazyna, the Kazakh national welfare fund, is seeking to reduce the government’s share of the economy, which ranges from energy to banking, from 90% to 20%, even as Astana has made it clear that some strategic commodities and industries are closed to foreign, especially Chinese, investment.
With all that as background, it’s more than natural that Kazakhstan’s unique Eurasian crossroads status has been discussed in detail at the Astana Club.
Its 2018 report, ‘Toward a Greater Eurasia: How to Build a Common Future?’, focuses on everything from geoeconomics and the Central Asian renaissance to geopolitical and security risks. Of particular interest is a new report on the global risks ahead for Eurasia.
Kazakhstan and the ‘stans’ between Russia and China. Map: University of Texas
There’s near universal consensus across the Global South, including key Eurasian latitudes, that in a new, emerging, extremely complex geopolitical matrix, globalization as we knew it is “no longer a universal good”, given how states are grappling mightily with the rise of protectionism. There’s also plenty of debate on how the dwindling “Western liberal order” will be remixed, side by side with the consolidation of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
These concerns are discussed not only by the jaded Western elites who gathered at Davos this week. It has been a recurrent theme studied by the Institute of World Economics and Politics in Astana, which operates under President Nazarbayev.
Assisted by the International Strategy Partners Group, the Institute conducted a survey among 1,000 executives in 60 countries plus 30 international experts to find out how Eurasia may be able to anticipate the New Great Game’s extreme challenges, such as the US-China trade war, the US-Russia geopolitical and nuclear impasse, the shifting chessboard in Southwest Asia – what the West calls the Middle East, the rise of ethnic and religious conflicts, the inexorable march of high-end technology, and the appalling degradation of the environment.
Under the survey, the number one risk for Eurasia was considered to be the escalation of US-China military and political confrontation, closely followed by confrontation between Russia and the West. The conflict most likely to be exacerbated was seen to be the US and Iran. Meanwhile, protectionism was the key concern for 56% of respondents.
Serious questions may be posed about the relevance of some of the experts featured in the final report. Still, there’s some sound analysis. Evgeny Buzhinsky, vice-president of the Russia International Affairs Council, ominously stressed how further escalation of the US-Russia high-stakes game could “lead to armed confrontation not only with the use of conventional means of destruction, but also to a nuclear conflict”.
Buzhinsky also sought to make it clear that his country won’t initiate an arms race, saying Russia firmly adheres to the principle of “reasonable sufficiency”.
The Astana report does show in some detail the “first symptoms of a crisis of global institutions”. Yet, in parallel, there’s a tendency in some Western latitudes to interpret the crisis as an outcome stemming from the rise of what could be described as Asiatic imperialism.
Turks with a passion for the Ottoman Empire, such as former Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, may have dreamed of tying up again with citizens from “Sarajevo to Damascus, Benghazi to Erzurum”, but not so much in the spirit of a recent, lovely travel book revisiting imperial latitudes.
The Syria debacle has proved that President Erdogan’s expansion project will have to be substantially tamed, as it must fit with the geopolitical reach of another former empire, Russia, as well as a backlash from the Arab world. There’s no neo-Ottoman way when Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and the UAE, among others, are now in favor of patching up their formerly fractured relationship with Damascus.
A case can be made that Erdogan may be aiming towards a new brand of Eurasianism, just as Russian intellectuals have evolved the concept of Greater Eurasia, where the notion of Russkii Mir (the Russian World) is expanded in an inclusive, geoeconomic and geopolitical way, and not as a form of domination.
Russia is, after all, a de facto supranational civilization, not a mere nation-state, just as China is a de facto “civilization-state”. Russian culture reigns all across Central Asia, where Russian, also crucially in social media, is the lingua franca.
Erdogan could do worse than invest in a similar, inclusive notion incorporating all Turkic-speaking peoples across Central Asia.
In a nutshell, comparisons with the eve of WWI, as far as Eurasia is concerned, are premature. The discussions in Astana show that the way ahead is multi-vector, multi-cultural, and multi-polar.
January 18, 2019
By Lamine Chikhi
ALGIERS (Reuters) – Algeria on Friday announced a presidential election for April 18 without indicating whether veteran leader Abdelaziz Bouteflika would stand, following calls for his nomination by a loyal ruling caste of businessmen, trade unions and the military.
The 81-year old leader, who has been in office since 1999 and rarely been seen in public since suffering a stroke in 2013, has now 45 days to say whether he wants to seek a fifth term.
Under the constitution the election date was made necessary by the expiry in April of Bouteflika’s fourth term.
