Fed to fight inflation with fastest rate hikes in decades (AP) — The Federal Reserve is poised this week to accelerate its most drastic steps in three decades to attack inflation by making it costlier to borrow — for a car, a home, a business deal, a credit card purchase — all of which will compound Americans’ financial strains and likely weaken the economy. Yet with inflation having surged to a 40-year high, the Fed has come under extraordinary pressure to act aggressively to slow spending and curb the price spikes that are bedeviling households and companies. After its latest rate-setting meeting ends Wednesday, the Fed will almost certainly announce that it’s raising its benchmark short-term interest rate by a half-percentage point — the sharpest rate hike since 2000. The Fed will likely carry out another half-point rate hike at its next meeting in June and possibly at the next one after that, in July. Economists foresee still further rate hikes in the months to follow. Chair Jerome Powell and the Fed will take these steps largely in the dark. No one knows just how high the central bank’s short-term rate must go to slow the economy and restrain inflation. Nor do the officials know how much they can reduce the Fed’s unprecedented $9 trillion balance sheet before they risk destabilizing financial markets. “I liken it to driving in reverse while using the rear-view mirror,” said Diane Swonk, chief economist at the consulting firm Grant Thornton. “They just don’t know what obstacles they’re going to hit.” Yet many economists think the Fed is already acting too late. Even as inflation has soared, the Fed’s benchmark rate is in a range of just 0.25% to 0.5%, a level low enough to stimulate growth. Adjusted for inflation, the Fed’s key rate — which influences many consumer and business loans — is deep in negative territory. That’s why Powell and other Fed officials have said in recent weeks that they want to raise rates “expeditiously,” to a level that neither boosts nor restrains the economy — what economists refer to as the “neutral” rate. Policymakers consider a neutral rate to be roughly 2.4%. But no one is certain what the neutral rate is at any particular time, especially in an economy that is evolving quickly. If, as most economists expect, the Fed this year carries out three half-point rate hikes and then follows with three quarter-point hikes, its rate would reach roughly neutral by year’s end. Those increases would amount to the fastest pace of rate hikes since 1989, noted Roberto Perli, an economist at Piper Sandler. Even dovish Fed officials, such as Charles Evans, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, have endorsed that path. (Fed “doves” typically prefer keeping rates low to support hiring, while “hawks” often support higher rates to curb inflation.) Powell said last week that once the Fed reaches its neutral rate, it may then tighten credit even further — to a level that would restrain growth — “if that turns out to be appropriate.” Financial markets are pricing in a rate as high as 3.6% by mid-2023, which would be the highest in 15 years.
U.S. 10-year yield tops 3% for 1st time in over three years; Fed meeting looms (Reuters) - The U.S. benchmark 10-year Treasury yield on Monday hit 3% for the first time since December 2018, a psychological milestone that could have major implications for other financial markets. The 10-year yield is an important barometer for mortgage rates and other financial instruments. It has surged the last two months as the bond market prepared for the Federal Reserve to start reducing its balance sheet, which ballooned to nearly $9 trillion as the central bank bought bonds during the pandemic. The process of unwinding those purchases is called "quantitative tightening." The Fed, at the close on Wednesday of its two-day policy meeting, is expected to announce a hike in the fed funds target rate by 50 basis points to 0.75%-1.00%, as well as reveal its balance sheet plan. Some Fed officials have said that the balance sheet run-off may start next month, at the latest. U.S. benchmark 10-year yields touched a peak of 3.01% on Monday, and were last up 10 basis points at 2.9905% US10YT=RR . "The biggest question among investors is: What is the high in rates? Because if you look at it from a long-term perspective, 3% in the 10-year is actually starting to look attractive," said Gennadiy Goldberg, senior rates strategist at TD Securities in New York. But "even though rates are attractive, they can be even more attractive tomorrow. A lot of investors are sidelined because of this enormous volatility and this fear that if rates continue rising at least in the near term that is sure to inflict more pain," he added. Fed funds futures, which track short-term rate expectations, have priced in at least three 50 basis-point increases this year, with 249 basis points in cumulative hikes.
Dollar approaches 20-year highs, Fed meeting in focus (Reuters) - The dollar held just below a 20-year high against a basket of currencies on Monday before an expected Federal Reserve rate hike this week, with traders focused on the potential for the U.S. central bank to adopt an even more hawkish tone than many expect. The Fed has taken an increasingly aggressive approach to monetary policy as it tackles inflation that is soaring at its fastest pace in 40 years. It is expected to hike rates by 50 basis points and announce plans to reduce its $9 trillion balance sheet when it concludes its two-day meeting on Wednesday. Though the chances are seen as low, some investors are watching for the possibility of a 75 basis point hike, or a faster pace of balance sheet reduction than currently expected. “A lot of traders are anticipating that the Fed’s not going to back down from this hawkish stance and you could still see some hawkish surprises, and that’s why the dollar is likely to hold on to its gains heading into the meeting,” said Edward Moya, a senior analyst with OANDA in New York. Comments by Fed Chairman Jerome Powell at the conclusion of the meeting will also be scrutinized for any new indications on whether the Fed will continue to hike rates to battle rising price pressures even if the economy weakens. U.S. factory activity grew at its slowest pace in more than a year and a half in April amid a rise in workers quitting their jobs, and manufacturers are becoming more anxious about supply. The dollar was last at 103.72 against a basket of currencies =USD , after reaching 103.93 on Thursday, the highest since Dec. 2002. The euro was at $1.0493, after dropping to $1.0470 on Thursday, the lowest since Jan. 2017. The single currency was hurt after data showed euro zone manufacturing output growth stalled last month as factories struggled to source raw materials, while demand took a knock from steep price increases. It has suffered from concerns about inflation, growth and energy insecurity as a result of sanctions imposed on Russia after its invasion of Ukraine.
Fears of a Fed mistake grow as this week's anticipated interest rate hike looms -The Federal Reserve is tasked with slowing the U.S. economy enough to control inflation but not so much that it tips into recession. Financial markets expect the central bank on Wednesday to announce a half-percentage point increase in the Fed's benchmark interest rate. The fed funds rate controls the amount that banks charge each other for short-term borrowing but also serves as a signpost for many forms of consumer debt. Doubts are rising about whether it can pull it off, even among some former Fed officials. Wall Street saw another day of whipsaw trading Monday afternoon, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 rebounding after being down more than 1% earlier in the session. "A recession at this stage is almost inevitable," former Fed vice chair Roger Ferguson told CNBC's "Squawk Box" in a Monday interview. "It's a witch's brew, and the probability of a recession I think is unfortunately very, very high because their tool is crude and all they can control is aggregate demand." Indeed, it's the supply side of the equation that is driving most of the inflation problem, as the demand for goods has outstripped supply in dramatic fashion during the Covid-era economy. After spending much of 2021 insisting that the problem was "transitory" and would likely dissipate as conditions returned to normal, Fed officials this year have had to acknowledge the problem is deeper and more persistent than they acknowledged. Ferguson said he expects the recession to hit in 2023, and he hopes it "will be a mild one." That sets up this week's Federal Open Market Committee as pivotal: Policymakers not only are almost certain to approve a 50-basis-point interest rate hike, but they also are likely to announce a reduction in bond holdings accumulated during the recovery. Chair Jerome Powell will have to explain all that to the public, drawing a line between a Fed determined to crush inflation while not killing an economy that lately has looked vulnerable to shocks. "What that means is you're going to have to hike enough to maintain credibility and start to shrink the balance sheet, and he's going to have to take the recession that comes with it," said Danielle DiMartino Booth, CEO of Quill Intelligence and a top advisor to former Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher while he served. "That's going to be an extremely difficult message to communicate."
Fed raises rates by half a percentage point — the biggest hike in two decades — to fight inflation --The Federal Reserve on Wednesday raised its benchmark interest rate by half a percentage point, the most aggressive step yet in its fight against a 40-year high in inflation."Inflation is much too high and we understand the hardship it is causing. We're moving expeditiously to bring it back down," Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said during a news conference, which he opened with an unusual direct address to "the American people." He noted the burden of inflation on lower-income people, saying, "we're strongly committed to restoring price stability."That likely will mean, according to the chairman's comments, multiple 50-basis point rate hikes ahead, though likely nothing more aggressive than that.The federal funds rate sets how much banks charge each other for short-term lending, but also is tied to a variety of adjustable-rate consumer debt.Along with the move higher in rates, the central bank indicated it will begin reducing asset holdings on its $9 trillion balance sheet. The Fed had been buying bonds to keep interest rates low and money flowing through the economy during the pandemic, but the surge in prices has forced a dramatic rethink in monetary policy.Markets were prepared for both moves but nonetheless have been volatile throughout the year. Investors have relied on the Fed as an active partner in making sure markets function well, but the inflation surge has necessitated tightening.Wednesday's rate hike will push the federal funds rate to a range of 0.75%-1%, and current market pricing has the rate rising to 2.75%-3% by year's end, according to CME Group data.Stocks leaped higher following the announcement while Treasury yields backed off their earlier highs.Markets now expect the central bank to continue raising rates aggressively in the coming months. Powell, said only that moves of 50 basis points "should be on the table at the next couple of meetings" but he seemed to discount the likelihood of the Fed getting more hawkish."Seventy-five basis points is not something the committee is actively considering," Powell said, despite market pricing that had leaned heavily towards the Fed hiking by three-quarters of a percentage point in June. "The American economy is very strong and well-positioned to handle tighter monetary policy," he said, adding that he foresees a "soft or softish" landing for the economy despite tighter monetary policy.The plan outlined Wednesday will see the balance sheet reduction happen in phases, with the Fed allowing a capped level of proceeds from maturing bonds to roll off each month while reinvesting the rest. Starting June 1, the plan will see $30 billion of Treasurys and $17.5 billion on mortgage-backed securities roll off. After three months, the cap for Treasurys will increase to $60 billion and $35 billion for mortgages.Those numbers were mostly in line with discussions at the last Fed meeting, as described in minutes from the session, though there were some expectations that the increase in the caps would be more gradual.Wednesday's statement noted that economic activity "edged down in the first quarter" but noted that "household spending and business fixed investment remained strong." Inflation "remains elevated."Finally, the statement addressed the Covid outbreak in China and the government's attempts to address the situation."In addition, Covid-related lockdowns in China are likely to exacerbate supply chain disruptions. The Committee is highly attentive to inflation risks," the statement said.
Fed raises rates by 0.5%, will shrink balance sheet | American Banker — The Federal Reserve raised its benchmark federal funds rate by half a percentage point and will begin the process of reducing its balance sheet next month as it ramps up its efforts to rein in inflation. Both moves, announced Wednesday after the Fed’s Federal Open Market Committee meeting, were signaled during its previous meeting in March and broadly expected. It's the largest single rate increase since 2000 and the first time since 2006 that the FOMC has raised rates at two consecutive meetings. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said that additional 0.5% rate increases are possible in future meetings, but downplayed the potential for even larger rate hikes, saying that 0.75% rate hikes are "not something the committee is actively considering." The Fed said it would begin allowing $47.5 billion of securities to run off its balance sheet monthly starting in June. It will then increase its reduction cap to $95 billion in September. Powell said during a press conference following the meeting that the FOMC's balance sheet decisions are "guided by our maximum employment and price stability goals" and added that the committee will "be prepared to adjust any of the details of our approach in light of economic and financial developments." While increasing the federal funds rate will have a more immediate impact on banks by increasing overnight reserve loan interest rates, the Fed’s effort to reduce its balance sheet could have the more lasting effect according to Greg McBride, chief financial analyst for the aggregation site Bankrate. “Downsizing the balance sheet is probably going to be more impactful than raising short term interest rates,” McBride said. “Raising short term interest rates is much more in-your-face and transparent; downsizing the balance sheet is more behind the scenes, but that's the one that's going to have the more pronounced effect economically.” When the Fed sheds assets, it also reduces its liabilities, which include reserves held for member banks, Derek Tang, co-founder and economist at Monetary Policy Analytics, said. With fewer reserves available to them, banks will have to make decisions about how to manage their own assets and liquidity needs. “In an environment where reserves are really ample, you don't necessarily have to consider that question,” Tang said. “But, if there are less and less reserves in the system, you're gonna start to think okay, well, what do I need in terms of my balance sheet planning needs?” The last time the Fed began shrinking its balance sheet, a process known as quantitative tightening, was between 2017 and 2019. The Fed reduced its holdings from roughly $4.4 trillion to less than $3.8 trillion before it began growing its holdings again during the fall of 2019. Along with keeping interest rates at their lower bound, the Fed has supported the economy by purchasing Treasury securities as well as securitized mortgages from government sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Between March and June 2020, the Fed’s holdings ballooned from $4.2 trillion to $7.1 trillion. The balance sheet has swollen to more than $8.9 trillion as of April 27. The Fed’s buying spree has provided liquidity to financial markets by increasing the availability of credit and thus keeping borrowing costs low. Yet, critics say the continuation of this activity long after the initial shock of the pandemic has fueled asset price inflation and driven up housing costs. Powell addressed those concerns during the press conference by saying that the tools available to the Fed are notoriously imprecise, and some economic pain could very well accompany rate hikes. But that pain is in service of re-establishing price stability while avoiding a full-blown recession. "We have essentially interest rates, the balance sheet and forward guidance, and they're famously blunt tools — they're not capable of surgical precision," Powell said. "So I would agree, no one thinks this will be easy. No one thinks it's straightforward, but there's certainly a plausible path to this."
FOMC Statement: Raise Rates 50bp; Runoff Starts June 1st - Fed Chair Powell press conference video here starting at 2:30 PM ET. FOMC Statement: Although overall economic activity edged down in the first quarter, household spending and business fixed investment remained strong. Job gains have been robust in recent months, and the unemployment rate has declined substantially. Inflation remains elevated, reflecting supply and demand imbalances related to the pandemic, higher energy prices, and broader price pressures. The invasion of Ukraine by Russia is causing tremendous human and economic hardship. The implications for the U.S. economy are highly uncertain. The invasion and related events are creating additional upward pressure on inflation and are likely to weigh on economic activity. In addition, COVID-related lockdowns in China are likely to exacerbate supply chain disruptions. The Committee is highly attentive to inflation risks. The Committee seeks to achieve maximum employment and inflation at the rate of 2 percent over the longer run. With appropriate firming in the stance of monetary policy, the Committee expects inflation to return to its 2 percent objective and the labor market to remain strong. In support of these goals, the Committee decided to raise the target range for the federal funds rate to 3/4 to 1 percent and anticipates that ongoing increases in the target range will be appropriate. In addition, the Committee decided to begin reducing its holdings of Treasury securities and agency debt and agency mortgage-backed securities on June 1, as described in the Plans for Reducing the Size of the Federal Reserve's Balance Sheet that were issued in conjunction with this statement. In assessing the appropriate stance of monetary policy, the Committee will continue to monitor the implications of incoming information for the economic outlook. The Committee would be prepared to adjust the stance of monetary policy as appropriate if risks emerge that could impede the attainment of the Committee’s goals. The Committee's assessments will take into account a wide range of information, including readings on public health, labor market conditions, inflation pressures and inflation expectations, and financial and international developments.Stagflation risk rises as the Federal Reserve tightens monetary policy - The Federal Reserve is hiking interest rates in an effort to defuse an explosive year of price inflation. But global forces could neutralize the effects of that tightening of monetary policy, and keep inflation high. Some observers believe the U.S. government may have misread the looming threat of inflation. During the pandemic, Uncle Sam dispersed historic sums of cash to blunt widespread economic damage. Analysts say this stimulus produced strong household savings. A boom in demand for durable goods followed. This surge in demand came as global supply chains stalled out, and a persistent bout of inflation followed. In March 2022, prices across all categories rose to historic levels, 8.5% year over year. And investors believe the price hikes aren't over yet, according to a New York Federal Reserve survey."The only way to break the back of inflation that's running out of control is for very tight monetary policy, " says Richard Fisher, former President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. "It slows things down because everything becomes expensive." Today's inflation isn't spiraling in the way it did in the recent past, however. From 1965 to 1982, inflation soared, at times reaching double-digit rates. In 1979, the central bank, under Chair Paul Volcker, kicked off a tightening cycle that resulted in interest rates of nearly 20%. Strong monetary policies killed inflation, but also led companies to offshore labor costs. As a result, American workers saw their labor income stagnate relative to productivity for four decades. This period in U.S. economic history is remembered for stagflation, which describes the duel threat of stagnant growth and persistent inflation. Today's Federal Reserve leaders hope to avoid such a dramatic turn of events. But their plan could backfire, as many of the root causes of inflation are outside of the bank's control.
The Federal Reserve's fight with inflation could cool the hot labor market, risking stagflation - The Federal Reserve is hiking interest rates in an effort to defuse an explosive year of price inflation. But global forces could neutralize the effects of that tightening of monetary policy, and keep inflation high. Some observers believe the U.S. government may have misread the looming threat of inflation. During the pandemic, Uncle Sam dispersed historic sums of cash to blunt widespread economic damage. Analysts say this stimulus produced strong household savings. A boom in demand for durable goods followed. This surge in demand came as global supply chains stalled out, and a persistent bout of inflation followed. In March 2022, prices across all categories rose to historic levels, 8.5% year over year. And investors believe the price hikes aren't over yet, according to a New York Federal Reserve survey. "The only way to break the back of inflation that's running out of control is for very tight monetary policy, " says Richard Fisher, former President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. "It slows things down because everything becomes expensive." Today's inflation isn't spiraling in the way it did in the recent past, however. From 1965 to 1982, inflation soared, at times reaching double-digit rates. In 1979, the central bank, under Chair Paul Volcker, kicked off a tightening cycle that resulted in interest rates of nearly 20%. Strong monetary policies killed inflation, but also led companies to offshore labor costs. As a result, American workers saw their labor income stagnate relative to productivity for four decades. This period in U.S. economic history is remembered for stagflation, which describes the duel threat of stagnant growth and persistent inflation. Today's Federal Reserve leaders hope to avoid such a dramatic turn of events. But their plan could backfire, as many of the root causes of inflation are outside of the bank's control. Watch the video above to learn more about the central bank's fight against stagflation.
Quarles: U.S. doesn't need CBDC to compete with China - Just because China is developing a central bank digital currency, doesn’t mean the U.S. needs one too, former Federal Reserve Gov. Randal Quarles said. Speaking on IntraFi Network's "Banking with Interest" podcast this week, Quarles pushed back against the notion that the central bank should develop its own digital currency to protect the U.S. dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency. More pointedly, the Fed’s former vice chair for supervision said the threat to U.S. financial dominance posed by China, which launched a pilot program for a digital renminbi last year, has been overstated.
Monthly GDP and Other Business Cycle Indicators - With the release of IHS-Markit monthly GDP, we have the following graph of key indicators noted by NBER BCDC.Figure 1: Nonfarm payroll employment (dark blue), Bloomberg consensus for April NFP as of 5/2 (blue +), industrial production (red), personal income excluding transfers in Ch.2012$ (green), manufacturing and trade sales in Ch.2012$ (black), consumption in Ch.2012$ (light blue), and monthly GDP in Ch.2012$ (pink), all log normalized to 2020M02=0. NBER defined recession dates, peak-to-trough, shaded gray. Source: BLS, Federal Reserve, BEA, via FRED, IHS Markit (nee Macroeconomic Advisers) (5/2/2022 release), NBER, and author’s calculations.The monthly GDP number is of interest since it provides some insight into the trajectory of overall output, that is down.Figure 2: GDP as released by BEA (Q1 advance) (blue bar), and monthly GDP (black line), both in bn. Ch.2012$ SAAR. Source: BEA (Q1 advance) and IHS-Markit (May 2, 2022).There are several tracking measures of GDP. IHS-Markit (formerly Macroeconomic Advisers) is perhaps one of the longest reported. The Chicago Fed also reports a monthly GDP growth rate (Brave-Butters-Kelley index). Here’re the two series compared for the same period.Figure 3: Monthly GDP from IHS-Markit (black line), and from Chicago Fed (red line), m/m annualized, %. Source: IHS-Markit (May 2, 2022), and Chicago Fed via FRED.A first reading on the trajectory of the economy in Q2 comes on Friday with the employment release (+400K per Bloomberg consensus).
Four High Frequency Indicators for the Economy --These indicators are mostly for travel and entertainment. Note: Apple has discontinued "Apple mobility", and restaurant traffic is mostly back to normal. The TSA is providing daily travel numbers. This data is as of May 1st.This data shows the 7-day average of daily total traveler throughput from the TSA for 2019 (Light Blue), 2020 (Black), 2021 (Blue) and 2022 (Red). The dashed line is the percent of 2019 for the seven-day average. The 7-day average is down 9.7% from the same day in 2019 90.3% of 2019). (Dashed line) Air travel has been moving sideways over the last month, off about 10% from 2019. This data shows domestic box office for each week and the median for the years 2016 through 2019 (dashed light blue). Black is 2020, Blue is 2021 and Red is 2022. The data is from BoxOfficeMojo through April 28th. Movie ticket sales were at $121 million last week, down about 23% from the median for the week. This graph shows the seasonal pattern for the hotel occupancy rate using the four-week average. The red line is for 2022, black is 2020, blue is the median, and dashed light blue is for 2021. This data is through April 23rd. The occupancy rate was down 4.2% compared to the same week in 2019. The 4-week average of the occupancy rate is at the median rate for the previous 20 years (Blue). Here is some interesting data on New York subway usage. This graph shows how much MTA traffic has recovered in each borough (Graph starts at first week in January 2020 and 100 = 2019 average). Manhattan is at about 38% of normal. This data is through Friday, April 29th.
Big-bank CEOs warn of recession risk - The CEOs of three large U.S. banks are raising concerns about a possible recession, saying the Federal Reserve has a tricky job ahead in combating inflation without sparking a downturn. JPMorgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon, Bank of America’s Brian Moynihan and Morgan Stanley’s James Gorman warned in separate interviews Wednesday that drastic interest rate hikes from the central bank could end up stifling the economy. JPMorgan Chase's Jamie Dimon gives about a 33% chance of a “soft landing” for the economy and equal odds for a brief and mild recession. “This is a tricky execution,” BofA's Brian Moynihan says of the Fed’s tightening strategy. Judging by past rate-hike cycles, “it’s a 50-50 proposition” on whether the U.S. can avoid a recession, says Morgan Stanley’s James Gorman. The Fed is “a little late” in raising rates in a bid to tamp down demand and tame inflation, Dimon told Bloomberg Television. But he also gave the central bank a reprieve by reminding that just two years ago, the U.S. unemployment rate nearly hit 15% and the lack of a COVID-19 vaccine clouded the ability for the economy to recover quickly.
Lawmakers seek deal on energy-climate package, Ukraine aid - Negotiations over high-profile technology legislation, continuing talks over a long-shot climate and energy deal, and a push for more Ukraine aid will dominate the conversation on Capitol Hill this week.The bipartisan crew of lawmakers exploring a potential consensus energy and climate deal separate from a Democrats-only budget reconciliation package will meet twice this week as they race for an accord against a shrinking legislative calendar.Led by Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chair Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), the group will meet today and Wednesday over the scope of any possible agreement.“I think we will have a better idea of what people are considering, and more people have been asked to provide ideas through this, and then put it all on the table,” Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) told reporters last week about his expectations for the meetings. “And then maybe we can see if there’s something of a skeleton.”The group first met last week amid expectations for a potential resurrection of climate-focused reconciliation legislation. Some Democrats are eyeing the upcoming Memorial Day recess as a deadline for any deal before election-year realities set in.Manchin covets bipartisan consensus for an energy package that could help spur domestic production of fossil fuels to help shore up global supplies, which currently face price uncertainty following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.Democrats insisted last week that they could negotiate both at the same time. However, some climate advocates fear the new Manchin-led talks could distract from the $555 billion in tax credits and climate spending originally included in the stalled reconciliation effort.Republicans seemed cool to any deal that would match the provisions included in the House-passed reconciliation bill, known as “Build Back Better” bill, especially tax credit extensions for renewable energy (E&E Daily, April 27).Instead, the GOP is looking to put Democrats on the record on various energy controversies ahead of the midterm elections. Republicans are sponsoring motions to instruct conferees on high-profile innovation legislation, and many of their proposals are on energy and climate policy.
Senators Ask Biden for Quick End to Chinese Solar Trade Probe - Nearly two dozen senators on Monday implored President Joe Biden to swiftly advance a trade probe that they said was already causing “massive disruption” in the U.S. solar industry. The investigation into whether Chinese companies are circumventing decade-old tariffs by assembling solar cells and modules in Southeast Asia “will severely harm” American businesses and workers “as long as it continues,” the 22 senators said in a letter to Biden. The group, led by Democrats Jacky Rosen of Nevada, Martin Heinrich of New Mexico and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, asked the Biden administration to quickly make a preliminary determination on the matter, rather than waiting until an Aug. 30 deadline to issue its initial findings. That could limit the domestic impact from the investigation and neuter the threat of retroactive tariffs on panels imported from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam, which represent about 80% of imported supply in the U.S. For now, the mere existence of the probe has chilled development, with a survey by an anti-tariff industry group showing 83% of solar companies have reported canceled or delayed panels. New tariffs could mean “massive price hikes for U.S. utility customers,” delays in deploying clean energy and halted projects, the senators said. The American manufacturer that successfully persuaded the U.S. Commerce Department to open the probe, San Jose, California-based Auxin Solar Inc., argues the U.S. must enforce its trade laws to combat “pervasive backdoor dumping” and rebuild the American solar supply chain. Tariff supporters argue that it’s essential for the U.S. to counter China’s dominance in solar manufacturing and not be cowed by what they call exaggerated industry claims of domestic disruption. “A thorough investigation” is necessary, said Auxin Solar Chief Executive Officer Mamun Rashid. “While a more expeditious proceeding would be valuable to us, we are not going to tell Commerce how to conduct its investigation or to pressure it to cut corners,” Rashid said in an emailed statement. The circumvention statute “requires fact finding and a reasoned decision-making process.”
Manchin open to methane fee in climate, energy talks - Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chair Joe Manchin expressed optimism yesterday that a fee on methane emissions could be part of a bipartisan climate and energy package currently being negotiated behind closed doors. But the West Virginia Democrat said certain conditions would need to be met — namely, that pipelines would not be penalized if they are not able to build infrastructure to trap the potent greenhouse gas.“We are working on negotiations that they will not be able to [apply] a methane fee if a pipeline is prohibited from being able to take the methane off,” he said.The comments came during a hearing of his committee that featured Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm. Republicans continued their fossil fuel and nuclear energy policy criticisms of the Biden administration.Manchin’s comments on the fee gave a brief insight into the ongoing bipartisan negotiations for a new climate and energy deal. Manchin said the talks “have been very, very fruitful.”He added: “We’re making some good movement on this, and I can tell you, I feel very strongly about that [provision].”Manchin said he has been discussing the proposal with Senate Environment and Public Works Chair Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) and ranking member Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.). Carper was included in the Wednesday meeting between a bipartisan energy and climate gang looking to narrow a long wish list of clean energy tax provisions into a passable package (E&E Daily, May 5).Capito, however, has previously been against a new methane fee. Kelley Moore, a spokesperson, confirmed that Capito is still against any kind of fee.An EPW Committee aide said that the methane emissions reduction program, as written, is designed to be enacted through reconciliation. The provisions were included in the House-passed reconciliation bill and in the public EPW reconciliation title released in December.“We have had productive conversations and discussed concerns with our methane program,” said Carper in an email. “[Reining] in excess methane emissions from the oil and gas sector is good for business and it’s good for our planet.”Climate hawks have long wanted to crack down on emissions of methane, a greenhouse gas that can quickly make natural gas projects and pipelines heavier emitters than coal plants if not controlled. Carper’s Senate panel drew up a proposal in the Senate’s “Build Back Better” package that would assess a fee on methane emissions starting at $900 per ton while also offering $775 billion in grants and loans to the fossil fuel industry.The proposal was the result of a deal between Democratic leadership and Manchin — who has opposed policies that would directly penalize fossil fuel companies — before the West Virginia senator killed the package last year (E&E Daily, April 25). Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) detailed the perceived need for the new exemption, arguing that proposed methane fees don’t make any sense when producers are struggling to get permits from the Biden administration for the gathering pipeline infrastructure needed to deal with methane flaring. Manchin said Cassidy “was absolutely correct.” The proposal may be tough to swallow for progressives, who already had expressed frustration at the previous methane fee deal for being too friendly to fossil fuel companies with its millions in additional subsidies.
Bipartisan energy gang eyes 'Santa's list' of tax credits - The bipartisan energy and climate gang led by Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) broached the topic of clean energy tax credits last night, but they seem far from putting pen to paper to define what a deal might look like. The group, in its third meeting, went through a list of the energy-related tax credits that have been proposed in the Senate over the last year in the Finance Committee and in Democrats’ $1.7 trillion “Build Back Better Act,” according to multiple senators who were in the meeting. “I think some progress was made in better understanding what the Finance Committee voted on in the energy tax package that was debated and voted on months ago,” Senate Environment and Public Works Chair Tom Carper (D-Del.) told reporters after the meeting. “It’s hard to wrap everyone’s brain around tax policy that’s that complex and so broad, but I think it’s important to have the conversation.” It was the group’s third meeting in less than two weeks, but there’s little evidence so far that the senators have a path to a bipartisan deal. On top of energy tax credits, the gang in previous meetings has broadly discussed National Environmental Policy Act permitting reform and a carbon border adjustment (E&E Daily, May 4). The midterms are fast approaching, however, as are the legislative roadblocks that usually come with them. Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) said the group would need to outline a deal “long before” the July 4th recess. But he said conversations are still in the initial stages and that the group has reached no conclusions on how a bill would take shape. “It was like what Santa looks at leading up to Christmas,” Cramer said of yesterday’s meeting. Asked whether an eventual product could get enough Republican support to hit 60 votes in the Senate, Cramer told reporters, “It depends on how long Santa’s list is.” The House-passed “Build Back Better Act,” Democrats’ climate and social spending bill, was loaded up with $300 billion in clean energy and electric vehicle tax credits that climate advocates were hoping would make major strides in decarbonizing the U.S. economy. It included revamped credits for renewables, which would have eventually become technology-neutral, and expansions of the electric vehicle tax credit. It also had some GOP-friendly ideas, such as a new production incentive for nuclear energy and a bigger 45Q carbon capture credit. “We’re just trying to understand what was in the bills before,” Manchin said after the meeting. “This is a big lift,” he added. “We’re looking at everything.” The West Virginia Democrat has also expressed some opposition to those proposals in the months since he announced his opposition to “Build Back Better” in December. During a hearing last week, Manchin called EV tax credits “absolutely ludicrous” (Climatewire, April 29).
Carbon border fee gains traction, but hurdles remain - Sen. Joe Manchin’s bipartisan energy gang is trying to breathe life into a carbon border adjustment, but it is still struggling with the same political problems that have dogged past efforts to slap tariffs on carbon-intensive goods.Republicans emerged from a meeting of the group Monday pitching a vision for a carbon border adjustment that would penalize imports of high-emissions products from countries like India and China, without a domestic price on carbon in the United States (E&E Daily, May 3).Manchin, the West Virginia Democrat who chairs the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, has been trying to come up with a bipartisan energy and climate bill after he led the demise of the partisan “Build Back Better Act.”Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), a member of the group, said he is working with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to draft a carbon border mechanism that would address rising greenhouse gas emissions in China and skirt onerous international trade rules.“Once people understand that this is a geopolitical tool, and it’s a lot better than war, it’s a lot cheaper than war, in terms of addressing the militarization of China, and it helps our workers and helps our industry, then they kind of get behind it,” Cassidy told reporters yesterday.But the effort is nascent, and developing a workable proposal could be a tall order. Experts have long warned that a carbon border adjustment, which would impose an import tax on products based on emissions, that does not pair with a price on carbon in the United States could run afoul of World Trade Organization rules.And despite some GOP momentum for the policy centered on domestic manufacturing and concern about China, it’s not clear whether there are 10 Republicans who would support a carbon border adjustment in the 50-50 Senate.“I think it’s a good sign to talk about carbon border adjustment,” said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), a longtime advocate of the policy. “But the devil is always in the details.”Those details are far from clear, and with midterm elections on the horizon, the current talk could set the stage for a carbon border adjustment policy down the road, rather than in the immediate future.Still, there are some near-term imperatives that are drawing attention from advocacy groups and lawmakers across the political spectrum.The European Union, for instance, is moving ahead with its own Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), which has caught the eye of U.S. companies and lawmakers from both parties.“To me, one of the bigger challenges is that Europe is so far out in front on the whole concept,” Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), a member of the bipartisan gang, told reporters yesterday. “And it’s hard to tell them to slow down, but at the same time, I’d like to reconcile with them first, and then I think we all move forward better.” For the United States, a carbon border adjustment would also fit neatly with Republican talking points about the relatively low emissions of domestic fossil fuels compared to other countries and their concerns about rising greenhouse gas emissions in India and China.
Despite popularity, taxes on the wealthy struggle to find a foothold in Congress -Increasing taxes on wealthy Americans is not controversial among much of the U.S. electorate, with polls consistently showing that a majority of both Democratic and Republican voters believe the richest Americans should be contributing more to public coffers. But despite an abundance of Democratic proposals to increase taxes on the rich, originating from both the White House and key congressional offices, experts say the chances of getting the rich to pay more in taxes over the long term are getting slimmer. That doesn’t bode well for President Biden’s proposed billionaire tax, though Democrats are still trying. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who updated his own billionaire tax plan last year, wants to distance his proposal from the generic notion of a wealth tax. “This is not a wealth tax,” he said in an interview. “This is closing loopholes in the capital gains law.” “When I proposed the billionaire income tax, the president, to his credit, said he liked the idea, and his proposal is something called the billionaire’s minimum income tax. So we’re very much rolling in the right direction,” he said. “Since then, there has been very substantial interest in Washington and around the country, because it continues to be unfair. To me, what the tax system is supposed to be all about is promoting fairness.” Polling from agencies including Pew, Reuters-Ipsos, Data for Progress, The Hill-HarrisX and others all found a majority of voters believe the wealthy should pay more in taxes. But while linchpin Democrats like Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) have proven the biggest obstacle to progressive taxation efforts during the current administration, experts say the impasse is part of a bigger economic picture. That picture, according to Vanessa Williamson, a senior fellow at the left-leaning Brookings Institution, shows what many have long felt intuitively, that wealthy people are both economically more conservative than regular Americans and hold more sway in the political system. “The fact is our political system is not responsive to the will of the majority on a very wide array of issues, including and perhaps especially tax policy,” Williamson said in an interview. “There’s an increasing amount of work in the field of political science demonstrating that extremely wealthy people are meaningfully more conservative than the average American on economic policy.” “There’s also a lot of political science that demonstrates the political system is more responsive to the preferences of the wealthy than any other part of the economic distribution,” she said.
Russia FM asks US, NATO to stop supplying arms to Ukraine -Russia’s foreign minister has again urged the United States and NATO to stop supplying Kyiv with arms if they are “really interested in resolving the Ukraine crisis”, Chinese state media has reported.“If the US and NATO are really interested in resolving the Ukraine crisis, then first of all, they should wake up and stop supplying the Kyiv regime with arms and ammunition,” Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with China’s official Xinhua news agency.The US and several European countries have supplied weapons worth billions of dollars to Ukraine in its fight against Russian aggression. US President Joe Biden has asked Congress for $33bn to support Ukraine.Moscow has repeatedly warned Washington against continuing its military assistance to Kyiv, accusing the US of “pouring oil on the flames” of the war.The Kremlin had previously called Western arms deliveries to Ukraine a threat to European security.Months into an invasion that failed in its short-term aim of capturing Kyiv, Moscow is now intensifying operations in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region.But Lavrov told China’s official Xinhua news agency that the “special military operation … is proceeding strictly according to plan”. China has avoided condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and defends its firm friendship with Moscow, with state media often echoing the Russian line on the war. Russia said Western sanctions and arms shipments to Ukraine are hampering peace negotiations. Lavrov said the talks continue – but that progress is difficult. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told Polish journalists that chances were “high” talks to end the conflict could end without any agreement.“The risks that the talks will end are high because of what they (the Russians) have left behind them, the impression that they have a playbook on murdering people,” Interfax news agency quoted Zelenskyy as telling Polish journalists.The shaky talks have not been held in person for a month.
Pelosi pledges “victory” in Kiev, Republicans back dispatch of troops, hint use of nuclear weapons --Washington continued at full tilt into an all-out war with Russia over the weekend, as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Kiev, Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger proposed to send US troops to Ukraine, and Republican Congressman Michael McCaul raised the prospect of the United States using nuclear weapons against Russia. Over the weekend, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi traveled in secret to Kiev, an active war zone, to pledge the US’s support to Ukraine “until victory is won.” Pelosi, second in the presidential order of succession, was the highest-ranking US official to visit Kiev, in a sign of how deeply committed the United States is to a conflict that is rapidly escalating into a third world war. Pelosi met with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, pledging the United States will “be there for you until the fight is done.” Given that it is the official doctrine of Ukraine’s government to retake Crimea by military means, Pelosi’s statement had vast and sweeping implications. She added, “Our delegation traveled to Kyiv to send an unmistakable and resounding message to the entire world: America stands firmly with Ukraine… We stand with Ukraine until victory is won. And we stand with NATO.” She concluded, “Do not be bullied by bullies. If they’re making threats, you cannot back down. We’re there for the fight, and you cannot fold to a bully.” Pelosi traveled with six other Democratic members of the House of Representatives: Rules Committee Chairman Jim McGovern, Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Gregory Meeks, Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, as well as Barbara Lee, Bill Keating and Jason Crow.
Biden stuffs mining money into Ukraine aid request - President Joe Biden is asking Congress for more money to help Ukraine — and the U.S. mining industry. Biden is asking Congress for an additional $33 billion to help Ukraine and address other global needs. While the bulk of the money would be for military and defense systems, the proposal includes about $1.7 billion to increase Ukraine energy security, ensure continuity of Ukraine’s democratic operations and provide other aid to the region, according to a fact sheet released this morning. The request also has an ask for more money to help expand domestic production of critical minerals. The funds — $500 million — will go to the Defense Department for use under the Defense Production Act, a 1950 law Biden invoked last month to liberate more funding for early-stage mining projects that could produce metals for lithium-ion batteries. In a fact sheet, the White House said the money will promote the expanded production of minerals and materials that “have been disrupted by [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s war in Ukraine and that are necessary to make everything from defense systems to automobiles.” “This will help address economic disruptions and reduce price pressures at home and around the world,” the fact sheet stated. When Biden invoked the Defense Production Act last month, the funds were specified for early-stage mining activities, like exploration, and to finance “co-product and byproduct production,” a term used to describe removing valuable minerals from other mined materials. As E&E News previously reported, the funding could foster a new U.S. mining boom, but receiving the aid appears to have no impact on how projects will travel through the federal permitting process (Greenwire, April 8).
US confirms threat to invade Solomon Islands over China security agreement - The United States government has confirmed its threat to invade the small South Pacific country of Solomon Islands in the event that China establishes a military base there. The blatantly illegal ultimatum was personally issued to Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare by a US delegation led by National Security Council Coordinator for the Indo-Pacific, Kurt Campbell, on April 22. Following the 90-minute meeting, the White House issued a menacing statement: “If steps are taken to establish a de facto permanent military presence, power-projection capabilities, or a military installation, the delegation noted that the United States would then have significant concerns and respond accordingly.” The State Department has since left no doubt as to what is meant by “respond accordingly.” On April 26, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Daniel Kritenbrink, who was part of the delegation with Campbell, spoke with the media. He was asked directly whether the US “would take military action against Solomon Islands if China established a base there.” His refusal to rule out such an intervention means that is exactly what is under discussion in Washington. “We’ve outlined the specific concerns that we have regarding the potential for a permanent military presence or power-projection capabilities or a military installation, and we’ve indicated that should those events come to pass, that the United States would respond accordingly. And I think it’s best if I leave it at that and not speculate on what that may or may not mean,” Kritenbrink replied.
Navy allows sailors to move off USS George Washington The Navy is allowing sailors to move off the aircraft carrier USS George Washington and live at a local installation after a string of deaths over the past year, including three suicides last month alone.“The Commanding Officer of USS George Washington has taken steps to provide an opportunity to every Sailor who is currently living on the ship to elect to move to off-ship accommodations at a local installation,” Lt. Cmdr. Rob Myers, a Naval Air Force Atlantic spokesperson, told The Hill in a statement.Myers said that sailors began moving off the ship on Monday and that the move will continue until “all Sailors who wish to move off-ship have done so.”The move was first reported by Military.com, which obtained a recording of the ship’s commanding officer, Capt. Brent Gaut, announcing the change to sailors Thursday. According to the outlet, 422 sailors are living on board the ship.The change comes as the Navy deals with fallout after acknowledging that seven sailors assigned to the George Washington died over the past year, including three apparent suicides in mid-April. The Navy also told The Hill last week that three of its sailors died by suicide between November 2019 and October 2020. ‘
ICE spends $7.2 million to increase location tracking of migrants US Immigration and Customs Enforcement will be paying surveillance software company Trust Stamp $7.2 million annually to develop tech to track migrants processed at the southern border,new federal documents show.Trust Stamp's contract, which was renewed in April, has it providing ICE with 10,000 smartphones that include the company's app with facial recognition and GPS tracking, according to the documents. ICE then gives these smartphones to migrants in order to surveil their whereabouts and behavior daily.The renewal comes just two months after several US lawmakers, led by Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, demanded that the Department of Homeland Security reduce its surveillance of migrants through ICE's Alternatives to Detention program. The program involves "supervised release and enhanced monitoring" for migrants that ICE thinks are "not considered a flight risk" or have a "humanitarian reason for their release." Trust Stamp's contract is through this program, the documents show.Rep. J. Luis Correa, who signed onto the letter, said that he's very concerned and angry that members of Congress haven't been kept in the loop about changes and expansions to the Alternatives to Detention program like the Trust Stamp contract. "The fact that a reporter has to call and tell me as opposed to the ICE director is the issue," he told Insider, noting that the position of ICE director is vacant.Representatives for ICE and Trust Stamp did not respond to requests for comment.According to the original contract information, migrants with Trust Stamp phones are expected to complete "biometric check-in" once a day, meaning they scan their faces, and Trust Stamp determines if it's a match or not. An ICE officer looks at the result of each check-in, as well as the migrant's location, through a "case management dashboard with encrypted messaging." The officer can use the messaging feature to "advise participants of required in-person meetings," per the contract information. The Trust Stamp app also conducts "passive tracking of geolocation" throughout the day, even when the migrant is not checking in.
Immigrant deaths and injuries surging along US-Mexico border wall -- Physicians at the University of California at San Diego released a study last week in the journal JAMA Surgery documenting the number of immigrants who have died or been injured attempting to scale sections of the new US-Mexico border wall. The study is the first to record the casualties along the structure Donald Trump boasted “can’t be climbed.” U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), an agency within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), says it does not tally such deaths or injuries. A U.S. Border Patrol vehicle drives along the border fence at the U.S.-Mexico border wall, on Dec. 15, 2020, in Douglas, Ariz. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin,File) According to the report, the number of patients arriving at the UC San Diego Medical Center’s trauma ward after falling off the structure has increased five-fold since 2019, when the border wall’s height was raised to 30 feet. Since then, the number of deaths has gone from zero to 16, according to records from the San Diego County medical examiner. Wounded patients are now arriving every day in the region’s hospitals. The report comes at a time when President Biden has continued the anti-immigrant policies of his Republican and Democratic predecessors and set all-time high records for immigration arrests along the southern border. Title 42, which denies migrants the right to asylum and mandates that they be summarily expelled, using the pandemic as a pretext for denying any form of due process, has been used first by the Trump and now the Biden administration to compound a humanitarian catastrophe for immigrants fleeing from poverty and violence in their home countries. Hector Almeida, a 33-year-old dentist from Cuba, fractured his leg in a fall on April 25 and wound up being treated at UC San Diego Health. He told The Washington Post he saw a woman fall and break both legs, as well as an older man who fell and suffered a severe head injury. Jay Doucet, chief of the trauma division at UC San Diego Health, said that before the height of the wall was increased, there were injuries but no deaths. The older wall ranged in height from nine to 17 feet, but the new sections range from 20 to 30 feet, resulting in higher rates of death and injury. Doucet said, “We’re seeing injuries we didn’t see before: pelvic fractures, spinal cord injuries, brain injuries and a lot of open fractures when the bone comes through the skin.” Scripps Mercy Hospital, another major trauma center in San Diego, said border wall victims accounted for 16 percent of the 230 patients treated last month, more than gunshot and stabbing wounds. In an interview with the Washington Post, Vishal Bansal, director of trauma at Scripps, said his ward treated 139 border wall patients last year, compared to 41 in 2020. The wounded migrants, often uninsured, require long and costly surgeries and intensive care and have to remain longer in hospitals, which have to absorb millions in costs.
Biden Makes America’s Militarized Southern Border Wall Even Bigger Business - First, it was the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) vehicles speeding along on the road in front of our campsite. Then it was the Border Patrol’s all-terrain vehicles moving swiftly on a ridge above us. Like fire trucks racing to a blaze, the Border Patrol mobilization around me was growing so large I could only imagine an emergency situation developing. Atop the hill opposite mine stood a surveillance tower. Since it loomed over our campsite, I’d been looking at it all weekend. It felt strangely like part of French philosopher Michel Foucault’s panopticon — in other words, I wasn’t sure whether I was being watched or not. But I suspected I was. After all, that tower’s cameras could see for seven miles at night and its ground-sweeping radar operated in a 13-mile radius, a capability, one Border Patrol officer told me in 2019, worth “100 agents.” In the term of the trade, the technology was a “force multiplier.” I had first seen that tower freshly built in 2015 after CBP awarded a hefty contract to the Israeli company Elbit Systems. In other words, on top of that hill, I wasn’t just watching some unknown event developing; I was also in the middle of the border-industrial complex.During Donald Trump’s years in office, the media focused largely on the former president’s fixation with the giant border wall he was trying to have built, a xenophobic symbol so filled with racism that it was far easier to find people offended by it than towers like this one. From where I stood, the closest stretch of border wall was 10 miles to the south in Nogales, a structure made of 20-foot-high steel bollards and covered with coiled razor wire. (That stretch of wall, in fact, had been built long before Trump took office.)What I was now witnessing, however, could be called Biden’s wall. I’m speaking about a modern, high-tech border barrier of a different sort, an increasingly autonomous surveillance apparatus fueled by “public-private partnerships.” The technology for this “virtual wall” had been in the works for years, but the Biden administration has focused on it as if it were a humane alternative to Trump’s project.In reality, for the Border Patrol, the “border-wall system,” as it’s called, is equal parts barrier, technology, and personnel. While the Biden administration has ditched the racist justifications that went with it, its officials continue to zealously promote the building of a border-wall system that’s increasingly profitable and ever more like something out of a science-fiction movie. As March ended, one week before my camping trip, I saw it up close and personal at the annual Border Security Expo in San Antonio, Texas.
The CIA Democrats and their media courtiers celebrate the “end” of the COVID pandemic – The White House Correspondents’ Association dinner - In his opening remarks, a relatively brief recitation of lame jokes prepared by White House speechwriters, President Joe Biden remarked, “We’ve come here to answer an important question on everyone’s mind: Why in hell are we still doing this?” He was referring to the danger of infection after last month’s Gridiron Club dinner, a similar but smaller Washington event, resulted in 10 percent of those attending being infected with COVID-19. Comedian Trevor Noah, the evening’s host, raised the same issue. “It is my great honor to be speaking tonight at the nation’s most distinguished superspreader event,” he said, adding, “No, for real, people: What are we doing here?” If the Gridiron Club precedent holds, the WHCA gala, attended by 2,600 people, will result in close to 300 COVID infections. But despite the question marks by Noah and Biden, the likelihood of mass infection is actually considered a positive feature of the event, not a defect. The assembled millionaire journalists and their multi-millionaire and billionaire bosses have access to the best health care money can buy, including expensive therapeutic drugs. They can assume that they are in no real danger even if they contract the infection, which is nonetheless deadly to the broader population, which cannot afford such treatment. They will, of course, spread the virus far and wide if they do contract it, causing untold suffering and possible death to others. The Biden administration and the US ruling class as a whole have declared that the pandemic is over. They have shut down even the most timid efforts at mitigating the impact of the virus. All schools and workplaces have been reopened so that the process of extracting surplus value and profit from the working class can be resumed full blast. The White House Correspondents’ Association dinner was meant to underscore that there is to be no further concern with a pandemic that has already infected 80 million Americans and taken more than a million lives. This under conditions of a fresh surge in infections across most of the country from a new, more infectious and more virulent variant of SARS-CoV-2. In this case, the message of indifference to the pandemic is aimed not at the American public, which pays little attention to this Washington gala, but at the media elite—a means of reinforcing the instructions they have already received to stop covering the pandemic as an ongoing threat. Biden tried to have it both ways. He did not attend the dinner itself, supposedly to avoid exposure to the crowd, who could not be masked while eating. But he sat at the head table throughout the after-dinner activities, without a mask, for 90 minutes of skits, jokes, speeches and award presentations, in front of a crowd that was similarly unmasked. The brief portion of Biden’s remarks that was serious consisted of hailing the “free press” because it has lined up and saluted the US war drive against Russia in Ukraine. There is not a single dissenting voice in official Washington, and there was none in Saturday night’s crowd. Not one media pundit has raised the danger of nuclear war brought on by the massive arms shipments from the NATO countries in response to the Russian invasion. The most cynical moment of the night came in Biden’s conclusion, when he introduced Trevor Noah as the evening’s host, with the words, “Now you get to roast the president, and unlike in Moscow, you won’t go to jail.” This from the head of a government that is pursuing the extradition of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange with the aim of imprisoning him for life. Unlike the assembled stenographers for the CIA and Pentagon, who take dictation from the military-intelligence apparatus and transform it into newspaper articles and television coverage aimed at mobilizing public opinion behind the crimes of American imperialism, Assange is an actual journalist. He has courageously exposed the crimes of American imperialism, and for that he has been subject to a decade of isolation followed by three years of imprisonment in a maximum-security British prison hellhole. He now faces imminent extradition to the United States, where the Biden administration plans to put him on trial for alleged violations of the Espionage Act that carry a prison sentence of up to 175 years.
ABC News' Jon Karl tests positive for COVID-19 two days after interacting with President Biden at WHCD -- ABC News' Jonathan Karl tested positive for COVID-19 two days after he spoke on stage at the White House Correspondents' Dinner and shook hands with President Joe Biden, a source familiar with the matter told Fox News Digital on Tuesday. Karl, who is fully vaccinated and boosted, could be seen briefly interacting with the president on Saturday night before accepting an award for his coverage of the Jan. 6 Capitol riots. He tested negative and had no symptoms on Saturday afternoon before the dinner, the source said, but tested positive on Monday evening. Politico originally reported the news of Karl's positive test. Multiple people in Biden's inner circle have tested positive for COVID-19 recently, including White House communications director Kate Bedingfield and Vice President Kamala Harris last week. Comedian Trevor Noah, who hosted the 2,500-person event, joked that it was his "great honor to be speaking tonight at the nation’s most distinguished super-spreader event." "What are you doing here? You guys spent the last two years telling everyone the importance of wearing masks and avoiding large, indoor gatherings. Then the second someone offers you a free dinner, you all turn into Joe Rogan," Noah told the crowd. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News on Tuesday.
Blinken tests positive for COVID, latest Biden Cabinet official to contract virus - Secretary of State Antony Blinken tested positive for COVID-19 on Wednesday, becoming the latest Biden administration Cabinet official to contract the virus. "Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken tested positive for COVID-19 this afternoon via a PCR test. The Secretary is fully vaccinated and boosted against the virus and is experiencing only mild symptoms. He tested negative on Tuesday and again as recently as this morning," State Department spokesman Ned Price said in a statement. "The Secretary has not seen President Biden in person for several days, and the President is not considered a close contact according to guidelines by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)," Price added. "In accordance with the CDC guidelines and in consultation with the Department’s Bureau of Medical Services, the Secretary will isolate at home and maintain a virtual work schedule. He looks forward to returning to the Department and resuming his full duties and travels as soon as possible. " Blinken’s positive tests comes after several other Cabinet officials as well as Vice President Kamala Harris have tested positive for the novel coronavirus. Harris tested positive for the virus at the end of April, following Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack's infection at the beginning of the month. Other prominent Democrats close to the president have also tested positive for COVID, including both House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and White House press secretary Jen Psaki.
White House preps for cold-weather wave of 100M COVID infections - The White House is preparing for as many as 100 million Americans to get infected with COVID-19 during a wave this fall and winter if Congress does not provide new funding for vaccines and tests, a senior administration official said Friday, warning new money is needed to have enough vaccines for everyone. A senior administration official told a small group of reporters on Friday that the estimate is the median of a range of models from outside experts that the administration consults, meaning it is also possible significantly more Americans catch the virus, especially if there is a major new variant. That compares with the roughly 130-140 million Americans who are estimated to have been infected over the omicron wave this winter, which led to a significant spike in deaths. The administration argues the number of cases could be lower if new funding allows for many Americans to get updated vaccines this fall and for testing to be plentiful. The Biden administration argues the new wave is not a cause for panic, given there are new tools like the highly-effective Pfizer pill known as Paxlovid, as well as vaccinations. But officials are trying to sound the drumbeat that they need new funding from Congress in order to have those tools available during the wave coming later this year. Pfizer and Moderna are working on new versions of the vaccine aimed at being more effective against the newer mutations of the virus. The so-called bivalent vaccine would target the omicron variant as well as the original strain. Those new vaccines are expected to be ready by the fall, but the U.S. will not have enough money to purchase them for all Americans unless Congress provides new funding, the administration says. The senior administration official said the contingency plan if Congress does not provide new money is to take all funding out of testing, new treatments and vaccine education and outreach, and try to pile it up to have enough to maybe be able buy enough updated vaccines only for the elderly. Without new money, supplies of Paxlovid are expected to run out by October or November, the official said, meaning if people got the virus in a wave over the holidays the treatment would not be available.
Roe v. Wade: Supreme Court draft opinion that would overturn abortion rights published by Politico - In a stunning breach of Supreme Court confidentiality and secrecy, Politico has obtained what it calls a draft of a majority opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito that would strike downRoe v. Wade.The draft was circulated in early February, according to Politico. The final opinion has not been released and votes and language can change before opinions are formally released. The opinion in this case is not expected to be published until late June.The court confirmed the authenticity of the document Tuesday. It also stressed it was not the final decision.According to the draft, the court would overturn Roe v. Wade's holding of a federal constitutional right to an abortion. The opinion would be the most consequential abortion decision in decades and transform the landscape of women's reproductive health in America.It appears that five justices would be voting to overturn Roe. Chief Justice John Roberts did not want to completely overturn Roe v. Wade, meaning he would have dissented from part of Alito's draft opinion, sources tell CNN, likely with the court's three liberals.That would mean that the five conservative justices that would make up the majority overturning Roe are Alito and Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.Roberts is willing, however, to uphold the Mississippi law that would ban abortion at 15 weeks of pregnancy, CNN has learned. Under current law, government cannot interfere with a women's choice to terminate a pregnancy before about 23 weeks, when a fetus could live outside the womb.In a statement on Tuesday, Roberts said he has ordered an investigation."This was a singular and egregious breach of that trust that is an affront to the Court and the community of public servants who work here," Roberts said. I have directed the Marshal of the Court to launch an investigation into the source of the leak.""To the extent this betrayal of the confidences of the Court was intended to undermine the integrity of our operations, it will not succeed," Roberts said.
Leaked Draft Opinion Shows Supreme Court Set to Strike Down Roe v. Wade -- A leaked draft opinion published Monday by Politicostrongly suggests that the U.S. Supreme Court’s right-wing supermajority will soon strike down Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 ruling enshrining the constitutional right to abortion.“This is the most alarming sign yet that our nation’s highest court is poised to overturn Roe v. Wade, ending the constitutional right to abortion as we know it and ripping away our freedom to decide if, when, and how to raise our families,” NARAL Pro-Choice America president Mini Timmaraju said in a statement.In a joint statement, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.)—who has supported anti-choice Democrats and in 2017 opined that focusing on reproductive rights helped elect former President Donald Trump—said that “if the report is accurate, the Supreme Court is poised to inflict the greatest restriction of rights in the past 50 years, not just on women but on all Americans.”“The Republican-appointed justices’ reported votes to overturn Roe v. Wade would go down as an abomination, one of the worst and most damaging decisions in modern history,” they added.Noting that “the majority of Americans support Roe v. Wade,” progressive Ohio congressional candidate Nina Turner tweeted that “making abortions illegal won’t make them go away. It will only make them more dangerous, more expensive, and lead to the criminalization of poor women and women of color and others who need abortions.”Asserting that “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” Alito wrote in the draft opinion—in which he is reportedly joined by Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett—that “we hold that Roeand Casey must be overturned,” a reference to the 1992 case Planned Parenthood v. Casey that affirmed the constitutional right to abortion while allowing states to regulate the procedure.“We can only do our job, which is to interpret the law, apply longstanding principles of stare decisis, and decide this case accordingly,” Alito contended, referring to the legal principle of deference to precedent. Abortion has been a constitutionally enshrined right since 1973—or for a fifth of the nation’s history.“We therefore hold that the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion,” Alito added, “…and the authority to regulate abortion must be returned to the people and their elected representatives.” Reproductive rights advocates say that if Roe is struck down, more than 20 states are certain or likely to outlaw abortion, many via so-called “trigger laws.”
Protesters Rush to Supreme Court After Abortion Ruling Report - -- Within hours of a report that the U.S. Supreme Court was on the verge of overturning the decision that enshrined abortion rights, protesters appeared outside the neoclassical building in Washington where the nine justices preside. A District of Columbia traffic advisory late Monday night reported that “First Amendment activity” had closed First Street Northeast. There were no reports of arrests. Some 200 demonstrators gathered in front of the court, Axios reported, adding that most, although not all, had gone there to express support for abortion rights. Supreme Court Draft Ruling Rejects Abortion Rights: Politico They converged on the court after Politico reported it had obtained a draft majority opinion that would invalidate the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, which declared abortion to be a constitutional right. The draft was written by Justice Samuel Alito and had at least preliminary support from four other Republican-appointed justices, Politico said. The court is scheduled to rule by July in the case. Lynn Fitch, the Republican Mississippi attorney general whose appeal had called on the court to overturn Roe, tweeted that the veracity of the linked opinion can’t be verified. She said the state would “let the Supreme Court speak for itself and wait for the court’s official opinion.” It remained unclear just how significant protests might be before an actual decision is announced. But a day after President Donald Trump was inaugurated in January 2017, hundreds of thousands of people took part in Women’s Marches in Washington, New York and other cities. Abortion rights were a focus of those massive protests. Trump had promised to nominate Supreme Court justices who would overturn the Roe decision, and placed three conservatives on the court.
Planned Parenthood: Draft Supreme Court ruling striking down Roe v. Wade ‘devastating’ -Planned Parenthood reacted with horror and dismay to the Monday publication of a draft Supreme Court ruling that would strike down Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 case that enshrined the right to an abortion.The draft decision, written by conservative Justice Samuel Alito and leaked to Politico, would, if it becomes official, hand the legality of abortion back to state governments, many of which are fighting to eliminate the procedure. It comes in response to a case over challenges to a Mississippi law that bans abortions at 15 weeks.“While we have seen the writing on the wall for decades, it is no less devastating, and comes just as anti-abortion rights groups unveil their ultimate plan to ban abortion nationwide,” Planned Parenthood President and CEO Alexis McGill Johnson said in a statement. “Understand that Planned Parenthood and our partners have been preparing for every possible outcome in this case and are built for the fight.”The pro-abortion rights organization emphasized that the decision is a draft, with an official ruling not expected for weeks.“Planned Parenthood health centers remain open, abortion is currently still legal, and we will continue to fight like hell to protect the right to access safe, legal abortion,” McGill Johnson said.
Abortion Surges as Election Issue With Roe Precedent on Brink - -- Abortion rights suddenly emerged as an issue that could reshape the battle between Democrats and Republicans for control of Congress, following a report that conservatives on the U.S. Supreme Court were poised to strike down the half-century-old Roe v. Wade precedent. Politico reported Monday night that it had obtained the initial draft majority opinion, signed by Justice Samuel Alito, that overturns the landmark 1973 Roe ruling that made the choice to seek an abortion a constitutional right for women nationwide. Such a decision would hand Republicans a long-sought victory yet could galvanize Democrats who’ve been bracing for the prospect of losing their House and Senate majorities this November. “This decision will put women’s rights and abortion rights front and center in the elections,” said Geoff Garin, a pollster who advises Senate Democrats. “Up until now, many voters did not take the threat to legal abortion seriously or believe that Roe would be overturned, but now the reality of that threat will be crystal clear.” Democrats had been heading into the midterm elections hobbled by soaring inflation, the lingering coronavirus pandemic and President Joe Biden’s sagging approval ratings, all topics that Republicans have been keen to play up in their campaigns. It’s unclear how a decision invalidating Roe would play among voters, especially in suburban House districts and the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada, New Hampshire and Georgia where control of the Senate will be determined. It remains to be seen whether a politically seismic abortion ruling could eclipse inflation and other issues that had been central in the contest. “Midterm elections are generally about turnout and this type of ruling could energize the base of both parties,” said Doug Sosnik, White House political director under President Bill Clinton. Striking down Roe will reverberate in the midterm elections and the 2024 presidential campaign. It would also magnify attention on gubernatorial and legislative races around the country, as the court’s decision could return abortion rights policy to the states, where it was before Roe. “Make no mistake: reproductive rights will be on the ballot and this midterm election is more important now than ever before,” the Democratic National Committee said in a statement on Monday night. “Voters will make their voices heard, we will fight back with everything we have, and Republicans will have to answer for their party’s relentless attacks on Americans’ rights.” The decision is one that has been sought by many Republicans in the decades since Roe was decided. Donald Trump vowed during his original campaign for White House that he would appoint justices to overturn the ruling. In office he did just that, appointing three justices who solidified the conservative majority on the court, though it’s not clear how they voted. The abortion issue is likely to resonate in the nation’s suburbs, which have become the linchpin of U.S. politics as rural areas are solidly Republican and urban areas are dominated by Democrats. Democrats gained 41 seats House seats and took control of the chamber in 2018 as suburban voters turned against Trump. In 2020, Joe Biden won 54% of the suburban vote, according to the Pew Research Center, and that played a decisive role in the five states he carried by the narrowest margins.
Democrats denounce leaked Supreme Court draft ruling nixing Roe v. Wade Democrats on Monday night slammed the leaked Supreme Court majority ruling overturningRoe v. Wade, criticizing the decision as an attack on women’s rights across the country.Politico on Monday published a draft ruling for the case examining a Mississippi law that prohibits virtually all abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. The 67-page document, written by Justice Samuel Alito, determines that the landmark 1973 ruling in Roe v. Wade and the 1992 decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey do not have grounds in the Constitution.A spokesperson for the Supreme Court had no comment in response to questions about the report.Democrats issued fiery reactions to the draft ruling, characterizing it as an assault on rights of women and all Americans and sounding the alarm about steps that must be taken to safeguard the nearly 50-year precedent.In a joint statement late Monday night, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Politico’s report, if correct, illustrates that “the Supreme Court is poised to inflict the greatest restriction of rights in the past fifty years – not just on women but on all Americans.”They said the reported votes by Republican-appointed justices to overturn Roe v. Wade would be “an abomination” and “one of the worst and most damaging decisions in modern history.”The Democratic leaders also criticized the Republican Party as a whole, specifically mentioning Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and former President Trump.“The party of Lincoln and Eisenhower has now completely devolved into the party of Trump,” the top Democratic lawmakers wrote. “Every Republican Senator who supported Senator McConnell and voted for Trump Justices pretending that this day would never come will now have to explain themselves to the American people.”Sen. Patty Murray (Wash.) — the No. 3 Senate Democrat and the chair of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee — said the leaked majority opinion is a “five alarm fire.”“In a matter of days or weeks, the horrifying reality is that we could live in a country without Roe. If this is true, women will be forced to remain pregnant no matter their personal circumstances. Extreme politicians will control patients’ most personal decisions. And extreme Republicans will have eliminated a fundamental right an entire generation of women have known their whole lives,”
Republicans condemn leak of Supreme Court draft abortion ruling -Republicans spoke out Monday night in response to the leak of a Supreme Court draft ruling that would overturn Roe v. Wade.Politico published what it said was a draft majority decision, authored by conservative JusticeSamuel Alito, that would end federal abortion rights, returning to the state level the legality of the procedure.While Democrats denounced the substance of the draft ruling, GOP leaders condemned the leak itself, with some saying it was evidence of hostility toward conservative views.“The left continues its assault on the Supreme Court with an unprecedented breach of confidentiality, clearly meant to intimidate,” wrote Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley (R). “The Justices mustn’t give in to this attempt to corrupt the process. Stay strong.”It was unclear who provided the document to Politico, which pointed out that an official ruling isn’t expected for weeks.Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) concurred with Hawley that “This breach shows that radical Democrats are working even harder to intimidate & undermine the Court.”“It was always their plan. The justices cannot be swayed by this attack,” Scott added.Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said, “The next time you hear the far left preaching about how they are fighting to preserve our Republic’s institutions & norms remember how they leaked a Supreme Court opinion in an attempt to intimidate the justices on abortion.”Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) pointed out, however, that there is “No way to verify if it is accurate and, if it is, who leaked it or why.”Lawmakers including Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) urged a probe into the source of the leak.“The Supreme Court & the DOJ must get to the bottom of this leak immediately using every investigative tool necessary,” Cotton wrote.“The Court should not abide this coordinated assault by the Left. Issue the decision now,” urged Hawley.
Supreme Court fallout casts harsh light on Roberts leadership -Chief Justice John Roberts’s stewardship of the Supreme Court was placed in a harsh light this week after a leaked draft opinion showed the court’s conservative justices are poised to overturn Roe v. Wade. Among critics, there was a sense that the court had reached the low point of Roberts’s 16 years as chief. The three Trump-appointed justices were accused of lying to the American public during their confirmation hearings by indicating they viewed Roe as settled law, only to endorse striking down the landmark 1973 decision soon after joining the bench. The leak itself, one of the most stunning breaches of secrecy in the court’s history, also comes just weeks after an ethics row concerning Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife over her involvement in efforts to overturn the 2020 election. These dynamics are now playing out against the backdrop of a court whose standing with the public has steadily sunk to a historic low, and as new polling suggests the court is moving even further out of step with a majority of the country. As Americans reckoned this week with the likelihood that the court in the coming months would remove the constitutional right to abortion, the leaked draft opinion seemed to provide the strongest evidence yet that on many issues, Roberts no longer wields the moderating influence he once had over the court’s more hard-line conservatives. “Roberts is unquestionably conservative, but he favors incremental change over radical change and, at times, joins with the liberal justices, including in high-profile cases,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. “But there are five justices significantly more conservative than Roberts and who clearly want more radical change.” “This is evident in the abortion case, it was apparent with regard to the Texas abortion law, and we will see it in many other areas as well,” he added. The leaked draft opinion would overturn Roe and eliminate federal protections that for nearly five decades have safeguarded the right to terminate an unwanted pregnancy. That outcome is reportedly backed by a majority comprising Justice Samuel Alito, the opinion’s author, Thomas and former President Trump’s three appointees: Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. At issue is a Mississippi law that bans virtually all abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, a direct challenge to Roe’s guarantee of abortion access prior to fetal viability, around 23 weeks. The court this week confirmed the authenticity of the leaked document published Monday evening by Politico, but cautioned that justices’ votes and the opinion itself are subject to change before a final decision is published, which is expected by late June. Roberts, while willing to uphold the Mississippi abortion ban, had sought to steer a middle course between the dissenting liberals and the five justices to his right, according to reporting by CNN and The Wall Street Journal. The failure of his more modest approach to garner a majority suggests Roberts was unable to persuade other conservatives to join his side, with his most likely targets having been Kavanaugh and Barrett. “The era of ‘the Roberts court’ ended the moment Amy Coney Barrett was seated on the court. That appointment took Chief Justice Roberts out of the political center of the court,” said Dan Kobil, a professor at Capital University Law School. “Roberts’s incrementalism will become the judicial equivalent of flagpole sitting from one hundred years ago: a fad that was briefly popular, but which we can no longer understand in a future where raw political power will determine the outcomes of Supreme Court decisions.” Other court watchers suggested the bench’s shifting composition presented Roberts with more mixed fortunes.
The evil supreme court: a reaction - by Roger Gathmann - I'm reading - and it makes sense - that Alito's text makes room for the court to overturn the Obergefell - no more gay marriages - and would make state laws outlawing gay sex legal. The wall of shit is coming. Meanwhile, the Democrats, after a fast start, have twiddled their fingers. Biden has shown more energy about Ukraine than he ever showed about abolishing student debt. It is going to be a debacle in November for Biden's party. As long as the lifesucking centrist party machinery in D.C. has its grip on the party, it will continue to sink - as it did under Obama, who threw away his 2008 win and went on to preside over these losses: "Their share of seats in the United States Senate has fallen from 59 to 48. They’ve lost 62 House seats, 12 governorships, and 958 seats in state legislatures." Thus completing a historic pattern starting with Clinton in 1994, after which Clinton saved himself by turning right and threw his party overboard. The pattern is the same all over Europe as well. The architects of neoliberalism, the centrists in traditionally liberal and left-leaning parties, produced a situation in which these parties withered. . The clintonites, the obamaoids, all the movers and shakers have gone on to their millions - literally. The people left behind - a good 80 to 90 percent of the population - are the sufferers. They are, in a sense, deprived of the elementary right to representation, because their representatives so manifestly don't represent them. The striking down of Roe v. Wade is a big step. The ruling class is an almost completely white compact, so the violation of the rights of black Americans are tut tutted and allowed under the semi-Jim Crow rules. But the upper class includes a cohort of women and gays, which gives those two groups more reach in the current plutocracy. That is how breaking the glass ceiling replaced being paid for home labor as a "feminist" slogan. We will see how the plutocracy responds. I wouldn't bet on some socially liberal turn there. Protecting gender rights can be easily done by those who make above 250 thou by individual initiative. The gated community can protect its own. The Republicans under Trump did an amazing thing: they remade themselves. Fundamental tenets, like free trade, simply disappeared. I don't think the Dems can do the same thing. They are very much a Sears Roebuck organization. They stand for a fog of good intentions and no action. Their competencies have ossified, and they simply don't know how to take advantage of opportunities that are not first backgrounded by six months of think tank papers and then modified to keep from looking extreme and then are stalled and forgotten in the bureaucracy or the geriatric legislature.
From court packing to leaking to doxing: White House yields to a national rage addiction -After someone in the Supreme Court leaked a draft opinion in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a virtual flash-mob formed around the court and its members demanding retributive justice. This included renewed calls for court “packing,” as well as the potential targeting of individual justices at their homes. Like the leaking of the opinion itself, the doxing of justices and their families is being treated as fair game in our age of rage. There is more than a license to this rage; there is an addiction to it. That was evident in March 2020 when Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) stood in front of the Supreme Court to threaten Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh by name: “I want to tell you, Gorsuch, I want to tell you, Kavanaugh, you have released the whirlwind and you will pay the price! You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.” Schumer’s reckless rhetoric was celebrated, not condemned, by many on the left, even after he attempted to walk it back by stating that “I should not have used the words I used … they did not come out the way I intended to.” What occurred at the White House this week is even more troubling. When asked for a response to the leaking of a justice’s draft opinion, White House press secretary Jen Psaki declined to condemn the leaker and said the real issue was the opinion itself. Then she was asked about the potential targeting of justices and their families at their homes, and whether that might be considered extreme. It should have been another easy question; few Americans would approve of such doxing, particularly since some of the justices have young children at home. Yet Psaki declared that “I don’t have an official U.S. government position on where people protest,” adding that “peaceful protest is not extreme.” In reality, not having an official position on doxing and harassing Supreme Court justices and their families is a policy. Whether protests are judged to be extreme seems often to depend upon their underlying viewpoints. When Westboro Baptist Church activists protested at the funeral of Beau Biden, it was peaceful — but many critics rightly condemned the demonstration as extreme; some even approved of Westboro activists being physically assaulted. When the church brought its case before the Supreme Court, some of us supported its claims despite our vehement disagreement with their views, but 42 senators filed an amicus brief asking the court to deny free-speech protections for such protests. The court ultimately ruled 8-1 in favor of the church. In this case, the Biden administration and the Justice Department have condemned the court’s leaked draft — but not the threatened protests at justices’ homes, even though those arguably could be treated as a crime. Under 18 U.S.C. 1507, it is a federal crime to protest near a residence occupied by a judge or jury with the intent to influence their decisions in pending cases, and this case remains pending. (Ironically, prosecution could be difficult if the protesters said they had no intent other than to vent anger.) Even if protests at justices’ homes are constitutionally protected, that does not make them right, any more than the lawful Army-McCarthy hearings of 1954 were right.
Oklahoma passes Texas-style anti-abortion legislation - The Oklahoma legislature passed an anti-abortion bill on Thursday that prohibits the procedure after six weeks of pregnancy, before many women know they are pregnant, and allows private citizens to file civil lawsuits against abortion providers. The bill is patterned after a bill with essentially the same provisions that took effect in Texas last September. Both bills effectively ban abortions, in defiance of existing US law as codified in the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling. The Oklahoma abortion ban will be implemented as soon as it is signed into law by Republican Governor Kevin Stitt, due to an “emergency clause” incorporated into the measure. Senate Bill 1503, also known as the “Oklahoma Heartbeat Act,” prohibits abortions after a physician can detect early cardiac activity in an embryo or fetus. The law provides exceptions for when the mother’s life is at risk, but not for rape or incest. SB 1503 was passed by the Republican-dominated House without any debate. Stitt is expected to sign it within days. “We want Oklahoma to be the most pro-life state in the country,” Stitt said earlier this month, adding, “We want to outlaw abortion in the state of Oklahoma.” Hours after the House passed SB 1503 and sent it to the governor, the state Senate passed House Bill 4327. That version also allows private citizens to bring civil lawsuits against abortion providers. However, it prohibits abortions at any stage of pregnancy, with exceptions for medical emergencies and sexual assault. It has yet to be voted on by the House. The Oklahoma bill is the latest to be passed by state governments severely restricting abortion rights. It is part of a country-wide movement by Republican-led states to curtail abortion and other democratic rights. After the US Supreme Court refused to take up an emergency appeal and allowed Texas’ law to remain in effect, numerous other GOP-led states passed similar laws. Idaho’s governor signed the first Texas-inspired measure in March, although it has been temporarily blocked by the state’s Supreme Court. Oklahoma’s abortion ban will have significant consequences beyond the state’s borders. Since the law in Texas went into effect seven months ago, thousands of women have flocked to Oklahoma to receive the procedure. A recent study by the Texas Policy Evaluation Project at the University of Texas at Austin found that approximately 1,500 women traveled out of state every month to receive an abortion since September, with 45 percent visiting Oklahoma for the procedure. The decades-long counterrevolution against Roe v. Wade has eviscerated access to an abortion. Today, approximately 90 percent of all US counties have no abortion provider and seven US states have only a single abortion provider in the entire state. Twenty-seven large American cities have no abortion provider, with Texas being home to the largest number of cities in the United States where a patient must travel more than 100 miles for an abortion.
Overturning Roe v. Wade could impact abortion rights around the world - The leaked draft opinion from the Supreme Court indicating it could overturn Roe v. Wade means that millions of women in more than half of U.S. states could either lose the ability to get an abortion or see their access drastically rolled back.It would be a major shift in abortion law in the U.S., but human rights advocates say such a move could also weaken reproductive rights across the world.The move would "damage the global perception of the United States," Amnesty International's secretary-general, Agnès Callamard, said in a statement. It would also "set a terrible example that other governments and anti-rights groups could seize upon around the world in a bid to deny the rights of women, girls and other people who can become pregnant," she said.Many countries, including some with large Catholic populations, have actually been making it easier to get an abortion in recent years.Ireland legalized abortion in 2019, Argentina legalized it in 2020 and Mexico's Supreme Court voted to decriminalize abortion last year. In February, Colombia's highest court legalized abortion until 24 weeks of pregnancy.But with the U.S. poised to upend the nearly half-century-long constitutional protection for abortions, advocates warn that repressive governments across the globe could use the move to justify future crackdowns on their citizens.The Supreme Court's draft opinion is a "step in a very dangerous direction for everyone in the United States and a frightening signal to authoritarians around the world that they can strip long-established rights from their countries' people," said Licha Nyiendo, chief legal officer of the group Human Rights First, in a statement. It could lead some countries to adopt new restrictive laws, said Tarah Demant, Amnesty International's interim national director for programs, advocacy and government affairs. Other countries could point to the U.S. to legitimize their own policies restricting reproductive rights, she told NPR.
How a Boston flagpole launched a Supreme Court showdown over religion – Vox - The Supreme Court, in an increasingly familiar development, handed a victory to a Christian conservative organization on Monday. The Court’s decision in Shurtleff v. Boston establishes that this organization, Camp Constitution, should have been allowed to fly a Christian-identified flag from a flagpole outside Boston’s city hall.But Shurtleff is unlike several other high-profile victories for religious conservatives that the Court has handed down in recent years because the justices did not need to remake existing law in order to reach this result. The decision was unanimous (although the justices split somewhat regarding why the plaintiffs in this case should prevail), with liberal Justice Stephen Breyer writing the majority opinion.The case involves three flagpoles standing outside of Boston’s city hall. The first flagpole displays the US flag, with a smaller flag honoring prisoners of war and missing service members below it. The second pole features the Massachusetts state flag. And the third typically — but not always — displays the city’s own flag.This third flagpole, and the city’s practice of sometimes allowing outside groups to display a flag of their choice from it, is the centerpiece of Shurtleff. Since at least 2005, the city has permitted outside groups to hold flag-raising ceremonies on the plaza during which they can raise a flag of their choosing on the third flagpole.At various times, the third flagpole has displayed the flags of many nations, including Brazil, China, Ethiopia, Italy, Mexico, and Turkey. It has displayed the rainbow LGBTQ pride flag, a flag commemorating the Battle of Bunker Hill, and a flag honoring Malcolm X.But when Harold Shurtleff, head of an organization called Camp Constitution, asked to fly a flag associated with the Christian faith, the city refused — claiming that displaying such a flag could be interpreted as “an endorsement by the city of a particular religion,” in violation of “separation of church and state or the [C]onstitution.” Justice Breyer’s majority opinion concludes that the city erred. Relying on a bevy of cases establishing that the government typically cannot discriminate against a particular viewpoint, Breyer notes that “Boston concedes that it denied Shurtleff’s request solely because the Christian flag he asked to raise ‘promot[ed] a specific religion.’” Under the facts of this case, that’s a form of viewpoint discrimination and it’s not allowed.While it’s notable that Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh each wrote separate opinions indicating that they are eager to let government get cozy with religion, and they havetwo opportunities to do so this term, this case is a straightforward decision that follows current law — in short, nothing remarkable.
Trump grand jury ending in N.Y. with no charges against ex-president— A six-month grand jury that was convened late last year to hear evidence against Donald Trump was set to expire this week, closing a chapter in a lengthy criminal investigation that appears to be fizzling out without charges against the former president, people familiar with matter said.Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D), who took office in January, inherited a probe launched by his predecessor, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., who was convinced that there was a case against Trump for crimes related to manipulating the value of property assets to secure tax advantages or better loan rates.The grand jury was convened in November with a mandate to hear evidence against the former president. But the decision on whether to finish the presentation and ask the panel to vote on charges would ultimately fall on Bragg, who decided to pause the process, according to people with knowledge of the situation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss information that has not been declared publicly.A key problem, some of those people said, was Bragg’s concern over whether former Trump fixer Michael Cohen should be used as a witness.Bragg has said he will announce when the investigation is over, noting that even after the special grand jury disbanded, other grand juries hearing a broad range of criminal cases in New York would be available to take action in this one if needed.Still, the expiration of the grand jury — and the departure in February of two senior prosecutors who said Bragg was stalling the inquiry — makes any potential indictment of Trump seem unlikely, legal observers have said. By the time Mark Pomerantz and Carey Dunne quit, the grand jury had been inactive for weeks, with jurors being told to stay home, a person with knowledge of the issue previously said.Lawyers in the office of New York Attorney General Letitia James (D), who is a partner in the probe, are skeptical that any criminal case will be brought, people familiar with the situation said. They also spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. A spokeswoman for James said the investigation continues.
Tucker Carlson privately mocked Trump and declined a phone call from him - Despite promoting Donald Trump's platform issues on his prime time television show, Fox News host Tucker Carlson privately mocked the former president, according to reporting by The New York Times. Carlson, who has topped ratings charts with his inflammatory rhetoric surrounding immigration, white supremacy andreplacement theory, has some connection to Trump, though the nature of their relationship is unknown. Carlson has, on occasion, criticized Trump and his policies, despite generally promoting his presidency on prime time.Carlson also influenced Trump's decision to endorse JD Vance,Rolling Stone reported, and the former president regularly appears on Fox News shows, including "Hannity." But The New York Times reported that Carlson criticized Trump for breaking campaign promises on-air and, on at least one occasion, declined a call from the former president, who had called to pre-empt criticism of a foreign-policy move. "In private, Mr. Carlson mocked the president's habit of calling to head off his on-air attacks," The New York Times reported.
Judge tosses out Trump lawsuit over lifting Twitter ban - A California judge on Friday tossed out former President Trump’s lawsuit that sought to lift his Twitter ban. U.S. District Judge James Donato, who was nominated by former President Obama, said in his ruling that Trump’s claims that Twitter’s ban against him violated the First Amendment did not hold much water, given that the amendment only applies to the government violations of the right and not private company abridgments. Trump’s “only hope of stating a First Amendment claim is to plausibly allege that Twitter was in effect operating as the government under the ‘state-action doctrine,’” the judge said, noting that an activity could be so heavily dominated by governmental authority that those participating in it are, by extension, accountable to the constraints of the Constitution. “To start, the amended complaint does not plausibly show that plaintiffs’ ostensible First Amendment injury was caused by ‘a rule of conduct imposed by the government,’” Donato wrote. “The amended complaint merely offers a grab-bag of allegations to the effect that some Democratic members of Congress wanted Mr. Trump, and ’the views he espoused,’ to be banned from Twitter because such ‘content and views’ were ‘contrary to those legislators’ preferred points of view’.” Donato also said that Twitter was not pursuing a “state rule of decision” when closing Trump’s account, in addition to several other defendants included in the lawsuit, but he said the social media platform “acted in response to factors specific to each account.” The California judge said that Trump had until May 27 to file an amended complaint.
PayPal shuts accounts of anti-war publications Consortium News and MintPress News -- Over the past week, the online payments company PayPal has launched a censorship campaign against independent and left-wing publishers who have been critical of the official narrative about the US and NATO war against Russia in Ukraine by arbitrarily shutting down their accounts.On Sunday, Consortium News (CN) reported that PayPal had canceled its account without warning or explanation. Editor-in-Chief Joe Lauria reported that CN’s PayPal account was “permanently limited” just as the publication was launching its Spring Fund Drive.Lauria wrote that CN had lost one of the “most important ways for its viewers and readers to show their support through donations.” Meanwhile, PayPal told Lauria that the CN balance the payments company was holding might never be returned to the publication.Upon the shutdown of the account, PayPal sent CN an email that stated, “You can’t use PayPal anymore. … We noticed activity in your account that’s inconsistent with our User Agreement and we no longer offer you PayPal services. … Because of potential risk exposure, we’ve permanently limited your account. You’ll no longer be able to use the account for any transactions.”In a phone conversation with a PayPal customer service agent, CN was told that there was no reason recorded in their system as why the account had been shut down. The agent said that the account was under “investigation and review” and that CN’s “history found some potential risk associated with this account.”Regarding the remaining balance in CN’s Pay Pal account, the agent said the money would be held for 180 days while an investigation was completed before a decision would be made about whether or not the funds would be returned. The agent said, “If there was a violation,” it is possible that the money would be kept by PayPal for “damages.”CN reported that, among the violations listed under Restricted Activities of the User Agreement are “false, inaccurate or misleading information” to PayPal, other PayPal customers “or third parties.”,CN’s Lauria then wrote, “Given the current political climate it is more than conceivable that PayPal is reacting to Consortium News’ coverage of the war in Ukraine, which is not in line with the dominant narrative that is being increasingly enforced.”On Friday afternoon, Mnar Adley, founder and editor of MintPress, reported via Twitter that her own personal account, that of MintPress and of senior staff writer Alan MacLeod had been shut down by PayPal. She tweeted, “Paypal banning myself and MintPress is blatant censorship of dissenting journalists & outlets. For the past decade MintPress has been unapologetically working as a watchdog journalism outlet to expose the profiteers of the permanent war state.”In a series of subsequent tweets, Mnar wrote that it is outrageous that “tech giants, which are run by those who directly profit from the New Cold war, including the crisis in Ukraine, could limit any journalist’s ability to fund their work.” She pointed out that if such measure were taken in Russia, China or Iran, “our media would be screaming about free speech and first amendment rights.” She said that the censorship was being endorsed “under the guise of fighting ‘Russian propaganda.’”A recent article by Alan MacLeod on MintPress points out that among the purported “independent” Ukrainian journalists are “individuals who previously worked for NATO think tank The Atlantic Council, the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine, or for the Council on Foreign Relations.”On Thursday, the account of journalist and political analyst Caleb T. Maupin was shut down by PayPal with no explanation. Maupin published a screen shot of the notice he received that said, “You can no longer use PayPal” and tweeted, “I am banned from PayPal.” Maupin, who identifies himself as a socialist, has written for RT America and is the publisher of the Center for Political Innovation, an organization that says it is for “building socialism in America.” Due to his prior affiliation with RT (Russia Today), Maupin’s Twitter account has been labeled with the message, “Russia state-affiliated media.”
Biden administration sets up Disinformation Governance Board ahead of 2022 elections - The secretary of the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Alejandro Mayorkas, revealed last week during several appearances before Congress that the Biden administration was creating a Disinformation Governance Board in advance of the 2022 midterm elections. Speaking before the House Appropriations Committee on Wednesday, called to discuss the DHS budget for 2023, Mayorkas said that the board had just been established to combat disinformation and misinformation and to “bring the resources of [DHS] together to address this threat.” Mayorkas added that the department is focused on the spread of disinformation in minority communities and that the new board would help DHS be more effective in combatting the purported threat “not only to election security but to our national security.” A report by the Associated Press on Thursday said that DHS is “stepping up an effort to counter disinformation coming from Russia as well as misleading information that human smugglers circulate to target migrants hoping to travel to the U.S.-Mexico border.” The story quoted from a DHS statement that said, “The spread of disinformation can affect border security, Americans’ safety during disasters, and public trust in our democratic institutions,” but no one from the department would respond to AP requests for an interview on the matter. Although no details about the functioning of the governance board, its purpose or duties had been published prior to Mayorkas’ testimony, the secretary told the House hearing that it would be co-chaired by Undersecretary for Policy Rob Silvers and principal deputy general counsel Jennifer Gaskill. An indication of the reactionary nature of the DHS board was revealed in the appointment of Nina Jankowicz as executive director. According to her official bio, Jankowicz was a “disinformation fellow” at the Wilson Center—a nonpartisan foreign policy think tank named after Woodrow Wilson—and she “advised the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry” and oversaw “Russia and Belarus programs at the National Democratic Institute (NDI).” The NDI is a well-known nongovernmental organization that engages in US imperialist and CIA-sponsored political interventions in countries, particularly in Latin America, under the banner of “human rights,” “democracy” and “entrepreneurship.” The NDI has counted among its board of directors leading figures of US militarism and war such as Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Paul Wolfowitz, Madeleine Albright and Elliott Abrams.
“Disinformation” is Just a Boot in Your Face - Kunstler - Since Elon Musk pounced on Twitter, are you not amazed to see just how dedicated to the suppression of speech the Left is? Censorship is the Left’s very spark-of-life. Everything they stand for is so false and lawless that truth magnetically repels them. Now, this may surprise you, but truth and reality are joined at the hip, so when you work hard to suppress one, you are also stomping the face of the other. “Disinformation” just means anything that the Left doesn’t want you to say out loud.The truth is that everything the Left stands for these days is some kind of a hustle — which is the cheap street version of a racket, meaning an effort to extract something of value from you dishonestly. It’s the only way they know how to operate. It necessarily and chiefly depends on the deployment of lies, which, by definition are propositions at odds with reality. The more they traffic in lies, the further they must distance themselves from reality and try to coerce you to go along with evermore absurdity: mostly peaceful riots… men-with-ovaries… free and fair elections… insurrection… conspiracy theories… Lia Thomas in the fast lane… safe and effective vaccines…. Believe it or else!The Left ends up at war with reality. That adds up to a bad business model for running a society, and the results are now plain to see. What in the USA is not failing these days? Our Potemkin economy of nail parlors, porn sites, pizza huts, casinos, drugs, and helicopter money? Our reckless relations with other countries? Public and higher education? Medicine? Financial markets? The sputtering engine of government under a phantom president? It’s all sinking into chaos and incoherence. For now, food just costs more than ever; wait until it’s simply unavailable. Nobody will care about anything else after that.All this failure requires cover stories, narratives. Russia did it! Covid-19 did it! White supremacists did it! Trump did it! Narrative failure would equal failure of the Left altogether, so the Left requires the sturdiest possible apparatus for suppressing counter-narratives that lean in the direction of reality, its enemy. The Left found that apparatus in social media, the new vehicle for political debate, especially Twitter, which was so easily, blatantly, and dishonestly manipulated backstage by mysterious code ninjas. Twitter enjoys subsidy relations with government that incline it to do the government’s bidding. In effect, the government enlisted Twitter to undermine and over-ride American’s first amendment protections, by proxy.
Crypto suspicious activity reports are climbing. Here’s why.— As cryptocurrency’s popularity has grown, so have the flags of potential money laundering and fraud. As the Biden administration wraps its head around cryptocurrency and how to regulate it, cryptocurrency’s potential to be used for illegal purposes has come to the forefront of the conversation. President Biden’s executive order on crypto from March explicitly tasked the Treasury Department and other federal agencies with finding better ways of scrutinizing digital assets and the extent to which they’re being used for money laundering and fraud. But that’s a big, complicated task — and it’s not made simpler by the growing volume of cryptocurrency-related reports meant to identify that activity.
SEC crypto team getting 20 more officials in bid to crack down The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is adding 20 more officials to a team dedicated to policing crypto markets, the latest move by Wall Street’s main regulator to crack down on digital tokens that may run afoul of its rules. The additions will bring the SEC’s Crypto Assets and Cyber Unit to 50 people, the agency said Tuesday in a statement. The focus of the expanded enforcement group will include virtual-currency offerings, decentralized finance and trading platforms, as well as stablecoins, according to the regulator. Over the past year, the SEC has moved aggressively to expand oversight of digital assets with Chair Gary Gensler frequently saying he considers many of them to be securities and subject to his agency’s rules. The regulator has launched probes into marketplaces offering certain types of nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, and companies behind crypto-lending products.
CFPB reiterates skepticism of AI in fair lending report - The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau reiterated its skepticism of machine learning and predictive analytics in a fair lending report issued Friday that shows an increase in actions against redlining and discriminatory practices. The CFPB said financial services will be increasingly shaped by predictive analytics, algorithms, and machine learning but that technology can also reinforce “historical biases that have excluded too many Americans from opportunities.” In the report, Patrice Ficklin, the CFPB’s fair lending director, said that while she is encouraged by programs that can expand access to credit, she is skeptical of claims that advanced algorithms are a “cure-all” that can eliminate bias in credit underwriting and pricing. Her boss, CFPB Director Rohit Chopra, had previously warned companies about relying too heavily on AI and machine learning in making lending decisions.
Could Russian banks and oligarchs use crypto to evade sanctions? --While sanctions have been imposed on Russia in a bid to disrupt the country’s economy, there are well-founded concerns that the impacted banks and oligarchs will use cryptocurrencies to circumvent these punitive actions in response. “Criminals, rogue states, and other actors may use digital assets and alternative payment platforms as a new means to hide cross-border transactions for nefarious purposes,” Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., Mark Warner, D-Va., Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, and Jack Reed , D-R.I. wrote in a letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. As an anti-establishment alternative, digital assets are commonly used to bypass the traditional financial system, and consequently have the potential to be misused by Russian entities to evade sanctions.
Citigroup’s Role in “Flash Crash” in Europe Yesterday Is Reminiscent of Its “Dr. Evil” Trade in 2004 - By Pam Martens -Yesterday the international newswire, Reuters, broke the story that the U.S. megabank, Citigroup, was responsible for a flash crash that plunged Sweden’s benchmark index, the OMX, by 8 percent at its low. The index later recovered to close with a loss of just under 2 percent. The plunge caused a rapid ripple effect that briefly spread to other European stock markets. Trading volume in Europe was lower than normal yesterday because the London Stock Exchange was closed for a banking holiday. (As detailed below, Citigroup previously exploited a low volume day in August 2004 in the European bond market.) Citigroup has confirmed its role in yesterday’s flash crash, releasing the following statement on Monday: “This morning one of our traders made an error when inputting a transaction. Within minutes, we identified the error and corrected it.” El Pais, a leading newspaper in Spain, reported that “European stock markets as a whole lost over €300 billion as a result of the so-called Nordic flash crash.” That’s the equivalent of approximately $315.5 billion – not an insignificant chunk of change. Adding further intrigue to the situation is a statement from the U.S. stock market operator, Nasdaq, which also operates the stock exchange in Sweden, that it did not see any reason to cancel trades that occurred during the event. To put that another way, Citigroup, with a notorious history of abusive market behavior, causes losses of more than $300 billion, which could have triggered previously-entered stop-loss orders which locked in the losses to investors, and Nasdaq plans to let those erroneously-triggered orders stand.This so-called “error” yesterday by Citigroup would be a lot more believable were it not for Citigroup’s past history – which includes an uncannily similar episode in 2004 which Citigroup’s traders code-named the “Dr. Evil” trade. The trade exploited a weakness in electronic bond trading during a low volume day in August. Citigroup traders placed sell orders for billions of dollars of bonds within a matter of seconds, driving down prices, then bought the bonds back at the lower prices, earning significant profits in the process. Citigroup was fined $26 million in 2005 by Europe’s Financial Services Authority for the Dr. Evil trades.