Algeria’s ruling coalition and other leading figures in labor unions and the business world had previously urged him to run again for the presidency.
But there have been concerns about his health.
In December, Boutelfika, who has been wheelchair-bound since 2013, was unable to meet Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman when he came to Algiers for a two-day visit due to acute flu.
His last meeting with a senior foreign official was during a visit by German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Sept. 17. An earlier meeting with Merkel and a meeting with Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte were canceled.
The North African country, an OPEC oil producer, avoided the major political upheaval seen in many other Arab countries in the past decade but has experienced some protests and strikes. Unemployment, especially among young people, remains high.
The economy has improved over the past year as oil and gas revenues have picked up, allowing authorities to ease austerity measures imposed when they halved between 2014 to 2017. Oil and gas revenues account for 60 percent of the budget and 94 percent of export revenues.
ELITE
Analysts said Bouteflika’s announcement of the election date will ease concerns that the vote might get postponed.
In 1991, the army canceled elections which an Islamist party was set to win, triggering almost a decade of civil war that killed some 200,000 people.
“This decision shows that Bouteflika is sticking to the constitution,” said political analyst Arslan Chikhaoui.
Observers say if Bouteflika runs again he is set to win, as the opposition is divided into Islamists and secular parties.
Bouteflika is part of a thinning elite of the veterans who fought France in the 1954-1962 independence war and have run Algeria ever since. Many also credit him with ending the civil war by offering former Islamist fighters amnesty.
Bouteflika’s supporters say his mind remains sharp, even though he needs a microphone to speak. The opposition says he is not fit to run again.
He is unlikely to face competition from within ruling circles. Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia, leader of the National Rally for Democracy (RND) allied to the FLN, has already said he will not run if Bouteflika goes for a fifth term.
Nobody has yet said they will run against Bouteflika, even though the president has said he wants more competition. He won with 82 percent of the vote in 2014, 90 percent in 2009, 85 percent in 2004 and 74 percent in 1999.
The government has said it wants to diversify the economy away from oil and gas, which accounts for 60 percent of budget finances, but there has been resistance from those within the ruling elite to opening up to foreign investment.
That has left the economy dominated by the state and firms run by business tycoons.
(Reporting by Lamine Chikhi and Ulf Laessing, Writing by Gareth Jones; Editing by Angus MacSwan, William Maclean)
PG&E shares tumbled another 20% on Monday as the embattled utility, which is potentially facing billions of dollars in fines stemming from the deadliest wildfires in the state’s history (while simultaneously struggling to settle claims related to a round of fires that decimated California’s wine country in 2017), is facing pushback and skepticism from lawmakers following reports last week that it could file for bankruptcy as soon as next month.
According to Bloomberg, California lawmakers, who had been expected to bail out the utility, are questioning the political prudence of caving to the utilities bankruptcy threats.
It’s widely suspected that the threat of a bankruptcy filing would force the California legislature to pass a law allowing PG&E to pass costs related to the fires on to its customers – an outcome that would risk enraging Californians who suspect that the utility’s equipment contributed to starting the deadly Camp and Woolsey Fires.
As investigators press ahead with their probe into what caused the deadly fires, the issue of what should be done to hold PG&E accountable for any role in the fires could be one of the first major issues facing California’s newly inaugurated governor, Gavin Newsom, who was sworn into office on Monday.
As BBG reported, even if PG&E does follow through with its bankruptcy threats, they might not be enough to pressure lawmakersinto action – which could lead to serious risks for PG&E shareholders.
A potential bankruptcy may be enough to force the hand of state legislators who are mulling a potential bailout for the embattled utility. They’ll have to decide whether to allow the company to pass some of the costs of the fire through to taxpayers, Katie Bays and Clayton Allen, analysts at Height Securities LLC, said in a note on Monday.
Bankruptcy “should be considered a credible risk by shareholders,” they said. “While we think that sufficient support for such a bill could eventually be rallied, exploitive tactics and a reticence toward change will not improve” the company’s profile.
PG&E doesn’t “comment on market rumor or speculation,” spokeswoman Lynsey Paulo said in an email Monday.
Since the fires, PG&E’s shares have shed fully half of their value, while yields on its bonds have skyrocketed.
But for what it’s worth, the utility claims it’s “working diligently” to figure out what it might owe due to the wildfires. There has also been speculation that it could sell its oil and gas unit to pay off fines in excess of its insurance coverage, as well as dozens of lawsuits that are currently pending.