Fed monetary tightening hits Wall Street - The move by the US Federal Reserve to lift interest rates and begin reducing its holdings of financial assets because of rising inflation is having a significant impact on Wall Street. Yesterday, what has been described as an “April rout” continued and the NASDAQ index dropped 4.2 percent, bringing its total loss for the month to 13 percent. It was the worst month since October 2008 amid the global financial crisis, and took its fall for the year to 21 percent. The Wall Street Journal reported that the “broad selloff has erased trillions of dollars in market value from the tech-heavy gauge with investors souring on shares of everything from software and semiconductor companies to social-media giants.” The Financial Times (FT) reported that the fall across the NASDAQ wiped off more than $5 trillion from its market value since the record high of last November. The so-called FAANG stocks—comprising Meta (the Facebook parent), Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Alphabet (the Google parent)—have together lost $1 trillion in market value. Individual falls are significant. Amazon has recorded a loss of 26 percent for the year and Apple 11 percent. Netflix has dropped by 49 percent in April alone. There have been sizeable falls in other areas of the market. The S&P 500 index has dropped four weeks in a row with a loss of 8.8 percent for April. Its loss for the year, which began with the index at a record high, is 13 percent. The Dow fell 4.9 percent in April and has lost 9 percent this year. Both indexes have recorded their worst month since the March 2020 plunge at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The chief reason for the market decline is the inflation surge—the largest in four decades—which is pushing central banks to tighten monetary policy. When inflation was very low, they could pour money into the markets in response to a downturn without the fear this would spark a hike in prices.
Fed: falling market confidence, profitability among top risks for banks -— Key indicators of the banking industry’s health fell to their lowest levels in more than a year during the first quarter, signaling trouble on the horizon, especially for smaller institutions. The Federal Reserve Board of Governor’s semiannual supervision and regulation report,, released Friday, shows the banking industry on relatively strong footing. An influx of $230 billion of common equity since the pandemic began has given institutions a wide buffer for potential losses. Liquidity, at 28 percent, is also well above the industry’s five-year average. Overall loan delinquency also fell below 1 percent, the lowest rate since 2006. Relationships with investment funds, third-party service providers and fintechs will be top priorities for Federal Reserve supervisors this year, according to the Fed's semiannual supervision and regulation report.
Fed sees limited fallout for U.S. banks from war in Ukraine - The impact on U.S. banks from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been limited, the Federal Reserve said in a report on Friday. While some American lenders have started to exit the region, the overall impact on their operations has been moderate, the central bank said in its semiannual Supervision and Regulation Report. Still, the conflict has prompted banks to bolster cyberdefenses, the Fed said. “U.S. banks’ direct financial exposures to Russia and Ukraine appear limited and manageable,” the Fed said. “Indirect exposure through market volatility, such as the recent volatility in commodities markets, has had limited impact on U.S. banks to date.”
BNY Mellon takes $88M hit from Russia exit - BNY Mellon reported fee revenue of $3.1 billion in the first quarter of 2022, suffering a 3% drop over last year as a result of $88 million in losses due to sanctions against Russia. In March, the company joined many other Wall Street firms in ceasing business with Russia in direct response to its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. Following this withdrawal, the bank had anticipated first-quarter losses in the region of $100 million. Now it expects further losses of $15 million to $20 million per quarter this year. “We’re in an increasingly uncertain environment, including the war in Ukraine, volatile markets and persistently higher inflation, which will require more meaningful monetary policy adjustments,” said BNY Mellon CEO Todd Gibbons during the bank’s April earnings call.
Harsher sanctions against Russia could hurt U.S. banks - The economic sanctions on Russia following the invasion of Ukraine are beginning to bite on the Russian economy. While the value of the ruble has plummeted, the U.S. economy has so far not been seriously impacted. But, the possibility of a long, drawn-out conflict presages a sustained period of economic uncertainty for U.S. and global markets, particularly if the international community deems that stronger sanctions are necessary. Top of mind for U.S. banks are concerns over anti-money-laundering policy, rising energy costs and cybersecurity.
Top cyberthreat to U.S. banks may stem from attacks on Ukrainian targets - The U.S. banking industry continues to be on alert for cyberthreats from Russia after a wave of attacks struck three of Ukraine’s banks and divisions of the Ukraine government in the early days of the conflict. U.S. concerns predate the invasion. “While there are currently no specific or credible cyberthreats to the homeland, the U.S. government has been preparing for potential geopolitical contingencies since before Thanksgiving,” Anne Neuberger, deputy national security advisor for cyber and emerging technology, said on Feb. 18. Although cyberattacks on financial institutions during the conflict have primarily impacted Ukraine, fears remain that Russian state-sponsored attacks on Western banks will be next.
CFPB orders BofA to pay $10M for illegal garnishments Bank of America has agreed to pay a $10 million fine to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for allegedly processing illegal out-of-state garnishment orders that resulted in at least 3,700 customers paying unlawful fees. The CFPB said Wednesday that the $2.5 trillion-asset BofA engaged in “unfair and deceptive acts and practices,” by processing orders to garnish money from customer's bank accounts that were not allowed in some states. Affected customers paid $592,000 in unlawful fees, or roughly $200 per person on average, the bureau said. The CFPB also said BofA tried to limit customers’ rights to challenge the garnishments.
Large loan deal shows pot banking keeps becoming more mainstream East West Bank in Pasadena, California, has agreed to participate in providing a $60 million credit facility to a company that lends to cannabis businesses, according to the borrower. The deal suggests that some relatively large banks — after long leaving the pot industry to rely on smaller banks and credit unions, or more expensive nonbank lenders — are slowly becoming more comfortable doing business with marijuana-related companies. The borrower on the revolving loan, made by East West and a second, unnamed bank, is AFC Gamma, a publicly traded company that lends to the marijuana industry.
Credit card fees in the crosshairs as Sen. Durbin revisits interchange -The ongoing legal debate about lack of competition around payment card pricing is reigniting, as merchants complain about the painful effects of recent card network swipe-fee hikes on top of rising inflation. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill.s, author of the namesake amendment to the Dodd-Frank Act that capped debit card interchange fees — a core component of the costs merchants pay when accepting card payments — this week floated changes that could have the effect of extending certain provisions of that legislation to credit cards. Though observers don't expect a major swipe-fee overhaul in the immediate future, government intervention into payment card fees seems increasingly likely within the next year, after more than a decade of stasis.
BankThink: Rising interest rates will be tough on small businesses | American Banker - For the past few years, the availability of qualified workers has been the top business problem for small firms, trumping taxes and government regulations, historically popular choices. Today, the No. 1 issue is inflation. The Federal Reserve says it has the tools to bring inflation back down to 2%, which, by the way, is not “price stability,” one of the Fed’s two goals (the other is full employment). The Fed’s policy posture has changed dramatically, from patiently waiting for inflation to go away while maintaining near-zero interest rates and heavy purchases of bonds, to an end to bond buying and prospects of accelerated increases in interest rates. The Fed Funds rate could go from zero to 3% in a matter of months. This, in conjunction with the withdrawal of the Fed from the bond market, could raise the yield on the 10-year bond to 5% or more. The strategy is to slow spending in the economy, reduce growth and, with less pressure from spending, cause prices to fall, all without a recession. The Marriner S. Eccles Federal Reserve building stands in Washington. The yield on the 10-year bond is an important rate, often the base for determining mortgage rates (which have already risen in anticipation of Fed actions). But the cost of loans for small businesses has always been closely related to the 10-year yield. Since 1973, the National Federation of Independent Businesses has asked a random sample of its member firms what rate they paid on their most recent short-term loans. Historically, those rates have been several percentage point above the yield of the 10-year, rising and falling in sync with it.
Fraud is down, but more expensive - After increases in fraud reports in 2020 and 2021, recent data suggests the fraud rate impacting a large swath of the economy decreased at the beginning of 2022, nearing prepandemic levels. However, the total amount of money lost to fraud continues to climb.The findings from TransUnion, the Federal Trade Commission, and data analysis company LexisNexis Risk Solutions suggest fraud attempts increased with the start of the pandemic but may be receding. At the same time, fraudsters are stealing more from victims with each attempt. TransUnion’s first-quarter 2022 fraud report indicates that, across sectors, the suspected fraud rate decreased 22.6% globally since the first quarter of last year. In the U.S. financial sector, it declined 56.6%. Sectors that saw increases include insurance, gambling and logistics.
Mastercard beefs up its defenses against first-party fraud - Mastercard is building more capabilities around fraud detection as part of a strategy to win more business from companies that might otherwise turn to fintechs for the same services. "We want to enable transactions to be more successful," said Chris Reid, head of identity solutions for Mastercard. "First-party fraud has become a big problem and we know we can eat into that." In addition to competing against fintechs, Mastercard is also in a tech arms race with Visa, which is similarly upgrading its fraud-detection capabilities. For Visa and Mastercard, managing identity for fast-moving digital commerce transactions is also a way to demonstrate utility beyond payment processing.
Regulators unveil revamped Community Reinvestment Act framework Top federal regulators unveiled a proposal that would change the way they evaluate the community-building activities of the banks they supervise under the Community Reinvestment Act. The Federal Reserve, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency jointly released the long-awaited framework for an update to the 1977 law on Thursday, accounting for the advent of mobile and online banking and more sharply defining what activities would qualify for CRA credit. The regulators who approved the proposed rulemaking said the new rule would be more strenuous. Martin Gruenberg, acting head of the FDIC, said it would “raise the bar” for banks on retail lending to earn an “outstanding” or “high satisfactory rating.”
Fannie REO inventory increased in Q1 year-over-year; Expected to increase further in 2022 - Fannie reported results for Q1 2022. Here is some information on single-family Real Estate Owned (REOs). Here is a note on the pandemic impact on foreclosures, from Fannie: "In response to the pandemic and with instruction from FHFA, we prohibited our servicers from completing foreclosures on our single-family loans through July 31, 2021, except in the case of vacant or abandoned properties. In addition, our servicers were required to comply with a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (the “CFPB”) rule that prohibited certain new single-family foreclosures on mortgage loans secured by the borrower’s principal residence until after December 31, 2021. As a result, our foreclosure volumes were slightly higher in the first quarter of 2022 compared with the first quarter of 2021. We expect foreclosure volumes to gradually increase throughout 2022. In April 2022, FHFA announced a suspension of foreclosure activities for up to 60 days for borrowers who apply for assistance under Treasury’s Homeowner Assistance Fund." Fannie Mae reported the number of REO increased to 7,430 at the end of Q1 2022 compared to 6,918 at the end of Q1 2021. For Fannie, this is down 96% from the 166,787 peak number of REOs in Q3 2010. Here is a graph of Fannie Real Estate Owned (REO). REO inventory increased in Q1 2022, and inventory is up 7% year-over-year. This is well below a normal level of REOs for Fannie, and REO levels will increase in 2022 now that the moratorium is over, but there will not be a huge wave of foreclosures.
MBA: "Mortgage Delinquencies Decrease in the First Quarter of 2022" - From the MBA: Mortgage Delinquencies Decrease in the First Quarter of 2022 - The delinquency rate for mortgage loans on one-to-four-unit residential properties decreased to a seasonally adjusted rate of 4.11 percent of all loans outstanding at the end of the first quarter of 2022, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) National Delinquency Survey.For the purposes of the survey, MBA asks servicers to report loans in forbearance as delinquent if the payment was not made based on the original terms of the mortgage. The delinquency rate decreased 54 basis points from the fourth quarter of 2021 and was down 227 basis points from one year ago.“The mortgage delinquency rate dropped for the seventh consecutive quarter, reaching its lowest level since the fourth quarter of 2019,” said Marina Walsh, CMB, MBA’s Vice President of Industry Analysis. “The decrease in delinquency rates was apparent across all loan types, and especially for FHA loans. The delinquency rate forFHA loans declined 118 basis points from fourth-quarter 2021 and was down 509 basis points from one year ago.”According to Walsh, most of the improvement in loan performance can be attributed to the movement of loans that were 90-days or more delinquent. The majority of these aged delinquencies were either cured or entered post-forbearance loan workouts.The expiration of pandemic-related foreclosure moratoriums led to a modest increase in foreclosure starts from the record lows maintained over the past two years. At 0.19 percent, the foreclosure starts rate remains below the quarterly average of 0.41 percent dating back to 1979.Added Walsh, “Given the nation’s limited housing inventory and the variety of home retention and foreclosure alternatives on the table across various loan types, the probability of a significant foreclosure surge is minimal. Borrowers have more choices today to either stay in their homes or sell without resorting to a foreclosure.” This graph shows the percent of loans delinquent by days past due. Overall delinquencies decreased in Q1.
Black Knight Mortgage Monitor: Record Low Delinquencies, "Home Affordability Nears All-Time Low" - Today, in the Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter: Black Knight Mortgage Monitor for March: "Home Affordability Nears All-Time Low" A brief excerpt: Black Knights data on affordability goes back to 1996. This doesn’t include housing in the 1980 period when 30-year mortgage rates peaked at over 18%. And on the payment to income ratio:
• The least affordable American housing has ever been was back in July 2006, when it took 34.1% of median income to make the monthly P&I payment on the average-priced home bought with 20% down
• As of April 21, that payment-to-income ratio has now climbed all the way to 32.5%, within just 1.6 points of the prior record
• A rise of just 50 more basis points (BPS) in rates or a 5% rise in home prices, would push affordability to its worst level on record, and they are already up 200 BPS and 5.9% respectively since the start of 2022
• 37 markets – representing nearly a third of the country – are now the least affordable they’ve ever been
As Black Knight has noted, there were “affordability products” with low teaser rates available during the housing bubble. Excluding the bubble years, this is the worst affordability since at least the early ‘90s, maybe '80s. There is much more in the article.
CoreLogic: House Prices up Record 20.9% YoY in March Notes: This CoreLogic House Price Index report is for March. The CoreLogic HPI is a three-month weighted average and is not seasonally adjusted (NSA).From CoreLogic: U.S. Annual Home Price Growth Exceeds 20% in March, CoreLogic Reports: CoreLogic® ... today released the CoreLogic Home Price Index (HPI™) and HPI Forecast™ for March 2022.U.S. home prices continued to post significant year-over-year gains in March, up by 20.9%, another record high. Even with the past year’s streak of double-digit price increases, annual gains are projected to slow to around 6% by next March, due in part to rising mortgage rates and higher home prices hampering affordability for some home shoppers. Buyers who closed on a property in March had a good chance of locking in mortgage rates around 4% or slightly lower. By late April, rates had moved up to more than 5%, a jump of about 30% from the same time last year and a trend that might derail more prospective buyers.“The annual growth in the U.S. index was the largest we have measured in the 45-year history of the CoreLogic Home Price Index,” said Dr. Frank Nothaft, chief economist at CoreLogic. “Couple that price increase with the rapid rise in mortgage rates and buyer affordability has fallen sharply. In April, 30-year fixed mortgage rates averaged nearly 2 percentage points higher than one year earlier. With the growth in home prices, that means the monthly principal and interest payment to buy the median-priced home was up about 50% in April compared with last April.”...Nationally, home prices increased 20.9% in March 2022, compared to March 2021. On a month-over-month basis, home prices increased by 3.3% compared to February 2022....Annual home price gains are forecast to slow to 5.9% by March 2023.
Americans are moving out of major cities and opting for southeastern states, data show – Since the start of the pandemic, where Americans are choosing to live has been in flux. And two and half years in, people are still opting to relocate, although at lower levels than prior to the pandemic, in some cases to escape expensive housing markets or to accommodate remote work. According to data from moving and storage company Pods, Americans are moving from big cities like Chicago, Los Angeles, and Washington D.C. to southeastern states like Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Georgia where home prices have historically been lower and where nature is more easily accessible. The top-ranking city for move ins was Sarasota, FL, according to the company, which is in keeping with their trends from last year. In 2021, Pods reported six Florida cities made it on the company’s list of top 20 cities moved to. Here is a list of the top 10 areas moved to and from in 2021 and early 2022 according to Pods.
U.S. inflation hot spots happen to be pandemic-migration hot spots - Some of the hottest pandemic-migration destinations also happen to be home to the hottest regional inflation rates. The relationship between migration and inflation has strengthened significantly as more people relocate from expensive coastal cities to more affordable metro areas, according to an analysis released by Redfin on Tuesday. "We saw an acceleration of inflation happen particularly when we looked at the metro level inflation data. We saw right away that inflation was highest in Phoenix and lowest in San Francisco," Redfin deputy chief economist Taylor Marr told CNBC. For example, Phoenix saw prices of goods and services rise 10.9% in the first quarter from the year-earlier period, ranking it the metro region with the highest inflation rate in Redfin's analysis. According to Redfin's migration data, Phoenix was also the second-most popular destination for homebuyers looking to move from one metro area to another in the first quarter, behind only Miami, Florida. Meanwhile, San Francisco, which tops the list of metro areas that homebuyers moved away from during the first quarter, had a 5.2% inflation rate, the lowest in the Redfin analysis.
Rent Increases Up Sharply Year-over-year, Pace may be slowing - Today, in the Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter: Rent Increases Up Sharply Year-over-year, Pace may be slowing A brief excerpt: Here is a graph of the year-over-year (YoY) change for these measures since January 2015. All of these measures are through March 2022 (Apartment List through April 2022). Note that new lease measures (Zillow, Apartment List) dipped early in the pandemic, whereas the BLS measures were steady. Then new leases took off, and the BLS measures are picking up....The Zillow measure is up 16.8% YoY in February, down from 17.2% YoY in February. And the ApartmentList measure is up 16.4% as of April, down from 17.2% in March. Both the Zillow measure (a repeat rent index), and ApartmentList are showing a sharp increase in rents. Clearly rents are still increasing, and we should expect this to continue to spill over into measures of inflation in 2022. The Owners’ Equivalent Rent (OER) was up 4.5% YoY in March, from 4.3% YoY in February - and will likely increase further in the coming months.My suspicion - based on all of the above data - is rent increases will slow over the coming months. There is much more in the article.
Construction Spending Increased 0.1% in March --From the Census Bureau reported that overall construction spending increased 1.3%: Construction spending during March 2022 was estimated at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $1,730.5 billion, 0.1 percent above the revised February estimate of $1,728.6 billion. The March figure is 11.7 percent above the March 2021 estimate of $1,548.6 billion. Private spending increased and public spending decreased: Spending on private construction was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $1,379.7 billion, 0.2 percent above the revised February estimate of $1,376.9 billion. ... In March, the estimated seasonally adjusted annual rate of public construction spending was $350.8 billion, 0.2 percent below the revised February estimate of $351.7 billion. This graph shows private residential and nonresidential construction spending, and public spending, since 1993. Note: nominal dollars, not inflation adjusted. Residential (red) spending is 30% above the bubble peak (in nominal terms - not adjusted for inflation). Non-residential (blue) spending is 20% above the bubble era peak in January 2008 (nominal dollars). Public construction spending is 8% above the peak in March 2009. The second graph shows the year-over-year change in construction spending. On a year-over-year basis, private residential construction spending is up 18.4%. Non-residential spending is up 8.5% year-over-year. Public spending is up 1.7% year-over-year. This was below consensus expectations of a 0.7% increase in spending; however, construction spending for the previous two months was revised up.
Update: Framing Lumber Prices: Down from Recent Peak, but increasing Recently - Here is another monthly update on framing lumber prices. This graph shows CME random length framing futures through May 2nd. Lumber was at $1,035 per 1000 board feet this morning. This is down from the peak of $1,733, and down from $1,670 a year ago - but up sharply from $361 two years ago. There is somewhat of a seasonal demand for lumber, and lumber prices usually peak in April or May (although it seems likely lumber prices peaked earlier this year).A combination of strong demand and various supply constraints have kept lumber prices high and volatile.
Hotels: Occupancy Rate Down 3.4% Compared to Same Week in 2019 - From CoStar: STR: US Hotel Occupancy Increases From Previous Week - U.S. hotel occupancy improved from the previous week, while average daily rate (ADR) decreased slightly, according to STR‘s latest data through April 30.
April 24-30, 2022 (percentage change from comparable week in 2019*):
• Occupancy: 66.6% (-3.4%)
• Average daily rate (ADR): $146.67 (+10.2%)
• Revenue per available room (RevPAR): $97.72 (+6.4%)
*Due to the pandemic impact, STR is measuring recovery against comparable time periods from 2019.
The following graph shows the seasonal pattern for the hotel occupancy rate using the four-week average. The red line is for 2022, black is 2020, blue is the median, and dashed light blue is for 2021. Dashed purple is 2019 (STR is comparing to a strong year for hotels). The 4-week average of the occupancy rate is at the median rate for the previous 20 years (Blue).
Americans see spike in borrowing from friends, family: survey - A new poll finds more Americans are borrowing money from family and friends than they were a year ago. According to the Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey, 25.6 million people, or more than 10 percent of U.S. adults, had to rely on their support network for financial backing, up from 19.1 million a year. Fourteen percent of respondents who identify as millennials said in the survey that they borrowed money from their family members and friends, a 3 percent increase from April 2021. Eleven percent of respondents who identify as Generation X said that they borrowed money from their family and friends in the survey, and 8 percent of respondents identifying as baby boomers said the same. Seventeen percent of respondents who identify as Black also said in the survey that they have borrowed money from family members and friends, seeing a 6 percent increase from this time last year. Fifteen percent of respondents who identify as Hispanic and 7 percent of those who identify as either white or Asian also said in the survey that they have borrowed money from family and friends. The latest Census Bureau survey was conducted from March 30 to April 11, sending invitations to 1 million households and receiving a total of 63,769 responses. The survey had a weighted response rate of 6 percent.
State of the American Debt Slaves: Borrowing More to Buy Less due to Raging Inflation - by Wolf Richter - Credit card balances ticked up 1.9% in March from February, not seasonally adjusted, to $1.036 billion, according to the Federal Reserve today. Compared to three years ago, March 2019, the last March before the pandemic, this was up by only 3.0%.In other words, credit card balances are now just 3% higher than there were three years ago, after three years of inflation, including raging inflation for the past 12 months that increased the prices of nearly everything that consumers buy with their credit cards.Over the three years, during which credit card balances rose a total of 3%, CPI inflation jumped by 13%. In other words, even credit card borrowing cannot keep up with this raging inflation, LOL, and that their credit card debts, the most onerously expensive debt, is growing more slowly than inflation over the longer term is for once a good thing for the American debt slaves:Note in the chart above how consumers paid down their credit cards and other revolving credit during the first 12 months of the pandemic, and then they started charging again, gradually getting back to where they’d been on a nominal basis, but never catching up with inflation and a “real” basis.Consumer spending is very seasonal, and so is the usage of credit cards. Balances peak in December every year, and fall off in January and February. Massive seasonal adjustments are used to smooth this out. In March, these seasonal adjustments added $62 billion to the revolving credit balance and pushed the figure up to $1.097 trillion, seasonally adjusted, up by 2.9% from February.This chart shows the actual revolving credit balances (red line) and the seasonally adjusted revolving credit balances (green line):Auto loans and leases in the first quarter – this is quarterly data, not monthly – jumped by 1.6% from Q4 and by 7.6% year-over-year, to a record 1.34 trillion, according to the Federal Reserve today.This increase in auto loans and leases came amid a plunge in purchases of new vehicles and a drop in purchases of used vehicles, accompanied by holy-moly price increases.
- The CPI for use vehicles in Q1 spiked by 35% year-over-year.
- The CPI for new vehicles jumped by 12.5%.
These ridiculous price increases had the bizarre effect that consumers cut way back on their purchases of vehicles but borrowed a lot more to finance them:
Used Vehicle Wholesale Prices Decline Seasonally Adjusted in April --From Manheim Consulting today: Wholesale Used-Vehicle Prices Decline in April From Seasonal Adjustment- Wholesale used-vehicle prices (on a mix-, mileage- and seasonally adjusted basis) declined 1.0% in April from March. The Manheim Used Vehicle Value Index declined to 221.2, which was up 14.0% from a year ago. The non-adjusted price change in April was an increase of 2.9% compared to March, leaving the unadjusted average price up 16.4% year over year. Manheim Market Report (MMR) values saw weekly price increases that were strongest to start April and slowed as the month progressed.This index from Manheim Consulting is based on all completed sales transactions at Manheim’s U.S. auctions.The Manheim index suggests used car prices declined in April seasonally adjusted but are still up 14.0% year-over-year.Note: This index was up 25% YoY last month, and up 45% YoY in January - so it appears prices will be down YoY soon.According to the BLS, "Used cars and trucks" were down 3.8% in March compared to February and up 35% year-over-year in March. It seems likely that "Used cars and trucks" will be down again in the April CPI report.
April Vehicles Sales increased to 14.29 million SAAR - Wards Auto released their estimate of light vehicle sales for April. Wards Auto estimates sales of 14.29 million SAAR in April 2022 (Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate), up 6.9% from the March sales rate, and down 21.9% from April 2021. This graph shows light vehicle sales since 2006 from the BEA (blue) and Wards Auto's estimate for April (red). The impact of COVID-19 was significant, and April 2020 was the worst month. After April 2020, sales increased, and were close to sales in 2019 (the year before the pandemic). However, sales decreased late last year due to supply issues. It appears the "supply chain bottom" was in September 2021, and sales in April were above the consensus forecast of 13.8 million SAAR. Sales are still weak but picking up.
ISM® Manufacturing index Decreased to 55.4% in April - The ISM manufacturing index indicated expansion. The PMI® was at 55.4% in April, down from 57.1% in March. The employment index was at 50.9%, down from 56.3% last month, and the new orders index was at 53.5%, down from 53.8%. From ISM: Manufacturing PMI® at 55.4% April 2022 Manufacturing ISM® Report On Business® “The April Manufacturing PMI® registered 55.4 percent, a decrease of 1.7 percentage points from the March reading of 57.1 percent. This figure indicates expansion in the overall economy for the 23rd month in a row after a contraction in April and May 2020. This is the lowest reading since July 2020 (53.9 percent). The New Orders Index registered 53.5 percent, down 0.3 percentage point compared to the March reading of 53.8 percent. The Production Index reading of 53.6 percent is a 0.9-percentage point decrease compared to March’s figure of 54.5 percent. The Prices Index registered 84.6 percent, down 2.5 percentage points compared to the March figure of 87.1 percent. The Backlog of Orders Index registered 56 percent, 4 percentage points lower than the March reading of 60 percent. The Employment Index figure of 50.9 percent is 5.4 percentage points lower than the 56.3 percent recorded in March. The Supplier Deliveries Index registered 67.2 percent, an increase of 1.8 percentage points compared to the March figure of 65.4 percent. The Inventories Index registered 51.6 percent, 3.9 percentage points lower than the March reading of 55.5 percent. The New Export Orders Index reading of 52.7 percent is down 0.5 percentage point compared to March’s figure of 53.2 percent. The Imports Index registered 51.4 percent, a 0.4-percentage point decrease from the March reading of 51.8 percent.” This suggests manufacturing expanded at a slower pace in April than in March. This was below the consensus forecast, and the employment index was weak in April.
April Markit Manufacturing: Activity Strengthens - The April US Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index conducted by Markit came in at 59.2, up 0.4 from the final March figure.Here is an excerpt from IHS Markit in their latest press release: Chris Williamson, Chief Business Economist at IHS Markit said:“After a slow start to the year, which saw production growth almost stall, the manufacturing sector is starting the second quarter on a much stronger footing. Demand from consumers and businesses is proving encouragingly robust despite severe inflationary pressures, which intensified further during April.“Both input cost and selling price inflation surged higher, the latter accelerating to a near-record rate, as firms faced rising energy prices, ongoing supplier-driven price hikes amid strained supply chains, and rising wage costs.“In short, while the survey data add to indications that the pace of economic growth will improve in the second quarter after a lacklustre first quarter, the less welcome news is that elevated inflationary pressures show no signs of relenting.” [Press Release]Here is a snapshot of the series since mid-2012. Here is an overlay with the equivalent PMI survey conducted by the Institute for Supply Management (see our full article on this series here).
US Manufactures: Inflation Is “Out of Control,” Has Not Peaked, but “Intensified” amid Strong Demand, Shortages, and Lengthening Lead Times “Efforts to stockpile” input materials to counter price increases and shortages. But finished goods inventories continued to fall. By Wolf Richter - The two US manufacturing PMIs released today – they’re based on the views of manufacturing executives about their own companies compared to what they saw in the prior month – painted a similar picture for April: raging unrelenting inflation, supply constraints, and strong demand. And stockpiling of pre-production materials they could get reached survey highs to counteract price increases and shortages — a typical inflationary reaction, part of the inflationary mindset, that ends up making inflation and shortages even worse.Amid strong growth in demand and expansion in production, Manufacturers reported that inflation in April “accelerated” and inflationary pressures showed “no signs of relenting,” amid “sharper increases in cost burdens and selling prices,” and continued shortages from suppliers with lead times from suppliers lengthening further, as suppliers struggle with “severe material and capacity shortages,” according to the S&P Global US Manufacturing PMI today (formerly the Markit PMI).“Demand from consumers and businesses is proving encouragingly robust despite severe inflationary pressures, which intensified further during April,” the PMI report said.“Both input cost and selling price inflation surged higher, the latter accelerating to a near-record rate, as firms faced rising energy prices, ongoing supplier-driven price hikes amid strained supply chains, and rising wage costs,” the PMI report said.“Higher cost burdens were attributed to greater material and supplier prices, notably increased transportation, fuel and metals expenses,” the report said.“Firms continued to pass higher material and staff costs on to clients in April, as the rate of charge inflation accelerated. The increase in selling prices was the fastest since last October. And stockpiling of input materials to counteract price increases and shortages: “In line with a further upturn in new orders, firms raised their input buying at a sharp pace. Many companies stated that higher purchasing activity was linked to efforts to stockpile inputs amid price increases and material shortages,” the report said. “As a result, pre-production inventories expanded at the steepest rate on record,” the report said. But stocks of finished goods “continued to contract.” “The U.S. manufacturing sector remains in a demand-driven, supply chain-constrained environment,” with five of the six biggest manufacturing industries – machinery; computer & electronics; food & beverage; transportation equipment; and chemical products – registering moderate-to-strong growth in April, the ISM Manufacturing Report on Business said today.“In April, progress slowed in solving labor shortage problems at all tiers of the supply chain. Panelists reported higher rates of quits compared to previous months, with fewer panelists reporting improvement in meeting head-count targets,” the report said.“Panelists continue to note supply chain and pricing issues as their biggest concerns,” the report said.Prices expanded further in April, at a slightly slower rate than in March, but surcharges increased further, the report said.“Inputs – expressed as supplier deliveries, inventories, and imports – continued to constrain production expansion,” as supplier deliveries “slowed at a faster rate in April.” Here’s what ISM respondents said about their own firms:
America is trying to fix the chip shortage one factory at a time - From afar, the new Wolfspeed factory in upstate New York looks like any other large corporate office building, with an unassuming gray exterior and large glass windows. But hidden inside is a high-tech plant that’s almost entirely operated by a fleet of robots programmed to build semiconductors with a high level of precision. The scene is a far cry from the manual labor of the 20th-century Ford assembly line, and it just might be the future of American manufacturing, at least according to the politicians and executives who celebrated the plant’s grand opening in late April.To mark the occasion, a few hundred people, including Wolfspeed employees, investors, and local officials, gathered in a large tent just a short walk away from the factory’s entryway. A series of speakers, including Wolfspeed CEO Gregg Lowe, took turns boastingabout the plant’s importance — for local jobs, for technology, for fighting climate change, and even for American prosperity. Also in attendance was Eric Bach, the chief engineer of Lucid Motors, an electric automaker that, just a few hours earlier, announced it would start using Wolfspeed’s chips in its vehicles. The star of the show: New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, who claimed the new facility was part of the “greatest comeback in the history of this nation” before she took a spin in one of the luxury Lucid EVs. :”This has to happen. No longer can the country, the United States, be brought to its knees because of supply chain issues,” Hochul told Recode. “Make them here! Make them in New York! We’ll put the money behind it.”Wolfspeed’s factory is opening its doors after more than two years of a worldwide semiconductor shortage that left cars without parts and the health care system low onmedical devices. To produce more chips, the Biden administration, with the help of state governments, now plans to invest $52 billion in the chip industry to build more factories just like the new plant outside Utica, New York. The hope is that these plants won’t just make more semiconductors; they’ll spur a tech manufacturing renaissance in the same country that invented the computer chip and produced Silicon Valley decades ago.
AAR: April Rail Carloads and Intermodal Down Year-over-year -From the Association of American Railroads (AAR) Rail Time Indicators. Graphs and excerpts reprinted with permission.U.S. rail traffic in April 2022 was like a box of assorted chocolates: it had something for everyone. Optimists can point to several commodities that had solid traffic gains. For example, April 2022 was the third best month ever for carloads of chemicals, with carloads up 3.4% over last year. April’s carloads of iron and steel scrap were the highest since August 2013, while carloads of autos and auto parts were up 12.0% over last year. Carloads of food products and crushed stone and sand were also up.Pessimists can point to several traffic categories with lower volumes in April. For example, carloads of grain in April were the fewest in seven months, coal carloads were the lowest in more than a year, and carloads of petroleum products were their second lowest since September 2017. This graph from the Rail Time Indicators report shows the six-week average of U.S. Carloads in 2020, 2021 and 2022:Total carloads on U.S. railroads fell 3.4% in April 2022 from April 2021, their second monthly decline so far this year following 10 straight monthly gains from March to December 2021. For 2022 through April, total carloads were up 1.1% over the same period in 2021. The second graph shows the six-week average (not monthly) of U.S. intermodal in 2020, 2021 and 2022: (using intermodal or shipping containers): U.S. railroads originated an average of 270,788 intermodal containers and trailers per week in April 2022. That’s the most since August 2021, but down 7.7% from April 2021. For context, April 2021 was the best intermodal month in history for U.S. railroads.
Diesel Spikes to WTF Record $5.51, Gasoline Jumps to $4.18 - by Wolf Richter -- The average retail price of No. 2 highway diesel spiked to $5.51 per gallon at the pump on Monday May 2, the highest ever, the US Energy Department’s EIA reported late Monday, based on its surveys of gas stations conducted during the day. This comes despite crude oil prices that have come down from the March 8 peak. On a year-over-year basis, the price of diesel has now jumped by $2.37 per gallon, or by 75%! Over the past four months, diesel has spiked by nearly 50%. This price increase puts additional cost pressures on truckers. And it will be passed on to everything that is moved by truck, which sooner or later is nearly every product being sold, piling additional costs on households, offices, construction sites, and manufacturing plants:The prior record era for diesel occurred in 2008 and peaked in July that year at $4.76. Demand destruction related to the Financial Crisis, the housing bust, and the construction bust then killed the price spike.But adjusted for CPI inflation, the price at the time of $4.76 would be $6.22 today. So we still have a long way to go. The average price of all grades of gasoline at the pump jumped to $4.18 per gallon on Monday, the second week in a row of increases, and was up 45% from a year ago, according to the EIA late Monday. But this was still lower than the record on Monday March 14 of $4.32: Adjusted for CPI inflation, it’s far from a record. In July 2008, gasoline hit $4.11, which in today’s CPI adjusted dollars would be $5.37 a gallon. But wait a minute… crude oil WTI futures at $105 a barrel are roughly where they’d been at the end of March, and are below where they’d been in 2013 and 2014, and well below the peak in July 2008, when they’d briefly kissed $150 a barrel. And the astounding mind-bender: today’s price of $105 a barrel is up from minus $37 in April 2020. Adjusted for CPI inflation, WTI futures of $150 a barrel back in July 2008 would be $196 today. So, comparatively speaking, the US economy hasn’t seen anything yet. For an actual oil shock to set in, prices would have to be much higher – and they might still get there. Gasoline futures have been horribly volatile since February, spiking and plunging from one day to the next, but since mid-April have trended upward (chart via Investing.com). This idea that somehow crude oil, diesel, and gasoline prices would quietly go back to “normal” seems farfetched. What is the case though is that the inflationary mindset has thoroughly taken over, as the oil industry and gas stations were easily able to mark up the price of diesel to record levels, given the massive demand from truckers. And they were able to mark up the price of gasoline to near-record levels. And they were able to do all this, and not trigger a buyers’ strike yet, though crude oil remains 30% below record levels, which points at an extraordinary inflationary mindset where customers just pay whatever.
Diesel fuel is in short supply as prices surge — Here's what that means for inflation - Diesel prices are surging, contributing to inflationary headwinds due to the fuel's vital role in the American and global economy. Tankers, trains and trucks all run on diesel. The fuel is also used across industries including farming, manufacturing, metals and mining. "Diesel is the fuel that powers the economy," said Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy. Higher prices are "certainly going to translate into more expensive goods," he said, since these higher fuel costs will be passed along to consumers. "Especially at the grocery store, the hardware store, anywhere you shop." In other words, the impacts will be felt across the economy. The jump in prices comes on the heels of growing demand as economies around the world get back to business. This, in turn, has pushed inventories to historic lows. Products like diesel, heating oil and jet fuel are known as "middle distillates," since they are made from the middle of the boiling range when oil is turned into products. U.S. distillate inventory is now at the lowest level in more than decade. The move is even more extreme on the East Coast, where stockpiles are at the lowest since 1996. Diesel and jet fuel at New York harbor are now trading well above $200 per barrel, according to UBS. Europe's move away from dependency on Russian energy is hastening the rapid price appreciation. The bloc currently imports around 700,000 barrels per day of diesel from Russia, according to Stephen Brennock at brokerage PVM. "[T]he tightness in global supply will be exacerbated by the EU's proposal to ban Russian oil imports," he said. "The ban, if approved, will have an outsized impact on product markets and especially diesel….There is now growing anxiety that Europe might run out of diesel." Energy consultancy Rystad echoed this point, saying that the loss of Russian refined products is going to make diesel shortages in Europe "more acute." Refiners can't just ramp up output to meet surging demand, and utilization rates are already above 90%. In the U.S., refining capacity has decreased in recent years. The largest refining complex on the East Coast — Philadelphia Energy Solutions — shut down following a fire in June 2019. Several refiners are now being reconfigured to make biofuel, which has also reduced capacity. Some refiners are also undergoing routine maintenance checks that were overdue following the pandemic. These facilities typically run flat out – 24 hours a day, seven days a week – and so at some point the machinery needs to be checked. A common saying in commodity markets is "the cure for high prices is high prices." But that might not be the case this time around. According to UBS, distillate demand tends to be less elastic than gasoline prices. In other words, while high prices at the pump might deter consumers, if a business needs to get goods from point A to point B, it's going to pay those higher prices.
Trade Deficit increased to $109.8 Billion in March -- From the Department of Commerce reported: The U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis announced today that the goods and services deficit was $109.8 billion in March, up $20.0 billion from $89.8 billion in February, revised.March exports were $241.7 billion, $12.9 billion more than February exports. March imports were $351.5 billion, $32.9 billion more than February imports..Both exports and imports increased in March.Exports are up 18% year-over-year; imports are up 27% year-over-year. Both imports and exports decreased sharply due to COVID-19, and have now bounced back (imports more than exports),The second graph shows the U.S. trade deficit, with and without petroleum.The blue line is the total deficit, and the black line is the petroleum deficit, and the red line is the trade deficit ex-petroleum products.Note that net, imports and exports of petroleum products are close to zero.The trade deficit with China increased to $34.0 billion in March, from $27.7 billion a year ago. This is a record trade deficit and was close to expectations.
ISM® Services Index Decreased to 57.1% in April, Employment Contracted -- The ISM® Services index was at 57.1%, down from 58.3% last month. The employment index decreased to 49.5%, from 54.0%. Note: Above 50 indicates expansion, below 50 in contraction. From the Institute for Supply Management: Services PMI® at 57.1% April 2022 Services ISM® Report On Business® “In April, the Services PMI® registered 57.1 percent, 1.2 percentage points lower than March’s reading of 58.3 percent. The Business Activity Index registered 59.1 percent, an increase of 3.6 percentage points compared to the reading of 55.5 percent in March, and the New Orders Index figure of 54.6 percent is 5.5 percentage points lower than the March reading of 60.1 percent. ... Employment activity in the services sector contracted in April. ISM®’s Employment Index registered 49.5 percent, down 4.5 percentage points from the reading of 54 percent registered in March. Comments from respondents include: “Job openings exist, but finding talent to fill them remains a struggle across most industry sectors and job categories” and “Demand for employment remains hypercompetitive; there is just not enough qualified personnel available.”
Weekly Initial Unemployment Claims Increase to 200,000 --The DOL reported: In the week ending April 30, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 200,000, an increase of 19,000 from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised up by 1,000 from 180,000 to 181,000. The 4-week moving average was 188,000, an increase of 8,000 from the previous week's revised average. The previous week's average was revised up by 250 from 179,750 to 180,000. The following graph shows the 4-week moving average of weekly claims since 1971.
BLS: Job Openings at Series High 11.5 million in March -- From the BLS: Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary: The number of job openings was at a series high of 11.5 million on the last business day of March, although little changed over the month, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Hires, at 6.7 million, were also little changed while total separations edged up to 6.3 million. Within separations, quits edged up to a series high of 4.5 million, while layoffs and discharges were little changed at 1.4 million. The following graph shows job openings (yellow line), hires (dark blue), Layoff, Discharges and other (red column), and Quits (light blue column) from the JOLTS. This series started in December 2000. Note: The difference between JOLTS hires and separations is similar to the CES (payroll survey) net jobs headline numbers. This report is for March, the employment report this Friday will be for April. Click on graph for larger image. Note that hires (dark blue) and total separations (red and light blue columns stacked) are usually pretty close each month. This is a measure of labor market turnover. When the blue line is above the two stacked columns, the economy is adding net jobs - when it is below the columns, the economy is losing jobs. The spike in layoffs and discharges in March 2020 are labeled, but off the chart to better show the usual data. Jobs openings decreased slightly in March to 11.549 million from 11.344 million in February. The number of job openings (yellow) were up 36% year-over-year. Quits were up 23% year-over-year. These are voluntary separations. (See light blue columns at bottom of graph for trend for "quits").
ADP: Private Employment Increased 247,000 in April -From ADP: Private sector employment increased by 247,000 jobs from March to April according to the April ADP® National Employment ReportTM. Broadly distributed to the public each month, free of charge, the ADP National Employment Report is produced by the ADP Research Institute® in collaboration with Moody’s Analytics. The report, which is derived from ADP’s actual data of those who are on a company’s payroll, measures the change in total nonfarm private employment each month on a seasonally-adjusted basis“In April, the labor market recovery showed signs of slowing as the economy approaches full employment,” said Nela Richardson, chief economist, ADP. “While hiring demand remains strong, labor supply shortages caused job gains to soften for both goods producers and services providers. As the labor market tightens, small companies, with fewer than 50 employees, struggle with competition for wages amid increased costs.”This was below the consensus forecast of 395,000 for this report.The BLS report will be released Friday, and the consensus is for 400 thousand non-farm payroll jobs added in April. The ADP report has not been veryuseful in predicting the BLS report, but this suggests a weaker than expected BLS report.
April Jobs Report: Gain of 428,000 Shows Vibrant Labor Market -- The U.S. economic rebound from the pandemic’s devastation held strong in April with another month of solid job growth.Employers added 428,000 jobs, matching the previous month, the Labor Department reported Friday, with the growth broad-based across every major industry.The unemployment rate remained 3.6 percent, just a touch above its level before the pandemic, when it was the lowest in half a century.The challenge of a highly competitive labor market for employers — a shortage of available workers — persisted as well. In fact, the report showed a decline of 363,000 in the labor force.The economy has regained nearly 95 percent of the 22 million jobs lost at the height of coronavirus-related lockdowns two years ago. But the labor supply has not kept up with a record wave of job openings as businesses expand to match consumers’ continued willingness to buy a variety of goods and services. There are now 1.9 job openings for every unemployed worker.The hiring scramble has driven up wages, and employers are largely passing on that expense, helping fuel inflation that Americans have cited as their leading economic concern. On that front, Friday’s report showed an easing in the acceleration of average hourly earnings, which increased 0.3 percent from the month before, after a 0.5 percent gain in March.President Biden pointed to the latest data as evidence of “the strongest job creation economy in modern times,” a message the White House is increasingly amplifying ahead of the congressional elections.The share of people who have looked for work in the past four weeks or are temporarily laid off, which does not capture everyone who lost work because of the pandemic.But a record share of Americans now rate inflation as the biggest financial problems facing their households, according to a Gallup Poll in April. The survey found that 46 percent of Americans rated their personal finances positively, down from 57 percent last year, when most households were freshly benefiting from rounds of direct federal aid. After the Labor Department report on Friday, Ronna McDaniel, the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, put the spotlight on inflation rather than jobs. “Families can’t afford food and groceries, wages can’t keep up with inflation, and Biden’s agenda is only going to make it worse,” she said in a statement.The April survey showed average hourly earnings 5.5 percent higher than a year earlier, but with inflation running at 6.6 percent— its highest rate in 40 years — workers are being left with reduced purchasing power.
April Employment Report: 428 thousand Jobs, 3.6% Unemployment Rate - From the BLS: Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 428,000 in April, and the unemployment rate was unchanged at 3.6 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Job growth was widespread, led by gains in leisure and hospitality, in manufacturing, and in transportation and warehousing.The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for February was revised down by 36,000, from +750,000 to +714,000, and the change for March was revised down by 3,000, from +431,000 to +428,000. With these revisions, employment in February and March combined is 39,000 lower than previously reported.The first graph shows the job losses from the start of the employment recession, in percentage terms.The current employment recession was by far the worst recession since WWII in percentage terms. However, 26 months after the onset of the current employment recession, almost all of the jobs have returned.The second graph shows the year-over-year change in total non-farm employment since 1968.In April, the year-over-year change was 6.6 million jobs. This was up significantly year-over-year.Total payrolls increased by 428 thousand in April. Private payrolls increased by 406 thousand, and public payrolls increased 22 thousand.Payrolls for February and March were revised down 39 thousand, combined.The third graph shows the employment population ratio and the participation rate.The Labor Force Participation Rate decreased to 62.2% in April, from 62.4% in March. This is the percentage of the working age population in the labor force.The Employment-Population ratio decreased to 60.1% from 60.0% (blue line). The fourth graph shows the unemployment rate.The unemployment rate was unchanged in April at 3.6% from 3.6% in March.This was slightly above consensus expectations; however, February and March payrolls were revised down by 39,000 combined.
April jobs report: strong Establishment survey, very weak Household survey -We still have 1.2 million jobs, or 0.8% of the total to go to equal the number of employees in February 2020 just before the pandemic hit. At the current average rate for the past 6 months of 552,000 jobs added per month, that’s 2 months from now. Here’s my in depth synopsis of the report: HEADLINES:
- 428,000 jobs added. Private sector jobs increased 406,000. Government jobs increased by 22,000 jobs.
- The alternate, and more volatile measure in the household report indicated a gain of only 115,000 jobs, after a February gain of 122,000 and a March gain of 120,000 - or an average gain of only 119,000 jobs per month for the last 3 months. The above household number factors into the unemployment and underemployment rates below.
- U3 unemployment rate was unchanged 3.6%, 0.1% above the January 2020 low of 3.5%.
- U6 underemployment rate *rose* 0.1% to 6.0%, 0.1% above the January 2020 low of 6.9%.
- Those not in the labor force at all, but who want a job now, rose 122,000 to 5.859 million, compared with 4.996 million in February 2020.
- Those on temporary layoff rose 66,000 to 853,000.
- Permanent job losers declined -13,000 to 1,386,000.
- February was revised downward by -36,000. March was also revised downward by -3,000, for a net decline of -39,000 jobs compared with previous reports.
- the average manufacturing workweek, one of the 10 components of the Index of Leading Indicators, declined -0.1 hour to 41.4 hours.
- Manufacturing jobs increased 55,000. Since the beginning of the pandemic, manufacturing has still lost -56,000 jobs, or -0.4% of the total.
- Construction jobs increased 2,000. All of the jobs lost during the pandemic, plus another 738,000, have been made up.
- Residential construction jobs, which are even more leading, increased 3,500. Since the beginning of the pandemic over 50,000 jobs have been gained in this sector.
- Temporary jobs rose by 2400. Since the beginning of the pandemic, almost 250,000 jobs have been gained.
- the number of people unemployed for 5 weeks or less declined by -67,000 to 2,227,000, which is 97,000 higher than just before the pandemic hit.
- Professional and business employment increased by 41,000, which is about 750,000 above its pre-pandemic peak.
- Average Hourly Earnings for Production and Nonsupervisory Personnel: rose $0.10 to $27.12, which is a 6.4% YoY gain, down from 6.7% in the past two months.
- the index of aggregate hours worked for non-managerial workers rose by 0.3%, which is a loss of -0.4% since just before the pandemic.
- the index of aggregate payrolls for non-managerial workers rose by 0.7%, which is a gain of 12.4% (before inflation) since just before the pandemic.
- Leisure and hospitality jobs, which were the most hard-hit during the pandemic, rose 78,000, but are still -1,438,000, or -8.5% below their pre-pandemic peak.
- Within the leisure and hospitality sector, food and drink establishments added 43,800 jobs, and is still -793,800, or -6.4% below their pre-pandemic peak.
- Full time jobs *declined* -651,000 in the household report.
- Part time jobs increased 189,000 in the household report.
- The number of job holders who were part time for economic reasons declined by -137,000 to 4,033,000, which is still below their level before the pandemic began.
- The Labor Force Participation Rate declined -0.2% to 62.2%.
SUMMARY: This report had a decidedly split personality. The Establishment report, which asks employers about their hiring, continued to hit on almost all cylinders, with both the total number of new jobs, and the growth of jobs in the leading sectors, continuing to increase at a solid clip. Although the YoY pace of wage gains decelerated a little, it still increased solidly as well. The only downsides were the decline in the manufacturing workweek, and more importantly, the slight downward revisions of the past two months. The situation was completely different in the Household report, which asks individuals what their employment situation is. This month - and the previous two months as well - increased at a rate that didn’t even keep pace with the growth in the adult population. The unemployment rate held steady, but the underemployment rate rose, and the labor force participation rate declined. The number of persons working full time also declined significantly. mAt turning points, the household report generally leads the establishment report. So the softness in the household report raises a caution flag. I have been expecting the sharp deceleration in consumer spending to show up in hiring, and this month’s household report may be the first sign of that happening.
Comments on April Employment Report - McBride - This was another solid report. The headline jobs number in the April employment report was slightly above expectations, however employment for the previous two months was revised down by 39,000. The participation rate and the employment-population ratio both decreased slightly, and the unemployment rate was unchanged at 3.6%. Excluding leisure and hospitality, the economy has added back all the jobs lost at the beginning of the pandemic. Leisure and hospitality gained 78 thousand jobs in April. At the beginning of the pandemic, in March and April of 2020, leisure and hospitality lost 8.20 million jobs, and are now down 1.44 million jobs since February 2020. So, leisure and hospitality has now added back about 83% all of the jobs lost in March and April 2020. Construction employment increased 2 thousand and is now 4 thousand above the pre-pandemic level. Manufacturing added 55 thousand jobs and is still 56 thousand below the pre-pandemic level. In April, the year-over-year employment change was 6.6 million jobs. This graph shows permanent job losers as a percent of the pre-recession peak in employment through the report today. This data is only available back to 1994, so there is only data for three recessions. In March, the number of permanent job losers decreased to 1.386 million from 1.392 million in the previous month. These jobs were likely the hardest to recover, so it is a positive that the number of permanent job losers is almost back to pre-recession levels. Since the overall participation rate has declined due to cyclical (recession) and demographic (aging population, younger people staying in school) reasons, here is the employment-population ratio for the key working age group: 25 to 54 years old. The 25 to 54 participation rate decreased in April to 82.4% from 82.5% in March, and the 25 to 54 employment population ratio decreased to 79.9% from 80.0% the previous month. Both are slightly below the pre-pandemic levels and indicate almost all of the prime age workers have returned to the labor force. The number of persons working part time for economic reasons decreased in April to 4.033 million from 4.170 million in March. This is below pre-recession levels. These workers are included in the alternate measure of labor underutilization (U-6) that increased to 7.0% from 6.9% in the previous month. This is down from the record high in April 22.9% for this measure since 1994. This measure at the 7.0% in February 2020 (pre-pandemic). This graph shows the number of workers unemployed for 27 weeks or more. According to the BLS, there are 1.483 million workers who have been unemployed for more than 26 weeks and still want a job, up from 1.428 million the previous month. This does not include all the people that left the labor force. Summary: The headline monthly jobs number was slightly above expectations; however, the previous two months were revised down by 39,000 combined. The headline unemployment rate was unchanged at 3.6%. There are still 1.2 million fewer jobs than prior to the recession. Overall, this was another solid report.
Healthcare workers with long COVID are having their careers cut short due to debilitating symptoms as the industry struggles with labor shortages - A year ago, Maddy was guiding hundreds of uninsured women through cancer treatment as a healthcare worker at a major Connecticut hospital. Now, she says she relies on calendar notifications for daily tasks and forgets entire conversations hours after she's had them. Her sister calls her each night to remind her to lock the door and set an alarm, she told Insider. The former hospital worker is one of millions of Americans who have developed long-term health issues from initial COVID-19 infections, including lingering symptoms that significantly impact their daily lives and compromise their employment. "I don't use the stovetop anymore," Maddy said. "There were too many times where I forgot I was cooking something and almost set the kitchen on fire." According to the Brookings Institution, a nonprofit research group, one in seven US workers may experience lingering COVID-19 symptoms like Maddy's. That means long COVID, formally called "post-acute sequelae of COVID-19," could be preventing or stalling 1.6 million Americans from returning to work amid a national labor shortage. According to a February report from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, a UK-based human resources organization, one in four employers across 804 surveyed organizations listed long COVID as a top three reason contributing to long-term employee absence. There is no official, consistent diagnosis of long COVID. However, all three women interviewed by Insider provided medical records describing the "development of new or recurrent symptoms that occur after the symptoms of acute illness have resolved," as the condition is defined by the CDC. After initially testing positive for the virus in January 2021, Maddy told Insider she was unable to work for six weeks due to fever and still suffers to this day from severe fatigue, memory loss, and shortness of breath. After the fever receded, Maddy said she returned to the hospital part-time, working four to six hour shifts. "It would feel like I worked a 16-hour shift," she said. "I was scared to drive because I was afraid of falling asleep." Three weeks later, she was placed on medical leave. When Maddy was unable to return to work after the 26 week disability period, she was replaced — in March 2022, the hospital officially ended her employment. Now, left without employee benefits and healthcare, Maddy said navigating the maze of long COVID treatment has become a "nightmare."
Tenet Healthcare seeks to impose 12-hour shifts on St. Vincent nurses in Massachusetts-The Massachusetts Nurses Association (MNA) announced April 26 it had filed an unfair practice charge against Tenet Healthcare with the National Labor Relations Board (NRLB). The health conglomerate that owns St. Vincent hospital in Worcester, Massachusetts is seeking to impose 12-hour shifts on nurses working on all the inpatient units and the emergency department. The MNA has identified 250 nurses who will be impacted by the change, which is set to be imposed by Tenet on May 1. The statement the MNA published on PR Newswire states: “In response to Tenet’s plan, the MNA requested to meet to work out a mutually agreeable plan that would include both 8- and 12-hour work shifts for nurses. Instead of responding and meeting promptly with MNA, Tenet had its managers deal directly with nurses, pushing them the [sic] agree to accept the new 12-hour shifts—all of which is in direct violation of the nurses’ rights.” Hospital management did meet with the union on April 15, but the session ended with no resolution to the issue. In addition to having filed charges of unfair labor practice with the NLRB, the union has filed for an injunction to halt implementation of the change. Neither the filing of charges with the anti-worker NLRB or the courts will deter Tenet in the least. These actions by MNA are in essence meaningless gestures, aimed at paving the way to complete capitulations to management’s demands. Julie Pinkham, executive director of the MNA, whose members include nurses working in 70 percent of Massachusetts acute care hospitals, bemoans the fact that management did not commit to good faith negotiations. In doing so, she argues that the union could have ensured “a smooth transition.” Pinkham states: “At most any other hospital represented by the MNA, such a change would occur over an extended period of time, in a good faith process of negotiation with the union to ensure a smooth transition, accommodating the needs of the nurses impacted, while ensuring safe patient care delivery.”
NJ Transit Rider Starts Petition for Mask-Only Cars in Wake of Fed Mandate Ruling -You've heard of NJ Transit's "quiet car." How about one for face masks?A number of commuters who use the rails to get to and from work -- or wherever -- each day say NJ Transit should make at least one car available only to people who still want to wear face masks aboard for COVID safety reasons.NJ Transit was among a number of agencies that made masks optional last week after a federal judge in Florida struck down the national federal mask order for travel.A Change.org petition started two days ago asks NJ Transit to make a special face mask car offering similar to its designated quiet cars. Quiet cars are available on all trains arriving at or departing from Penn Station in New York City and Newark, as well as Hoboken, during high-volume transit hours (6 a.m. to 8 p.m. in most cases).That program debuted more than a decade ago.A commuter advocate and NJ Transit rider named Adam Reich started the Change.org petition but has been pushing for the mask-only cars for weeks."It would comfort people with health issues, and it would mirror the quiet car, just have a single car," Reich, who uses the Northeast Corridor line, told NJ.com.Specifically, his new Change.org petition asks NJ Transit to "designate at least one car on each train as a 'mask car,' so as to maximize safety and comfort for those riders who wish to wear a mask in the presence of other riders who will also be masked at all times. Riders who do not wish to wear a mask could ride any of the other cars on board."That mask-only car would require passengers and staff serving it to wear face coverings properly at all times, Reich proposes. Eating and drinking would be banned on those cars. Masked riders could still choose any other car to sit in, while unmasked riders could easily be directed to another car as well, Reich says.
Power shutoff study highlights need for transparency into investor-owned utility debts, groups say --Since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, U.S. electric utilities have disconnected more than 3.5 million households while utility executive compensation has "skyrocketed," according to the latest iteration of a report from the Center for Biological Diversity and BailoutWatch.Using the analysis published on Monday, the groups will advocate for greater transparency of utility power shutoffs, to better understand how the rate of disconnections is impacting Americans.Only 33 states and Washington D.C. require shutoff disclosures from utilities, per the report.However, the investor-owned utility trade association, Edison Electric Institute, refutes some claims in the report, saying outstanding debts from customers are much higher than presented."Outside groups that advocated for a one-size-fits-all approach continue to push out dubious claims about our industry’s efforts to support our customers," Brian Reil, EEI spokesperson, said in an email.The Center for Biologicial Diversity and BailoutWatch published the first iteration of "Powerless in the Pandemic" in March 2021, citing the greatest impacts on Southeastern states, including Georgia, Florida and the Carolinas. The new version includes disconnection data for the full year of 2021, while adding a new layer of comparing shareholder and executive compensation changes since the start of the pandemic.The report says 12 utilities have been responsible for 87% of all documented disconnections during the pandemic: NextEra Energy, Duke Energy, Southern Company, Exelon, American Electric Power, Ameren, AES Corporation, FirstEnergy, Emera, PPL Corporation, DTE Energy and CMS Energy. According to the report, shareholder dividends for those 12 utilities increased by 13%, or $1.9 billion, in 2020 and 2021. Eight of those utilities have also seen executive compensation increase by an average of 24% during the pandemic.The report posits that the $1.9 billion increase in shareholder payouts could have been used to forgive customer debt for those 12 utilities five times over. The report assumes monthly U.S. electric bills are $106 for the unpaid bills, thus having the 3,170,730 household shutoffs that occurred during the pandemic amount to nearly $336.1 million. According to EEI, the debts of a typical household at risk of being disconnected "unfortunately were much higher than $106" when energy is shut off. The report does quote National Energy Assistance Directors’ Association estimates that total utility arrearages increased from $20.2 billion in 2020 to about $22.3 billion in 2021.
Arizona school district passes resolution opposing state’s transgender sports ban – An Arizona high school district on Thursday passed a resolution to support its transgender student athletes, challenging a state law passed in March that bans transgender youth from participating on sports teams consistent with their gender identity.In a resolution passed Thursday evening pledging to support transgender youth in Arizona, the Phoenix Union High School District’s governing board wrote that it believes “every child deserves to be treated with dignity and respect, and provided fair access to opportunities” regardless of their gender identity or gender expression.The district added that it believes all students should be able to attend school in a “safe and inclusive environment” that is “free from discrimination.”In March, Arizona’s Republican Gov. Doug Ducey signed into law legislation requiring public and private schools in the state to designate sports teams based on student athletes’ “biological sex,”writing in a signing letter that the measure merely recognizes “that there are inherent biological distinctions that merit separate categories to ensure fairness for all.”“This legislation simply ensures that the young girls and young women who have dedicated themselves to their sport do not miss out on hard-earned opportunities including their titles, standings and scholarships due to unfair competition,” Ducey wrote.In enacting that law, Arizona joined more than a dozen other states passing legislation to keep transgender students out of athletics. Since then, Kentucky and Georgia have also signed transgender athlete bans into law.The Phoenix Union High School District in its resolution cited research from the LGBTQ+ youth suicide prevention and crisis intervention group The Trevor Project, which in a report published earlier this week found LGBTQ+ young people who do not feel affirmed in their identity are more likely to attempt suicide and self-harm. “The Governing Board opposes legislation that is an attack on the safety of trans children and youth including legislation requiring them to participate in athletic competitions based on their sex assigned at birth,” the resolution, signed by Governing Board President Lela Alston and Governing Board Clerk Stanford Prescott, reads.
Biden's new disinformation czar said fears about CRT in Loudoun County schools are 'disinformation for profit' - despite entire school board now facing being voted out over woke 'equity' seminars for teachers - Joe Biden's new 'disinformation czar' dismissed concerns about Critical Race Theory in schools as 'disinformation for profit' - despite parents across the country being worried about the teaching of the philosophy in their children's classrooms. Nina Jankowicz, a disinformation expert who has worked throughout Eastern Europe, was hired on April 27 to lead a Homeland Security Department working group designed to help its different agencies in dealing with disinformation on topics ranging from migration to plots from Russia and Iran. But her appointment has angered Republicans. The Republican National Committee dubbed the committee she heads 'Ministry of Truth' in a nod to George Orwell's novel '1984,' and raised fears that the group will deem as disinformation 'any speech we don't like.' Other critics have seized upon her past comments - noting that she described Hunter Biden's laptop as 'the laptop from hell' and echoed the opinion of national security experts at the time that the laptop was part of a Russian influence operation. It has since been confirmed by multiple news organizations, including DailyMail.com, as authentic. On Wednesday, a clip from a November 2021 address to The City Club of Cleveland was circulated online, which showed Jankowicz downplaying concerns about CRT. One man in the audience said that Republicans were using Critical Race Theory to divide people, and asked her: 'How do you get people to understand and go beyond the headlines?' Critical race theory, or CRT, is a legal framework taught primarily in law schools which claims that racism is embedded in American political and social institutions. Conservatives have taken to using the phrase as a way to describe lessons on racism and 'equity' across all grade levels - and have criticized the theory for claiming that the U.S. is built on racial animus, with skin color determining the social, economic and political differences between people. Advocates, however, say its' teaching is necessary to underline how deeply racism pervades society. Critics say it is divisive and paints everyone as a victim or oppressor. Loudoun Superintendent Scott Ziegler maintains that CRT is not being taught to students, and that parents and other activists are seizing upon the district's equity training for staff and claiming it is being taught in classrooms. Jankowicz, for her part, said at City Club of Cleveland event: 'You're absolutely right that Critical Race Theory has become one of those hot-button issues that the Republicans and other disinformers, who are engaged in disinformation for profit, frankly - there are plenty of media outlets that are making money off this too - have seized on. 'And I live in Virginia, and in Loudoun County that's one of the areas where people have really honed in on this topic. 'But it's no different than any of the other hot-button issues that have allowed disinformation to flourish. 'It's weaponizing people's emotion.'
How the oil and gas industry is trying to hold US public schools hostage - The oil and gas industry wants to play a word-and-picture association game with you. Think of four images: a brightly colored backpack stuffed with pencils, a smiling teacher with a tablet tucked under her arm, a pair of glasses resting on a stack of pastel notebooks, and a gleaming school bus welcoming a young student onboard.“What do all of these have in common?” a 6 April Facebook post by the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association (NMOGA), asked. “They are powered by oil and natural gas!”Here in New Mexico – the fastest-warming and most water-stressed state in the continental US, where wildfires have recently devoured over 120,000 acres and remain uncontained – the oil and gas industry is coming out in force to deepen the region’s dependence on fossil fuels. Their latest tactic: to position oil and gas as a patron saint of education. Powerful interest groups have deployed a months-long campaign to depict schools and children’s wellbeing as under threat if government officials infringe upon fossil fuel production.In a video spot exemplary of this strategy, Ashley Niman, a fourth-grade teacher at Enchanted Hills elementary school tells viewers that the industry is what enables her to do her job. “Without oil and gas, we would not have the resources to provide an exemplary education for our students,” she says. “The partnership we have with the oil and gas industry makes me a better teacher.”The video, from September last year, is part of a PR campaign by NMOGA called “Safer and Stronger”. It’s one of many similar strategies the Guardian tracked across social media, television and audio formats that employs a rhetorical strategy social scientists refer to as the “fossil fuel savior frame”.“What NMOGA and the oil and gas industry are saying is that we hold New Mexico’s public education system hostage to our profit-motivated interests,” said Erik Schlenker-Goodrich, executive director of the Western Environmental Law Center. “There’s an implied threat there.”Last year, New Mexico brought in $1.1bn from mineral leasing on federal lands – more than any other US state. But the tides may be turning for the fossil fuel industry as officials grapple with the need to halve greenhouse gas emissions this decade. Before mid-April, the Biden administration had paused all new oil and gas leasing and the number of drilling permits on public lands plummeted.In response, pro-industry groups are pushing out what some experts have called “sky is falling” messaging that generates the impression that without oil and gas revenue, the state’s education system is on a chopping block. NMOGA did not respond for comment.
Union forces Boston teachers to work without a contract as COVID-19 persists in public schools --Boston Public Schools (BPS) teachers have now been working without a contract since the last one expired eight months ago, on August 31, 2021. According to the Boston Teachers Union (BTU), as of the most recent bargaining update on April 11, the school district has not responded to a majority of the BTU’s proposals or have made proposals that would increase educators’ workloads and lower the quality of education for students. BPS has also canceled four of seven bargaining meetings in the first three months of 2022. According to the BTU, the BPS proposals presented on April 5 demand a number of concessions from teachers, including requiring them to “work 90 additional hours annually [more than two full-time workweeks] without compensation,” as well as removing “all limits on class size and instead making them ‘targets.’” Even as the district plays hardball, the BTU is keeping teachers in classrooms. However, struggles are breaking out among educators across the country, raising the possibility of a united struggle for better wages and working conditions. On Friday, April 29, hundreds of teachers in the Oakland Unified School District in California took part in a one-day strike in opposition to planned school closures and mergers due to a major budget deficit in the district. The unions nationwide are determined to isolate struggles of teachers in each district from each other. In early April, the teachers union in Sacramento shut down an eight-day strike of teachers, with a tentative agreement including pay raises far below the rate of inflation, and before teachers had even had a chance to vote on the contract. In March, 5,000 educators in Minneapolis, Minnesota, carried out an 18-day strike against school austerity and deplorable teachers’ conditions before the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers shut it down and forced through a rotten contract.
Teachers are quitting in droves: Appreciate them before they all disappear - Slowly at first, then more rapidly, schools across the country begin to close. This is not like earlier in the pandemic when courses were shifted online and some form of learning was continued — some better than others. This time, the schools simply closed. There was no learning opportunity, no occasional online classes, no work to do at home. There was simply no more school. This might sound to some like the beginning of a story about a dystopian world of the future. The reality is that this is essentially what happened across the United States this past January, including to my daughter’s school. The teachers are not really disappearing, at least not yet; but sufficient numbers of them and other school staff were out with COVID-19 or in quarantine due to exposure that schools across the United States have been forced to close their doors and essentially declare “snow days.” Many parents and community leaders may look upon this as one more inconvenience in our pandemic lives. The reality is that parts of this country are facing unprecedented shortages of teachers and other school staff — aides, lunch professionals and school bus drivers. The great resignation caused many employment sectors to grapple with reduced staffing. The education field has been careening in this direction for many years and the pandemic is highlighting just how precarious the situation may be. Data from across the country indicates that teachers are leaving the profession at a faster rate than before the pandemic and a survey last spring revealed that more than half of teachers responded they were considering leaving the field in the next two years (a 20 percent increase from pre-pandemic numbers). In fact, my colleagues and I get calls regularly from superintendents looking for teachers to head classrooms and no one can find enough substitute teachers. It’s not uncommon now for superintendents, principals and other teachers to try to cover a classroom when a fellow teacher is out. New Mexico even called in members of their national guard to cover empty classrooms earlier this year. A key component of this crisis is that there are not enough new teachers being produced to replace those who are leaving. During the last decade, we saw double-digit decreases — coast to coast — in enrollments in educator preparation programs. Part of that was due to the layoffs and lack of hiring that ensued after the great recession. But it was also due to other factors such as perceived low wages (or actual low wages in some states), de-professionalization of the field due to increasing external demands, such as the over-reliance on standardized tests, and changing perceptions of the societal value of teachers. Fundamentally, one could argue that it boils down to how society does (or doesn’t) show its appreciation for teachers.
As Stanford nurses strike continues, Oakland teachers launch one-day strike against school closures - On Friday, more than 2,000 teachers in the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) are expected to take part in a one-day strike in opposition to planned school closures and mergers due to a major budget deficit in the district. Schools will remain in-session Friday, though the district is encouraging parents to keep their children home due to expected teacher shortages. The walkouts take place as 5,000 Bay Area nurses at Stanford Health Care maintain their stike, which began on Sunday. They are determined to fight against burnout, resulting from being continuously overworked, and are demanding better wages, staffing ratios and working conditions. The two job actions demonstrate the potential for a broader offensive of the working class in defense of its standard of living against runaway inflation, mass death due to the pandemic and the danger of nuclear war. It follows a nationwide teachers strike earlier this week in Sri Lanka, where teachers demonstrated against an inflation rate of more than 30 percent and demanded the downfall of the government. In California alone, hundreds of thousands of workers, including 20,000 dockworkers and others who occupy critical choke points in the world’s supply chains, have contracts that are set to expire over the course of the next three months. Both teachers and striking nurses must make an appeal to workers across the state for a united struggle. OUSD faces a $50 million shortfall and plans to close seven schools and merge 15 additional schools over the next two years. The district also plans on laying off staff and leaving vacancies unfilled. Educators have been working under an expired contract since 2021 and because of stagnant wages face cuts to their income due to the crippling rise in inflation and the high cost of gas, energy and food prices. The Oakland Education Association (OEA) has remained silent regarding contract negotiations with the district.
Second Ohio State student dies from apparent Wednesday drug overdose — A second Ohio State University student has died, OSU president Kristina Johnson announced Friday, following a Wednesday incident in which three students apparently overdosed on drugs.Three students were taken to the hospital Wednesday after an apparent drug overdose. One student died Thursday, and this second student was in critical condition. A third student was released from the hospital. The university has not named any of the students. “It is with an incredibly heavy heart that I share that our second student who was hospitalized in critical condition has passed away,” Johnson wrote Friday. “Every Buckeye loss is heartbreaking, and these tragic deaths in our community in such a short period of time are devastating.”Just before 11 p.m. Wednesday, a woman called 911 to report what appeared to be a drug overdose by three of her roommates on East Lane Avenue.Dennis Pales, co-founder of the Safety Outreach Autonomy Respect (SOAR) initiative, sent out the original warning about a bad batch of drugs going around campus.“College students are especially at risk of common party drugs or just common recreational drugs that they are using that may be laced or just are fentanyl,” Pales said.SOAR is a student run organization whose mission is to prevent overdoses in the Columbus area. Students can anonymously sign up for SOAR notifications to find out when and where there is a bad batch of drugs.Pales said Columbus Public Health told him about reports of circulating fentanyl-laced Adderall pills, and the notification was later picked up by the university and posted across social media.“This is actually the first time that the university has sent out an alert that we sent out,” Pales said.
Why Canceling Student Debt Is a Matter of Racial Justice -“If America has a cold, then the Black community has the flu,” said India Walton, explaining how the burden of student debt is disproportionately borne by African Americans. Walton, who famously campaigned on a socialist platform to beat a Democratic incumbent in last year’s mayoral primary race in Buffalo, New York, is now a senior strategic organizer with RootsAction.org leading the organization’s “Without Student Debt” campaign. “Forty-seven million Americans carry student debt, but the burden of the debt falls disproportionately on Black and Brown people,” she said.According to the Education Data Initiative, out of the 47 million Americans that Walton cited, about 92 percent of them (43 million Americans) have borrowed more than $1.6 trillion from the U.S. government in order to access higher education. The average federal loan size per borrower is $37,113, but when factoring in loans from private borrowers, that number rises to more than $40,000.Because of how the income and wealth gap is so starkly delineated along racial lines, it’s not at all surprising that Black and Brown students are disproportionately represented among student borrowers. Women are also the majority of borrowers. Those at the intersection of race and gender are most impacted. “The average Black woman carries more than $35,000 in student debt,” said Walton.The simple reason why nearly one-third of all undergraduates borrow money from the federal government in order to attend college or university is that the cost of higher education has risen dramatically. According to one in-depth analysis, it has risen nearly five times faster than inflation over the past half-century. And, if the price tag of higher education were in line with inflation, it would cost only about $10,000 or $20,000 per year to attend a public or private four-year school, respectively. Instead, while public universities are still relatively less pricey, private schools can cost upward of $50,000 a year.Since wages haven’t kept up with the skyrocketing costs of higher education, student debt has ballooned as borrowers are unable to pay back the loans. It’s no wonder that some people consider suicide as they face the grim prospects of being unable to pay back tens of thousands of dollars.It turns out that student debt, just like medical debt or the inability to pay increasing rents, is just another feature of a capitalist, market-driven system designed to ensure the health of Wall Street over the wellness of people. And—it bears repeating—those financial stresses affect people of color the most. “It’s a stain on this, the wealthiest nation in the world, that we are not even able to provide basic services to our people,” said Walton.Meanwhile, since his election, President Joe Biden has tantalized debt-burdened Americans withindications that he might keep his campaign promises of forgiving federal student loans. His initial campaign promise of forgiving $50,000 in loans was dramatically downgraded to only $10,000. Walton said, “what we’re asking for, what we’re demanding, is that all federally guaranteed student debt be canceled,” not just a portion.Corporate media outlets are predictably doing their part to help Biden water down the idea of debt forgiveness. Even though only a minority of Americans feel that it is unfair to forgive the loans of some people because others have found ways to pay them back, media outlets have elevated this talking point.Walton said this argument is “not valid.” Citing the high cost of colleges and low wages, she said, “we’re just not in the same economic conditions as people were, who seem to tout having paid off their student loan[s].”Additionally, some media pundits are labeling the demand to erase student debt as a radical idea, akin to “Defund the Police,” or “Abolish ICE” (none of these are in fact radical). David Frum writing in the Atlantic claimed that the call to erase student debt is a “trap” laid for Biden by leftist activists. He bizarrely compared it to the right-wing culture wars being waged by GOP leaders like Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida.How is DeSantis’ targeting of transgender youth to win political points from his rabidly homophobic and transphobic voter base anything like Biden erasing the student debt of 43 million Americans? If anything, the GOP may be opposed to debt forgiveness precisely because such a move would benefit disproportionately impacted Black and Brown people.
History of Discharging Student Loans in Bankruptcy - I have been following the student loan crisis (and it is such) well over a decade. I have engaged certain politicians on the issue in public. I have worked with Alan Collinge at Student Loan Justice Org for well over a decade. He is in the process of completing his 1 million signature petition asking for relief from Joe Biden and Democrats. My three children have each had loans and I parental loans funding their education. Been in forbearance when work was hard to find. I do not recall paying interest only which seems to be happening more so now. Early in his senatorial career, Biden played a role in making it easier for students and parents to take out burdensome loans, spanning across several decades. Later, his landmark bankruptcy reform legislation made it nearly impossible to discharge student loans. I hate to say it; but, Joe Biden has been involving himself in student loans by making them impossible to pay down or discharge due. He has claimed to have had parent and student loans for all of his children in the amount of $298,000. I do not think he worried to much about them as his net worth was $15 million. I did worry about ours as I had a second mortgage for a 15 years due to fighting legal battles. (History of the Bankruptcy Discharge for Student Loans)
- Discharging student loans went from being able todischarge them pre-1976 due to undue hardship for the borrower and the borrower’s dependents or being in repayment for at least 5 years. Not terribly unreasonable.
- Excepted from discharge during the first 5 years in repayment in 1978.
- Exception to discharge (change) excludes deferments and forbearances from the 5-year exclusion period. 1979
- Exception expanded (change) to include loans insured, guaranteed or funded in whole or in part or made by a governmental unit 1979.
- Establishes a totality circumstances test for undue hardship requiring consideration of the borrower’s past, present and likely future financial resources. Andrews v. South Dakota Student Loan Assistance Corp. 1981
- Nonprofit exception to discharge is expanded to include private student loans that were made under “any program funded” in whole or in part. 1984
- Establishes a three-prong definition for undue hardship. Brunner v. New York Higher Education Services Corp. 1987 Brunner Test
- Borrowers may discharge student loans in bankruptcy after 7 years in repayment.Crime Control Act of 1990.
- In 1998, borrowers were no longer able to discharge student loans in bankruptcy after 7 years in repayment unless they can demonstrate undue hardship in an “adversarial proceeding.” I think this one includes pistols at 30 paces. Higher Education Amendments of 1998
- Qualified education loans, which include most federal and private student loans, are excepted from bankruptcy discharge. 2005. Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005
President Joe Biden has had his fingers in this along the way for a few decades. In 2001 Hillary Clinton convinced President Bill Clinton to veto a similar bill which Joe Biden supported. It was resurrected in 2005 with Joe’s support and signed by Bush in 2005. In 1990 Biden was the chief sponsor of the Crime Control Act, which lengthened the waiting period before a student loan borrower could discharge student loans. In 1997, he did not sign on to reversing some of the student loan changes recommended by a federal panel.In 1998, Biden supported a change in the bankruptcy code that created an “undue hardship” standard for federal student loans, making it significantly more difficult for borrowers to discharge their federal student loans in bankruptcy. In 2001, Biden continued to oppose efforts to loosen bankruptcy restrictions. In 2005, Biden supported a change in the bankruptcy code that made it much moredifficult to discharge private student loan debt in bankruptcy by also applying a harsher “undue hardship” standard. Prior to then, private student loans were not treated much differently than other forms of consumer debt in bankruptcy. Joe Biden has not shown much support for student loan relief. He did say he would support such and can do so. Less than 1% of all student loans have been discharged in bankruptcy.I am beginning to believe there is a fear of some will be able to escape student loans. These loans were designed to be predatory eliminating any recourse through the lender and/or through the courts.
Save our truckers, not affluent students seeking a free ride Take a look around you, whether you are at home, in the office, at a mall, or waiting for a sandwich at your local supermarket. Chances are, everything you see was delivered by truck. Every single thing. Just over two years ago, when the coronavirus pandemic struck, America’s truck drivers were rightfully hailed as “heroes” delivering essential supplies as we tried to cope with the escalating emergency. Today, however, not so much. Worse than being forgotten for the heroes they were — and are — is that many truckers now are struggling themselves simply to stay in business and pay their bills. Last Sunday, according to AAA, the average price for a gallon of diesel fuel in the United States hit an all-time high. It’s a reality that is crushing the personal and corporate finances of independent truckers and trucking companies. Fuel prices are twice what they were a year ago and some long-distance truckers pay more than $1,600 to fill their tanks. Like the rest of us, they are getting battered by an inflation rate that recently hit a four-decade high. It has gotten so bad that a number of truckers are thinking of quitting the business before they are forced to file for personal bankruptcy. Truckers — and the essentials they deliver 24/7/365 — have a daily impact on every American. “No truckers, no stuff, cascading problems.” Whether you support the Biden administration or not, the fact is that rising fuel prices combined with staggering inflation are morphing into personal emergencies for millions of Americans. At what point do these personal emergencies equal a national emergency? When national emergencies do strike, presidents must prioritize problems to be solved to benefit the majority of Americans. Maybe the Biden administration missed that memo. In the face of this ongoing ordeal that negatively impacts working-class America, we have the Biden administration trying to figure out how to orchestrate what some refer to as “the biggest giveaway in American history.” President Biden wants to cancel more than $1 trillion in outstanding student loan debt.In more commonsense, pragmatic and honorable times, when you borrowed money, you were obligated by law — and your conscience — to pay it back. Like most American college and university students, I was not fortunate enough to have parents who paid for my education. What I could not pay for with money I saved while working as a busboy and waiter, I took out loans to cover the rest — loans that I dutifully and rightfully paid back. Now, would the Biden administration paint me and the tens of millions of other Americans who ethically paid off their loans as “suckers”?
Pfizer’s Covid-19 Pill Failed Study Testing Its Preventive Use - WSJ - The Covid-19 pill from Pfizer Inc. failed to prevent symptomatic infections in adults who had been exposed to the pandemic virus, a late-stage study found. Pfizer said Friday that the drug, named Paxlovid, failed the study’s main objective of meaningfully reducing the risk of confirmed and symptomatic Covid-19 infections in adults who were exposed to the virus by someone in their household. The drug reduced risks by about a third compared with a placebo, which didn’t meet the threshold for statistical significance. Chief Executive Officer Albert Bourla said he was “disappointed” by the study results. Expanding Paxlovid’s use to people who hadn’t yet tested positive for Covid-19 but have had close contact with an infected person would have opened up a large potential new market for the drug. Paxlovid is already one of the fastest sellers of all-time in the pharmaceutical industry, with projected sales of almost $24 billion in 2022, according to a forecast from analytics group Airfinity Ltd.
Breakthrough SARS-CoV-2 infections with the delta (B.1.617.2) variant in vaccinated patients with immune-mediated inflammatory diseases using immunosuppressants: a substudy of two prospective cohort studies Lancet - Concerns have been raised regarding the risks of SARS-CoV-2 breakthrough infections in vaccinated patients with immune-mediated inflammatory diseases treated with immunosuppressants, but clinical data on breakthrough infections are still scarce. The primary objective of this study was to compare the incidence and severity of SARS-CoV-2 breakthrough infections between patients with immune-mediated inflammatory diseases using immunosuppressants, and controls (patients with immune-mediated inflammatory diseases not taking immunosuppressants and healthy controls) who had received full COVID-19 vaccinations. The secondary objective was to explore determinants of breakthrough infections of the delta (B.1.617.2) variant of SARS-CoV-2, including humoral immune responses after vaccination. We included 3207 patients with immune-mediated inflammatory diseases who receive immunosuppressants, and 1807 controls (985 patients with immune-mediated inflammatory disease not on immunosuppressants and 822 healthy controls). Among patients receiving immunosuppressants, mean age was 53 years (SD 14), 2042 (64%) of 3207 were female and 1165 (36%) were male; among patients not receiving immunosuppressants, mean age was 54 years (SD 14), 598 (61%) of 985 were female and 387 (39%) were male; and among healthy controls, mean age was 57 years (SD 13), 549 (67%) of 822 were female and 273 (33%) were male. The cumulative incidence of PCR-test or antigen-test confirmed SARS-CoV-2 breakthrough infections was similar in patients on immunosuppressants (148 of 3207; 4·6% [95% CI 3·9–5·4]), patients not on immunosuppressants (52 of 985; 5·3% [95% CI 4·0–6·9]), and healthy controls (33 of 822; 4·0% [95% CI 2·8–5·6]). There was no difference in the odds of breakthrough infection for patients with immune-mediate inflammatory disease on immunosuppressants versus combined controls (ie, patients not on immunosuppressants and healthy controls; adjusted odds ratio 0·88 [95% CI 0·66–1·18]). Seroconversion after vaccination (odds ratio 0·58 [95% CI 0·34–0·98]; T2B! cohort only) and SARS-CoV-2 infection before vaccination (0·34 [0·18–0·56]) were associated with a lower odds of breakthrough infections.
Omicron sub-lineages BA.4/BA.5 escape BA.1 infection elicited neutralizing immunity -The SARS-CoV-2 Omicron (B.1.1.529) variant first emerged as the BA.1 sub-lineage, with extensive escape from neutralizing immunity elicited by previous infection with other variants, vaccines, or combinations of both1,2 . Two new sub-lineages, BA.4 and BA.5, are now emerging in South Africa with changes relative to BA.1, including L452R and F486V mutations in the spike receptor binding domain. We isolated live BA.4 and BA.5 viruses and tested them against neutralizing immunity elicited to BA.1 infection in participants who were Omicron/BA.1 infected but unvaccinated (n=24) and participants vaccinated with Pfizer BNT162b2 or Johnson and Johnson Ad26.CoV.2S with breakthrough Omicron/BA.1 infection (n=15). In unvaccinated individuals, FRNT50, the inverse of the dilution for 50% neutralization, declined from 275 for BA.1 to 36 for BA.4 and 37 for BA.5, a 7.6 and 7.5-fold drop, respectively. In vaccinated BA.1 breakthroughs, FRNT50 declined from 507 for BA.1 to 158 for BA.4 (3.2-fold) and 198 for BA.5 (2.6-fold). Absolute BA.4 and BA.5 neutralization levels were about 5-fold higher in this group versus unvaccinated BA.1 infected participants. The observed escape of BA.4 and BA.5 from BA.1 elicited immunity is more moderate than of BA.1 against previous immunity1,3. However, the low absolute neutralization levels for BA.4 and BA.5, particularly in the unvaccinated group, are unlikely to protect well against symptomatic infection4 .This may indicate that, based on neutralization escape, BA.4 and BA.5 have potential to result in a new infection wave.
Study tracks COVID-19 infection dynamics in adults - A team led by scientists at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign tracked the rise and fall of SARS-CoV-2 in the saliva and nasal cavities of people newly infected with the virus. The study was the first to follow acute COVID-19 infections over time through repeated sampling and to compare results from different testing methodologies.The findings are reported in the journal Nature Microbiology.The scientists saw no meaningful differences in the infection dynamics of early circulating variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and the alpha variant. This indicates that the alpha variant's higher transmissibility "cannot be explained by higher viral loads or delayed clearance," the researchers wrote.The team saw no meaningful correlations between people's symptoms and the course of infection. While it is often assumed that those who have more symptoms are likely to be more infectious, that may not always hold true, Brooke said. The implications of this part of the research may be limited, however, by the fact that all the participants in the study were either asymptomatic or had mild symptoms and none were hospitalized."Overall, this study helps explain why some people are more likely to transmit SARS-CoV-2 than others," Brooke said. The paper is titled "Daily longitudinal sampling of SARS-CoV-2 infection reveals substantial heterogeneity in infectiousness."
Stomach discomfort and diarrhoea accompany new surge in Covid-19 cases - For the first time in two months, cases of Covid-19 have begun to increase again and with it have emerged new symptoms – diarrhoea and abdominal pain, say doctors in the National Capital Region. During earlier waves of the Covid-19 pandemic, fever, body ache, cough and cold were commonly reported symptoms and ailments.In April, the National Health Service in the United Kingdom had addeddiarrhoea to the list of symptoms of Covid-19.India reported 3,377 new infections in the 24 hours ending on Friday. The last time the national case count crossed 3,000 was on March 13. But the hospitalisation rate remains low. Of the 5,250 active infections in Delhi until April 28, 124 people, or 0.02% of the cases, had to be hospitalised till April 28.Diarrhoea is a dominant symptom in 20% of all Covid-19 infections in Delhi, saiid Dr Nikhil Modi, a senior consultant in respiratory medicine department at Apollo Hospital in the city.“The actual count may be higher,” said Modi. “Patients don’t associate diarrhoea with Covid-19 and most are not going for testing.” He said that in some cases, diarrhoea is the sole symptom for patients.According to Modi, doctors are also seeing more cases of diarrhoea among children. “They are prone to diarrhoea with any viral infection,” he said.General practitioners have observed stomach cramps, frequent motions and watery stools as common complaints, apart from the usual fever, weakness, cough and cold in some patients. Most patients are recovering within five days in home isolation.Modi says that the sub-lineage of the highly transmissible Omicron variant, BA.2, and its offshoots, may be causing gastrointestinal problems although genome sequencing results of the samples are pending for several of his patients in Delhi.Delhi recorded 1,490 cases on Thursday, a threefold jump from 500 until mid-April. Modi said doctors are trying to send as many samples as possible for genome sequencing, but several patients with diarrhoea are not willing to get tested.
Scientists puzzle over Covid pandemic link to child hepatitis cases --After two years spent poring over data to explain coronavirus, public health officials are now seeking to understand an unexpected rise in hepatitis cases in healthy children that are cropping up in a growing number of countries.Canada and Japan this week joined more than a dozen other nations in reporting outbreaks as major health bodies, including the World Health Organization and the European Centre for Disease Control and Prevention,launched investigations into the nearly 200 known cases.Theories about the origins of the mystery illness, which is associated with severe liver inflammation and has led to at least 17 children requiring transplants, have proliferated since UK health authorities first raised the alarm in early April. One child has died so far, according to the WHO.Many scientists hunting for the causes of the outbreak have focused on the role played by the coronavirus pandemic. Experts have hypothesised that the illness could be linked to a drop-off in immunity to adenovirus, a cause of the common cold, due to two years of pandemic-related restrictions, the after-effects of a coronavirus infection or even a mutated form of one of those viruses.“Whatever theory you subscribe to, this has to stem from the huge public health event of the last two years,” said Alastair Sutcliffe, professor of general paediatrics at University College London. “It’s too much of a coincidence — either it’s a fall in immunity against adenovirus or the adenovirus is collaborating with Covid to cause hepatitis, but the pandemic has to play a role.”Northern hemisphere countries have recorded a surge in common viruses — such as adenovirus, rhinovirus and chickenpox — since pandemic countermeasures were eased this winter, while also registering record-high Covid infection rates.Will Irving, professor of virology at the University of Nottingham, said it was possible “the blank slate of immunity” left over by reduced social mixing, as countries locked down and schools closed, could make the effects of the adenovirus “more devastating”.“It may be important early in life to meet a whole range of viruses and just get yourself sorted out, and that didn’t happen,’‘ said Irving.But scientists have warned against jumping to conclusions.Adenovirus — a group of viruses typically associated with symptoms such as a persistent cough, conjunctivitis or diarrhoea — very occasionally causes hepatitis but almost never in healthy children. “People are speculating till they’re blue in the face, but all we have is a heap of correlations and no certain cause,” said Isaac Bogoch, associate professor of medicine at the University of Toronto in Canada. With the UK accounting for about three-fifths of the known cases, UK scientists are leading the way in investigating the illness. Of the 53 UK children tested for adenovirus, 40 returned positive results. But 16 per cent of the more than 100 UK cases also tested positive for Covid-19 upon admission, compared with a community infection rate of between 5 and 8 per cent over the same period.
COVID-19 cases rising as FDA restricts who can get Johnson & Johnson vaccine — COVID cases continue to rise across the US including here in Michigan – with Omicron’s BA.2 subvariant behind the uptick in cases. I can see numbers going up. Because the virus continues to develop new mutations that allow it to spread even faster than previous variants. We’ve been seeing this with Omicron. Right now BA.2 is dominant but BA.2.12.1 is quickly gaining ground. It’s currently spreading about 50% faster each week. So while numbers may likely rise, it doesn’t mean we’ll see another surge. Having said that, the virus is unpredictable so we can’t rule a surge out. Especially since new research indicates people who had been infected with Omicron‘s BA.1 variant can get reinfected with Omicron’s BA.2.12.1 variant. And those who are unvaccinated have a higher risk of reinfection than those who are vaccinated. The FDA is restricting the use of Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine because of a dangerous blood clotting syndrome called TTS. TTS is short for thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome. Thrombosis happens when blood clots block blood vessels and thrombocytopenia is a condition where you have low blood platelets. Severe thrombocytopenia can cause bleeding in the brain. Women between the ages of 30 to 49 have had the highest rate of TTS after J&J’s vaccine. Now, the FDA says it identified 60 cases of TTS and nine of them were fatal. So, why would the FDA still allow J&J’s vaccine to be used? Because they recognize that this vaccine still has a role in the current pandemic. And because TTS is very rare – there’s been over 18.7 million doses administered here in the US. So what are the new limitations? Well, people must be aged 18 and older. They can get the vaccine if they’ve had a severe allergic reaction to either Moderna or Pfizer’s mRNA vaccines and therefore can’t get a second or booster dose. A person is also allowed J&J’s vaccine if it’s the only vaccine they’d get - due to personal reasons – and therefore would otherwise remain unvaccinated. Lastly, the shot is allowed if a person lives in an area with limited access to the mRNA vaccines. These restrictions also apply to booster doses.