In a statement late Friday, PG&E said it’s “working diligently to assess the company’s potential liabilities as a result of the wildfires and the options for addressing those liabilities. We recognize the need to balance the interests of many stakeholders while maintaining safe, reliable, and affordable services for our customers, which is always our top priority.”
And with the California legislature reconvening on Monday, some lawmakers are warning that they won’t allow PG&E to use the bankruptcy threat as leverage like it has done in the past.
The California legislature is scheduled to reconvene today after its holiday break. State Senator Jerry Hill, an outspoken PG&E critic, said the utility previously raised bankruptcy as leverage when seeking state assistance in paying its liabilities from wildfires in 2017. The company could be engaged in similar brinkmanship now, he said.
“You can’t trust what they say,” said Hill, who represents San Bruno, where a PG&E gas pipeline exploded in 2010, killing eight. “Last year, they were able to fool the legislature with the narrative of bankruptcy or bailout, and the legislature gave them a bailout.”
Still, the fact that PG&E is the largest utility in California and the country gives it a fair amount of leverage. Analysts warned that the company could run out of money before the end of the year…which could create serious problems not just for PG&E, but for California consumers
PG&E “could face a liquidity crisis by mid-to-late ’19,” Greg Gordon, an analyst at Evercore ISI, said in a research note Monday.
But in one potential workaround, the state’s utility commissioner is evaluating a possible breakup of the utility, as well as a state takeover.
California Public Utilities Commission chief Michael Picker said that same month that he couldn’t imagine allowing the state’s largest utility to go into bankruptcy. His agency later began a formal process to evaluate whether to break up or take over PG&E’s Pacific Gas and Electric utility.
Earlier on Friday, PG&E said in a statement that it’s already weighing changes to both its board and how its businesses are structured. One option under consideration: Selling its natural gas business after a bankruptcy filing, the people familiar with the matter said. Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Kit Konolige said.
But even a state takeover wouldn’t necessarily prevent a rerun of the catastrophic fires, or other serious lapses in oversight.
“Breaking it up or the state running the company, those are all incredibly complicated proposals that just have no indication that they would be successful, certainly not anytime soon,” he said. “The assumption that whatever you put in place of PG&E would be better — that’s really unproven.”
But as legislators debate exactly what should be done regarding PG&E, one thing is for sure: Expect every new detail that emerges to have an impact on PG&E’s battered shares.
 |
(Natural News) An article in Green Med Info reported that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is breaking the federal laws it is supposed to enforce. The federal agency has been accused of giving oil and gas companies free reign to use the Gulf of Mexico as a dumping ground for fracking waste. The Center for… |
Authored by Viktor Katona via Oilprice.com,
Things have been quite active in the Eastern Mediterranean lately, with Israel, Cyprus and Greece pushing forward for the realization of the EastMed pipeline, a new gas conduit destined to diversify Europe’s natural gas sources and find a long-term reliable market outlet for all the recent Mediterranean gas discoveries. The three sides have reached an agreement in late November (roughly a year after signing the MoU) to lay the pipeline, the estimated cost of which hovers around $7 billion (roughly the same as rival TurkStream’s construction cost). Yet behind the brave facade, it is still very early to talk about EastMed as a viable and profitable project as it faces an uphill battle with traditionally difficult Levantine geopolitics, as well as field geology.
The EastMed gas pipeline is expected to start some 170 kilometers off the southern coast of Cyprus and reach Otranto on the Puglian coast of Italy via the island of Crete and the Greek mainland. Since most of its subsea section is projected to be laid at depths of 3-3.5 kilometer, in case it is built it would become the deepest subsea gas pipeline, most probably the longest, too, with an estimated length of 1900km. The countries involved proceed from the premise that the pipeline’s throughput capacity would be 20 BCM per year (706 BCf), although previous estimates were within the 12-16 BCm per year interval. According to Yuval Steinitz, the Israeli Energy Minister, the stakeholders would need a year to iron out all the remaining administrative issues and 4-5 years to build the pipeline, meaning it could come onstream not before 2025.
The idea of EastMed was first flaunted around 2009-2010 as the first more or less substantial gas discovery in the Eastern Mediterranean, the Tamar gas field in Israel’s offshore zone, paved the way for speculations about an impending gas boom. Then came the 535 BCm (18.9 TCf) Leviathan in 2010 and the 850 BCm (30 TCf) Zohr discovery in offshore Egypt five years later and suddenly it seemed that an Eastern Mediterranean gas expansion is inevitable. Yet over the years, the operators of Leviathan have already allocated part of their total gas volumes to domestic power generating companies and most notably NEPCO, the Jordanian electric power company (1.6-2BCm per year). Egypt has been concentrating on meeting domestic needs and getting rid of LNG imports, moreover once it bounces back to gas exporter status in 2019, it will only use its own 2 LNG terminals in Damietta and Idku.