Covid-19 case numbers aren’t as reliable anymore. What are public health experts watching now? – Vox -As the United States transitions out of a pandemic footing and into a new normal, it is also undergoing a shift in which Covid-19 metrics most accurately tell the story of the pandemic. The old standbys — case numbers, namely — aren’t as reliable anymore. So what’s going to replace them?At least three data sets are now being watched closely by the public health experts who spoke to Vox. Together, they help shed light on what’s happening now, what’s likely to happen, and how well we’re doing at dealing with what’s already happened over the course of the pandemic.The first, hospital data, covers the present, showing the level of severe illness in a given area and the strain being put on the local health care system. The second, new data on emerging variants, concerns the future and the potential for radical mutations to send the pandemic spinning out into a dangerous new direction. And the third, data on long Covid, reaches from the past and further into the future, as scientists attempt to gain a better grasp of the collateral damage the virus has left in its wake after infecting roughly 60 percent of the US population in the past two years.Keep in mind that the most important pandemic metrics have been a moving target since 2020. The percentage of tests that came back positive was watched closely as an indication of how widespread the virus was in a given place at a given time. But nowadays, with so many people taking at-home antigen tests and never reporting the results to anyone, most experts consider that metric now to be unreliable. Case numbers, the raw count of positive tests, were an obvious signal to watch for a long time too; not only did they track the crests and dips of different waves, any growth in cases was predictably followed by a rise in hospitalizations and deaths in the subsequent weeks.But many experts have stopped tracking cases too closely as well. They have the same reporting problem — if you get a positive at-home test result but don’t report it, your case doesn’t show up in the official count — but it’s more than that. Covid-19 is going to be around in the future, as society and the economy are adjusting to a new reality in which most people are expected to tolerate a certain risk of contracting Covid-19. If the public health goal is no longer to constrain case numbers, then they aren’t as meaningful in telling us whether or not our public health strategy is achieving its goals.Instead, what many public health experts are tracking now is severe illness, meaning hospitalizations and deaths. The data coming out of local hospitals can still give us a good idea of the toll Covid-19 is exacting, the strain it’s putting on local health systems, and early indications that existing immunity may be fading.
Covid deaths no longer overwhelmingly among unvaccinated as toll on elderly grows - Unvaccinated people accounted for the overwhelming majority of deaths in the United States throughout much of the coronaviruspandemic. But that has changed in recent months, according to a Washington Post analysis of state and federal data. The pandemic’s toll is no longer falling almost exclusively on those who chose not to or could not get shots, with vaccine protection waning over time and the elderly and immunocompromised — who are at greatest risk of succumbing to covid-19, even if vaccinated — having a harder time dodging increasingly contagious strains.The vaccinated made up 42 percent of fatalities in January and February during the highly contagious omicron variant’s surge, compared with 23 percent of the dead in September, the peak of the delta wave, according to nationwide data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analyzed by The Post. The data is based on the date of infection and limited to a sampling of cases in which vaccination status was known.As a group, the unvaccinated remain far more vulnerable to the worst consequences of infection — and are far more likely to die — than people who are vaccinated, and they are especially more at risk than people who have received a booster shot. A key explanation for the rise in deaths among the vaccinated is that covid-19 fatalities are again concentrated among the elderly. Nearly two-thirds of the people who died during the omicron surge were 75 and older, according to a Post analysis, compared with a third during the delta wave. Seniors are overwhelmingly immunized, but vaccines are less effective and their potency wanes over time in older age groups.
NYC Covid-19 Hospitalizations, Deaths Rising, Omicron B.2.12.1 Spreading - New York City (NYC) is dealing with some next level stuff. On Monday, an upswing in Covid-19 cases prompted the city to raise it’s Covid-19 Alert Level from “Level 1: Low” to “Level 2: Medium.” However, cases ain’t the only thing that’s been going up. Over the past 14 days, the daily averages of new reported Covid-19 cases (8,259 per day over the past week), hospitalizations (2,421 per day over the past week), and deaths (17 per day over the past week) have jumped up by 28%, 38%, and 24%, respectively, according to the New York Times.What’s been fueling this upswing in the 212 area code? Well, the highly contagious B.2.12.1 Omicron subvariant has been spreading. Based on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Covid Data Tracker, this subvariant is now present in an estimated 36.5% of all active Covid-19 cases. While the BA.2 is still the “alpha dog” of all variants in the U.S., that may change soon.Keep in mind, though, that the number of new reported Covid-19 cases per 100,000 people over the past seven days has been trending upwards since early March. NYC’s “Covid-19: Latest Data” web page shows that this number for all of NYC has now exceeded 200 at 242.2. Of the five NYC boroughs, Manhattan tops the list at 328.48, followed by Queens (257.25), Staten Island (251.19), Brooklyn (228.88), and the Bronx (140.18). And according to the CDCSo, what happened in early March? Well, that was around the time Covid-19 precautions such as face mask and vaccination requirements were being dropped, as Candace McCowan reported for ABC 7 News on March 7. The concern back then was that such “droppings” would turn out to be premature relaxation, as I covered for Forbes. And as you know (or maybe have heard), things that are premature can leave rather messy situations. After all, back in early March, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) hadn’t yet been brought under control, Covid-19 booster rates hadn’t even reached the 40% mark, and, of course, new more contagious Omicron subvariants were continuing to emerge. Amidst all of this, lifting face mask and vaccination requirements may have sent the wrong messages to the public. Heck, people were even claiming that the pandemic was somehow over, which was indeed next level stuff.Speaking of levels, medium is the second of NYC’s four Covid-19 Alert levels. In this case, levels are like golf scores, bad Tinder dates, or the number of times a marmot puts a bowling ball in your pants. The higher the number, the worse things are. The highest level marked by red is “Very High,” which mean that “There is very high community spread of Covid-19. Health care services are overwhelmed.” Level 3 is the “High” level, marked by orange, as in “orange you” implementing more Covid-19 precautions. At this level, “There is high community spread. Substantial pressure on the health care system.” Level 2 is the “Medium” level, implying that “There is medium community spread of Covid-19.” And the “Low” level is Level 1, which is in place when “There is lower community spread.”
Ohio reports 11,013 new COVID-19 cases, fifth straight weekly increase (WCMH) — The Ohio Department of Health on Thursday reported 11,013 new COVID-19 cases for the past week, extending a streak of week-over-week increases to five. This week is Ohio’s first reporting week over 10,000 cases since mid-February, and it’s the first time since early March that the 21-day daily average — now at 1,268 — has eclipsed 1,000. The state averaged about 1,573 new coronavirus cases over the past seven days, the highest rate since Feb. 22. Cases are up 26% over last week and 188% over a month ago. State and local health authorities, however, have not been surprised by the recent increase in cases. They told NBC4 last week it’s part of the ebb and flow of a disease going from pandemic to endemic. ODH began reporting COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, deaths and vaccinations weekly instead of daily in mid-March after new infections slowed to a low level after the omicron wave. Although cases are ticking up, fewer people have been hospitalized with the virus and dying from it. The 296 hospitalizations reported by ODH in the past seven days (about 42 per day) are down from 314 last week and 428 two weeks ago. 65 more Ohioans died of COVID-19 in the past week, a decline from 68 deaths last week, 94 deaths two weeks ago, 100 deaths three weeks ago and 124 deaths a month ago. Ohio’s 21-day death average now sits at 11 per day, the best mark since late August 2021.
21 Minnesota counties listed as moderate, high COVID-19 risks - Four Twin Cities metro counties are among 21 in Minnesota considered to pose at least moderate COVID-19 risk based on infection and hospitalization rates.Hennepin, Carver, Scott and Washington counties were all listed at moderate risk by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, while indoor mask-wearing was recommended in Pennington County in northwestern Minnesota because of high risk.The latest CDC risk data matches wastewater sampling across Minnesota that is showing more evidence of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19. The Metropolitan Wastewater Treatment Center in St. Paul reported on Friday a 21% increase in the average viral load in sewage that was sampled over the past week.State leaders remained hopeful, though, because COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths haven't increased at the same rate. Of the 297 people hospitalized with COVID-19 in Minnesota on Thursday, 24 needed intensive care.Gov. Tim Walz said vaccination progress has likely reduced the rate of infections that cause serious hospitalizations and driven Minnesota's COVID-19 death rate to its lowest level in the pandemic. The state's numbers have been at their lowest during the summers over the past two years, he added."If this thing tracks itself, we should see a lull here over the summer," Walz said Wednesday before receiving his second COVID-19 booster. "We're probably going to see spikes in the southern states coming up very shortly in the summer months when they move inside, and then our preparations are for [increased viral activity in] October."Not everyone is as optimistic. New, faster-spreading variants could emerge and upset any apparent seasonal patterns, said Michael Osterholm, director of the University of Minnesota's Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy."It's impossible to predict what will happen," he said.The fast-spreading BA.2 coronavirus subvariant made up 97% of the viral material found in the Twin Cities' wastewater samples over the past week. About one fifth of the BA.2 viral material involved an even faster-spreading form called BA.2.12.1, which has caused elevated COVID-19 activity in the Northeast.Wastewater sampling has proven over time to be a faster indicator of COVID-19 trends — revealing the start and the peak of this winter's omicron pandemic wave a week or so before infection numbers shifted.Wastewater and infection numbers are in sync right now. The viral load in Twin Cities wastewater has been rising but remains four times lower than at the peak of the omicron wave. The seven-day average of new infections in Minnesota has risen from 374 per day in the week ending March 20 to nearly 1,600. The rate was 13,000 per day in mid-January.
All but 2 Vermont counties have ‘high’ Covid levels, CDC says - Every Vermont county besides Essex and Windham has “high” Covid-19 community levels, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported late Thursday.The counties in the CDC’s “high” category account for about 92% of the state’s population, including Vermont’s most populous county, Chittenden. This week’s data includes five counties that are newly rated as high: Caledonia, Lamoille, Orange, Rutland and Windsor.The CDC recommends that people in high-level counties take broad public actions to reduce transmission, including wearing a mask in indoor public spaces. In medium-level counties, high-risk people should consider taking additional precautions. The agency also recommends that people in counties at any level get tested when they are symptomatic and stay up to date on their Covid vaccines.The CDC ratings are based on three metrics: recent Covid case counts, new hospital admissions for Covid and the community’s overall hospital capacity. Covid cases in Vermont have risen about 18% in the past two weeks, and state officials have said they believe the recent increase in cases appears to be “leveling off.” But at the same time, hospital admissions for Covid-positive patients have increased in the past two weeks, going from about 12 per day to almost 20 per day on average, according to the CDC. State data shows that the number of intensive care patients with Covid has also risen. Data from the Vermont Department of Financial Regulation shows that, as of Tuesday, the number of hospital beds available in the state had declined from an average of more than 100 beds in early April to about 40 to 50 beds at the beginning of May.
Half of Mass. Now at High Risk for Community Transmission of COVID -Half of Massachusetts' 14 counties are now considered high risk for community transmission of COVID-19, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.The latest data released Thursday shows that Barnstable, Berkshire, Franklin, Middlesex, Norfolk, Suffolk, Worcester counties are all listed as high risk. Dukes, Essex, Hampden, Hampshire, Nantucket and Plymouth counties are medium risk, with only Bristol County remaining in the low risk category.Just one week ago, no Massachusetts counties were listed as high risk. Seven were listed as medium risk and the rest were considered low risk.Massachusetts' COVID metrics, tracked on the Department of Public Health's interactive coronavirus dashboard, have declined since the omicron surge, but case counts and hospitalizations are starting to increase once again.State health officials reported 4,376 new COVID-19 cases Thursday, more than 1,000 more than the daily total of 2,985 on Wednesday, along with 13 new deaths. The state's seven-day average positivity rate increased to 6.17% Thursday, compared to 5.79% on Wednesday. COVID cases have also been rising rapidly in Massachusetts schools in recent weeks. More than 10,000 positive COVID-19 cases in Massachusetts have been linked back to the classroom over the last week. COVID levels in wastewater, as reported by the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority's tracking system were slightly down at the start of last week in the Boston area, though it wasn't enough to convince top Boston doctors that we were clear from the spring surge. As of samples through Wednesday of this week, those levels were on the rise again.In New Hampshire, Grafton County is designated as high risk, while Belknap, Carroll, Hillsborough, Rockingham, Strafford and Sullivan counties are medium risk. The state's other three counties are considered low risk.In Vermont, all but two counties are considered high risk. Essex and Windham counties remain low risk.Maine went from one high risk county to eight this week, including Aroostook, Cumberland, Hancock, Knox, Lincoln, Penobscot, Piscatiquis and Sagadahoc. Medium risk counties include Franklin, Kennebec, Oxford, Somerset, York, Waldo and Washington. Androscoggin County is the only one that remains low risk.
COVID-19 in MN: Caseload rise may be leveling off; ICU needs low, stable - COVID-19 cases continue to trend up but statewide wastewater data shows some hopeful signs that trend is throttling back. COVID hospitalizations are up, but the number of intensive care admissions and deaths remain low.On Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention listed66 of Minnesota’s 87 counties as having low community level riskfor COVID-19, even while 53 are listed as high transmission areas.This seeming paradox has much to do with the fact that while cases and hospitalizations are both on the rise, the COVID-related demand for hospital beds remains relatively low.The updated CDC COVID-19 community level risk rating changes include a shift for Olmsted and Wabasha counties from high to medium risk. Pennington County in the state’s northwest corner currently has the only high community level risk rating in Minnesota.The latest wastewater analysis from the Metropolitan Council and the University of Minnesota’s Genomic Center shows the COVID load rose 21 percent last week compared to the prior week.As noted in the graph below, however, the data leveled off for three consecutive days during the past week and seems to have settled nearer the 200 million copies per day per person range, rather than the much higher 300 million range of some recent spikes.The genomic center’s analysis shows that omicron subvariant BA.2 continues as the dominant strain, now making up “about 97 percent of the SARS-CoV-2 RNA in Metro Plant influent” according to the Metropolitan Council. Included among that percentage is the sub-lineage BA.2.12.1, which now accounts for 18 percent of the area’s viral load.Researchers also detected “the presence of omicron BA.4 and/or BA.5” in the sample taken on April 29. These newer subvariants have driven a high rate of COVID-19 reinfection in South Africa.The University of Minnesota is also involved with a second, more expansive, wastewater SARS-CoV2 surveillance study that includes plants throughout the state and covers 60 percent of the population. It verifies that COVID levels are up in Twin Cities region wastewater testing as well as all other regions of the state.As shown in the table below, From April 20 to 27 measured COVID-19 levels grew by at least 50 percent in all regions and more than doubled in the northeast and southwest regions.
COVID Americas cases up, N. American cases up for 5th week - (Reuters) -COVID-19 cases in the Americas increased by 12.7% last week from the prior week, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) said on Wednesday, as infections continued to rise in Central and North America.The Americas reported more than 616,000 new cases last week, while the death toll was down by less than 1% in the same comparison to 4,200, the organization said.PAHO’s director, Dr. Carissa F. Etienne, called for stronger measures to tackle the pandemic as cases and hospitalizations rise. “COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations are rising in far too many places, which should prompt us to strengthen our measures to combat the virus, including surveillance and preparedness,” Etienne told a news conference. “We must reach those who remain unvaccinated with the full COVID-19 vaccine primary series, and ensure access to boosters, especially to the most vulnerable,” she added.According to PAHO, cases were up for the fifth consecutive week in North America, rising 19.5%. That was driven by a 27.1% increase in the United States as new infections declined in Canada and Mexico.Central America posted a 53.4% rise in infections in the same comparison, PAHO said, while the Caribbean reported a 15.4% increase in new infections, with cases rising in 24 of the 34 countries and territories.South America posted an overall 8% drop in new infections, even as seven of its ten countries reported increases.
What are the new Covid variants? What rise of Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 sub-variants in South Africa means for UK - The number of daily infections in South Africa has soared nearly seven-fold in less than a month, increasing from 557 on 11 April to 3,839 on 1 May. The rise has been driven by two new subvariants, BA.4 and BA.5, which have gone from representing less than 1 per cent of cases in the country to more than 50 per cent in a matter of weeks. By 29 April they were the most dominant strains in South Africa.As yet, however, only a handful of BA.4 and BA.5 infections have been identified in the UK but the speed with which they have taken off in South Africa, and the speed with which the original Omicron strains overtook Delta show that they need to be watched carefully.While the proportion of cases accounted for by the new subvariants in South Africa is high and rising, the wave as yet falls short of the country’s previous peak of 29,975 on 15 December.Nonetheless, the rise looks set to continue and has raised concerns that the country may be entering a fifth Covid wave. BA.4 and BA.5 are clearly cause for concern – not just in South Africa but around the world.The extent to which this wave is growing in South Africa remains unclear due to a recent reporting backlog caused by a bank holiday on Monday this week.South Africa has relaxed restrictions, as well as moving into winter, experiencing colder temperatures that help the virus to thrive and force people inside more of the time.So it’s still unclear how much of the rise in cases is down to the new sub-lineages and how much is due to other factors, relating to behaviour and the weather.The growing proportion of new infections accounted for by BA.4 and BA.5 come, in part, from mutations in the spike protein, meaning the virus might be able to dodge the body’s immunity to some degree, helped by waning immunity from previous waves.These spike protein mutations appear to give BA.4 and BA.5 a growth advantage over other Omicron sub-variants such as BA.2, which is now the dominant strain in the UK.But so far there has been no sign that BA.4 and BA.5 are causing the infections to be significantly more severe, experts say.This is in keeping with the theory that BA.4 and BA.5 are no more virulent, since they seem to behave roughly like the globally dominant BA.2 lineage.Furthermore, BA.4 and BA.5 are also much more closely related to BA.2 than to BA.1 – suggesting they could cause more problems in regions where prior infections have been dominated by BA.1 rather than BA.2 infections because they will have less immunity to the new subvariants. In the UK it was BA.2 that dominated.“BA.4 and BA.5 may have a slight edge over other Omicron lineages as they seem to be better at infecting people who had a prior Omicron BA.1 infection, in particular if those were unvaccinated,” said Professor Francois Balloux, director of the University College London Genetics Institute. BA.4 and BA.5 are very similar to each other and share the same spike protein sequence.
EPA to weigh regulating common plastic as hazardous waste - EPA may finally classify a commonly used plastic as hazardous waste, following a long legal struggle with advocates.The Center for Biological Diversity said this afternoon that it has reached a deal with EPA over polyvinyl chloride, more well known as PVC or vinyl, following a decade of back-and-forth. Under the agreement, EPA must assess within nine months whether PVC constitutes hazardous waste under federal law.Emily Jeffers, an attorney at the center, sounded a hopeful note in a statement regarding the agreement.“We hope this is the federal government’s first step toward acknowledging the toxic legacy of PVC, and ultimately leads to the end of its production,” Jeffers said.PVC is often used in building materials, children’s toys and other common items. But the plastic is also linked to an array of health issues, including reproductive risks, and advocates say it releases carcinogens at all stages of life, including when it breaks down as waste.Last August, the center sued EPA over PVC, arguing the agency should regulate the plastic as hazardous waste under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (Greenwire, Aug. 23, 2021).That move came after a long-running dispute between the group and the agency. In 2014, the center initially petitioned EPA to classify PVC as hazardous through RCRA in addition to taking other steps under the Toxic Substances Control Act, a request the agency quickly denied. The RCRA component of the petition has remained in limbo, however, ultimately prompting the lawsuit last summer.With the announcement today, EPA will move forward with possibly classifying PVC as hazardous waste, an action the center said would prove greatly beneficial for public health.“Scientists have been telling us for years that PVC is the most environmentally damaging type of plastic,” said Jeffers. “Yet we discard billions of pounds of PVC every year in the United States, in much the same way we throw away orange rinds and grass clippings. That doesn’t make sense, and it’s dangerous.”
Public ‘Duped’ About Plastics Recycling, CA Launches Investigation — California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced Thursday his office has launched "a first-of-its-kind" investigation into the fossil fuel and petrochemical industries for "their role in causing and exacerbating the global plastics pollution crisis.""For decades, the fossil fuel and petrochemical industries have promoted the myth that we can recycle our way out of the plastics pollution problem," Bonta's office said in a news release.We can't — and for decades the fossil fuel and petrochemical industries have convinced the public that it's possible, according to the attorney general.Bonta said his investigation will focus on the industries' role in misleading the public about plastics recycling and the ongoing harm caused to the state as well as its residents and natural resources.One company already targeted is ExxonMobil. On Thursday, the attorney general issued a subpoena to the Texas-based oil and gas corporation seeking information related to "the company's role in deceiving the public," Bonta's office reported."ExxonMobil is one of the largest polymer producers in [the] world — its polymers account for more single-use plastic waste than any other company — and was an active participant in the Council for Solid Waste Solutions, which spent millions of dollars in the 1980s to convince the public we could recycle our way out of the plastics problem," the attorney general's office said in the news release.In an emailed statement, ExxonMobil spokesperson Julie L. King said the company rejects Bonta's allegations."We share society's concerns and are collaborating with governments, including the State of California, communities and other industries to support projects around the world to improve waste management and circularity," King wrote. "We are the first company to deploy commercial-scale advanced recycling technology at a major petrochemical facility. This technology converts a broad range of used plastic to raw materials that can be utilized to make new plastic.According to Bonta, The Council for Solid Waste Solutions, a special project formed by the Society of Plastics Industry, was comprised of major petrochemical companies including Exxon, Mobil, Dow, DuPont, Chevron, and Phillips 66. (Exxon and Mobil merged in the late 1990s.)The Society of the Plastics Industry also adapted the "chasing arrows" symbol — widely used by the environmental community — that assigns numerals to identify the plastic resin from which the product was made. The symbol was successfully promoted to state governments as a "coding system" to be adopted in lieu of restrictions like plastic bans, deposit laws, and mandatory recycling standards, even if there was no way to economically recycle the products, according to Bonta.The successful campaigning by the industry "led to the current misunderstanding by a majority of Americans that any plastic bearing the symbol can be recycled," Bonta's office said.In 2021, the California Legislature responded to the allegations by adopting Senate Bill 343, which mandates that the chasing arrows symbol can only be used if there is substantial proof that a product is not environmentally harmful. The bill was signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom in October.
Defense Department hits the brakes on PFAS incineration - The Pentagon has momentarily ceased incinerating items like firefighting foam that contain so-called forever chemicals as the military continues to grapple with widespread contamination.In a recent memo, the Defense Department issued a ban on incinerating PFAS-laden items, with particular emphasis on the aqueous film-forming foam often used in training and combat situations. Under the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act, the military was required to prohibit incineration of those materials beginning April 26, a moratorium now in full enforcement.Per the legislation, the Pentagon must cease incinerating those items until it issues guidance that implements EPA’s current advice for disposing of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, along with other provisions of the NDAA.“Because DoD has not yet finalized the guidance required … [the department] must immediately discontinue contracting activities for the incineration of any PFAS material,” wrote Paul Cramer, a Defense Department official, in the memo.Cramer said the Defense Department would lift the “temporary prohibition” once it issues guidance documents.While PFAS contamination is under scrutiny at every level of government, the Defense Department is among the most high-profile players on the hook for billions in cleanup. Widespread use of AFFF has left bases and nearby communities deeply polluted with the notorious family of chemicals, and the military is facing fury from lawmakers along with pressure to remedy the situation.Phasing out PFAS-laden foam is a major priority for the Pentagon, but the process has been slow-going. While the Defense Department has identified alternatives, officials told Congress in a recent briefing that each comes with significant flaws. They concluded “there are many viable alternatives for replacing AFFF” but that “no single technology is suitable for every situation.”Even as they seek alternatives, Defense Department officials are tasked with disposing of its current stockpile of AFFF, a mammoth problem made more challenging by concerns surrounding the waste stream. PFAS migrate from landfills into wastewater, which can ultimately lead them back into drinking water.Incineration has also proven deeply controversial, with some studies showing the chemicals can escape through the air and into surrounding communities, which are disproportionately low-income and nonwhite.And while PFAS are not currently regulated as hazardous waste under federal law, that could change as EPA takes a closer look at the issue (Greenwire, Jan. 27).Meanwhile, the military continues to face questions from lawmakers skeptical of its approach to tackling PFAS and the sluggish pace demonstrated in cleanup efforts so far (E&E Daily, Dec. 10, 2021). The Defense Department has projected investigation and cleanup costs will total billions of dollars in the next few years alone.
EPA accelerates asbestos crackdown - EPA is ramping up its crackdown on one of the world’s most notorious carcinogens following decades of pressure from advocates.In an announcement this afternoon, EPA said it is proposing a rule requiring comprehensive reporting on asbestos, mandating that manufacturers and processors report use and exposure information to the agency. That will include articles that contain asbestos as an impurity or contaminant, like talc products.“Strong data and the best available science are the foundation of our work to protect communities from hazardous chemicals like asbestos,” Assistant Administrator for the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention Michal Freedhoff said in a statement. “Getting a more comprehensive and complete set of data on how and where this chemical is used is part of EPA’s broader effort to evaluate the health risks from asbestos and, when needed, put protections in place.”The data the agency collects will be used to shape future rulemaking decisions in addition to its ongoing second risk evaluation for legacy uses of asbestos under the Toxic Substances Control Act. Information that will be given to EPA includes exposure-related data and quantities of asbestos that have been manufactured or processed, along with employee data and types of use.That new reporting requirement comes after a landmark settlement between EPA and the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization after a three-year legal fight that ended last summer with the agency agreeing to propose the rule (Greenwire, June 8, 2021).EPA’s announcement marks the latest turn in a long-running saga. Asbestos is among the most well-known carcinogens in the world, but efforts to ban the naturally occurring mineral have met with failure throughout U.S. history. Advocates often pointed to asbestos as the “poster child” for chemicals policy failure for decades, and it ultimately served as a major rallying cry for overhauling TSCA in 2016 (Greenwire, March 12, 2021).But the Trump administration faced significant litigation over its approach to the asbestos assessment under TSCA, a problem inherited by President Joe Biden when he took office. Under a court order, EPA released the first asbestos assessment as a “part one” evaluation and indicated a second part would follow. Last month, the agency said it would ban the most common type of asbestos, chrysotile, along with products that contain it (Greenwire, April 5).In a statement responding to EPA’s announcement this afternoon, ADAO President Linda Reinstein praised the move and expressed hope that it would help to safeguard public health.“The lack of reporting obligations by the asbestos industry has been a gaping hole in EPA’s efforts to protect Americans from exposure to this lethal carcinogen,” Reinstein said. “We’ve always said that we can’t protect Americans from asbestos if EPA and the public don’t know where it is, how it is used, and who is exposed.
Fresh Signs of Mosquito Insecticide Resistance in South Africa - Most South Africans aren’t worried about malaria even though the disease is endemic in the country. Four of the country’s nine provinces carry malaria risk while 10% of the population is at risk of contracting malaria.The lack of concern can be attributed to the fact that the country has a relatively low burden of the disease. In 2020, South Africa had 8,126 cases and 38 deaths. This is low when compared to the estimated 10,007,802 cases and 23,766 deathsin Mozambique during the same period.The low number of cases means that South Africa is a candidate for malaria elimination. To reach this goal the country would need to record no new infections for three years. This goal has recently been achieved by China and El Salvador in 2021, and Argentina and Algeria in 2019.The region in South Africa most likely to achieve this status is KwaZulu-Natal where the incidence rate is very low. But there are threats to achieving the goal.In a recent paper we set out our findings on malaria in northern Kwa-Zulu Natal. We found that certain species of malaria-carrying mosquitoes showed resistance to insecticides. Though the resistance levels are low, they nevertheless point to a potentially worrying trend.This is not the first time that insecticide resistance has been reported in the province. Monitoring resistance is important because it gives an early warning sign of coming danger. The loss of insecticide efficacy can be a major blow to malaria control efforts.Levels of malaria incidence can change very quickly. This was the case during a epidemic between 1996-2000 which was caused by a combination of insecticide resistance and anti-malarial drug resistance.Insecticide resistance is a growing threat to malaria control efforts globally. In South Africa, indoor residual spraying is the cornerstone of the malaria elimination efforts. Hence, it is important to keep a close eye on vector mosquito populations in affected areas. A concerted effort on the part of the government ensured that malaria infection rates were brought down again. Our research suggests there needs to be extra vigilance to ensure there isn’t another spike.
A prison inmate in a pre-release work program was the first recorded human case of the bird flu in the US - A prison inmate has tested positive for the bird flu — marking the first human case in the US.The virus outbreak is highly contagious to birds — so much so thatalmost 27 million chickens and turkeys have been killed en masse since January 2022 to halt the spread — but the infection risk among humans remains relatively low.The man was exposed to the H5N1 virus as he worked on a Colorado farm culling — or slaughtering — birds suspected to have had the virus, NBC News reported. The outlet reported that the man was working at a Montrose County farm while taking part in a pre-release employment program. While the other inmates in the program have tested negative, they are still being monitored.The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environmentreported that the man's only symptom was fatigue and that it has since cleared up after taking an influenza antiviral drug known as oseltamivir — or Tamiflu. They identified him as "younger than 40" but provided no additional information on his identity.The department says all birds in the flock were euthanized and maintains that all inmates on the farm were given personal protective equipment."We want to reassure Coloradans that the risk to them is low," said Dr. Rachel Herlihy, state epidemiologist with the department. "I am grateful for the seamless collaboration between CDC, Department of Corrections, Department of Agriculture, and CDPHE, as we continue to monitor this virus and protect all Coloradans.""CDC has tracked the health of more than 2,500 people with exposures to H5N1 virus-infected birds and this is the only case that has been found to date. Other people involved in the culling operation in Colorado have tested negative for H5 virus infection, but they are being retested out of an abundance of caution," the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a statementThursday.He was the second human on record to test positive. The first was in 2021 in the United Kingdom, according to The World Health Organization.However, the CDC maintains that human risk is still low despite this one infection in the US. "More than 880 human infections with earlier H5N1 viruses have been reported since 2003 worldwide, however, the predominant H5N1 viruses now circulating among birds globally are different from earlier H5N1 viruses," the Center added in their statement.The outbreak has hit more than thirty states and has resulted in an increase in egg prices as the avian influenza strain continues to kill birds across the US, Insider previously reported. The mortality rate sits at 90% for those birds that catch it.
Avian flu makes its way to the Tampa Bay area - Officials have documented cases of birds in the Tampa Bay area being infected with, and killed by, the H5N1 bird flu. It marks the first time a highly pathogenic avian influenza has been officially detected in Florida, according to Mark Cunningham, a veterinarian for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. And while the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that humans have a low risk of being infected, experts are still keeping a close eye on the outbreak. There has been one case of a human infection reported in Colorado. The patient, who state health officials said worked with presumptively infected poultry at a commercial farm, reported fatigue as their only symptom and is expected to recover. Cunningham said that people should be on the lookout for sick or dead birds. “We urge people to take precautions, not to handle sick or dead birds,” said Cunningham. “And if they do have to handle them, to make sure they sanitize their equipment, wash their hands, that sort of thing.” There are many ways to know if a bird is infected, according to Cunningham. “A lot of the birds we see have neurologic signs — swimming in circles, or tremors or seizures,” said Cunningham. “So we would consider any bird that appears sick or depressed, as being at risk for being infected.” Cunningham also advises people to report any incidents of birds that have died from unknown causes, or any birds that seem ill, to the FWC’s website. As far as the timetable for the virus, Cunningham said that there is no way to know how things will develop. “We’re hopeful that as temperatures warm up, the rate of infection will decrease. Our concern is that this virus could be here to stay,” said Cunningham. “But really only time will tell.”
Alaska, Oklahoma report first avian flu outbreaks in poultry -- Over the weekend, federal agriculture officials reported the first highly pathogenic avian flu outbreaks in Alaska and Oklahoma, raising the number of affected states to 32. Also, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued recommendations to help health departments investigate and response to potential human cases, and earlier-affected states, several of them in the Midwest, reported more outbreak in poultry. The outbreak in Alaska struck a backyard flock in Matanuska-Susitna Borough, part of the Anchorage metropolitan area, according to an Apr 30 statement from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS). The facility houses 30 birds. Prior to the poultry outbreak, no wild-bird positive test results had been reported from Alaska. Yesterday, APHIS announced Oklahoma's first outbreak, which involves a commercial chicken breeder flock in Sequoyah County in the east central part of the state on the border with Arkansas. The flock had 13,800 birds. Oklahoma had previously reported one H5 detection from wild bird surveillance, in a mallard found dead Payne County in late March. Highly pathogenic avian flu has now been confirmed in 32 US states since January, or almost two thirds of states. Several earlier-affected states reported more outbreaks, especially those in the Midwest. Minnesota reported 6 more outbreaks, 5 of them in backyard flocks and 1 at a commercial turkey breeding farm, raising the state's total to 66 outbreaks. The spread of the virus has led to the loss of more than 2.7 million bird, according to the Minnesota Board of Animal Health. Wisconsin reported 2 more outbreaks in backyard birds, one in Fond du Lac County and the other in Oconto County, raising the state's total to 10. Michigan reported another outbreak in backyard birds, which occurred in Branch County. And Nebraska reported one more outbreak, which occurred in a backyard flock of 50 birds in Washington County. In the East, Pennsylvania reported a seventh outbreak in hard-hit Lancaster County. The latest outbreak struck a commercial duck farm housing 19,300 birds. Meanwhile, in the West, Colorado and Montana reported more outbreaks. In Colorado, the virus struck a commercial layer farm housing 1.1 million birds in Weld County, marking the state's fourth outbreak. Montana reported three more outbreaks, all involving backyard birds and bringing the state's total to eight. Locations for the latest outbreaks were Fergus, Gallatin, and Pondera counties. Among the three locations, the virus led to the loss of 2,230 birds. The latest outbreaks are part of overall activity linked to the Eurasian H5N1 avian flu strain, which has now resulted in the loss of 36.6 million US birds.
First confirmed case of bird flu detected in wild bird in Texas -- The first confirmed case of the avian flu has been detected in a wild bird in Texas, according to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. The virus transmits easily among bird species. Though the risk to humans remains low, officials are urging others to please take protective measures if contact with wild birds can't be avoided.According to a release from TPWD on Wednesday, May 4, the National Veterinary Services Laboratories confirmed the presence of the highly pathogenic avian influenza in a great horned owl at a rehabilitation facility in Wichita County this week. The facility notified TPWD after the owl began to show signs of the avian flu. Symptoms include diarrhea, incoordination, lethargy, coughing and sneezing, and sudden death, TPWD stated in the release. The virus may spread in a variety of ways, including through contact with infected wild and domestic birds, as well as by contaminated equipment, clothing, and shoes of caretakers. Officials did note not all wild birds show symptoms.The case of the avian flu follows an early April detection of the disease in a commercial pheasant flock located in Erath County, near the Dallas-Fort Worth area. It has been detected in 38 states across the country. Because of the ease of transmission, TPWD recommends facilities with wild or domestic birds enhance their biosecurity measures to reduce the risk of introduction. The public can assist as well by limiting all unnecessary contact with wild birds.The transmission risk of avian influenza from infected birds to people remains low, but the public should take basic protective measures by wearing gloves, face masks, and handwashing, TPWD stated.
Bird flu infects Berks County duck operations, marking state's first cases outside of Lancaster County: USDA - Confirmed cases of avian influenza at two duck farms in Berks County mark the first evidence that the illness has spread beyond just Lancaster County poultry operations in Pennsylvania to infect domesticated birds in other parts of the state. A total of 42,000 ducks were infected or exposed by the outbreaks at the two Berks properties, a spokesman from the U.S. Department of Agriculture confirmed early Wednesday evening. Across the state, avian influenza now has been confirmed in nine flocks, all of the other seven in Lancaster County, according to a USDA online database. The Berks cases, announced early Wednesday, were confirmed at a commercial breeder facility and a meat bird operation, both growing ducks, USDA officials confirmed. The virus affected 29,500 birds at the breeder facility, and 12,500 at the meat bird operation, according to a USDA spokesperson. Those birds either died of the illness or, more likely, were euthanized to reduce the likelihood of an infected flock spreading the virus to another flock. It’s a process called depopulation. Since mid-April, 3,845,200 birds — a combination of chickens and ducks, including egg layers, meat birds and pullets — have been affected by the virus across seven flocks in Lancaster County. As of Wednesday evening, the statewide total of affected birds was at 3,887,200, according to the USDA’s confirmed cases. The exact locations of the state’s infected flocks have not been revealed by officials at the state Department of Agriculture, who have claimed that providing addresses for virus-positive farms could draw unwanted attention and visitors to the properties. That, in turn, could increase the chances for the illness to further spread, they’ve said. A USDA spokesman also did not reveal those locations, citing farmers’ rights to privacy. Avian influenza is most commonly spread when healthy birds come in contact with bodily fluids from an infected (wild or domestic) bird, state officials have said. However, it also can be spread on contaminated clothes or equipment, including shoes and vehicles, worn and used by people. And the current strain of the virus has been deemed highly pathogenic, meaning it has a high rate of contagiousness and lethality in domesticated poultry.
Sixty Eight Sites in Minnesota Reporting Bird Flu Infections — The Minnesota Board of Animal Health says there are now 68 sites in Minnesota reporting highly pathogenic avian influenza infections.The board says 2.72 million birds have been affected across 22 counties.There are 35 sites across Benton, Kandiyohi, Meeker, Morrison, and Stearns Counties affecting backyard flocks and commercial meat, breeder, and egg operations. When a bird flu infection has been identified, the flock is depopulated to prevent sick animals from entering the food supply. There is a low risk of humans contracting avian influenza. Experts say poultry and poultry products are safe to consume.It’s not just commercial and backyard flocks affected. The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources says it is coordinating with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Plant and Animal Health Inspection Service to conduct surveillance for HPAI in wild birds. Officials with the University of Minnesota Raptor Center say there have been more than five dozen confirmed cases among raptors. That included great horned owls, a barred owl, bald eagles, and a turkey vulture. All but one with a positive test died or was put down. Songbirds, crows, and geese are also being sickened.The latest outbreak was first discovered in Minnesota on March 25th.
The horrific bird flu that has wiped out 36 million chickens and turkeys, explained - The virus, known as the Eurasian H5N1 avian influenza, began tearing through Europe, Asia, and Africa in late 2021 and is still raging, with Europe experiencing its worst bird flu outbreak on record. It was first detected in the US in January and has since spread to at least 32 states, resulting in the death of more than 36 million chickens and turkeys and triggering a spike in egg prices.While the virus has a near 100 percent mortality rate among infected poultry — and can spread rapidly among birds, especially in packed industrial farming conditions — it’s currently believed to pose little threat to human beings. It only rarely spills over to people, and only to those who come into close contact with infected birds. Even when there are human infections, “the viruses are unable to efficiently transmit between humans,” notes Michelle Wille, a virus ecologist at the University of Sydney.But when certain strains of avian flu do manage to infect humans, it can be deadly. From 2003 to 2021, a little more than half of the 863 people who contracted an earlier strain of H5N1 died. The H5N1 strain currently spreading appears to be less transmissible and less severe to humans than those that infected people in the past, and only two people have tested positive for the strain — a man in the United Kingdom last December, and a man inColorado last week.The Colorado man — a prison inmate who had come in direct contact with presumably infected birds while working at a culling operation as part of a pre-release work program — experienced a few days of fatigue and recovered after being treated with an antiviral drug. Around 10 people who came into contact with him are under close observation.Beyond the occasional one-off case in close human contacts, the bigger worry is that an unchecked flu that spreads among birds has plenty of opportunities to mutate in a way that allows it to transmit efficiently from person to person, thereby kicking off a new influenza pandemic. A widespread bird flu outbreak in 2005 raised alarm bells and prompted the US Senate to allocate $4 billion to prepare for a possible influenza pandemic — though when a new flu pandemic did break out in 2009, the origin was ultimately found in a swine virus.So far, the bird flu has mostly been a problem for birds. It’s not the disease that’s killing most of them, however — it’s their owners. When chicken, turkey, and egg companies detect one infected bird, they kill the whole flockin an effort to slow the spread of the virus. And they’re doing so using a variety of excruciating methods, including spraying birds with a suffocating water-based foam or closing off barn vents to raise temperatures so the birds die by heat stroke, a practice called ventilation shutdown, which can take 1.5 to 3.75 hours to kill them. The situation is horrific, but given the industrialized nature of the US poultry industry and its response to past bird flu outbreaks, animal advocates say it’s unsurprising. Nearly all birds raised for meat and eggs in the US are raised on factory farms, where producers raise hundreds of thousands to millions of animals per year. And most of these animals are genetically identical, which could make them more vulnerable to bird flu. Some experts say the intensification of animal farming — raising more animals closer together — could also beincreasing the virulence and transmission rate of bird flu strains.
France culls record 16 million birds in one of the most severe bird flu outbreaks in years - France has culled a record 16 million chickens, ducks and other poultry since November 2021 in one of the most severe bird flu outbreaks in years. In 2021, the country saw nearly 500 outbreaks and culled 3.5 million animals, mostly ducks. According to the French Ministry of Agriculture and Food, the 2021/22 epidemic reached its peak at the end of March and it seems it’s now slowing down. Since the first case in this outbreak was detected on November 26, 2021, the virus has spread to 1 364 farms, with more than a half in the country’s west. At least 850 affected farms are located in Vendee, a strategic location because it’s home to many farms that raise chickens and other birds exclusively for breeding. As a result, egg production has dropped around 6% since November 2021. The country has seen several bird flu outbreaks since 2015 but this winter, for the first time, wild birds migrating back from the south contaminated farmed poultry, sparking the second wave of infections.
67 Wild Horses Die of Highly Contagious Illness in Federal Care -Wild horses rounded up by the government in Colorado are now in quarantine due to an “unknown yet highly contagious” disease. So far, 67 horses have died because of the illness.The Canon City Wild Horse and Burro Facility, which is on the grounds of a state prison, is under voluntary quarantine, according to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). The agency announced 57 horses died since the outbreak began on April 23. An additional 10 more horses died early this week.There are currently 2,550 horses at the facility, according to federal officials. They say most of the horses affected were captured on Colorado's West Douglas range in Rio Blanco County in fall 2021.At the time, the BLM said it was separating these horses from the rest of the animals until they could be tested and cleared of equine infectious anemia, a viral disease.Officials are working to find the cause of the outbreak.“We are working with local, state, and federal officials to determine what is impacting horses in the facility and how we can respond as effectively as possible,” Stephen Leonard, BLM Colorado Wild Horse and Burro Program Manager, said in a statement.Two veterinarians—one independent and one who works for the government—are working at the facility to diagnose and treat the horses. Any animals showing symptoms are being quarantined from the rest of the horses.Inmates at the corrections facility feed, train, and care for the horses as part of a cooperative agreement between the BLM and the Colorado Department of Corrections. It is one of five facilities in the U.S. with a Wild Horse Inmate Program, reports the BLM. The inmates gain “meaningful and marketable experience they can use when they reenter the workforce,” according to the BLM website.The facility can hold as many as 3,000 animals at a time. Two adoption events are held there each month where both trained and untrained mustangs are sold.A controversial practice with animal rights supporters, the BLM has rounded up thousands of wild horses and burros in order to try to reduce the number of animals in Western herds. It uses low-flying helicopters to chase the horses into pens. Then the animals are trucked to holding facilities where many are later sold at adoption events.Among the many arguments opponents offer against the process is that often animals are injured during the roundups and they are later kept in crowded holding pens. They say some end up being sold for slaughter.The Colorado facility is the second federal location in recent weeks to have a contagious disease outbreak. The Wheatland Off-Range Corral in Wyoming canceled an adoption event in early April due to an outbreak of Streptococcus equi, a bacterial infection known as strangles.“Disease outbreaks and deaths are the direct result of the BLM's inhumane mass roundups. Now, more than 60,000 wild horses and burros are in overcrowded dirt holding pens,” Suzanne Roy, executive director of the American Wild Horse Campaign, said in a statement.“The agency is planning to round up and remove another 19,000 wild horses and burros from public lands this year. We can expect to see more suffering and death if BLM continues down this dangerous and destructive path.”
Meanwhile elsewhere on planet Earth...drought and heat get a lot worse - You can be forgiven for thinking that the most important thing happening now is the war between Ukraine and Russia. After all, the Russian government through its foreign minister and its mouthpieces in the media has threatened to use nuclear weapons to win the war in Ukraine. Whether you think Russia is bluffing or not, it's all very scary. Meanwhile, elsewhere on planet Earth our perilous ecological situation is spiraling from bad to worse. That this is the big story and has been for many decades has escaped the media but does occasionally get their attention when the perilous consequences cannot be ignored. Climate change and the resulting drought and heat that are now our constant companions are currently showing up in the news cycle. To wit:
- The water level in Lake Mead (formed by Hoover Dam to provide water to Arizona, California and Nevada) has declined to historic lows. The original intake valves that used to supply water to Las Vegas and environs are now exposed for the first time ever. (Other deeper ones were built in anticipation of this day. See my coverage of the now 23-year-old drought when it was only 10 years old.)
- The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California for the first time is limiting water use for outdoor watering. The order affects about 6 million residents. The District is also calling on users in the entire district of 19 million people to lower water use by 30 percent.
- High temperatures of 110 degrees F have hit India early in the summer season. In addition to the threat to human health, the heat is threatening the yield of India's recently planted wheat crop which is now estimated to decline between 20 to 50 percent due to heat damage. This is happening against the backdrop of a decline in wheat exports from Russia and Ukraine, formerly the world's number one and number five exporters, respectively.
This decline is due to snarled shipping routes along the Ukraine's Black Sea coast (due to the war) and a decision by Ukraine and Russia to withhold wheat exports temporarily to make sure the countries have enough for their own needs. The worldwide market in wheat means that conditions wherever wheat is grown cannot be ignored. - Drought in Brazil due to a resurgent La Niña is threatening the corn crop in the country's main southern corn growing region. Of course, Brazil grows other crops there including soy, sugar and oranges, all of which have experienced rises in their prices.
- After three years of failing rains in Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya and rains still absent a month into the current rainy season, 20 million people could face extreme hunger this year in the Horn of Africa.
I could just as easily adduce a list of unusually heavy flooding across the world. This is the flip side of global warming. As the hydrological cycle both changes and goes into overdrive, it brings too much or too little moisture to areas previously neither too wet nor too dry. It's true that people and agriculture could migrate to areas where climate change is making conditions more favorable to farming. It would be both expensive and chaotic to do so. And, expedited relocation would almost certainly entail seizure of land and forced resettlement which has a very grim history. Just ask Native Americans! Moving agriculture means not just finding new land for planting, but also moving or rebuilding the entire agricultural infrastructure of farm services with it.Our difficulty as a civilization at this late date has been to accept that there is now no frontier to flee to when we've ruined the soil, upset the climate, extracted all the valuable minerals, and poisoned the air, the soil and the seas all the way to the poles.If human civilization avoids nuclear annihilation in what is really World War III (which we are conveniently calling the Russia-Ukraine war), everyone will breathe a giant sigh of relief. We will, however, still be facing another type of annihilation of our own making. Only if we end our war on the biosphere and our overexploitation of the underground stores of the planet will we humans have a chance of avoiding a societal collapse which on our current trajectory seems inevitable.
'We Woke Up and We Lost Half Our Water’ How climate change sparked a multistate battle over the Colorado River. - The Colorado River’s 1,450-mile run begins amid the snowy pinnacles of the Rocky Mountains and ends in the subtropical waters of the Gulf of California. Starting in the early 20th century, much of the Colorado’s natural majesty was corralled into a system of reservoirs, canals, and dams that now provides drinking water for 40 million people, irrigation for 5 million acres of farmland, and sufficient power to light up a city the size of Houston. Not so long ago, there was more than enough rainfall to keep this vast waterworks humming. The 1990s were unusually wet, allowing the Colorado to fill its two sprawling reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, to 95 percent of capacity. By 2000, more than 17 trillion gallons of water were sloshing around in the reservoirs — more than enough to supply every household in the United States for a year. Then the drought arrived. And never left. After the driest two-decade stretch in 12 centuries, both Mead and Powell fell below one-third of their capacity last year, throwing the Southwest into crisis. On January 1,mandatory cuts went into effect for the first time, forcing farmers in Arizona and the utility that provides water to metropolitan Las Vegas’s 2.3 million customers to limit their uptake from Lake Mead. Even with those cuts, Bill Hasencamp, a water manager from Southern California, says, “The reservoir is still going down, and it will stay low for the next several years. I don’t think we’ll ever not have a shortage going forward.” If Hasencamp is right — and most scientists agree that America’s deserts will only get drier as the climate crisis worsens — that means he and other officials in the region have their work cut out for them to ensure that the Southwest stays hydrated. The Colorado River is currently governed by a set of operating guidelines that went into effect in 2007, the latest in a long line of agreements that began with the original Colorado River Compact in 1922. But that framework is set to expire in 2026, giving officials in the seven states through which the Colorado and its tributaries flow — along with their peers in Mexico and the 29 tribes whose ancestors have depended on the river for millennia — an alarmingly narrow window to come to a consensus on how to share a river that’s already flowing with one-fifth less water than it did in the 20th century. The Southwest’s water managers have been working feverishly this spring just to prop up the system until formal negotiations can begin next winter. In March, the water level of Lake Powell declined below a threshold at which the Glen Canyon Dam’s ability to generate power becomes threatened, and the Bureau of Reclamation, the federal agency that oversees the West’s water infrastructure, is working with the states above Lake Powell to divert more water to keep its dam operational. Meanwhile, the states around Lake Mead have been hashing out the details of a plan to voluntarily curtail their use to prevent even more dramatic cuts to Arizona and Nevada from going into effect next year. Poor hydrology isn’t the only thing on the water managers’ minds: They’re also contending with the yawning cultural and political chasm between the region’s urban and rural interests as well as questions about who should suffer the most aggressive cuts and how to better engage Indigenous communities that have historically been cut out of the dealmaking. All of that makes the Southwest’s deliberations over the Colorado River a window into how climate change is putting pressure on divisions embedded throughout American society.
Drought reveals human remains in barrel at Lake Mead - A barrel containing human remains was discovered in Nevada’s Lake Mead over the weekend as a historic drought grips the West. Las Vegas Metro Police fear they will find more bodies, officials told a local news station. The receding waters at Lake Mead, the country’s largest artificial reservoir, have dropped to historic lows. The levels are so shallow that a barrel containing skeletal remains was found Sunday immersed in mud, reports KLAS-TV in Las Vegas. Based on personal items found in the barrel, police think it has been at the bottom of the lake since the 1980s. Lt. Ray Spencer with the Las Vegas Metro Police told the news station the person was probably killed four decades ago and was found around 3 p.m. Sunday by boaters. He did not give further details about the person’s identity or how the remains ended up in a barrel at the bottom of Lake Mead. The lake — a lifeline for 25 million people and millions of acres of farmland in California, Arizona, Nevada and Mexico — has been tipping toward crisis amid record temperatures and lower snowpack melt. The lake’s growing “bathtub ring,”formed by mineral deposits, marks the rocky desert slopes more than 150 feet above the retreating shoreline. “I think anybody can understand there are probably more bodies that have been dumped in Lake Mead, it’s just a matter of, are we able to recover those?” Spencer said. The water level has receded hundreds of feet over the years, Spencer told The Times; 40 years ago, the current shoreline would have been under 100 feet of water. Last month, water levels at Lake Mead dropped so low that an original water valve not seen since 1971 was exposed. The Southern Nevada Water Authority told CNN that the valve could no longer draw water because of the low water levels. “The Colorado River Basin is experiencing the worst drought in recorded history,” the water agency said in a statement posted to its website. “Since 2000, snowfall and runoff into the basin have been well below normal. These conditions have resulted in significant water level declines at major system reservoirs, including Lake Mead and Lake Powell.” The worsening megadrought is causing water districts to restrict usage. In California, roughly 6 million people will need to curb their water use by 35%. The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California says this will equal about 80 gallons per day per person. “The ballpark figure we’re looking at is getting to the consumption of about 80 gallons per person per day,” said Adel Hagekhalil, the district’s general manager. “We’re trying to preserve everything we can.”
Colorado River Reservoirs Are So Low, Government Will Delay Releases - With long-term severe drought continuing to take a toll on the Colorado River, the federal government announced on Tuesday that it will retain some water in one of the river’s major reservoirs, describing it as an extraordinary action to temporarily stave off increased uncertainty in water and electricity supplies in the West. The decision to keep more water in Lake Powell on the Arizona-Utah border, rather than releasing it downstream to the other major reservoir, Lake Mead near Las Vegas, comes as both are at record-low levels after 20 years of drought made worse by climate change. Powell, behind Glen Canyon Dam, currently holds less than one-fourth of the amount it held when it filled after the dam was built in the 1960s. “We have never taken this step before in the Colorado River basin,” said Tanya Trujillo, an Interior Department assistant secretary. “But the conditions we see today, and the potential risks we see on the horizon, demand that we take prompt action.” Together with the release of more water into Lake Powell from an upstream dam, the decision will keep the lake at a level at which it can continue generating hydropower for the next 12 months. Beyond that, Ms. Trujillo said, the situation will be re-evaluated. Loss of hydropower production would create a number of problems for the water and electricity supply, and for the dam itself. All told, the actions will result in about a million acre-feet of additional water in Lake Powell. That is about 15 percent of the lake’s current volume and is equivalent to the annual amount used by 2 million or more households. Ms. Trujillo acknowledged that the actions were a short-term fix, and that work was needed on solutions to make the river, which supplies water to 40 million people, sustainable over the long term. Conservation groups and water policy experts agreed. Bart Miller, a program director with Western Resource Advocates, an environmental advocacy group, said his organization supported the bureau’s decision. “But it’s not enough to fix the problem,” he said. “Throughout the Colorado River basin we are using more water than the river provides.” Mr. Miller said the infrastructure bill that was approved by Congress last year should help. It earmarks $300 million for drought contingency planning in the Colorado basin.
U.S. takes unprecedented steps to replenish Colorado River's Lake Powell (Reuters) – U.S. officials on Tuesday announced unprecedented measures to boost water levels at Lake Powell, an artificial reservoir on the Colorado River that is so low as to endanger the production of hydroelectric power for seven Western states. Amid a sustained drought exacerbated by climate change, the Bureau of Reclamation will release an additional 500,000 acre-feet (616.7 million cubic meters) of water this year from the Flaming Gorge Reservoir upstream on the Wyoming-Utah border that will flow into Lake Powell. Another 480,000 acre-feet that otherwise would have been released downstream will be retained in the artificial lake on the Utah-Arizona border, officials said. “We have never taken this step before in the Colorado River Basin, but the conditions we see today and the potential risk we see on the horizon demand that we take prompt action,” Tanya Trujillo, the Interior Department’s assistant secretary for water and science, told reporters. One acre-foot, or 326,000 gallons (1.48 million liters), is enough water to supply one or two households for a year. The additional 980,000 acre-feet in Lake Powell, formed when the Colorado River was dammed in northern Arizona in the 1960s, will help keep the Glen Canyon Dam’s hydroelectric production online, raising the reservoir’s record low surface by 16 feet (4.88 meters), the bureau said. If Lake Powell, the second largest U.S. reservoir, were to drop another 32 feet, the 1,320-megawatt plant would be unable to generate electricity for millions of people in Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and Nebraska. The western United States has experienced the driest period on record over the past two decades. Some experts say the term drought is inadequate because it suggests conditions will return to normal. “We are never going to see these reservoirs filled again in our lifetime,” said Denielle Perry, a professor at Northern Arizona University’s School of Earth and Sustainability. The new measures will put more stress on Lake Mead, the country’s largest reservoir, which is downstream from Lake Powell and also at a record low. Lake Mead, formed by Hoover Dam in the 1930s and crucial to the water supply of 25 million people, has fallen so low that a barrel containing human remains, believed to date to the 1980s, was found in the receding shoreline on Sunday.
New Mexico wildfire threatens multiple cities as critical fire risk continues - ABC News Wildfires are continuing to scorch through the Western U.S., fueled by high winds, low humidity and arid landscapes.The Calf Canyon Fire and the Hermits Peak Fire in New Mexico have burned through more than 120,000 acres after they combined east of Santa Fe last week. The combined fire is only 10% contained, according to the U.S. Forest Service.’Overnight, the fire pushed north toward the cities of Cleveland and Mora, and there is a high probability that winds will push the blaze south of Mora on Monday, officials said. Structure protection teams are working on all sides of the fire. Firefighters are working to create a dozer line behind some homes in the area as well as a strong fire break northwest of Las Vegas, New Mexico, with southeast heavy winds threatening to push fires further into that city. The fire is also burning near Las Tusas, New Mexico, officials said. A New Mexico National Guard Aviation soldiers execute water drops as part of firefighting efforts in northern New Mexico, May 1, 2022. Fire risk remains critical across New Mexico and into parts of western Texas on Monday, with relative humidity forecast at only 5% and winds gusting up to 50 mph. Dangerous fire conditions have persisted throughout the region over the past several weeks. The Cooks Peak Fire in northern New Mexico has burned through more than 59,000 acres since it sparked on April 17 and is nearly 70% contained, according to officials.
Calf Canyon/Hermits Peak Fire: 145,000 acres burned, mandatory evacuations underway – The Calf Canyon/Hermits Peak Fire surpassed 145,000 acres Tuesday, making it one of the largest fires in state history and the largest fire right now in the U.S. Unfortunately, fire officials said it's going to get even bigger.All of Mora was placed under mandatory evacuations Sunday. Officials notified residents they must take Highways 433, 442 or 518 north to Taos to leave. Those roads are open for evacuation only and no re-entry will be allowed.On Monday, evacuation orders were issued for portions of Las Vegas. Details can be found below.A live evacuation map is available here. Two lines have been set up with the latest information on the fire: (505) 356-2636 and (505) 398-1151.The National Weather Service Albuquerque also issued an advisory for those who are forced to evacuate. A wildland fire action guide is available here.The Santa Fe National Forest has closed the entire Pecos and Las Vegas Ranger District to the public – this area includes all land, roads and trails in the ranger district around Las Vegas. Anyone caught in closed areas could face a $5,000 fine and six months in jail. Road Closures — City of Las Vegas: All routes southbound are open for evacuation. New Mexico Highway 65 is closed northbound at the state hospital. Evacuations (using the Ready-Set-Go! system and this live evacuation map):
- GO – Mandatory evacuation status: Las Vegas communities of Luna and Cinder; Behavioral Health Institute in Las Vegas; South Mora up to 121 (south and west of 518), Penasco Blanco, South Carmen, Ledoux, Upper Morphy, Santlago Creek, Abuelo, Puertocito, Hot Springs, Storrie Lake, Las Dispensas, San Ignacio, Lone Pine Mesa, Chavez, Canoncito, Pendaries Village, Pendaries Valley East, Rociada, Upper Rociada, Tierra Monte Canyon, La Canada, Las Tusas, the area of 527-525 on Highway 518, East and West Sapello, Emplazado and Manuelitas, Mineral Hill, San Pablo, Ojitos Frios and San Geronimo, The Big Pine, Porvenir Canyon, Canovas Canyon, El Porvenir, Gallinas, Lower Canyon Road and Trout Springs areas.
- SET – Be prepared to evacuate immediately: Las Vegas areas of Creston and Bibb.
- READY – Maintain a defensible space around your home: West Las Vegas, areas of East Cinder, Romeroville West and East in Las Vegas.
Wildfires across northern New Mexico leave at least 15 people injured, 282 buildings damaged or destroyed - Wildfires continue to burn across northern New Mexico, southwestern U.S., resulting in at least 15 injured people and evacuation orders for more than 25 000 people. According to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the Hermit’s Peak and Calf Canyon wildfires in San Miguel County have injured six people, damaged or destroyed 282 buildings, and caused mandatory evacuations for about 25 570 residents. The wildfires have burned an approximate area of 59 856 ha (147 909 acres) and are at 20% contained, as reported by the US Incident Information System (InciWeb) May 4. In Colfax County, nine people have been injured and 230 individuals evacuated, after the Cooks Peak wildfire, which has affected about 24 021 ha (59 357 acres). The fire danger forecast is mostly extreme on May 4 and 5 over most of New Mexico, including the areas where the wildfires are active, according to the Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS).
6,000 evacuated as New Mexico fights largest wildfire in US - As firefighters scrambled to keep the largest blaze burning in the U.S. from destroying more homes in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham asked President Joe Biden to declare a federal disaster. During a briefing on the fire burning across the state's northeast, Lujan Grisham, a first-term Democrat who is running for re-election, signed a request for a presidential disaster declaration that will be sent to the White House, to request financial assistance for the state's recovery efforts, adding that it was important that the declaration be made immediately, rather than when the fire is out. "I am unwilling to wait. I have 6,000 people evacuated, I have families who do not know what the next day looks like," said Grisham, vowing to get them help. However, residents in the small northeastern New Mexico city of Las Vegas were already voicing concerns about grocery stores being closed, and some people chose to leave, even though evacuations had not been ordered. Those from villages in the mountains surrounding the community, who had found refuge with family members and at a shelter in Las Vegas, were worried they might have to find another place to go if predicted fierce winds push the flames closer to the city. Meanwhile, a battery of fire engines and their crews were protecting homes and other structures on the edge of Las Vegas, and bulldozers cleared more fire lines on the outskirts. While New Mexico was at the center of the latest wave of hot, dry and windy weather hitting the U.S., forecasters also issued warnings for parts of Arizona and Colorado, and authorities in Texas urged people to be careful, after local crews had to respond to several new fires this week. All of the New Mexico fires are being fueled by tinder-dry groves of ponderosa pine. This year, an area of more than 4,400-square miles has burned across the U.S.
Vast forest losses in 2021 imperil global climate targets, monitoring report says -The world lost an area of forest the size of the US state of Wyoming last year, as wildfires in Russia set all-time records and Brazilian deforestation of the Amazon remains high, a global forest monitoring project report said on Thursday. Global Forest Watch, which is backed by the non-profit World Resources Institute (WRI) and draws on forest data collected by the University of Maryland, said in a report that roughly 253,000 square kilometers (97,683 square miles) of forest were lost in 2021. Forests provide a buffer against climate change because of the vast amounts of carbon dioxide that they absorb and their rapid destruction is putting global climate targets at risk, WRI analysts said in a briefing. The high level of 2021 forest loss, while roughly flat with 2020, does not match up with the commitment announced by more than 100 world leaders at a United Nations climate summit last November to halt deforestation by 2030, the analysts said. “We are not seeing the downward decline (in forest loss) we would expect to see those results,” said Rod Taylor, WRI’s global forests program director, referring to the 2030 commitment. The causes of the reduction in forest cover include human and natural causes, as well as deforestation, wildfires and other destruction. Loss of 37,500 square kilometers of old-growth tropical rainforest is particularly concerning because the dense vegetation holds high levels of carbon, WRI analysts said. Although that destruction was slightly lower than 2020, it caused carbon dioxide emissions equivalent to all of the fossil fuel India burns in a year, the report said. That destruction was overwhelmingly from human’s permanently clearing the land, with more than 40 percent of that loss in Brazil.
How Europe’s biomass appetite is harming the US south - – Silverleen Alston recalls when nothing but brooding groves of sweetgums, oaks and cypress trees surrounded her family home in the small town of Garysburg, in North Carolina’s Northampton County.But those trees are long gone, replaced by rows of fast-growing pines that help feed the hulking wood mill standing less than a half-mile (800 metres) from her back yard.At the plant, owned by Maryland-based Enviva, trees are dried and pressed into small, uniform pellets. The facility is one of four the company runs in the state, and it is part of a booming industry in the country’s southeast, where a dozen companies churn out more than 10 million tonnes of wood pellets a year.Much of this output is exported to Europe and burned for energy that counts towards green goals.In 2009, the European Union committed to obtaining 20 percent of its energy needs from renewable sources by 2020 – and burning wood for fuel was considered a zero-emissions renewable source. The idea was that since forests can be replanted, the carbon dioxide released during logging, shipping and burning can be reabsorbed by the new trees as they grow.Encouraged by government subsidies, energy providers in countries like the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Belgium built new infrastructure or retrofitted their coal-fired plants to burn wood pellets.Today, biomass energy provides nearly 60 percent of the EU’s renewable power generation capacity, a share projected to grow further as the bloc aims for ambitious clean energy targets.But while politicians on both sides have heaped praise on biomass companies for creating much-needed rural jobs and boosting local logging and trucking businesses, residents like Alston argue that their growing presence has only made life worse.#160;The 63-year-old said there was an unpleasant odour in the air and the trucks going up and down the highway made constant noise. The buzz of sawmills and other machinery is incessant, even at night. “I can’t remember the last time I slept for more than three hours in a row,” .For lifelong resident Belinda Joyner, the main concern is pollution.“We used to have cookouts in the back yard every weekend and kids could play on the lawn,” said the 69-year-old. “We can’t do that any more because of the stuff that’s coming out from the plant. It’s not safe.”Turning tree trunks into wood pellets releases thousands of tonnes of fine particulate matter, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, and other noxious chemical compounds linked with a range of illnesses, from respiratory and heart disease to cancer.
How Americans’ love of beef is helping destroy the Amazon rainforest - Cattle ranching, responsible for the great majority of deforestation in the Amazon, is pushing the forest to the edge of what scientists warn could be a vast and irreversible dieback that claims much of the biome. Despite agreement that change is necessary to avert disaster, despite attempts at reform, despite the resources of Brazil’s federal government and powerful beef companies, the destruction continues.But the ongoing failure to protect the world’s largest rainforest from rapacious cattle ranching is no longer Brazil’s alone, a Washington Post investigation shows. It is now shared by the United States — and the American consumer.In the two years since Washington lifted a moratorium that was imposed on raw Brazilian beef over food safety concerns, the United States has grown to become its second-biggest buyer. The countrybought more than 320 million pounds of Brazilian beef last year — and is on pace to purchase nearly twice as much this year. The biggest supplier is the beef behemoth JBS, whose fleet of brands stock some of America’s major retail chains and businesses: Kroger, Goya Foods, Albertsons (the parent company of Safeway, Jewel-Osco and Vons). JBS, the world’s largest beef producer, has repeatedly been accused by environmentalists of buying cattle raised on illegally deforested land. Greenpeace first alleged such ties in a 2009 report. In 2017, Brazil’s environmental law enforcement agency, Ibama, fined the company what was then more than $7.5 million, alleging that two of its Amazon meatpacking plants had purchased nearly 50,000 such animals. In October, federal prosecutors focusing on deforestation allegedwidespread “irregularities” in the company’s direct supply chain from January 2018 to June 2019 in Pará state. But in a forest where some beef producers still don’t track cattle origins, and in a country where no law specifically prohibits the purchase of cattle from illegally deforested land, JBS considers itself one of the good guys. It says it has prioritized the environment and blocked more than 14,000 cattle ranches that didn’t comply with company standards. It has signed agreements with environmentalists and federal prosecutors promising not to purchase cattle from ranches that were illegally deforested. It publishes the names of the ranches from which it purchases cattle.None of it has been enough.By reviewing thousands of shipment and purchase logs, and analyzing satellite imagery of Amazon cattle ranches, The Post found that JBS has yet to disentangle itself from ties to illegal deforestation. The destruction is hidden at the base of a long and multistep supply chain that directly connects illegally deforested ranches — and ranchers accused of environmental infractions — to factories authorized by the U.S. government to export beef to the United States.
Major Brazil Soybean Grower to Cut Fertilizer Use Amid Shortage-- One of Brazil’s largest farmers is planning to reduce fertilizer use by a quarter next season, relying on more precise applications and soil testing to maintain crop yields. SLC Agricola SA, which cultivates an area bigger than Delaware with soybeans, corn and cotton, will probably use between 20% and 25% less fertilizer in 2022-2023 without jeopardizing yields, according to Chief Executive Officer Aurelio Pavinato. The decision on whether and where cut applications will be based on soil testing and precision agriculture, tools already adopted by the firm for several years.SLC’s plan offers a glimpse of how growers in the agriculture superpower are preparing to deal with a global shortage of crop nutrients in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that has caused prices to skyrocket, threatening to reduce production of staple crops exported around the world. The prospect of lower yields has increased concern that crop prices will hit fresh records, adding to pressure on food supply to developing countries.“It’s possible to cut fertilizers in a year and have a null impact on production,” Pavinato said in an interview. Fertilizer reserves in the soil from previous seasons will ease the impact of applying less, he said.The majority of farmers will probably adopt the same strategy, and lower demand will lead the market to balance again, he said. Of the three key nutrients for crops, SLC has secured 83% of the potassium it’s planning to apply next season and half of phosphorus, but hasn’t yet bought nitrogen. In the Cerrado, where the main grain belt is located, a lack of nutrients in soil makes farmers more dependent on fertilizer, according to Flavio Bonini, a manager of technical services for Mosaic Co. in Brazil.Only about 15% of Brazil’s agriculture areas may sustain itself without fertilizers, Bonini said. The estimate is based on figures collected from farms where Mosaic does soil testing for its clients. “About 80% of Brazil’s agriculture areas are still very reliant on fertilizers.” On the farms owned by Sementes Falcao, a farming and seed company based in Passo Fundo, Rio Grande do Sul state, one of the areas with the richest soil in Brazil, tests on cutting fertilizer were successful. The company spent five seasons using only nutrient reserves in the soil, according to its President Humberto Falcao. “Production may have declined a little, but the profitability was kept,” he said. “Brazil could spent a year with no fertilizers, which could reduce costs and its dependency on imports. But of course it needs soil analysis.”
Ukraine: From breadbasket to breadcrumbs | Russia-Ukraine war | Al Jazeera - A mother in Somalia skips another meal so her children can eat. A father in Syria works for 13 hours but still cannot afford enough food for his family. A father in Niger sees his children go to sleep hungry.Food prices, already rising from the pandemic, have skyrocketed because of the war in Ukraine; the World Bank estimating a shocking 37 percent rise. The price of wheat soared 80 percent between April 2020 and December 2021. In Syria, food prices have doubled in the last year.The world was already rife with hunger before COVID-19 struck. In 2020, up to 811 million people – nearly one in 10 people – did not have enough food. And now the world is hurtling towards an unprecedented hunger crisis.Many poorer countries are unable – and are too often made unable by an unequal global food system – to produce enough food to feed their people. They must rely on food imports. The reason is simple: crops are difficult to grow. The reasons for this are less simple: man-made climate breakdown is intensifying floods and droughts, locusts are ravaging crops, conflicts are destroying farmland and infrastructure, and people simply do not have enough money to buy seeds and equipment to grow crops.Moreover, half of crops globally are now used to produce biofuels, animal feed and other products, like textiles. Many of these crops are monoculture, growing only one type of crop which destroys biodiversity and pulls nutrients from the soil. Not only is valuable farming land being used to grow crops not for food, but also the type of farming used damages the environment and results in fewer crops in the long term.The reliance on food imports creates extreme vulnerability to external shocks. Nearly half of African countries import more than a third of their wheat from Russia and Ukraine. Fifteen countries, including Lebanon, Egypt and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, import more than half their share. Nearly all of Somalia’s wheat, where the worst drought in over 40 years has left millions facing famine-like conditions, comes from Russia and Ukraine.And so rising and fluctuating food prices have hit vulnerable countries like a sledgehammer. Forty-two percent of Yemen’s wheat was shipped from Ukraine in the three months from December 20, 2021 to March 6, 2022, according to a shipping source consulted by Oxfam. A week after the war in Ukraine started, wheat prices in war-torn Yemen increased by 24 percent. The United Nations has said the country’s already dire hunger crisis is “teetering on the edge of outright catastrophe”. Lesson learned: dependency is dangerous.Insanity is repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results. Advocates of large-scale, intensive industrial agriculture are saying, yet again, that we should ramp up global production. But this is not the solution. The world’s farmers produce enough food to feed the global population, and in recent years, the world has witnessed record harvests of grain production. The main problem is access to food, not availability. We need systemic change, not a short-term fix.Governments tried to take short-cuts during the global 2007 – 2008 global food crisis which saw wheat and rice prices nearly double, pushing 100 million people into poverty, and by 2009 over one billion into hunger. The policy responses were either one-off, short-term initiatives or focused on the wrong target – increased production and investment in the private sector. These measures did nothing but plaster over the already existing cracks in the global food system, a system that is unsustainable for people and the planet.
Indian Heatwave May Exacerbate World Wheat Crisis | naked capitalism - Jerri-Lynn Scofield -Indian is currently suffering through an unprecedented early heatwave, with temperatures topping 45 degrees Celsius (113 degree Fahrenheit) throughout the country, according to an account in The Hindu, Intense heat broils large swathes of India, IMD says no relief for next 5 days, published last Thursday.These are the highest temperatures recorded for March since the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) first began recording temperatures 122 years ago. Per The Hindu:Gurugram logged an all-time high of 45.6 degrees Celsius, breaking the previous record of 44.8 degrees Celsius on April 28, 1979.Its neighbour Delhi saw the hottest April day in 12 years at 43.5 degrees Celsius. The national capital recorded a maximum temperature of 43.7 degrees Celsius on April 18, 2010.The intense heatwave scorched Allahabad (45.9 degrees Celsius) in Uttar Pradesh; Khajuraho (45.6 degrees Celsius), Nowgong (45.6 degrees Celsius), and Khargone (45.2 degrees Celsius) in Madhya Pradesh; Akola (45.4 degrees Celsius), Bramhapuri (45.2 degrees Celsius) and Jalgaon (45.6 degrees Celsius) in Maharashtra and Jharkhand’s Daltonganj (45.8 degrees Celsius).Now, I should point out that what’s unusual isn’t these maximum temperatures per se.Instead, it’s their timing that’s causing concern, as they’re occurring at what’s only the beginning of the Indian summer. The cooling monsoon rains are still months away and usually arrive in the south of the country in June, and then slowly extend throughout the entire country. According to The Hindu:A heatwave is declared when the maximum temperature is over 40 degrees Celsius and at least 4.5 notches above normal. A severe heatwave is declared if the departure from normal temperature is more than 6.4 notches, according to the IMD.Based on absolute recorded temperatures, a heatwave is declared when an area logs a maximum temperature of 45 degrees Celsius.A severe heatwave is declared if the maximum temperature crosses the 47-degree mark. This year, extreme heat has arrived in India much earlier than it should have. Indian government officials warn that people need to be alive to the possible health effects caused by excessive heat. More people die annually from heat exposure in India and Brazil than anywhere else in the world, according to Juan Cole writing in Common Dreams, Climate Emergency: India’s Unprecedented Heatwave Adds to Global Bread Shortages.Early heatwaves produce the highest mortality rates.The present heatwave couldn’t arrive at a worse time as far as India’s wheat production is concerned, thus exacerbating the global wheat crisis caused by the war in Ukraine and the imposition of sanctions on Russia. India is the world’s second largest wheat producer, but to date has been an insignificant exporter, with most of its wheat crop directed towards domestic consumption. Until the current heatwave arose, it appeared that India had the potential to increase its wheat production so as to make up some of the current world wheat shortfall, according to Worldgrain.com, Heat wave strikes India’s wheat production. The latest heat surge has imperilled wheat crops:While recent high temperatures have roasted India for weeks, approaching 120 degrees Fahrenheit (49 degrees Celsius), it was heat in March that has imperiled wheat during the crucial final stages of maturation. Regions that planted earlier tended to escape the worst impacts on their harvests.Alas, although many Indians can shelter in their homes during the heat of the day, farmers must toil in the sun. The heat stress situation in India’s prime wheat producing regions is particularly dire and expected to worsen over time.
Surface temperature tops 60°C in parts of north India, satellite images show The European Space Agency’s website also showed land surface temperatures to be nearing 55 degrees Celsius over many parts of northwest India and crossing 60 degrees Celsius over several pockets.- Surface land temperatures exceeded 60 degrees Celsius over some parts of northwest India, according to imagery captured by satellites on Saturday. Images of land surface captured by INSAT 3D, Copernicus Sentinel 3 and a NASA satellite indicated that land surface temperature over pockets of northwest India raised concerns among several scientists about the severe impacts of the ongoing heatwave. “Land surface temperatures from different satellite sensors. One common observation i.e was able to obtain an accurate measurement of #LST of the ground, which exceeded 60°C in several areas today,” tweeted Ashim Mitra, scientist at India Meteorological Department (IMD) who specialises in satellites. “The current extreme #heatwave in #Pakistan and #India as seen today, on the fourth intense hot day, by #Copernicus #Sentinel3 LST (Land Surface Temperature, not Air!). LST collected on April 29 shows max value exceeding 62°C/143°F. Gaps due to cloud/snow/nodata. #ClimateEmergency,” tweeted ADAM Platform, an advanced geospatial data management platform. Land surface temperatures from different satellite sensors. One common observation i.e.,was able to obtain an accurate measurement of #LST of the ground, which exceeded 60°C in several areas today. https://t.co/VDfkaQ5fRJ M Mohapatra, director general of IMD, said this data shouldn’t be trusted before conducting ground verification. “Satellite observations are taken from 36,000km away from the surface. They can be misleading if not verified. The record highest land temperature was taken in Rajasthan which was 52.6 degree C. This data can create fear and panic so we should act responsibly.” “Do you know what 60 degrees C means? The roads and other infrastructure will melt. I have seen roads melting in Rajasthan at 50 degree C. We should be very careful and run ground assessments first,” added another scientist, who declined to be named. The European Space Agency’s website also showed land surface temperatures to be nearing 55 degrees Celsius over many parts of northwest India and crossing 60 degrees Celsius over several pockets. “This image, produced using data from the Copernicus Sentinel-3 mission, shows the land surface temperature across most of the nation. Owing to the absence of cloud cover on 29 April (10:30 local time), the Sentinel-3 mission was able to obtain an accurate measurement of the land surface temperature of the ground, which exceeded 60°C in several areas. The data shows that surface temperature in Jaipur and Ahmedabad reached 47°C, while the hottest temperatures recorded are southeast and southwest of Ahmedabad (visible in deep red) with maximum land surface temperatures of around 65°C,” ESA said on its website. “We noticed these land surface temperatures last evening. They are extremely high. Some of the highest land temperatures were recorded over Rajasthan, Gujarat, Telangana, Punjab and Madhya Pradesh. Anticyclonic winds are bringing very hot air to the land, rainfall has been subdued so land is dry and there is direct sunshine,” explained Mitra. He added that the normal surface temperatures expected during this season are between 45 and 55 degrees Celsius. Experts have suggested that unusually high temperatures this March and April are linked to the climate crisis. “It is premature to attribute the extreme heat in India and Pakistan solely to climate change. However, it is consistent with what we expect in a changing climate. Heatwaves are more frequent and more intense and starting earlier than in the past. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in its Sixth Assessment Report, said that heatwaves and humid heat stress will be more intense and frequent in South Asia this century,” the World Meteorological Organisation said in a statement. Experts also warned that the health and death toll from the ongoing heatwave spell should be documented.
Temps reaching 121 F blister India, Pakistan for weeks - A record-breaking heat wave that’s been gripping India and Pakistan for weeks is expected to keep dragging on, meteorologists say.After an intense weekend, some of the worst heat could be slightly subsiding — but more extreme temperatures may be in store in the coming days.The region has suffered above-average temperatures for weeks now, affecting hundreds of millions of people. The punishing extremes reached dangerous new levels in the past week.Cities across the region broke monthly April records. Temperatures have topped 100 degrees Fahrenheit across much of the region and have jumped above 110 F in many areas. New Delhi saw temperatures climb above 110 F for several days on end.In parts of Pakistan, the heat rose even higher. Jacobabad exceeded 120 F on Saturday, likely the highest temperature recorded anywhere in the Northern Hemisphere last month. The city of Nawabshah topped it the next day with a staggering 121.1 F, according to climatologist Maximiliano Herrera, who tracks extreme temperatures around the world.The city came close to beating its all-time record. On April 30, 2018, Nawabshah recorded a high temperature of 122.4 F — believed to be the highest reliably recorded April temperature ever observed in the Northern Hemisphere.Local reports have identified wildfires springing up in parts of India. The heat has affected wheat harvests in some areas. And increased electricity demand has caused widespread power cuts across the country.Northwestern and central India, some of the worst-affected regions, are believed to have experienced their hottest April on record. The country as a whole saw its hottest March in 122 years of recorded history and its fourth-hottest April this year.Pakistan also experienced its hottest March since at least 1961, and some reports suggest it may have also just seen its hottest recorded April.It’s not just the severity of the temperatures that’s raising eyebrows. It’s how early in the year they’ve appeared and how long they’re lasting.“The significance of the current Indian/Pakistani heatwave is less about smashing records … and more about very long duration,” Robert Rohde, lead scientist at climate data analysis nonprofit Berkeley Earth, said on Twitter last week.In New Delhi, for instance, he noted that temperatures have averaged about 7 F higher than normal for the last six weeks.And while high temperatures well over 100 F are common in parts of India and Pakistan later in the spring and summer, they’re unusual for April.“Temperatures are rising rapidly in the country, and rising much earlier than usual,” India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in a recent conference with the country’s heads of state governments last week, according to Reuters.
“Are Countries Impacted Differently by Higher Temperature?” --A central problem addressed in climate change economics is the estimation of economic costs of climate change. Because climate is a slowly evolving phenomenon, not well suited to econometric analysis, empirical economists use weather (e.g., temperature and precipitation) to proxy for climate. Empirical research has used international temperature and per capita GDP data in panel regressions of a country’s GDP growth on country temperature. A coarse consensus is that higher temperature economically damages hot and not-so-rich countries but there is no (statistically significant) effect on cooler and rich countries. The absence of effect on the rich countries could be viewed as a problem. Industrialized countries are the primary contributors to the current stock of greenhouse gasses but if they don’t bear economic costs, what incentive do they have to invest in climate mitigation? Nicholas Stern appeals to ethical considerations to get action from rich countries. First, rich countries, through mechanized production since the industrial revolution, have largely created the problem, and second, poor countries are just beginning to overcome poverty through rapid growth and should not be forced to slow. These panel regressions discussed above, constrain the GDP growth response coefficient to higher temperatures to be equal across countries although a limited analysis of differences across countries (i.e., rich versus poor) can be done through the use of dummy variables. Instead, if one estimates the GDP response to a (positive) temperature shock individually for each country, one finds a lot of heterogeneity in response. This figure shows the impulse response of a country’s log per capita GDP to a one-degree Celsius increase in temperature at horizons of 0 to 7 years after the shock. Some poor and hot countries are hurt by higher temperature while others, surprisingly, seem to have benefitted. Rich countries are more likely to be hurt. Per capita GDP in 6 of the G-7 countries show declines following a temperature shock. To get a more comprehensive view of cross-country differences in responses, the top panel of the map figure shows the contemporaneous GDP response and the bottom figure shows the 7-year ahead response to a temperature shock. Positive responses are green, negative responses are red. Darker shades indicate statistical significance at the 5 percent level. In the bottom panel, higher temperature, has been good for very cold countries (Canada, Greenland, Russian Federation). This makes sense because lessening the extreme cold of those countries can extend growing and construction seasons, and improve production efficiency in general. Oddly, positive temperature shocks have been good for China, India, Brazil, and several African countries.
Severe hailstorm decimates apricot crop in Spain - (videos) A severe hailstorm struck Murcia, Spain on May 2, 2022, causing major damage to the apricot crop. The Region of Murcia is located in the southeast part of the Iberian Peninsula and produces two-thirds of Spain’s apricot. The storm comes one month after early April frost caused massive damage to stone fruit in Ebro valley, one of the most important producing areas of sweet fruit in Europe. Farmers in the Mula River and Murcia’s northwest regions have been forced to write off the entire apricot season following a severe hailstorm on Monday which not only resulted in the loss of the fruit, but also caused widespread damage to trees.1 “Practically 100% of the crop has been destroyed, affecting millions of kilos of fruit,” Antonio Moreno of the agricultural union UPA told La Verdad. José Miguel Marín of the agricultural organization COAG said although it is too early to give an accurate assessment of the damage, losses are in the millions because the fruit and the trees themselves have been lost. The storms struck just as harvesting of early season varieties was due to get underway, Maura Maxwell of Fruitnet said.Elsewhere, Catalan fruit association Afrucat said the region will lose 67% of its apricot harvest compared to the 2021 campaign, while in Aragon the losses are running at 85%, leaving a production volume of 2 97 and 2 988 tonnes, respectively. Afrucat added that these figures do not take into account the impact of the most recent frosts, which in some areas has resulted in 100% of the crop being damaged. According to the association, Spain will produce the lowest volume o fruit in the last 40 years because of the damage caused by the frost in early April, especially in stone fruit in the Ebro valley, one of the most important producing areas of sweet fruit in Europe, as well as in Catalonia and Aragon.
700 homes damaged or destroyed after heavy rains hit Tanzania - (video) Thousands of individuals have been displaced, while at least 700 houses have been damaged or destroyed by floodwaters.1 Other buildings, including education centers, roads, bridges, and agricultural crops sustained damage. One of the worst affected areas includes Kyela District, Mbeya Region, where 5 people died, 5 went missing and more than 3 000 forced to leave their homes. The overflow of the Songwe River damaged transportation routes, cutting off communications in various areas. According to the Tanzania Red Cross, more than 400 homes have been damaged and 318 completely destroyed. In addition, at least 10 000 ha (24 700 acres) of crops have been damaged, as well as drinking water wells, several roads and at least 4 bridges.2 Warnings for strong winds and high waves have been issued for coastal areas in Tanzania. On May 4 and 5, light to moderate rainfall is forecast over northern Tanzania.
Exceptionally heavy rainfall hits Guadeloupe, triggering deadly floods and landslides - Heavy rainfall has been affecting the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe since April 30, 2022, causing deadly floods and landslides. In just 12 hours on April 30, parts of the island received more than 300 mm (11.8 inches) of rain while the Pointe-à-Pitre airport recorded 312.4 mm (12.3 inches) in 24 hours, exceeding the severe weather episode of May 7, 2012, when 237.9 mm (9.3 inches) of rain was registered. Meteo France said rainfall in places greatly exceeded those recorded during the passage of Hurricane “Lenny” in November 1999. At least 2 people have lost their lives, one in Le Gosier Town and another in Les Abymes City. One person is still missing. Several roads were closed and a number of power outages were reported across the Grande-Terre Island.
Floods wreak havoc in Afghanistan: Pakistan sends aid - Pakistan announced on Thursday that it would send emergency relief supplies to Afghanistan flood victims. "In this difficult hour, we are with the Afghan people and will provide them with every possible assistance," Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said, expressing solidarity with the disaster victims. The Pakistani prime minister expressed sorrow over losing precious lives in ten Afghan provinces due to floods. He urged the international community to step forward and help the Afghan people in the aftermath of the devastating floods. Shehbaz urged the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to step up its efforts through the Afghan Humanitarian Trust Forum to assist the Afghan people. He feared floods could exacerbate the country's ongoing humanitarian crisis. The premier warned that casualties would rise if prompt action were not taken. According to Afghan media reports, flooding has killed nearly 20 people in the last few days.
Extreme tornado footage captured by drone over Andover, Kansas -(video) Probably the best footage of a tornado ever. This strong tornado hit Andover, Kansas on April 29, 2022, causing extensive damage along a narrow path through the east side of the city.1 According to the preliminary information provided by NWS, this was an EF-3 tornado with estimated peak winds of 265 km/h (165 mph). It touched down at 20:10 LT and traveled for 20.5 km (12.75 miles) until it dissipated at 20:31. The maximum width was 402 m (440 yards).2 3 injuries were directly related to the tornado – 2 in Sedgwick County and 1 in Buttler. The tornado was caused by a powerful low pressure system that approached Kansas on April 29 allowing a sharp dryline to track to generally along Interstate 135. Storms first developed across central and northeast Kansas near the warm front, but as the early evening hours continued, a couple of storms fired just east of Wichita. This same storm produced numerous additional tornadoes as it tracked east.
'It looks like a lake': Flash flooding hits parts of St. Louis region — Heavy rainfall caused flash flooding in some counties throughout the greater St. Louis region on Thursday. Flooding closed off roads and parks, impacting areas from St. Charles to Bonne Terre, Missouri. Over in St. Peters, even going for a walk Thursday proved to be challenging. “We were looking for a trail or something nearby, but it’s probably safe to say all the trails are flooded,” said Caitlyn Buss, who lives in of O’Fallon, Missouri. “Every day it keeps raining, so it’s too muddy to even bother trying.” Water from the nearby Dardenne Creek spilled over into Lone Wolff Park. Flooding is so high, that it closed down access to the road, resulting in the park being shut down to visitors temporarily. Water submerged Dames Park in O’Fallon, Missouri. Only the bleachers and trash cans were visible on the football field. “It just looked like a lake,” said Danny Russell, who lives in the area. Even though the rain stopped by the afternoon, water continued to flow at the park. About 1 to 2.5 inches accumulated in surrounding areas. “It was completely dry this morning, and that was just in the last seven hours or so. It just starts rising up,” said B.J. Wagner, a butcher at Highway P Market & Meats. “Last year, we had people bring kayaks out and go kayaking out there.” Another wave of rain will be moving through late Thursday night. The U.S. Weather Service issued flash flood warnings for St. Louis, Jefferson, and Franklin counties.
15 inches of snow makes Nebraska look like 'middle of winter' in early May - It can certainly snow in May, something that residents of parts of western Nebraska learned Monday as a heavy dose of fresh powder closed highways and led to several accidents. Some places in the Nebraska Panhandle picked up nearly a foot or more of snow on the second day of May. Despite the strong early-May sun, cold air with heavy snowfall rates were enough to blanket Interstate 80, causing the important transcontinental highway to be closed for several hours from Wyoming to Big Springs, according to the Nebraska State Patrol.The highway was reopened to the public early Monday afternoon, with the State Patrol asking residents to move slowly on the reopened road and to watch for potential slick spots.The wintry conditions were enough to make people take note of the visual juxtaposition of heavy snowfall six weeks into spring. "Looks like the middle of winter," David Koeller, a meteorologist at the opposite end of the state with WOWT Channel 6 News in Omaha, tweeted. Winter Weather advisories were in effect Monday across much of the Nebraska Panhandle. Indeed, the snow accumulations were typical of a winter storm.In Kimball, Nebraska, just miles from the northeast tip of the Nebraska-Colorado border, 15 inches of snow was measured as of late Monday night. Other cities in Nebraska hit with double-digit snowfall were Potter, with 11 inches of accumulation, and Albin with 10 inches. Other places to record significant snowfall includedGering, Nebraska, with 9 inches, and Oliver, Nebraska, with 8 inches of snow as of late Monday night.
Severe dust storm engulfs parts of Iraq - (videos) Major dust storms hit large parts of Iraq, including the capital Baghdad, on May 1 and 2, 2022, turning the skies over the country orange. The storm that hit Baghdad on May 1 is described as one of the strongest in recent decades. Visibility in many parts of the country was dropped to less than 500 m (1 640 feet), grounding flights at Baghdad and Najaf airports. At least 63 people in Najaf suffering from respiratory were admitted to hospitals and another 30 in the province of Anbar.
Large surface rupture identified after M5.1 earthquake hits North Carolina, the largest in nearly 100 years - A co-seismic surface rupture was identified along a 2 km (1.2 miles) long traceable zone after M5.1 earthquake hit North Carolina in 2020 – the largest to hit the state in nearly 100 years. The rupture exposed a previously unknown fault in the earth, representing the first documented surface rupture earthquake in the eastern United States. The quake hit at 08:07 EDT (12:07 UTC) on August 9, 2020, approximately 3 km (1.8 miles) south of Sparta, North Carolina and was felt throughout much of the eastern United States. This is the largest earthquake to hit North Carolina in nearly 100 years and the largest in the eastern United States since the 2011 Mw 5.8 Mineral, Virginia quake. While quakes in North Carolina aren’t unusual, especially near the Appalachian mountain range, this quake was unique as it was a shallow event that caused a ground surface rupture on a previously unknown fault line. Most notably, the earthquake generated the first documented co-seismic surface rupture by faulting in the eastern United States. f01 Location, earthquake sequence, and interferometric synthetic aperture radar interferogram for the Sparta earthquake 2020 Figure 1. Location, earthquake sequence, and interferometric synthetic aperture radar interferogram for the Sparta earthquake. (A) Unwrapped phase interferogram overlaying a lidar-derived hillshade model with the main surface rupture (black line) and August 2020–February 2021 instrumental seismicity (circles; USGS catalog). Topographic lineament marked by brown arrows. Figure 2 location denoted by the dashed white rectangle. Line P–P’ indicates the projection plane for seismicity. (B) Focal mechanism solution (Horton et al., 2021). (C) Projection of seismic sequence (USGS catalog) into a plane with azimuth N20°. (D) Location of the earthquake (red) in eastern North America, with North Carolina outlined. LOS—line of sight; CERI—Center for Earthquake Research and Information, University of Memphis; SLEUC—Saint Louis University Earthquake Center. Credit: GSA The co-seismic surface rupture was identified along a 2 km (1.2 miles) long traceable zone of predominantly reverse displacement, with folding and flexure generating a scarp averaging 8 to 10 cm (3 – 3.9 inches) high with a maximum observed height of about 25 cm (9.8 inches), said authors of the study published last month in The Geological Society of America. “Widespread deformation south of the main surface rupture includes cm-dm–long and mm-cm–wide fissures. Two trenches excavated across the surface rupture reveal that this earthquake propagated to the surface along a preexisting structure in the shallow bedrock, which had not been previously identified as an active fault.”