Thus, a pertinent question arises – whose gas would be used to fill the EastMed pipeline? If the pipeline starts in offshore Cyprus, then it would be logical to expect that Cyprus’ gas bounty would be somehow utilized. Yet Cyprus has been lagging behind Egypt and Israel in its offshore endeavors and so far lacks a clear-cut giant field to base its supply future on. The two discoveries appraised heretofore, the 6-8 TCf Calypso operated by ENI and the 4.5 TCf Aphrodite operated by Noble Energy, are not enough to support the construction of a relatively expensive gas pipeline – all the more so as Noble has signed a provisional deal to send Aphrodite gas to Egypt’s Idku LNG terminal, most likely by means of a subsea gas pipeline. If we are to judge the viability of the EastMed on the current situation, there is only Calypso and Israel to fill the pipeline, as Greece’s gas export plans are close to zero on the probability scale.
The subsea section from Cyprus’ offshore zone to the island of Crete lies in depths of 3km and is stretched across a seismically active zone. But there is even more – should Turkey claim rights on Cyprus’ offshore hydrocarbon deposits (in February 2018 it sent warships to scare away ENI’s drilling rig that was on its way to xxx), the project is all but dead. This is far from an implausible scenario as President Erdogan stated that Turkey would never allow for the extortion of natural resources in the East Mediterranean by means of excluding Ankara and Northern Cyprus. Cognizant of the risks inherent in an East Mediterranean gas pipeline, there has been no interest from oil and gas majors to participate in the project. This is worrying as the $7 billion are expected to be financed from private investors, of which there is a palpable dearth – despite the EU’s 35 million funding to promote what it sees as a Project of Common Interest.
Yet even for the European Union, the EastMed gas pipeline presents a bit of a headache as its commissioning would render the Southern Gas Corridor, comprising so far only of Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) with a 10 BCm per year throughput capacity, irrelevant by creating a sort-of competitor. The price of the natural gas to be supplied via the EastMed pipeline might become the biggest obstacle of them all – if the cost of producing offshore Mediterranean gas turns out to be $4-5/MMBtu as expected, the addition of further transportation costs to it all would place EastMed supplied at the bottom range of European gas supply options (Russian gas supply is alleged to be profitable with price levels as low as $4/MMbtu). All this might change if any of the East Mediterranean countries were to discover a giant gas field, altering the economics of production or possibly even liquefaction.
In fact, 2019 will witness several key wells being drilled across Cyprus, Egypt and possibly even Israel. ExxonMobil’s testing of Block 10 in offshore Cyprus would largely point to the overall attractiveness of Cyprus as an oil and gas producing country – the drilling has already started, with results expected in Q1 2019. The ENI-operated Noor offshore field in Egypt, adjacent to Zohr, is a much hotter prospect with BP buying into it lately – most likely it will outshine all the other drilling sites in the Eastern Mediterranean, however, if a big discovery is confirmed, it would be most likely used for Egyptian purposes which run counter to the EastMed gas pipeline. Thus, EastMed’s only hope is that Israel 2nd international licensing round, results to be announced in July 2019, will elicit a couple of Leviathan-like finds that would make pipeline construction profitable. Until then, the prospects are rather bleak.
Grants totalling £26.6m will fund projects including the development of tiny devices to repair cracks in pipes without the need to dig up roads.
Source: BT
The Government is investing millions of pounds in the development of futuristic micro-robots designed to work in underground pipe networks and dangerous sites like nuclear decommissioning facilities.
It is hoped that devices developed in British universities will spell the end for many disruptive and expensive roadworks, as robots carry out repairs without the need to dig up the roads.
Airborne and underwater versions could also inspect and maintain difficult-to-reach locations such as offshore wind farms and oil and gas pressure vessels.
Science minister Chris Skidmore announced investment totalling £26.6 million in 15 projects, including the plan to develop robots for work in underground pipes.
Led by Professor Kirill Horoshenkov at the University of Sheffield and backed by a £7.2 million Government grant, the collaborative research programme will also involve scientists from Birmingham, Bristol and Leeds universities.
It is hoped that the 1cm-long devices will use sensors and navigation systems to find and mend cracks in pipes, avoiding disruption from roadworks estimated to cost the economy £5 billion a year.