High levels of volcanic gas emissions, strong volcanic tremor at Ruapehu, New Zealand - Recent airborne gas measurements over Ruapehu volcano, New Zealand confirm continued high levels of volcanic gas emissions, along with strong volcanic tremor. Meanwhile, Crater Lake (Te Wai ā-moe) temperature has risen to 38 °C (100.4 °F). Within the next four weeks, the most likely outcome of this unrest episode is no eruption, or a minor eruption that is confined to the lake basin. The next most likely scenario is an eruption that impacts the summit plateau and generates lahars in multiple catchments. Over the past six weeks, the volcano has exhibited the strongest volcanic tremor in two decades along with a rise in Crater Lake (Te Wai ā-moe) temperature and this period of heightened volcanic unrest continues to date, GNS Duty Volcanologist Geoff Kilgour noted.1 Over the last week, the level of volcanic tremor has varied, with bursts of strong tremor interspersed by short, periods of weaker tremor. This represents a change in character in the tremor, and the driving processes remain unclear, Kilgour said. The last three days have seen Crater Lake temperature rise to 38 °C (100.4 °F) following a four-week period at 36 – 37 °C (96.8 – 98.6 °F) – modeling suggests that to maintain the lake temperature and subtle rise requires ~200-300 MW. Due to the heightened volcanic unrest, GNS Science staff are carrying out more frequent aerial gas measurements and Crater Lake sampling. A gas measurement flight on April 28 recorded the sixth-highest sulfur dioxide (SO2) flux of 390 tonnes per day since 2003. SO2 is a strong indicator gas and is derived from a relatively shallow magma body, which is perceived to currently exist a few kilometers beneath Crater Lake. Further gas flights will be conducted when weather conditions are suitable. “Sampling of Crater Lake was also conducted last week and during that visit, our scientists observed upwelling of Central Vent and reduced upwelling at the Northern vents area. During recent visits, active upwelling has only been observed at the Northern vents. It is important to note that Central Vent is the primary vent, whereas the Northern vents are a subsidiary vent system. We had surmised previously that Central Vent was sealed, blocking the main flow of fluids and gases into Crater Lake, however, this vent now appears to be at least partially open,” Kilgour said.
Ocean animals face a mass extinction from climate change, study finds - Not since an asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs — along with at least half of all other beings on Earth — has life in the ocean been so at risk. Warming waters are cooking creatures in their own habitats. Many species are slowly suffocating as oxygen leaches out of the seas. Even populations that have managed to withstand the ravages of overfishing, pollution and habitat loss are struggling to survive amid accelerating climate change. If humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase, according to a study released Thursday, roughly a third of all marine animals could vanish within 300 years.The findings, published in the journal Science, reveal a potential mass extinction looming beneath the waves. The oceans have absorbed a third of the carbon and 90 percent of the excess heat created by humans, but their vast expanse and forbidding depths mean scientists are just beginning to understand what creatures face there.The world has already warmed more than 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) since the preindustrial era, and last year the oceans contained more heat energy than at any point since record-keeping began six decades ago. These rising ocean temperatures are shifting the boundaries of marine creatures’ comfort zones. Many are fleeing northward in search of cooler waters, causing “extirpation” — or local disappearance — of once-common species.Polar creatures that can survive only in the most frigid conditions may soon find themselves with nowhere to go. Species that can’t easily move in search of new habitats, such as fish that depend on specific coastal wetlands or geologic formations on the sea floor, will be more likely die out.
Country-Level Warming Projections (graphs, etc) The world is facing unprecedented climate disruption, and the challenge facing COP26 delegates is immense; urgent collective action is needed to make meaningful progress towards meeting the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global warming to well below 2.0°C. Berkeley Earth has curated a selection of resources below to help policymakers and other stakeholders navigate the scale, scope, and science behind our changing climate.
Booming offset industry could cut CO2 - or just line pockets - The environmental trading platform Xpansiv came up last year with a novel approach to cut emissions from oil and gas drilling: digitized versions of fossil fuels. The Xpansiv Digital Fuels Program provides detailed environmental data about each cubic foot of natural gas and barrel of crude, enabling the more efficient drillers to market their products as “responsibly sourced gas” or “carbon-neutral oil.” Producers of oil and gas with leak rates below a threshold set by S&P Global Inc. can also sell carbon offsets for their so-called avoided methane emissions. Xpansiv is one of many carbon trading platforms that have sprung up in recent years, backed by venture capitalists hoping to cash in on the proliferation of corporate climate pledges. The privately held company — whose investors include Occidental Petroleum Corp., BP PLC and S&P — argues that markets for digital fuels, emissions offsets and other intangible environmental commodities provide new financial incentives for “It’s better than the alternative, right?” said Henrik Hasselknippe, who runs Xpansiv’s exchange operations and services. “The alternative is to have our current production.” There are catches, though, according to analysts, nonprofit groups and even some companies that are in the carbon offset business, in which polluters pay other companies to reduce or remove their planet-warming emissions. The booming offset industry has little government oversight. Few of the companies that sell offsets can guarantee that the investments will reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, methane or other greenhouse gases. There’s also uncertainty about how to accurately measure the benefits they claim to provide. And in many cases, no one will know if the investments pay off for years — perhaps even decades. That creates a risk that offsets become a fig leaf that allows companies and policymakers to avoid more aggressive and necessary climate action, according to critics. And the investments could become a money-making scheme for Big Oil executives and Wall Street bankers, rather than a means to invest in substantive climate projects. “Without the right policy to ensure the quality of the offset, it will eventually become a money-generating tool for investors,” said Yvonne Lam, head of carbon-capture research at the data firm Rystad Energy. “This doesn’t really benefit the right project, especially those that are really trying to make an impact on climate change.”
A softer U.S. climate goal? Kerry points to 1.8 degrees - For much of last year, climate envoy John Kerry had one number on his mind: 1.5 degrees Celsius. That’s the amount of warming scientists say the world must not surpass if it hopes to prevent dangerous and irreversible climate impacts. But as new realities set in and hoped-for ambition fails to materialize in the U.S. and abroad, Kerry is scaling back. Advertisement Last week, he pointed to a different target: 1.8 C. That’s the amount of warming the International Energy Agency said the world would reach by the end of the century if every country successfully meets their climate pledges in full and on time. “We want to stay on that accessible target of 1.8 degrees, and the only way to do it is to fully implement the promises that have been made,” Kerry said during a speech at an electric industry forum. His comments signaled a departure from U.S. messaging under President Joe Biden and raised concern among some foreign officials and climate advocates that the White House is injecting uncertainty into international deliberations on climate change. Tina Stege, the climate envoy of the Republic of the Marshall Islands, said that overshooting the 1.5 C goal would intensify the dangers facing the string of islands forming her nation in the remote Central Pacific. “We’ve been clear — as an atoll, and as the convener of the High Ambition Coalition — that 1.5C is the limit,” she said in an emailed response to questions about Kerry’s comments. “The world has already agreed. We do not need to re-negotiate this. We need countries to implement the policies to get us on track.” It’s unclear if Kerry’s comments signal a policy change within the Biden administration, which is struggling to pass legislation that would serve as a cornerstone of its commitment to cut U.S. emissions in half by 2030. The State Department defended Kerry’s assertions and said the “goal now” is to meet the United States’ promise to halve emissions in eight years and eliminate them by 2050. “The International Energy Agency has told us that if all the various commitments and initiatives from COP26 are implemented, the rise in global temperature would be limited to 1.8 degrees,” a State Department spokesperson said in an email. “As Secretary Kerry has said, the goal now must be to implement those commitments plus do more to keep 1.5 alive.”
Facebook and Google are spending big on carbon removal. Should the government, too? - Last month, some of the biggest tech companies in America made headlines when they announced an unusual partnership to tackle one part of the climate crisis. The group, which included Google and Facebook’s parent companies and the payment software company Stripe, committed to spending $925 million over the next eight years to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.A week earlier, two members of Congress barely made a splash when they put forth a similar but much more ambitious plan — albeit more of a proposal. Representatives Paul Tonko of New York and Scott Peters of California introduced the Federal Carbon Dioxide Removal Leadership Act, a bill that would direct the Department of Energy to pay for an increasing amount of carbon to be removed from the atmosphere each year at a cost of about $9.6 billion over the first 12 years.Both plans attempt to address a pressing question: How do you build a new industry to clean up the carbon in the atmosphere, a service that would benefit everyone in the world but that has no immediate utility?“Carbon removal is unique,” said Erin Burns, executive director of the carbon removal advocacy nonprofit Carbon180. “We’re talking about something we need to do to meet climate goals, but it’s not creating electricity or another product.” Cutting fossil-fueled emissions from cars, power plants, buildings, and industry is key to limiting global warming, but it won’t be enough to stave off the worst effects. Experts say the world must also try to suck down carbon dioxide that’s already been emitted into the atmosphere, eventually on the order of billions of metric tons per year. Carbon removal can include schemes to enhance natural carbon sinks like soils and seawater, as well as novel technological systems that filter carbon from the air and sequester it securely, either in long-lived products or underground. One day, governments might force polluting companies to pay for carbon dioxide removal, or CDR, to make up for their continued emissions or clean up past emissions. Companies might also do this voluntarily to fulfill sustainability goals, as some are beginning to today. Alternatively, progressive scholars have argued that CDR should be treated as a necessary public service, much like waste disposal, with regional agencies overseen by communities.But in the near term, fundamental uncertainty about the business model for CDR makes it hard for scientists and entrepreneurs to get funding to research, test, and scale up solutions. Relatively little carbon has been intentionally and permanently pulled out of the atmosphere to date, and the few projects that exist are trivially small and expensive to operate.
SPECIAL REPORT: Proposed CO2 pipelines thrust South Dakota into billion-dollar debate over carbon capture technology and climate change - South Dakota News Watch - So far, most of the discussion about two proposed multibillion-dollar carbon dioxide pipelines that would cross hundreds of miles of eastern South Dakota has centered on opposition by landowners whose properties would be affected by the digging and laying of underground pipes carrying a potentially dangerous chemical. Those farmers and rural families have valid concerns, especially those who have already endured the upheaval caused by the Dakota Access Pipeline, which was laid in some cases very near the same route as the proposed CO2 pipelines. The two separate pipeline projects, proposed by Summit Carbon Solutions and Navigator CO2 Ventures, both based in Iowa, are in the early stages of planning and permitting, and both hope to be operational in 2024. Both projects seek to use carbon-capture and sequestration technology, or CCS, to collect CO2 from ethanol plants and ship it in liquid form through miles of pipelines to sites where it will be buried and held deep underground. Pipeline construction tears up land owned in some cases for generations by the same families; there’s an inherent risk of leakage; farmland is turned over and taken out of production; drain-tile systems and water-flow patterns can be affected; and payments for use of the land are far from life-changing. Hundreds of South Dakota landowners have signed up to address state regulators about the Summit project, many in strong opposition. However, another battle is brewing over CCS on a much larger scale. The expansion of CCS projects across the U.S. is raising concern among some experts who say the new investment into CCS has the potential for long-range negative consequences — not only for the states directly affected by CO2 pipelines, but also for the U.S. economy and indeed for the environment of the entire planet. A fundamental question among climate-change scientists is whether the practice of CCS, the process at the heart of the two proposed pipeline projects, is the best way forward in the effort to reduce carbon emissions into the atmosphere. Also in play, however, is the debate over the cost, and whether spending billions on carbon-capture technology is the best use of taxpayer money and industry investment in the broader effort to reach net-zero emissions of greenhouse gases and ultimately better protect the planet from climate change. Some argue that focusing time, money and resources on CCS to mitigate climate change could slow more effective efforts to protect the earth. In CCS, carbon emitted by industrial plants is captured at the source rather than being emitted into the atmosphere. The carbon dioxide is then pressurized into a liquid that is transported through underground pipelines to storage areas far beneath the earth’s surface. This map shows the proposed route of the 2,000-mile Summit Carbon Solutions CO2 pipeline that will carry pressurized carbon dioxide from ethanol plants to a sequestration site a mile underground in central North Dakota. About 470 miles of the pipeline would be located in South Dakota. Image: Courtesy KELO Pros and cons of carbon capture and sequestration On a most basic level, supporters of CCS say it is one proven and relatively expedient way to begin preventing large quantities of CO2 from entering the environment and to reduce greenhouse gases that cause climate change. They also argue it will benefit and extend the life of the ethanol industry, which creates corn-based additives that can reduce the impact of fossil fuels burned in cars and trucks. Officials with the two CCS pipeline projects that would pass through South Dakota add that their multibillion-dollar projects will create jobs in rural areas, generate millions in tax dollars for state and local governments, and strengthen rural economies across the Midwest. Some supporters of the process acknowledge it isn’t perfect, and note that it is far from an overall solution to reducing carbon emissions and slowing climate change. However, if the two proposed pipeline projects can keep nearly 30 million tons of carbon dioxide a year from the atmosphere, as projected, that fact alone makes them highly valuable, said Matthew Fry, a policy analyst on carbon issues for the Great Plains Institute, a Minnesota-based independent, nonprofit think-tank focused on energy and climate. “We’re going to transition away from fossil fuels eventually, but it isn’t going to happen in my lifetime … because we just can’t meet our requirements as humans at this point to immediately switch to full non-carbon emission industry or energy resources,” Fry said. “So in the space of transition before we can go full green, we’re going to have to do carbon capture to meet climate goals.” Opponents of CCS, however, say the billions spent to capture carbon and build pipelines to carry it could be better spent in reducing dependence on fossil fuels to begin with, and in protecting natural methods of CO2 reduction, such as increasing forests and natural areas. They say the money could also be used to further incentivize industries, including carmakers, to more rapidly advance the switch to electric or other low-emission vehicles. Those who oppose CCS also say the process is a way of “green-washing” the fossil-fuel industry, giving the appearance of reducing carbon emissions while actually extending the time America and the world are reliant on fossil fuels for transportation. “It’s such a dangerous form of green-washing, where you’re trying to take an environmentally destructive activity and rebrand it in a way that makes it appear benign,”
Page County board states opposition to eminent domain - -- Page County officials have joined other surrounding counties in speaking out against eminent domain use for carbon pipeline projects. During its regular meeting Tuesday night, the Page County Board of Supervisors approved a letter addressed to the Iowa Utilities Board stating their opposition to the use of eminent domain for Summit Carbon Solutions' Midwest Express CO2 pipeline. The proposed project includes just under 700 miles of pipeline, which would cut through the western portion of Page County to Green Plains Shenandoah, LLC. Page County Supervisors Chair Alan Armstrong tells KMA News that the board's primary concern comes down to fair compensation for landowners. "To respect landowners and not just take and destroy land for the use of this carbon capture pipeline," he said, "without working with the farmers and the landowners to give them a fair price, negotiate with them, and work out lease agreements where it's fair for everybody involved." Page County joins other surrounding KMAland governments, including Fremont, Mills, and Montgomery County, in stating their opposition. However, being a "realist," Armstrong says he's not sure about the impact the letters could have on the board's decision. "But it can't hurt, and at least we'll make some of the other political leaders in our state be aware that we are paying attention to things," said Armstrong. "Whether the Utilities Board is going to respect our thoughts, it's going to be interesting to see how things play out. But at least we made due diligence in trying to stop this and create a better pattern of things in the future." The letter states the pipeline "is being done by a for-profit private company," and further requests the permit application be denied "if the pipeline company cannot get the necessary landowners to agree to the voluntary easements."
Iowa carbon pipeline opponents see lessons from Dakota Access fight -We’re a long way from another Standing Rock. In Iowa, though, a coalition similar to the one that took a stand against the Dakota Access Pipeline in 2016 is emerging to fight a proposed interstate carbon dioxide pipeline network, and opponents say they’re more organized and energized at this stage thanks to lessons learned last decade. “People forget the fight against DAPL” — the Dakota Access Pipeline — “started in Iowa,” said Sikowis Nobiss, founder and executive director of Great Plains Action Society, a regional organization of Indigenous activists formed in part to help galvanize resistance to Dakota Access. “Here we are again starting a fight against a pipeline in Iowa.” The organization’s latest target is a project by Summit Carbon Solutions that would carry carbon dioxide captured at more than 30 Midwest ethanol plants to underground storage sites in North Dakota. The proposed route would not cross tribal land, but the same was true of the early Dakota Access route before it was rerouted through the Standing Rock Reservation. Nobiss, a citizen of the George Gordon First Nation, sees parallels with the Dakota Access movement, specifically in the unlikely alliances forming among environmental and Indigenous activists and White landowners who see pipeline construction as a threat to their farmland. Concerns about eminent domain have drawn local governments and groups such as the Farm Bureau into the fray, too. “They’re in the fight for their reasons, and we’re in it for ours,” Nobiss said. The biggest difference from Dakota Access is the level of organization this early in the process. By the time Great Plains Action Society mobilized against DAPL, many tribal governments along the route had already heard presentations and promises from the pipeline’s developer. Today, their outreach efforts are often outpacing the company’s, she said, giving them a chance to reach local leaders before they have already formed positions. “Back during the DAPL days, I don’t think that tribal folks were hearing the other side of the conversation at this time,” Nobiss said. The Iowa Sierra Club was similarly quick to organize after Summit’s project was announced last year, putting much of its effort so far into educating and organizing property owners in the project’s path. Its lead organizer has been in contact with more than 1,000 landowners, and more than 100 have signed with an Omaha law firm to represent them as a group. “We didn’t do enough with Dakota Access, and we didn’t get in soon enough,” said Wally Taylor, an attorney representing the Iowa Sierra Club who advised the environmental group early on to prioritize creating a unified voice for landowners instead of having them intervene individually as they did for Dakota Access. Jessica Mazour, the Sierra Club’s lead organizer on the project, said the type of conversations she’s having today are different from the ones she had around Dakota Access. While many people have strong political opinions about oil pipelines, they’re often less familiar with carbon capture pipelines. “I think because people don’t know a lot about carbon pipelines, it gave us an opportunity to teach people about something they don’t have a preconceived notion about,” Mazour said. She credits two organizations, the Center for International Environmental Law and the Science and Environmental Health Network, for helping the Sierra Club put together education materials.
Minn. approves framework to assess alternatives to gas - Minnesota regulators yesterday set the ground rules for how they will evaluate pilot programs that aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from gas utilities in the years ahead.The analytical frameworks represent an important step to implementing Minnesota's Natural Gas Innovation Act (NGIA), a bipartisan law signed last year by Gov. Tim Walz (D) that aims to incentivize solutions to decarbonize the gas sector.Minnesota passed a law 15 years ago that requires an 80 percent reduction from 2005 levels in economywide greenhouse gas emissions by midcentury. While the state has succeeded in cutting power-sector emissions, addressing carbon pollution from other sources — including gas use for home heating— has proved a tougher challenge.The analytical frameworks approved by the Public Utilities Commission yesterday are seen as a first step to comparing a variety of potential options under NGIA, technology options that could range from energy efficiency and strategic electrification to green hydrogen and carbon capture. ...
Clean energy at a crossroads: The Made-in-America push - This year, Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories expects to complete an $80 million-plus Idaho factory to produce the “brains” of its line of digital controls and instruments for the U.S. power grid, bringing a critical part of the supply chain under its own roof. “It’s high time to be making things in America,” Call it music to the ears of President Joe Biden and many congressional Democrats, who are counting on U.S. companies and workers to produce the infrastructure of a transformed clean energy grid. The massive clean energy transition that Biden and Democrats are seeking could require total investments of nearly $10 trillion by 2050, according to Princeton University analysts. How much of that infrastructure is built in America or bought elsewhere could have huge consequences for the U.S. economy and global trade relationships. It also could influence the path of renewables and other energy industries dependent on materials in the global supply chain that are currently under pressure, observers say. Since the Biden administration came into office in January 2021, the economy has added 473,000 net manufacturing jobs, according to the Labor Department. There were strong gains in technology-heavy sectors and continuing announcements of new factories, as companies respond to supply chain shortages and trade policy restrictions. But the uptrend in production has not stilled the old, partisan and philosophical debate about how much government should try to steer the economy toward policy goals or leave outcomes to the “invisible hand” of markets and consumer choices. Republican Ways and Means ranking member Kevin Brady (R-Texas), for instance, said in a November statement that Biden’s “Made-in-America” taxes would make it harder for companies to invest in workers. Regardless of the political debate, a February report by the Institute for Supply Management, based on its long-running industry survey, showed manufacturers’ new orders up 3.8 percentage points in February over January’s total, the 21st straight month of growth. Industrial production in selected high technology industries has risen by 45 percent since 2017, compared with 4.6 percent for all sectors, the Federal Reserve reported last month. The promise of a continuing uptrend comes from a string of announcements of new manufacturing plants in the U.S., with clean energy projects high on the list. Navistar International Corp. opened a $250 million assembly line for electric and conventional trucks in San Antonio in March that the company calls the first new U.S. truck plant in three decades.
A softer U.S. climate goal? Kerry points to 1.8 degrees - For much of last year, climate envoy John Kerry had one number on his mind: 1.5 degrees Celsius. That’s the amount of warming scientists say the world must not surpass if it hopes to prevent dangerous and irreversible climate impacts. But as new realities set in and hoped-for ambition fails to materialize in the U.S. and abroad, Kerry is scaling back. Advertisement Last week, he pointed to a different target: 1.8 C. That’s the amount of warming the International Energy Agency said the world would reach by the end of the century if every country successfully meets their climate pledges in full and on time. “We want to stay on that accessible target of 1.8 degrees, and the only way to do it is to fully implement the promises that have been made,” Kerry said during a speech at an electric industry forum. His comments signaled a departure from U.S. messaging under President Joe Biden and raised concern among some foreign officials and climate advocates that the White House is injecting uncertainty into international deliberations on climate change. Tina Stege, the climate envoy of the Republic of the Marshall Islands, said that overshooting the 1.5 C goal would intensify the dangers facing the string of islands forming her nation in the remote Central Pacific. “We’ve been clear — as an atoll, and as the convener of the High Ambition Coalition — that 1.5C is the limit,” she said in an emailed response to questions about Kerry’s comments. “The world has already agreed. We do not need to re-negotiate this. We need countries to implement the policies to get us on track.” It’s unclear if Kerry’s comments signal a policy change within the Biden administration, which is struggling to pass legislation that would serve as a cornerstone of its commitment to cut U.S. emissions in half by 2030. The State Department defended Kerry’s assertions and said the “goal now” is to meet the United States’ promise to halve emissions in eight years and eliminate them by 2050. “The International Energy Agency has told us that if all the various commitments and initiatives from COP26 are implemented, the rise in global temperature would be limited to 1.8 degrees,” a State Department spokesperson said in an email. “As Secretary Kerry has said, the goal now must be to implement those commitments plus do more to keep 1.5 alive.”
How Alito tipped his climate hand in anti-abortion draft - The inclusion of one word in the draft Supreme Court abortion ruling is raising concerns among environmental lawyers that the justices are preparing to get more aggressive about rejecting climate lawsuits that come before the nation’s highest bench.The February draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, authored by Justice Samuel Alito and reported by POLITICO this week, argues that the landmark 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade that ensured a right to an abortion was “egregiously wrong from the start.”Alito also contends that abortion cases have “diluted” and “flouted” other areas of the law and have “ignored the court’s third-party standing doctrine,” under which courts can reject lawsuits if they find the challenger has not demonstrated a harm that meets the standard of a “case” or “controversy” under Article III of the Constitution.“He’s casting doubt on third-party standing,” said Josh Gellers, a professor at the University of North Florida who studies environmental politics. “One of the more popular avenues for pursuing climate change litigation has been through a third party. If what Alito is signaling is a willingness to be stricter with how the court interprets third-party standing, then organizations may have a more difficult time trying to represent the interests of individuals.”Gellers said a more narrow interpretation of standing would be “like death by a thousand cuts. It’s much more difficult to try and litigate climate change on an individual basis than it would be to have large groups. It could put the onus on people as individuals, as opposed to organizations representing their interests.”Some legal experts have expressed fears that the Supreme Court’s conservative wing could seize on the opportunity to rehash climate standing doctrine established in the 2007 case Massachusetts v. EPA if the justices were to eventually review the kids’ climate case, Juliana v. United States. The Juliana lawsuit argues that the government’s support for fossil fuels worsens climate change.But Julia Olson — executive director and chief legal counsel of Our Children’s Trust, which represents the young challengers — said she’s confident the case would clear the court’s third-party standing analysis because it focuses on harms to individuals.“Third-party standing comes up when someone is litigating on behalf of someone else, but a lot of organizations rely on the harms of their members to bring the cases forward,” she said. “There’s no question in the Supreme Court’s precedent that if you have been injured by your government, you can come to court and bring a constitutional case.”The fear among environmentalists, however, is that the justices will use the doctrine selectively, applying it to keep some plaintiffs out of court while allowing other cases to proceed (Greenwire, July 19, 2021).
The crypto industry wants to go green — but that’s easier said than done— Tucked away in snowy Swedish Lapland is a modern-day gold mine. But instead of picks and shovels, it's filled with thousands of computers. These machines, known as mining rigs, are working around the clock to find new units of cryptocurrency — in this case, ethereum, the second-largest token globally. To do so, they must compete with others around the world to find the answer to a complex math puzzle, which grows in difficulty as more and more computers, known as "miners," join the network. The aim is to ensure the security of the system and prevent fraud. The whole process is underpinned by something known as "proof of work." And it uses up an incredibly large amount of energy. Bitcoin, the world's biggest digital currency, also uses this framework. It now consumes as much energy as entire countries. Governments around the world are growing concerned. Some countries, such as China, have gone so far as to ban crypto mining outright. The mine in question, a warehouse-like building located in the military town of Boden, houses 15,000 of these mining rigs in total. At 86,000 square feet, it's bigger than a standard soccer pitch. The facility is run by Hive Blockchain, a Canadian firm that focuses on using green and renewable energy to mine crypto. Hive's Swedish operation is powered by a local hydropower plant in Boden, in the north of the country. The region is renowned for its surplus of cheap, renewable electricity. "In the north of Sweden, 100% of the power is either hydro power-based or wind power-based," Johan Eriksson, an advisor at Hive, said. "It is 100% renewable." Eriksson says crypto miners are using excess energy capacity that would have otherwise been wasted — in other words, it's not required by households in the region. But the vast amount of power needed to run operations like Hive's has alarmed officials. Finansinspektionen, the Swedish finance watchdog, is calling on the European Union to ban crypto mining due to its huge energy usage. "Crypto-asset producers are keen to use more renewable energy, and they are increasing their presence in the Nordic region," the agency said in a statement last year. "Sweden needs the renewable energy targeted by crypto-asset producers for the climate transition of our essential services, and increased use by miners threatens our ability to meet the Paris Agreement."
New York is close to a bitcoin mining crackdown — here's what that means for the industry -- The state of New York wants to ban new bitcoin mining operations, a move that some industry insiders fear could have a domino effect across the U.S. The bill, which is swiftly making its way through the state capitol in Albany, calls for a two-year moratorium on certain cryptocurrency mining operations that use proof-of-work authentication methods to validate blockchain transactions. Proof-of-work mining, which requires sophisticated gear and a whole lot of electricity, is used to create bitcoin, though ethereum — at least for another few months — still uses this method to secure its network. Lawmakers sponsoring the legislation say they are looking to curb the state's carbon footprint by cracking down on mines that use electricity from power plants that burn fossil fuels. For two years, unless a proof-of-work mining company uses 100% renewable energy, it would not be allowed to expand or renew permits, and new entrants would not be allowed to come online. The net effect of this, according to Galaxy Digital's Head of Mining Amanda Fabiano, would be to weaken New York's economy by forcing businesses to take jobs elsewhere. "New York will be left behind, losing to other states at best, and at worst, other more progressive nations. New York is setting a bad precedent that other states could follow," said Fabiano, echoing a concern held by many in the crypto industry. At this point, the State Assembly has passed the bill, and it is now under consideration by the Democratic-controlled State Senate, which will soon vote on the measure. If it passes, it will land on the desk of Governor Kathy Hochul, who could sign it into law or veto it. "If it passes, it would make New York the first state in the country to ban blockchain technology infrastructure," explained Perianne Boring, founder and president of the Digital Chamber of Commerce.
Jack Dorsey, Michael Saylor, Fidelity appeal to EPA to defend the bitcoin mining industry - Some of the biggest names in bitcoin — including Jack Dorsey, Tom Lee, and Michael Saylor — have banded together to refute claims made by House Democrats calling on the Environmental Protection Agency to investigate the environmental effects of crypto mining.Bitcoin operates on a proof-of-work (PoW) mining model, meaning that miners around the world run high-powered computers to simultaneously create new bitcoin and validate transactions. Proof-of-work mining, which requires sophisticated gear and a whole lot of electricity, has virtually become synonymous with bitcoin, though ethereum — at least for another few months— still uses this method to secure its network.Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.), along with nearly two dozen House legislators, wrote to the EPA last week asking that the regulatory body ensure mining companies are in compliance with the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act, citing "serious concerns regarding reports that cryptocurrency facilities across the country are polluting communities and are having an outsized contribution to greenhouse gas emissions."In a rebuttal letter sent to EPA Chief Michael Regan Monday morning, a mix of bitcoin miners and industry experts — as well as firms like Benchmark Capital, Fidelity Investments, and Fortress Investment Group — make the case that House Democrats got a lot wrong in their messaging about the fundamentals of proof-of-work mining.For one, the letter takes issue with lawmakers conflating data centers with power generation facilities.The rebuttal letter says, data centers that contain “miners'' are no different than data centers owned and operated by Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, andMicrosoft. According to the letter, each is just a building in which electricity powers IT equipment to run computing workloads."Regulating what data centers allow their computers to do would be a massive shift in policy in the United States," the letter reads."They're confusing the public," said Darin Feinstein, co-founder of cryptocurrency mining operator Core Scientific — and one of the primary authors on the letter. "The pollution comes from the energy generation source, and all data centers buy electricity off-site, upstream."Feinstein said if the EPA wants to regulate energy generation, there are already channels in place to regulate energy generation facilities on a federal, state, and local level."It would be very unusual for the EPA to regulate the kind of computation that's occurring within a data center. That's clearly outside of their remit,"
India's green hydrogen rush lures companies but hurdles remain -The sun's searing heat can be punishing on summer days and India's enormous coastline makes it a challenge to defend. But vast amounts of water and abundant sunlight have opened a path to green energy that could slake India's vast appetite for fuel. Indian companies have pledged to commit billions of dollars to green hydrogen projects — but experts caution that the technology is still very new and its commercial viability unproven. Green hydrogen is a clean fuel that's produced by splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen, using renewable energy such as solar power. When burnt, it emits no exhaust, only water. Environmentalists claim it can help decarbonize heavy industries like oil refining, fertilizers, steel and cement, as well as help cut emissions globally. "At this point, the technology is not mature or cheap enough to be used widely," Amit Bhandari, senior fellow, energy and investment at Gateway House, a Mumbai-based think tank, told CNBC. He pointed to the example of solar energy which took about a decade to become viable. The green hydrogen industry is still in its infancy and pilot plants to study the technology and costs will take at least five years to show results, Bhandari said. "Ten years ago, if you had asked me if solar energy is viable, I would have said 'no,' even though solar power potential was known and technology was available. It took off only when the cost became comparable to traditional energy sources over a long period of time," Bhandari said, adding that he was reluctant to write off a new technology. Renewables currently account for almost 40% of total installed capacity in India, the world's third largest crude oil importer after China and the U.S. But without large-scale energy storage, renewable energy cannot become a viable alternative to traditional power sources.
Feds issue waiver for sales of 15 percent ethanol blend during summer driving season - — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has issued a fuel waiver to allow for a heightened ethanol gasoline blend to be sold at service stations this summer, an attempt by the Biden administration to lower soaring fuel prices.In a Friday letter to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, EPA administrator Michael S. Regan wrote that the waiver will allow gas stations to sell the cheaper fuel blend with 15 percent ethanol in order “to address extreme and unusual fuel supply circumstances caused by the war in Ukraine that are affecting all regions of the Nation.”The waiver for the corn-produced ethanol blend will last until May 20, but the EPA could decide to extend the waiver, Regan wrote, adding that the situation of rising fuel prices could worsen. Biden said earlier this month in an Iowa appearance that the waiver would continue through the summer.In roughly two-thirds of the country, E15 cannot be sold from terminals starting on May 1 and at retail stations starting on June 1, the EPA said.“The EPA also believes that the current extreme and unusual circumstances affecting global supply will continue in the near term, while the pressure on U.S. markets, including production and distribution of gasoline and other petroleum products, may worsen considering that crude oil disruptions, record usage of existing refineries, and even stronger international demand, have put significant pressure on the ability of domestic gasoline and other petroleum product supply to meet demand,” Regan wrote.The waiver affects a small portion of gas stations in the U.S. that sell corn-based ethanol fuel. There are only 2,300 gas stations nationwide that offer a 15% ethanol blend, compared to the more than 140,000 gas stations across the U.S.
Biden Administration Begins $3 Billion Plan for Electric Car Batteries - NYTimes - The Biden administration plans to begin a $3.1 billion effort on Monday to spur the domestic production of advanced batteries, which are essential to its plan to speed the adoption of electric vehicles and renewable energy. President Biden has prodded automakers to churn out electric vehicles and utilities to switch to solar, wind and other clean energy, saying the transitions are critical to eliminating the pollution that is dangerously heating the planet. In the wake of surging energy prices caused largely by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, administration officials also have described the transition to clean energy as a way to insulate consumers from the fluctuation of global oil markets and achieve true energy independence. Jennifer Granholm, the energy secretary, last week called renewable energy “the greatest peace plan this world will ever know.” Yet currently, lithium, cobalt and other minerals needed for electric car batteries and energy storage are processed primarily in Asia. China alone controls nearly 80 percent of the world’s processing and refining of those critical minerals. Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, a crucial vote for potential climate legislation in the evenly divided Senate, said last month that he had “grave concerns about moving toward an E.V.-only future” because China controls the minerals needed for car batteries. “We cannot replace one unreliable foreign supply chain with another and think it’s going to solve our problems,” he said at an April 7 hearing of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Ms. Granholm plans to announce the funding plan on Monday during a visit to Detroit, a senior administration official said. The $3.1 billion in grants, along with a separate $60 million program for battery recycling, is an effort to “reduce our reliance on competing nations like China that have an advantage over the global supply chain,” according to a Department of Energy statement. The funding is aimed at companies that can create new, retrofitted or expanded processing facilities as well as battery recycling programs, officials with the Department of Energy said. The grants will be funded through the $1 trillion infrastructure law, which includes more than $7 billion to improve the domestic battery supply chain. In April, President Biden invoked the Defense Production Act to give the government more avenues to provide support for the mining, processing and recycling of critical materials, such as lithium, nickel, cobalt, graphite and manganese. The move comes in an election year when Republican leaders in Congress are blaming high gas prices on the Biden administration’s pursuit of renewable power — a claim that most economists say is not true.
Biden admin offers $3.1B for domestic EV batteries - -The Biden administration today unlocked $3.1 billion to create a domestic supply chain for advanced batteries used in electric vehicles and energy storage. The $3.1 billion in grants are aimed at companies that can build new, retrofitted or expanded battery processing and manufacturing facilities as well as recycling plants in the United States. Lithium, cobalt, nickel and other critical minerals needed to produce EV batteries are largely processed in Asia. China alone controls over 75 percent of the world’s processing and refining capacity. The grants will be funded through President Joe Biden’s $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure law, which overall includes more than $7 billion to boost domestic battery supply chains. The Department of Energy separately announced an additional $60 million to support battery recycling. “This announcement will help boost domestic battery manufacturing, make our country more secure and spur the creation of good-paying jobs,” Mitch Landrieu, who is tasked with implementing the infrastructure law, said on a call with reporters. “This is both going to help us fight against climate change, but it’s also going to make us more secure and energy independent.” Transportation is the single largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the country, with passenger vehicles accounting for the bulk of that carbon pollution. Administration officials framed the funding as a way to not only reduce carbon emissions but also address market instability caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “We’ve seen even in just recent days [Russian President Vladimir] Putin trying to use Russia’s energy supply as a weapon against other nations,” White House National Economic Council Director Brian Deese told reporters on the press call. “This funding announcement will punch above its weight in not only accelerating the transition to a clean transportation future, but also in securing one of the most important supply chains in the U.S. economy.” Today’s rollout will be overseen by both DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy and its newly created Office of Manufacturing and Energy Supply Chains. The infrastructure law also included up to $7.5 billion to build a national EV charging network and $5 billion for electric school buses. Biden set a goal that half of all new vehicles sold would be electric by decade’s end. But battery supply chain issues associated with the Covid-19 pandemic and exacerbated by the Russia-Ukraine conflict have created massive EV backlogs. White House climate adviser Gina McCarthy said new “made in America” batteries will reduce emissions, power clean school buses, alleviate fluctuating fuel costs and help secure a 100 percent clean electricity grid.
The race to add more public EV chargers --If half of all vehicles sold in the U.S. in 2030 are zero-emission vehicles, in accordance with Biden administration targets, car buyers will need a lot more electric vehicle chargers — almost 20 times more chargers than today, according to McKinsey & Company. Electric vehicle owners charge their vehicles at home or at a workplace parking lot 70% to 80% of the time, according to a 2021 study conducted by Ricardo Strategic Consulting for the Fuels Institute, a non-profit research organization. But those home chargers are slow. With a Level 2 or 240-volt AC charger, it can take anywhere from seven to 12 hours to fully charge a 2022 model EV. Direct-current fast chargers cut that time significantly but cost tens of thousands of dollars to install and are thus limited to commercial applications. For EVs to be accessible to all drivers, including those in dense urban areas and underserved communities where chargers are largely unavailable in multifamily housing, McKinsey estimates a need for 1.2 million public chargers by 2030. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, there are now just over 47,000 public charging stations with Level 2 and direct-current fast chargers across the country. As transportation leaders seek to fill those gaps, Blink Charging President Brendan Jones suggests charging personal vehicles "where they sit," as they are parked most of the time. He named locations like parking garages, grocery and big-box stores, and work locations. Chargers could also be installed on utility or streetlight poles, he said. “Municipalities need to start thinking differently [about] how we create an urban environment that allows everybody in apartment buildings to get charging,” said Jones. He stressed the importance for municipalities, power utilities and charge point operators to work together.
Report: Electric vehicle subsidies going to the wrong drivers - EV sales growth is highly uneven, and an analysis argues this badly limits the climate benefits of federal purchase subsidies. EVs were over 12% of new light-duty vehicles registered in California last year, and Oregon, Washington, Hawaii and D.C. were all over 7%, per the Energy Department.Uptake is way slower in many other states, including huge interior areas where people drive long distances. Check out this new analysis by the nonprofit Niskanen Center (h/t Matt Yglesias).It notes EVs aren't yet catching on among drivers who use the most gasoline. They're often in rural, suburban, or exurban areas and drive pickups and SUVs.It draws on work by the clean transport group Coltura, which looked at "super users" — the top 10% of drivers who account for a third of gas use.Niskanen sets this against the target of ramping up EVs to 50% of sales by 2030, which is shared by the White House and several automakers. It models two scenarios: uptake continuing among "super progressives" — wealthier, more urban buyers who tend to drive efficient cars anyway — and "super users." If all those new EVs went to "super users," it would displace 170 billion gallons of gas by 2030. That's 10 times the same uptake among "super progressives." It suggests changing purchase incentives by linking them to miles driven to provide more climate bang for the buck."Reforming EV subsidies to target Super-Users would make them more equitable, helping less well-off Americans, and particularly those hit hardest by big payments at the pump."Go deeper: Read the analysis
Lobbying heats up ahead of water rule rewrite - Environmental advocates and the nation’s largest pipeline and electricity associations are lobbying the White House, hoping to shape a controversial Clean Water Act rule that could determine just how much say — and time — states and tribes have over a broad range of projects, including pipelines and other infrastructure. The Edison Electric Institute, Interstate Natural Gas Association of America, Southern Environmental Law Center, Appalachian Trail Conservancy and Environmental Law & Policy Center are the latest groups to meet or schedule meetings with the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, or OIRA, over EPA’s Clean Water Act Section 401 certification rule.The rule gives states the right to “certify” that projects that require permits comply with federal law and state water quality standards. Much of the controversy in past years has stemmed from states like New York and Washington denying permits for pipelines and coal terminals for issues tied to air pollution and climate change, as well as water quality concerns (Greenwire, Aug. 9, 2019).The Trump administration made changes to the 401 rule that limited reviews to water quality, a move that was followed up with the Army Corps of Engineers releasing guidance limiting how much time states and tribes have to make such decisions (Greenwire, Feb. 6, 2019).The recent spat of meetings arrives on the heels of a Supreme Court decision to reinstate the Trump-era version of the rule, which has fueled ongoing concerns about states’ and tribes’ hands being tied in how they review — and possibly deny — water permits (Greenwire, April 6). The nation’s highest bench, without explanation and over the objections of four justices, put the Trump-era rule back in place pending the outcome of litigation in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The Supreme Court at the time said the parties could bring back the matter for fuller Supreme Court review if necessary.The Trump administration issued a new rule in a bid to help the oil and gas sector and other industries by removing obstacles to building pipelines and other infrastructure. A federal district court judge last year struck down the regulation. But by that point, EPA had already begun a process to change the 2020 rule, which EPA head Michael Regan said “weakened the authority of states and Tribes to protect their waters” (E&E News PM, May 27, 2021). Exactly what changes EPA will make and when the agency will issue a new proposal is unclear.
California warns of possible summer blackouts as power runs low - California energy officials warned the state may be at risk of blackouts for the next three summers due to power supply shortages and extreme weather. The state could be short about 1,700 megawatts this summer - enough power for about 1.3 million homes - and that gap may widen to about 1,800 megawatts by 2025, officials said Friday during a media call. These forecasts don’t include other factors such as extreme regional heat waves or wildfires that can take down power lines, they said. “We continue to see climate-change conditions are impacting our energy system in unprecedented ways,” California Public Utilities Commission President Alice Reynolds said. “We know that reliability is going to be difficult in this time of transition.” The energy-shortage projections come a week after California Governor Gavin Newsom said he would support extending the life of the state’s only remaining nuclear power plant to make sure there are enough power resources to maintain reliability while transitioning to a carbon-free grid. California has struggled to keep the lights on the past two summers, with grid operators imposing brief rotating blackouts in 2020 during an extreme regional heat wave that overwhelmed the grid. Officials warned of potential shortages last summer, although the state avoided having to impose blackouts after Newsom declared a grid emergency, which helped free up additional power resources. The biggest challenge for the power system is during hot evenings in late summer and early fall, when solar production falls after sunset while demand for air-conditioning remains high, said Mark Rothleder, chief operating officer of the California Independent System Operator, which oversees the main state grid. To fill the supply gap, California officials have ordered utilities to buy thousands of megawatts of new supplies including batteries, which can soak up excess solar energy during the day and then release power in the evening when the grid is most stressed. Still, global supply-chain challenges and other issues have delayed about 600 megawatts of new clean energy projects this year, said Siva Gunda, vice chair of the California Energy Commission. Drought has also reduced output from the state’s hydroelectric dams, officials said.#160;
Auxin Solar: A look at the mysterious company causing a big trade mess --See photos of shoddy Auxin solar panels and the firm’s desolate factory site. Plus: State data raises questions about how many panels Auxin actually produces. Auxin Solar, the tiny company whose trade petition is rattling the whole U.S. solar industry, produces solar panels of questionable quality in volumes that appear to be lower than claimed, sources tell Canary Media. Last week, I reported on how Auxin’s petition has triggered the U.S. Department of Commerce to consider imposing tariffs on solar panels imported from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam, based on claims that Chinese manufacturers are funneling their wares through those countries to evade existing tariffs. If Commerce sides with Auxin, that could kneecap the solar industry in this country, as I discussed in an episode of The Carbon Copy podcast last week. The U.S. installs vastly more panels than it manufactures, and about80 percent of imported panels currently being deployed in U.S. projects come from those four Southeast Asian countries. Since publishing my initial article, I have spoken with a solar installer who has used Auxin panels, examined data on deployment of those panels in key U.S. markets, and again visited the site of Auxin’s sole factory, camera in hand. Here’s what I’ve learned about this little company that’s causing a big ruckus.
Major grid dilemma: Treat fossil fuels like renewables? - Last year, the nation’s largest grid operator scaled back the use of a controversial grid rule that wind and solar developers claimed unfairly favored fossil fuels. Now, clean energy advocates have their sights set on another issue they say may give coal, natural gas and nuclear generators a leg up with PJM Interconnection, a regional transmission organization that oversees the flow of power in 13 states and the District of Columbia. The issue is known as capacity value, and how PJM handles it could have implications for everything from coal plant retirements to battery deployment to the reliability of the power grid for the 65 million people living in the PJM region. Broadly, capacity value attempts to measure the extent to which different types of energy resources — from coal to nuclear to solar — can be counted on to provide power when it is most needed. The metric is critical for PJM and other grid operators, which were largely designed to ensure that electricity is reliable and affordable but could also play a significant role in driving the pace of the transition to carbon-free power, analysts say. “It highlights the overall problem that these market rules can serve as a barrier to getting more clean energy online and that reforming these rules at the margins can have an enormous impact,” said Joel Eisen, a professor of law at the University of Richmond. PJM established a task force last year focused on potential reforms to its capacity market, including whether it should refine how it values the capacity of various energy resources. Similar discussions about capacity value are also underway in other grid regions, including California and New York, observers said. In PJM, the capacity value for renewable resources like wind and solar projects accounts for their dependence on the weather and time of day. But the modeling used for thermal resources in PJM — which include natural gas, coal and nuclear power plants — does not factor in the potential for a major weather event or other disruption that could knock out multiple generators at once, said Kat Burnham, principal at Advanced Energy Economy. It also hasn’t been revised significantly for about 20 years. That raises questions about whether the system is fair for the small but growing number of renewable energy projects in PJM — not to mention the more than 200,000 megawatts of proposed carbon-free resources seeking to connect to the PJM grid, clean energy advocates say. “When you have an outdated approach for resources like natural gas, oil and coal, they’re perhaps getting over-accredited for reliability contributions that they’re not actually providing,” Burnham said. “Whereas resources like renewables and battery storage and other advanced sources of energy … are discounted in a way that fossil fuel resources are not.”
‘Get rid of competition’? FERC and the push for power lines -A proposal from federal regulators to change the U.S. transmission planning process has been praised by renewable energy advocates, who see it as key to scaling up carbon-free power.But the reforms, if finalized, would also give utilities more control in the development of new high-voltage power lines — a shift that could spark backlash from consumer advocates, independent renewable energy companies and others.That’s because, according to critics, reduced competition opens the door to higher costs for residents and businesses that pay for the electricity carried by new lines. Supporters say the potential to move faster on infrastructure projects and get more renewables online outweighs any concerns.At issue is a sweeping notice of proposed rulemaking (NOPR) from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission last month that would alter the processes for planning and paying for new transmission lines (Energywire, April 22).In addition to establishing a forward-looking approach to developing transmission projects to account for changes in the resource mix, the proposal would roll back an 11-year-old policy that increased competition in the transmission planning process — and that electric utilities have long opposed (Energywire, Jan. 19).“Utilities were the only ones that wanted to get rid of competition, so this is the compromise position that I suppose FERC has struck,” said Ari Peskoe, director of the Electricity Law Initiative at Harvard Law School’s Environmental & Energy Law Program.Specifically, the commission proposed reinstating a framework known as the right of first refusal for certain regional transmission projects that an incumbent utility develops in partnership with another entity. In those circumstances, utilities would be guaranteed the opportunity to develop a new transmission project in their service territory, rather than have projects be subject to a competitive bidding process.In 2011, FERC issued Order 1000, which, among other things, opened up many transmission projects to competition, eliminating the federal right of first refusal for most regional transmission lines. Under the recent proposal, however, projects that would be jointly owned by an investor-owned utility and another party — such as a public power utility, a separate investor-owned utility or a private developer — would see protection from competition restored.