The remaining £19.4 million will fund research into the use of robotics in hazardous environments, including drones for oil pipeline monitoring and artificial intelligence software to detect the need for repairs on satellites in orbit.
Mr Skidmore said: “While for now we can only dream of a world without roadworks disrupting our lives, these pipe-repairing robots herald the start of technology that could make that dream a reality in the future.
“From deploying robots in our pipe network so cutting down traffic delays, to using robots in workplaces to keep people safer, this new technology could change the world we live in for the better.
“Experts in our top UK universities across the country are well equipped to develop this innovative new technology.”
The new funding comes from the Government’s Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund and will be delivered by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).
UKRI chief executive Professor Sir Mark Walport said: “The projects announced today demonstrate how robots and artificial intelligence will revolutionise the way we carry out complex and dangerous tasks, from maintaining offshore wind farms to decommissioning nuclear power facilities.
“They also illustrate the leading role that the UK’s innovators are playing in developing these new technologies which will improve safety and boost productivity and efficiency.”
Despite the fact that President Trump recently considered withdrawing U.S. forces from Syria, the United States— along with its allies the United Kingdom and France— are doubling down and expanding their military presence in Northeastern Syria by establishing new military bases near the town of Manbij. Reports of the bases first broke last month, but were recently confirmed by Reuters. The bases are believed to be part of a wider effort by the U.S./U.K./France coalition to aid its military proxy force in Syria, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in its “resistance” to the Turkish government.
Turkey has long maintained that the SDF, which is largely composed of members of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), are terrorists. The U.S. announcement earlier this year that they would be using the SDF to build a “border force” subsequently led Turkey to invade parts of Northern Syria previously controlled by the SDF with help from its own proxy force in Syria, the Free Syrian Army (FSA).
After Turkey took control of Afrin, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that he was considering removing YPG/SDF forces from Manbij as well, prompting the coalition forces to consolidate their positions. With the coalition now beefing up its military presence to prevent Turkey from encroaching further, Syria is set to become a new sore point in Turkey’s relationship with NATO and the West.
According to reports, the military bases are located throughout the Manbij region, with the U.S. having at least two bases while the French are constructing one. The U.K. does not have its own base, but its soldiers are known to be present in the area and to work with U.S. and French troops stationed in Manbij.
Helil Bozi, the commander of the Military Council of Manbij of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), told Sputnik that “the U.S. has deployed its Special Forces units near the Sajur River thereby setting a red line the crossing of which will be seen by the [U.S.-led] coalition forces as an attack and will prompt retaliatory actions,” noting that the increase in the coalition’s military presence was a direct result of Turkey’s prior statements regarding Manbij.
Though locals have claimed that the presence of the coalition members of the military are aimed at Turkey, they are also likely to prevent Syrian government forces from retaking the area. Now that the Syrian government has successfully removed terrorist groups from Damascus as well as other key parts of the country, there has been speculation that the Syrian military would turn its focus to areas of the country occupied by foreign powers.
Indeed, the Syrian government is very interested in recuperating the area currently occupied by the coalition and nominally controlled by the Kurds as it holds 95% of the entire country’s oil and gas potential. Under Kurdish leadership, an unknown U.S. company is already extracting and selling oil in the region, thus making it unlikely that the U.S. would willingly leave the area. The U.S. is also unlikely to leave its investment in the SDF behind, having recently allocated $550 million to arm and train the group over the next year.
In addition, the area also boasts the country’s largest fresh water reservoirs and over 60% of its agricultural land, making it an invaluable bargaining chip in determining the future of Syria, a future that coalition powers hope will remove the current Syrian government from power and replace it with a more Western-friendly government.
However, the aims of the coalition appear directed more toward partition than regime change. The U.S. has long sought to divide Syria in order to take control of the country’s resource rich Northeast and to isolate the Syrian government and, by extension, its regional allies such as Iran.
Though the U.S. has played on the hopes of Kurdish nationalists, it has long established plans for an authoritarian Wahhabist enclave in Northeastern Syria according to a leaked Defense Intelligence Agency document from 2012 and, more recently, courting the Saudis to “rebuild” the area. Furthermore, the fact that the SDF includes militias composed of “retrained” ISIS fighters also underscores that the coalition is more interested in controlling the region than aiding a Kurdish nationalism project.
Though advertised as an effort to “protect” the Kurds, the establishment of new American and French military bases in Northern Syria appear to serve as protection of the coalition’s regional ambitions and plans for the region.
The post US, UK and France Establishing New Military Bases In Northern Syria appeared first on Ben Swann’s Truth In Media.