About 20% of U.S. electric power generating capacity can operate on multiple fuels -As of January 2021, the United States had almost 200 gigawatts (GW) of electric generating capacity that could functionally switch fuels, or about 18% of the total 1,116 GW of utility-scale electric generating capacity. About two-thirds, or 745 GW, of all utility-scale generating capacity involved technologies that could potentially use multiple energy sources, such as combustion turbines and steam turbines, as opposed to 371 GW of capacity that are single-source technologies such as wind turbines, hydroelectric dams, and nuclear reactors.The option to switch to other energy sources when one source becomes limited or expensive can improve the reliability and resilience of the electric power supply. In some cases, that fuel-switching ability may be limited by regulations on fuel use or emissions. The most common mode of fuel switching in the United States is from natural gas to petroleum liquids, at almost 132 GW of capacity. The second-most common mode of fuel switching is from coal to natural gas, at almost 21 GW of capacity.Natural gas-fired combined-cycle (NGCC) applications provided 34% of total U.S. utility-scale power generation in 2021, the largest share of any generating technology. Nationally, 19% of NGCC generating capacity can switch fuels. Electricity markets in Florida, New England, and New York have significantly larger shares of fuel-switching NGCC than the U.S. average. In Florida, NGCCs provide 69% of the state’s total generation, and almost 56% of Florida’s NGCC capacity can fuel switch.Collectively in New York and New England, NGCCs represent 32% of the capacity and 39% of the regional generation. In New York, 41% of the NGCC capacity can fuel switch; in New England, 28% can fuel switch. In other regional power markets, natural gas capacity has a smaller share of total generating capacity, and distillate fuel oil is less readily available. In these markets, the option to fuel switch is less common, and fuel diversity is achieved across a fleet of generators as opposed to within generators. Simple-cycle natural gas-fired technologies, such as combustion turbines and steam turbines, provide less electricity generation than NGCCs. However, these simple-cycle technologies can provide important grid support during high-demand periods. In Florida, 94% of the natural gas-fired combustion turbine capacity can fuel switch. In New England and New York, the fuel-switching share of natural gas combustion turbines averages 80%, which is almost twice as prevalent as the national average of 45% for that technology.
West Virginia Coal Mine Jobs In 2021 Were Fewest Since 1890 | WVPB - West Virginia mines produced about 90 million tons of coal in 2021, according to the Office of Miners Safety Health & Training. That’s up from 2020’s 72 million tons – the lowest number since 1915. However, the state’s coal mines employed fewer workers last year than they did in 2020. Coal mine employment stood at just below 12,000 in 2021 – the lowest number since 1890. According to state data, Marshall County produces the most coal and employs the most workers. Northern West Virginia produces more than Southern West Virginia. Until recent years, it was the reverse.
Calif. governor opens door to keeping nuclear plant running - California Gov. Gavin Newsom is open to the idea of keeping the state’s last nuclear power plant running beyond its planned 2025 closure, renewing a debate about how best to achieve the state’s long-term goal of carbon-free electricity. The Diablo Canyon Power Plant in San Luis Obispo County is set to shutter permanently as part of an agreement between Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E) and a number of environmental groups, anti-nuclear activists and others. But Newsom (D) told the Los Angeles Times’ editorial board Thursday that the state would seek part of $6 billion in federal funds the Biden administration allocated for saving nuclear reactors facing closure. His comments sparked a flurry of opposition and questions about whether keeping the plant open is feasible. The California Independent System Operator has cautioned that the state could see more power demand than supply during extreme events. A Newsom aide refined his position on Friday. “The Governor does not have authority over Diablo Canyon’s license — independent state and federal agencies have that authority,” Erin Mellon, a spokesperson for Newsom, said in an email, adding that Newsom supports “keeping all options on the table to ensure we have a reliable grid.” That includes, Mellon said, “considering an extension to Diablo Canyon which continues to be an important resource as we transition to clean energy.” “As for applying for federal funding, that is ultimately a decision for the plant operator. In the long term, the Governor continued to support the closure of Diablo Canyon as we transition to clean energy while ensuring the reliability of our energy grid,” Mellon said.
Prime minister Boris Johnson says the UK will build one new nuclear plant a year - As Europe looks to move away from dependence on Russian energy, U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson said nuclear power needs to play a larger role. Nuclear power is "absolutely crucial to weaning us off fossil fuels, including Russian oil and gas," Johnson said during a visit to England's Hartlepool nuclear power station on Monday. "Instead of a new one every decade, we're going to build one every year, powering homes with clean, safe and reliable energy," Johnson said in a tweet. It's not the first time the prime minister has touted the advantages of nuclear power. In April, he said "nuclear is a reliable, safe and constant source of clean energy." Nuclear power supplied around 21% of the U.K.'s energy needs during 2020, up from 9.4% in 2000. The government has outlined a plan to expand the country's nuclear power generation to 24 gigawatts by 2050, or about 25% of electricity demand. The U.K.'s decision to double down on nuclear, whose use has been historically polarizing, differs from Germany's approach, which has announced plans to build new liquefied natural gas terminals rather than to bring nuclear reactors back online. France, on the other hand, has long supported nuclear power; it relies on nuclear reactors for about 70% of its electricity.
Up close look: Buckeye students tour working drilling rig - — About 20 students in Buckeye Career Center's energy operations program got a hands-on, up close look at the oil industry last week as they toured a working drilling pad in Carroll County.The students, wearing hard hats and safety glasses and clad in fire-resistant coveralls, toured on Thursday Encino Energy's Leeper pad, located close to the Tuscarawas-Carroll County line near Sherrodsville. The pad has been in operation for the past several months and will have four wells on it when drilling is completed in mid-May.State Sen. Jay Hottinger, R-Newark, and Commissioner Al Landis, also came along to see the well pad.One of the students on the tour, Brysen Thompson, a junior from Carrollton, said he plans on seeking employment in the oil and gas industry once he graduates."There's so many opportunities in Ohio. You wouldn't have to travel far from family. It's a very big opportunity," he said. His biggest takeaway from the tour?"It's crazy to see how far people come to Ohio to work for these opportunities and how much money you can make, and how well organized everything was," Thompson said. "Everything was set up to help prevent big spills, to protect our nature and things like that."The level of professionalism at the well site "was very cool as well," he said. The energy operations program at Buckeye has 27 juniors and 27 seniors currently enrolled. The students learn a variety of skills to prepare them for employment in the oil and gas industry. Those skills include operating and maintaining heavy equipment, determining survey elevations for gas and oil pipeline construction and earning safety credentials necessary for employment in the industry.
Union County court rejects pipeline eminent domain - — A Union County judge has rejected Columbia Gas of Ohio’s request to approve eminent domain to install a pipeline through preserved farmland. The ruling did leave the door open for eminent domain action in the future, however, noting that ag easements don’t prevent it. The court ruling, issued April 26 by the Union County Court of Common Pleas, combines two cases: Columbia Gas of Ohio vs. Patrick Bailey et al., and Columbia Gas of Ohio vs. Don Bailey Jr., successor trustee of the Arno Renner Trust. Columbia Gas filed the petitions asking the court to allow the company to use eminent domain to obtain easements for its pipeline. Judge Mark S. O’Connor dismissed the petitions and encouraged further mediation. The decision to dismiss the petitions was not based on the fact that ag easements are already in place on the land. Instead, O’Connor pointed to an inconsistency between the easement language approved by the Ohio Power Siting Board and what was presented to the court. He disagreed with the argument that the existing ag easement should protect the land from eminent domain. In his ruling, he explained, “This is contrary to the terms of that easement and contrary to the State’s historic right to exercise the right of eminent domain.” The judge criticized both Columbia Gas and the Ohio Power Siting Board for their handling of the project. In his ruling, he noted, “Given the particular fact of this case where the 25-foot easement was labeled ‘temporary’ before the Siting Board and transformed itself into ‘perpetual’ before this Court, this Court is of the opinion that the Siting Board did not do its job. This Court finds it was ‘bad faith’ to represent one thing to the Siting Board and then ask this Court to approve something greater.” The Ohio Power Siting Board approved the pipeline project in August of 2020, and construction was originally scheduled to start in February of 2021. Columbia Gas won’t be able to start construction, however, until it holds easements for the entire route. Several other landowners, who do not have agricultural easements, are also fighting eminent domain action for the pipeline. The court previously ruled in favor of those landowners in two other cases, and Columbia Gas has appealed those rulings to the Ohio Third District Court of Appeals.
Court of Appeals Rules That Oil and Gas Company Has Ongoing Obligation to Restore Property Despite General Release of Damages in Surface Use Agreement -- On April 11, 2022, the Fourth District Court of Appeals issued a significant decision in Zimmerview Dairy Farms, LLC v. Protégé Energy III LLC establishing that a general release of damages signed in connection with a pad site surface use agreement did not release the oil and gas company from its ongoing obligations to remediate and restore damage to a landowner’s property.In the Zimmerview case, Plaintiff Zimmerview Dairy Farms (“ZDF”) signed a surface use agreement with Defendant Protégé Energy III LLC (“Protégé”) permitting Protégé to construct and operate a pad-site for Utica Shale wells on a portion of the ZDF farm. The agreement consisted of three documents: a recorded surface use agreement (favorable to Protégé); a confidential supplemental agreement (with terms favorable to ZDF); and a damage release under which ZDF released Protégé from the anticipated damages already paid for by Protégé. This three-document structure is typical, especially for pipelines easements, and one which many oil and gas companies insist on. Often, the damage release is explained by landmen as an unimportant formality and that the company is still going to fix the land as required under the unrecorded agreement. However, what a landman says, what an agreement says and what a company does can differ dramatically.In Zimmerview, Protégé proceeded to construct and operate its pad-site without adequately remediating, restoring and reseeding the areas disturbed during construction, including the slopes of the pad-site. Over several years, Protégé’s failure to remediate resulted in significant topsoil damage, invasive weed infestations and ongoing erosion, which rendered large portions of the ZDF farm unusable. Protégé refused to pay or fix the ZDF farm, claiming that the damage release signed by ZDF released Protégé from any obligation to remediate or pay for damages caused to the ZDF farm. When ZDF filed suit and won at trial, Protégé appealed. On appeal, Protégé once again argued that ZDF had released Protégé from all damages resulting from construction and operation of the pad-site including damages from not remediating the ZDF farm. Despite the broad language of the release, however, the Court of Appeals rejected Protégé’s argument on the basis that the damage release, signed when the surface use agreement was executed, could not have been intended to release Protégé from damages that resulted from the ongoing obligations and requirements Protégé had just agreed to under the surface use agreement. Accordingly, the Fourth District affirmed the trial court judgment (and $800,000 verdict for damages) against Protégé. Given the common use (and abuse) of similar damage releases by both operators and pipeline companies, this decision is a welcome addition to Ohio caselaw and should assist (and hopefully encourage) Ohio landowners to insist on producers and pipeline companies meeting their construction and remediation obligations.[View source.]
To arbitrate or not? – Ohio Ag Net -Ascent Resources-Utica, L.L.C. (“Defendant”) acquired leases to the oil and gas rights of farmland located in Jefferson County, Ohio allowing it to physically occupy the land which included the right to explore the land for oil and gas, construct wells, erect telephone lines, powerlines, and pipelines, and to build roads. The leases also had a primary and secondary term language that specified that the leases would terminate after five years unless a well is producing oil or gas or unless Defendant had commenced drilling operations within 90 days of the expiration of the five-year term. After five years had passed, the owners of the farmland in Jefferson County (“Plaintiffs”) filed a lawsuit for declaratory judgment asking the Jefferson County Court of Common Pleas to find that the oil and gas leases had expired because of Defendant’s failure to produce oil or gas or to commence drilling within 90 days. Defendant counterclaimed that the leases had not expired because it had obtained permits to drill wells on the land and had begun constructing those wells before the expiration of the leases. Defendant also moved to stay the lawsuit, asserting that arbitration was the proper mechanism to determine whether the leases had expired, not a court. After considering the above provisions of the Ohio Revised Code, the Jefferson County Court of Common Pleas denied Defendant’s request to stay the proceedings pending arbitration. The Common Pleas Court concluded that Plaintiffs’ claims involved the title to or possession of land and therefore was exempt from arbitration under Ohio law. However, the Seventh District Court of Appeals disagreed with the Jefferson County court. The Seventh District reasoned that the controversy was not about title to land or possession of land, rather it was about the termination of a lease, and therefore should be subject to the arbitration provisions within the leases. The case eventually made its way to the Ohio Supreme Court, which was tasked with answering one single question: is an action seeking to determine that an oil and gas lease has expired by its own terms the type of controversy “involving the title to or the possession of real estate” so that the action is exempt from arbitration under Ohio Revised Code § 2711.01(B)(1)? The Ohio Supreme Court determined that yes, under Ohio law, an action seeking to determine whether an oil and gas lease has expired by its own terms is not subject to arbitration. The Ohio Supreme Court reasoned that an oil and gas lease grants the lessee a property interest in the land and constitutes a title transaction because it affects title to real estate. Additionally, the Ohio Supreme Court found that an oil and gas lease affects the possession of land because a lessee has a vested right to the possession of the land to the extent reasonably necessary to carry out the terms of the lease. Lastly, the Ohio Supreme Court provided that if the conditions of the primary term or secondary term of an oil and gas lease are not met, then the lease terminates, and the property interest created by the oil and gas lease reverts back to the owner/lessor.
The race is on (again) to build out a low-carbon hydrogen economy --At an industrial site on the banks of the Ohio River, Vance Powers pointed to a brand new building – a big blue box with pipes coming in and out of it. Inside the building is a 485-megawatt electric generator owned by Long Ridge Energy Generation. Since opening two years ago, Long Ridge has run the plant on natural gas from the nearby Marcellus and Utica shale region. But a few weeks ago, it began an experiment that its owners hope is the start of new, cleaner way to power the economy – on hydrogen. In March, the plant, in Hannibal, Ohio, started feeding its combustion turbine with a small percentage of hydrogen, trucked in from a nearby chemical plant. Powers says the company plans to use more hydrogen, but has been using small amounts of it as a test. “Will the turbine burn it? We’ve just proved, yes, it will,” he said. “The next step is how do you get it in industrial-scale size and at an economical level?” That is the ultimate question with hydrogen, the most common element in the universe. It’s been the subject of attention from scientists and policy makers for decades, because of its potential to replace fossil fuels. That’s because when it’s used to power a car or fuel a power plant, hydrogen creates no carbon dioxide – its chief byproduct is water. But getting a clean, cheap source of it has been hard to do. That might be changing. Thanks to a combination of government support and pressure from investors, companies are trying to revive the dream of a hydrogen economy. Eventually, the company wants to run the plant completely on hydrogen. Right now, Long Ridge gets a few truckloads of hydrogen a month in big, white tubes from a nearby chemical plant. But it would need much more to run completely on hydrogen. Most industrial hydrogen is made from natural gas, in a process called “steam methane reforming.” This method – known as “grey hydrogen,” creates CO2. Long Ridge says it wants to capture that CO2 and store it underground, a method known as “blue” hydrogen. Around the country, others are beating a path to hydrogen, which the federal government has been trying to support since the George W. Bush administration. President Biden’s bipartisan infrastructure bill included $8 billion to create four “hydrogen hubs” around the country – where facilities create, store, and use hydrogen in industrial settings. A consortium of companies is hoping to land one in the Pennsylvania, West Virginia and southeast Ohio region. That has Bo Wholey, Long Ridge’s CEO, excited. “This location here…is perfect for at least one of those hydrogen hubs,” he said. “That’s certainly something that we’re going to be evaluating, as we think about how to make running on hydrogen more economical.”
VOICES: We need more pipelines - Dayton Daily News - One of the roadblocks in the world’s attempts to punish Russia for their invasion of Ukraine has been the reliance of western countries like Germany and Italy on Russian natural gas and oil. These countries rely on the Kremlin to keep their homes warm in the winter and the lights on throughout the year. Europe cannot risk losing access to this essential energy source no matter how egregious Russia’s actions have been. Thanks to the shale revolution in Ohio, America has become a world leader in the production of these essential energy sources. U.S. Energy Information Administration data indicates that in 2019, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Ohio was producing more than 2.65 trillion cubic ft of natural gas a year and about 29 million barrels of oil.At those rates, Ohio could heat 26.5 million homes during the winter and produce 551 million gallons of gasoline. Amazingly, that’s only a fraction of what Ohio’s natural gas and oil industry is capable of producing.What’s the holdup then? Why are gas prices rising and why is America not providing more natural gas and oil to Europe?The answer comes down to energy infrastructure. Producing more natural gas and oil is not helpful if it cannot get to where there is need. The pipelines required to transport these products throughout the country and the natural gas liquefaction plants required to ship it across the Atlantic are already operating at or near capacity. This means producers who want to bring more natural gas and oil to consumers are physically unable to.The need for more pipelines is clear, and yet anti-energy activists continue to fight against them. Efforts to shutdown Line 5 in Michigan and the Mountain Valley Pipeline are misguided at best and dangerous at worst. The reality is that pipelines not only ensure reliable access to essential energy, they reduce carbon emissions and are demonstrated to be the most environmentally efficient solution to deliver natural gas and oil to the market. The Secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy, Jennifer Granholm, has even publicly stated that pipelines are the best way to distribute the essential energy we need.Ohio made natural gas and oil can provide safe, reliable, and clean energy to the world and help reduce the cost of energy for all of us. For that to happen, we must build more pipelines and natural gas liquefaction plants. Doing so will ensure aggressors like Russia no longer hold power over western society, and energy prices here at home remain steady and affordable in the long term.
Conventional oil and gas industry sues to be excluded from Pa. methane rule - Three trade groups for Pennsylvania’s conventional oil and gas industry are suing state environmental regulators to block a forthcoming rule for controlling methane and other air pollution from applying to their well sites.The state Department of Environmental Protection created a single rule that applies to conventional and unconventional wells sites “in blatant disregard” of a 2016 state law that requires conventional wells to be regulated independently from those tapping the Marcellus and Utica shales, the industry groups argue.DEP rejected that argument when it crafted the rule, which largely mirrors federal standards the state must enforce by mid-June or face sanctions, including the loss of federal highway funds. But DEP withdrew the rule from consideration by the state’s Independent Regulatory Review Commission at its upcoming meeting on May 19 in a letter received by the commission Thursday morning.DEP said the rule “will be resubmitted at a later time.”The Commonwealth Court has scheduled a May 10 hearing on the conventional drilling groups’ request to stop the rule from taking effect on them while the court considers the case.The state Environmental Quality Board voted to adopt the final rule in March, two years after DEP released a draft and more than five years after federal regulators released the guidelines that form the backbone of the rule.It must still be reviewed by the state Independent Regulatory Review Commission and the attorney general’s office before it can be published. The Legislature can also seek to delay or block it.DEP estimates the rule will curb emissions of a smog-forming group of chemicals called volatile organic compounds by 12,000 tons per year and emissions of methane, a powerful climate-warming gas, by about 221,000 tons per year as a side benefit.Regulators expect upward of 75% of the rule’s total emissions reductions to come from the conventional industry, largely because, by DEP’s count, there are eight times as many conventional well sites as shale well sites and most of them will have to replace equipment that intentionally vents gas with less leaky parts.The Pennsylvania Independent Oil & Gas Association, the Pennsylvania Grade Crude Oil Coalition, and the Pennsylvania Independent Petroleum Producers Association are asking the court to prohibit the state from publishing the rule “unless and until the scope of the rule is clarified to apply only to unconventional wells” and associated equipment. They are also asking the court to declare any part of the rule that applies to conventional well sites “unlawful.”They say the state’s environmental rule-making board was required to create separate air pollution standards for the tanks, valves and other equipment attached to their usually small, shallow wells. Because the board didn’t create separate standards, conventional well operators “will be forced to comply with requirements that are not technologically feasible, economically feasible, or neither,” they wrote in court filings.The 2016 law requiring separate treatment for conventional wells and shale wells applies only to rules established under the authority of the state’s oil and gas law, DEP wrote in documents defending the regulation. This rule falls under Pennsylvania’s air pollution law.The federal guidelines it builds on make no distinction between conventional and unconventional wells, and DEP “does not have the authority to exempt sources from federal requirements,” it wrote. Instead, well sites must comply with the rule based on their existing equipment, how much oil and gas they produce and how much pollution they are expected to emit.DEP estimates the rule will have a net economic benefit for the conventional industry, saving it $5.9 million more than it costs to comply by capturing gas that would otherwise be wasted.
Pa. DEP 're-evaluating' oil and gas air pollution rule as deadline looms Pennsylvania environmental regulators are “re-evaluating” their overdue rule for cutting air pollution from oil and gas well sites even as they face a deadline to finalize the new standards or risk the loss of federal highway funds.On Wednesday, the state Department of Environmental Protectionwithdrew the rule from consideration by the state’s Independent Regulatory Review Commission, which was scheduled to vote on it at an upcoming meeting on May 19.DEP spokesman Neil Shader said the department pulled the rule after the House Environmental Resources and Energy Committee sent a disapproval letter that triggers a legislative review process that could stretch through the end of the year.The rule is the last piece of Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf’s strategy to reduce methane emissions from new and existing oil and gas well sites and associated equipment. It’s designed to curb emissions of a smog-forming group of chemicals called volatile organic compounds while cutting emissions of methane, a powerful climate-warming gas, as a side benefit.Pennsylvania is more than three years past the deadline when it was required to implement the oil and gas air pollution controls, which are based on federal guidelines.It now faces a June 16 deadline to finalize the rule or face sanctions by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.“This delay caused by the disapproval resolution would jeopardize billions of dollars in federal highway funds,” Mr. Shader said. “DEP believes that re-evaluating the regulation and resubmitting to [the Environmental Quality Board] could avoid or minimize sanctions from the federal government.”The state Environmental Quality Board reviews and formally adopts rules developed by DEP. It voted to adopt the final oil and gas pollution rule in March.In its letter, the Republican-led House committee wrote that the rule has “a fatal flaw” because it did not follow a 2016 state law that requires conventional oil and gas wells to be regulated independently from those tapping the Marcellus and Utica shales.The air pollution rule, like the federal guidelines it is based on, does not distinguish between the two types of well sites. DEP has said the law requiring separate oil and gas rules does not apply to air pollution rules.“DEP had every opportunity to comply with this law, but chose not to and instead chose to concoct a specious argument to justify their failure instead of addressing the issue,” 16 members of the committee wrote, including all of its Republican members and Democrat Pam Snyder of Greene County.The disapproval letter echoes a complaint made in a lawsuit by the state’s conventional oil and gas producers, who are seeking court action to block the rule from applying to their well sites.In a court filing Thursday, DEP said the conventional industry’s claims should be dismissed since “only the possibility of a future regulation exists” at this point. The Commonwealth Court tossed “virtually indistinguishable” claims made by one of the industry trade groups in 2016 at a similar stage of the rule-making process for that reason, DEP wrote.Environmental advocates said there was no time to waste.“Methane is a growing climate threat and Pennsylvania urgently needs to adopt these regulations,” said Joseph Otis Minott, executive director of the Philadelphia-based Clean Air Council. “At this point, it is likely that EPA will sanction Pennsylvania shortly for not adopting the rule. Unless DEP can figure out how to quickly adopt the rule, the EPA sanctions will be quite draconian.”
Pennsylvania Oil Lobby Keeps Abandoned Wells Unplugged --Arthur Stewart took a seat at a table facing a panel of legislators in a nondescript room in the Pennsylvania State Capitol in Harrisburg. On a Monday morning in early February, he was there to meet with the Pennsylvania House Environmental Resources & Energy Committee to provide evidence of one of the state’s major environmental hazards. He guided lawmakers through a series of slides, eventually reaching one with a jarring photo: a piece of rusted pipe jutting out of the frost-covered forest floor, tucked between barren branches. Flames pour out of the top of the pipe: It’s an abandoned gas well, one of hundreds of thousands in the state that is emitting methane, which Stewart has lit on fire to demonstrate the danger.“I lit this well so that you could get a visual image of what’s happening every minute of every hour of every day of every month that that well has been sitting there,” he told the meeting of legislators, who’d gathered to discuss the disbursement of the influx of $104 million in federal funding to address the state’s orphaned and abandoned oil and gas well crisis.Stewart is no starry-eyed environmentalist. He’s the president of Cameron Energy Company and the founder of the Pennsylvania Grade Crude Oil Coalition, an industry lobbying group. And despite the dramatic evidence he provided of the hazards of abandoned wells, he was there in part to oppose proposals to increase the rates that oil and gas companies have to set aside for plugging such wells. That resistance could potentially endanger the state’s ability to get even more federal money to plug the wells through a round of performance grants earmarked for states that tighten their regulations. (Pennsylvania could receive up to $411 million over 10 years under the federal legislation.) The industry has long had a powerful influence on lawmakers in the state, where the country’s first successful oil well was drilled back in 1859, and has helped shape legislation that affects oil and gas companies.
Service provider costs increase, raising pressure on energy industry - Appalachia's natural gas producers have been on a roll lately, at least in terms of revenue, as commodity prices have more than quadrupled from their lowest point two years ago at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. But everything isn't rosy: The cost of creating energy is going up, too. The region's big natural gas producers — EQT Corp., Range Resources, and Southwestern Energy - all talked about inflation and how it was hitting their expenses now and into the future during their first-quarter conference calls recently. And in an industry that depends on outside companies for much of their heavy lifting, it could be significant. Many of the big pressure points — steel for casing and pipes down drilling holes and to transport gas, as well as fuel and trucking — are well known across the industry. But there are also higher prices for other key pieces, including the cost of the sand that is used in hydraulic fracturing. The costs matter to the gas companies, as well as Wall Street, because shale is such a capital-intensive industry. Each one of the publicly traded natural gas producers' capital budgets range from around $460 million to almost $2 billion, depending on company size, drilling plans and basins. None of the big companies plan to increase drilling — and thereby production — by anything significant, opting instead for what the industry calls maintenance capital. That means drilling enough to keep up a steady state of production, and cash flow. In recent years, with gas prices at record lows and then the economic impact of the pandemic, service provider costs have mostly favored producers. That's not the case anymore, with the cost of raw materials rising with inflation and a fight for workers that has hit just about every industry. "The biggest factor I think people are looking at in the industry in general is just service cost inflation," said EQT CEO Toby Rice. EQT Corp., the nation's largest natural gas producer, acknowledged inflation has hit every part of the oilfield services industry. CFO David Khani told financial analysts last week that EQT had 50% of the spending for its capital budget already set and felt comfortable with keeping its capital expenditures pegged where they are right now. One reason for that confidence: It has a long-term contract for sand, which is a vital ingredient. Rice said that sand supply has been a concern for many in the industry, especially in the Permian basin. "But for EQT, with our sand supply agreements, we're not seeing much inflation on that front," Rice said. "Our challenge is more on the labor side and getting that sand to location." Range Resources spent about 25% of its 2022 capital expenditures, $117 million, of the $460 million to $480 million it is planning for the year. That's to be expected, as Range and other companies frontload drilling in the first half of a normal year and then slow drilling in favor of hydraulic fracturing and turning wells into sales in the second half of the year. Even with the cost increases it felt, Range said it was able to cut well-per-foot costs by 4% compared to a year ago due to higher efficiencies and longer laterals. Southwestern Energy, unlike most other natural gas producers, doesn't depend on outside service providers for drilling and hydraulic fracturing. Seven of the 16 Southwestern rig crews are their own. And the company said its services are contracted for 2022. That will save about $35 million to $40 million for 2022 compared to having an outside provider. "As a result of our procurement strategy and long-standing working relationships with key service providers, we have not encountered any material issues related to obtaining goods and services in any of our operating areas," said COO Clay Carrell. Southwestern also described occasional challenges with trucking and last-mile logistics.
Equitrans to seek renewed federal permits for MVP, eyes H2 2023 service start - Equitrans Midstream said May 3 it will pursue new federal permits for the 304-mile, 2 Bcf/d Mountain Valley Pipeline, after several were struck by the US Court of Appeals for 4th Circuit, and set a new target for placing the natural gas facility in service in the second half of 2023. Top company officials during Equitrans' first-quarter earnings call May 3 said they remained "committed to the path forward" for the 304-mile, 2 Bcf/d project, with support from joint venture partners. "After extended review of the recent court decisions and discussions with federal agencies, external counsel and our partners, we believe the path forward is to pursue new permits from the relevant federal agencies," Equitrans Chairman and CEO Thomas Karam said. Legal challenges from environmental groups and subsequent adverse decisions by the 4th Circuit have proven a major hurdle for the project in West Virginia and Virginia connecting Appalachian gas to downstream markets. The 4th Circuit in early-2022 invalidated federal authorizations allowing the MVP project to cross the Jefferson National Forest, as well as striking the US Fish and Wildlife Service's Endangered Species Act authorizations for the facility. The company's pitch for rehearing in those cases was then rejected by the full court in March, leaving MVP with a choice of requesting US Supreme Court review or seeking new federal permits, if it continued pursuing the projects. Another important permit is pending from the US Army Corps of Engineers.
Mountain Valley Pipeline to Seek New Permits, Boosting Cost (AP) — Mountain Valley Pipeline will seek new permits that courts have rejected twice, increasing the cost for the proposed natural gas pipeline that would run through Virginia and West Virginia and delaying its completion, officials said Tuesday. Equitrans Midstream Corp., the lead partner in the pipeline project, outlined the latest plan in a conference call with financial analysts on Tuesday, The Roanoke Times reported. The pipeline's cost is now projected to be $6.6 billion and its completion would be delayed to 2023. “After engaging with the federal agencies and evaluating all options, we believe the best path forward for MVP’s completion is to pursue new permits,” said Thomas Karam, chairman and chief executive officer of the Pittsburgh company. Four other energy companies, including a subsidiary of Roanoke Gas Co., are building the 303-mile (487-kilometer) pipeline that would transport natural gas drilled from the Marcellus and Utica shale formations through West Virginia and Virginia. “We are still all lockstep in agreement with our partners in terms of the path forward and what our costs will be,” Diana Charletta, Equitrans’ president and chief operating officer, said during the call.
Equitrans says it'll apply for new Mountain Valley Pipeline permits - Pittsburgh Business Times - Equitrans Midstream Corp. said Tuesday that it will seek new permits for the delayed Mountain Valley Pipeline, setting a new in-service date of the second half of 2023. MVP had been in holding pattern since late January, when the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals issued rulings that invalidated two previously issued federal permits, permission to cross the Jefferson National Forest and a biological opinion related to nearby endangered species. The $6.6 billion pipeline had been scheduled to become operational at the end of the summer 2022 but that became untenable with the court's rulings. MVP is designed to bring Marcellus and Utica Shale gas from southwestern Pennsylvania through West Virginia and Virginia, opening up new markets for natural gas. There was good news for the company in April when the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved MVP's revised plan, which Equitrans said was an important step forward. “After engaging with the federal agencies and evaluating all options, we believe the best path forward for MVP’s completion is to pursue new permits," said Equitrans CEO Tom Karam in a statement Tuesday. Karam said Equitrans still believed the circuit court was wrong. "We are confident the agencies can and will produce even more comprehensive documentation to address the court's concerns," Karam said. "To reflect the time required for permit re-issuance and to ensure safe, responsible project construction, we have revised our MVP in-service target to the second half of 2023." The construction, which has already cost about $6 billion, is now expected to cost about $6.6 billion on the new timeline. Equitrans, which has spent $2.6 billion already on the construction, will pay about $3.4 billion, according to the new estimates. Its joint venture partners will pay for the rest. Less certain was the fate of MVP Southgate, an extension of the pipeline into North Carolina. "The MVP JV continues to evaluate the MVP Southgate project, including engaging in discussions with the shipper regarding options for the project, which includes potential changes to the project design and timing in lieu of pursuing the project as originally contemplated," Equitrans said.
Key US natural gas pipeline delayed as costs grow to $6.6 billion - Al Arabiya - A major US natural gas pipeline project has been delayed again as developer Equitrans Midstream Corp. pursues new permits for the troubled conduit. The Mountain Valley Pipeline is now estimated to start up in the second half of 2023 and will cost $6.6 billion, the company said Tuesday in a statement. That’s up from a previous forecast of $6.2 billion. Until late last year, Equitrans expected the pipeline to start operating by this summer. It was originally expected to be in service in 2018, and the cost estimate has roughly doubled since the project was announced in 2014. Equitrans is trying to get new permits for the project after a US appeals court earlier this year tossed the federal government’s approval for Mountain Valley to go through Jefferson National Forest in the Virginias. Mountain Valley, which is more than 90 percent complete, aims to connect drillers in the gas-rich Marcellus and Utica shale basins with major East Coast markets. Other projects in the region were scrapped amid fierce opposition from environmental groups, including proposals from Dominion Energy Inc., Duke Energy Corp. and Williams Cos. Equitrans, which owns 48 percent of the 488-kilometer conduit, has funded about $2.6 billion of the project and expects to spend $3.4 billion.
Mountain Valley Pipeline, a litmus test for big projects, is delayed again | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette - Equitrans Midstream Corp. has again delayed the start date for its 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline and raised its estimated cost to $6.6 billion, more than twice the original estimate. But the big question was whether the natural gas pipeline would ever be completed and what that could mean. Mountain Valley Pipeline, MVP for short, has become the harbinger of whether there’s still a desire for, or even the possibility of, large infrastructure projects being completed, even as Congress and the Biden administration talk about “building back.” The Canonsburg-based midstream firm said on Tuesday that it plans to apply for two environmental permits to replace the ones that were challenged and struck down in court. The process is likely to delay the restart of construction until at least the second quarter of next year. MVP’s journey from conception in the early 2010s through permitting, construction — the project is 94% completed, according to the company — lawsuits, protesters chaining themselves to bulldozers, and project sponsors losing faith, is viewed by supporters and opponents as a cautionary tale. The pipeline was envisioned to bring shale gas from the Marcellus and Utica in Appalachia to markets in the Southeast. It began construction in 2018 and has been beset by legal challenges. In February, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit invalidated two key environmental permits — one from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that concluded no endangered species would be harmed by the pipeline, and another from the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management that allowed MVP to cross the Jefferson National Forest. A few weeks later, NextEra Energy Resources, an energy company that would be using the gas transported by MVP and part owner of the project, wrote down its entire investment $800 million — concluding that the “continued legal and regulatory challenges have resulted in a very low probability of pipeline completion.” AltaGas, another much smaller stakeholder, has written down $271 million in Canadian dollars. Downtown-based EQT Corp., which was one of the project developers early on and had signed up for capacity on the pipeline, has been looking to lower its exposure to it. Last month, EQT disclosed that it sold its remaining stock in Equitrans, which spun out of EQT, for $189 million. It also sold at least half of its capacity on the MVP pipeline. In the meantime, EQT’s CEO Toby Rice has continued to talk about the pipeline project as “critical to the region” and as a litmus test for the political will to build energy infrastructure that backs up the promises being made abroad to help Europe quit Russian gas.Increasingly, oil and gas companies and their supporters have channeled their ire at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which authorizes interstate pipelines, liquefied natural gas and similar projects. MVP secured its FERC approval after two years of review. That meant the commission found the project necessary — or, in practical terms, that customers will use it. FERC has been taken to task by landowners and environmental advocates for relying too heavily on pipeline contracts to determine need. In February, FERC commissioners voted to approve a policy requiring all future and pending projects to undergo an explicit review of their environmental and societal net benefits, including their impact on climate change — a move that was denounced by the industry and supporters in Congress. Sen. Joe Manchin, a Democrat from West Virginia who chairs the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, called a hearing where he grilled FERC commissions on the new policy and issued a warning about MVP. “I know what's going to happen if the Mountain Valley Pipeline is not completed,” he said during that hearing in March. “There’ll not be another investment, taking the most abundant, plentiful gas reserves out of an area ... so that we have LNG, so we're able to do the things that we need … to not only … defend our great country but to help our allies. “I know these people,” he said, referring to pipeline developers and investors. “They’re not going to invest. They’re done. They’re walking away.”
Biden Admin Silent On The Fate Of Major Natural Gas Pipeline As Energy Prices Soar -The Biden administration has yet to take a public position on a major natural gas pipeline as the project faces an uphill federal permitting battle. Equitrans Midstream, the energy company that proposed the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) in 2014, delayed the project’s expected completion to late 2023 and said it would pursue new federal permits for a second time, in an earnings reportpublished Tuesday. The project — a 303-mile pipeline that would transport natural gas from West Virginia to Virginia — faced another setback earlier this year after a federal appeals court struck down its Trump-era permits, ruling in favor of environmental groups. Federal agencies involved in the MVP permitting process didn’t respond to requests for comment or declined to comment altogether, and the White House has yet to intervene in the matter despite soaring energy prices and pleas from a Democratic senator. “After engaging with the federal agencies and evaluating all options, we believe the best path forward for MVP’s completion is to pursue new permits,” Thomas Karam, the chairman and CEO of Equitrans, said in a statement Tuesday. “To reflect the time required for permit re-issuance and to ensure safe, responsible project construction, we have revised our MVP in-service target to the second half of 2023.” The total project cost of the pipeline has increased to $6.6 billion, the company added in its earnings report. The MVP pipeline was originally projected to begin operations in 2018 and the total cost has doubled since the project was unveiled, Bloomberg reported. “Since the project’s inception, groups opposing energy infrastructure development have challenged the MVP project at every turn, filing dozens of petitions contesting MVP’s previously issued state and federal authorizations,” Equitrans spokesperson Natalie Cox told the DCNF in an email. “The agencies have expended substantial time and resources on the permit reviews; and the final authorizations exceeded regulatory and legal requirements for these types of projects.” The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled in January that the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) under the Trump administration failed to conduct proper environmental reviews of the pipeline. Weeks later, the same federal panel invalidated the Fish and Wildlife Service’s biological opinion permit for the MVP, saying it failed to consider project impacts on endangered fish species such as the Roanoke logperch and candy darter. The plaintiffs, a group of conservation groups led by the Sierra Club, argued the pipeline would cause widespread environmental damage. The permits had been issued in 2017 and reissued in early 2021 under the Trump administration. Former BLM official Katherine MacGregor said in 2017 the project would “efficiently deliver domestic natural gas resources.” But President Joe Biden has yet to address the project even as his administration has shut down other pipelines, environmental activists have urged him to rescind the project’s permits and Democratic West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, who supports MVP, has pushed for the president to expedite the permitting process.“Ultimately, the decision on MVP is one that President Biden can influence,” climate group Food & Water Watch stated in an October blog post.A coalition of 60 environmental organizations called upon the administration to revoke the MVP’s permits in an April 2021 letter. The letter alleged the pipeline’s construction has already caused “irreparable harm to landscapes and clean water.”The White House and U.S. Forest Service didn’t respond to requests for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation. The Bureau of Land Management declined to comment.
Fewer gas pipelines will mean higher carbon emissions and more Russian threats - When dealing with major challenges, too many elected officials scramble for Band-Aid solutions rather than tackle the root of the problem. That’s certainly been the case with today’s high energy costs, to which the Biden administration and other officials have responded by pinning blame on Vladimir Putin and throwing various short-term fixes at the wall, just to see what will stick. But we cannot fix the real problem by merely ramping up oil imports from Canada, implementing a gasoline tax holiday, or allowing expanded sales of higher-ethanol gasoline during the summer driving season. It is also insufficient to dip into the nation’s strategic petroleum reserve. To stabilize and lower energy prices for the long haul, policymakers must take lessons from this latest global crisis and focus on the long term, especially when it comes to energy infrastructure. That was the key message from a report released earlier this month by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The EIA examined a scenario under which no new natural gas pipeline capacity is built between 2024 and 2050. The consequences for consumers and the climate were quite damaging; such a scenario also eviscerated our potential to provide secure and reliable energy to allies around the world. Under this no-pipeline scenario, energy prices will surge even higher. U.S. natural gas prices recently hit their highest intraday level in over 13 years as American drillers struggle to meet high worldwide demand. Without additional interstate pipeline infrastructure, EIA projects that the Henry Hub spot price for natural gas will rise an additional 11%. Unfortunately, the administration has done nothing to promote the kind of pipeline infrastructure build-out that we’ll need to support natural gas development adequately. In fact, we’ve been moving in the opposite direction, with large interstate natural gas pipeline projects such as the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, the Penn East Pipeline, and the Constitution Pipeline being shelved because of heightened legal and public pressure. Second, higher natural gas prices will result in higher carbon emissions. Although they may provide an opportunity in some instances for carbon-free power sources such as solar and wind, they are also likely to resurrect coal-fired power — in the EIA’s own words, the agency forecasts "increased coal-fired power generation, which would be more carbon intensive than the natural gas-fired generation it displaces.” That’s exactly the opposite result from what the Biden administration is trying to achieve. Third, inadequate investments in energy infrastructure will mean less geopolitical security for the U.S. and the world. Without sufficient pipelines and export terminals, the U.S. won’t be able the meet the call to provide additional volumes of natural gas to Europe. American LNG is already critically important to Europe and should play an increasing long-term role in Europe’s energy security and decarbonization goals.
Chesapeake Pushed to Sell Oil, Keep Natural Gas by Activist Investor Kimmeridge - A day after reports surfaced that activist investor Kimmeridge Energy Management Co. LLC had taken a stake and was pushing for change, Chesapeake Energy Corp. CEO Nick Dell’Osso said Thursday he agreed the company is undervalued. Reuters initially reported that Kimmeridge took a 1.6% stake in the Oklahoma City-based independent, putting it among the largest shareholders. The private equity firm is reportedly pushing to enhance value, partly by divesting oilier assets in favor of natural gas. Dell’Osso during the first quarter conference call said management also believes shares are undervalued. Chesapeake kicked off a $1 billion share buyback program in the first quarter. He added that the buyback program could soon be exhausted “given the current valuation of our stock.” At that point, the company would seek board approval to increase buybacks and continue retiring shares. Kimmeridge has pushed for changes with success at other unconventional producers over the years. Chesapeake, once a natural gas behemoth, filed for bankruptcy in June 2020 after a shift into oilier assets. The company has refocused its efforts on natural gas in the Marcellus and Haynesville shales in recent years. It plans to run up to 15 rigs throughout 2022, with four in the oilier Eagle Ford Shale and the others roughly split between Louisiana and Pennsylvania. Dell’Osso said that despite a bullish turn in commodity prices this year amid conflict in Ukraine, oil and gas shortages, and wavering demand, the company would continue to exercise “strong capital discipline.” Management, he said, would need to be certain that demand is resilient before ramping up more than it already has after recent acquisitions in theMarcellus and Haynesville. The company also recently restarted its Eagle Ford program after a pause during the pandemic.Chesapeake produced 620,000 boe/d in the first quarter, 87% weighted to natural gas. That’s up from 539,000 boe/d in 4Q2021.The company is also trying to take advantage of upside in the U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) sector as overseas prices soar for the super-chilled fuel.He noted the company markets 4.5 Bcf/d of production, more than 2 Bcf/d of which is produced near LNG export terminals on the Gulf Coast. Despite Kimmeridge’s move on the company, Chesapeake reported record free cash flow (FCF) of $572 million during the quarter. It returned more than 70% to shareholders through dividends and buybacks. The company is also maintaining its capital expenditures forecast despite the impact of inflation on goods and services.Chesapeake reported a first quarter net loss of $764 million (minus $6.32/share). The period’s results were primarily related to a $2.1 billion loss on oil and natural gas derivatives as commodity prices soared. After Chesapeake finished restructuring last year, it qualified for fresh start accounting. That means its consolidated financial statements after Feb. 9, 2021 were not comparable with previous financial statements. The company continues to proactively add hedges, though, with 81 Bcf of 2023 natural gas locked in at prices of $3.48-7.29/Mcf. Chesapeake also has 1.1 million bbl of oil hedged next year at prices of $79.83-94.07/bbl.
Gas Giants Have Been Ghostwriting Letters Of Support From Elected Officials -For the past several months, local officials in Virginia and North Carolina, primarily elected Republicans, have been peppering federal regulators with glowing letters in support of gas projects in their states. Internal emails reviewed by HuffPost show that these letters all had something in common: They were ghostwritten by lobbyists and consultants of the two major pipeline firms behind those projects.The communications show how Williams Companies Inc. and TC Energy Corporation worked to boost political support for a number of natural gas infrastructure projects currently under federal review to fill a void left behind by Dominion Energy and Duke Energy’s canceled Atlantic Coast Pipeline.Industry watchdog group Energy and Policy Institute obtained the documents through a series of public records requests that it and others filed. It shared them exclusively with HuffPost.Meanwhile, the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world’s premier climate research body, has released its latest sobering reports on global warming. The most recent analysis, published in early April, warns that global greenhouse gas emissions must peak no later than 2025, then be slashed nearly in half by 2030 in order to stave off the worst effects of climate change.On Jan. 10, Robert Crockett, the president of Advantus Strategies and a lobbyist for the Oklahoma-based Williams Companies, emailed Wayne Carter, the administrator of Mecklenburg County, Virginia, a draft letter of support for Williams’ Southside Reliability Enhancement Project. The proposed expansion of the company’s existing Transco natural gas pipeline would allow for more natural gas to be transported into North Carolina. The project includes the construction of a new, electric compressor station in Mecklenburg County.“Attached is a draft letter expressing support to the Williams project that we have reviewed with you and your board previously,” Crockett wrote. “Please feel free to modify.” Carter put his signature on the letter and sent it back to Crockett a couple of hours later with only minor tweaks.“Thank you Wayne!” Jay McChesney, a community and project outreach specialist at Williams, responded. “If you wouldn’t mind putting this in the mail and sending to FERC [the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission] that would be much appreciated…Thank you again for your support of our project.”The letter, which Carter submitted to the regulatory agency later that day on behalf of the county board of supervisors, notes that the project “will be done in a manner that is protective of the environment while providing much-needed benefits to our rural county” and applauds Williams for being “transparent and forthright as an existing corporate citizen in the state.”
Fewer gas pipelines will mean higher carbon emissions and more Russian threats - When dealing with major challenges, too many elected officials scramble for Band-Aid solutions rather than tackle the root of the problem. That’s certainly been the case with today’s high energy costs, to which the Biden administration and other officials have responded by pinning blame on Vladimir Putin and throwing various short-term fixes at the wall, just to see what will stick. But we cannot fix the real problem by merely ramping up oil imports from Canada, implementing a gasoline tax holiday, or allowing expanded sales of higher-ethanol gasoline during the summer driving season. It is also insufficient to dip into the nation’s strategic petroleum reserve. To stabilize and lower energy prices for the long haul, policymakers must take lessons from this latest global crisis and focus on the long term, especially when it comes to energy infrastructure. That was the key message from a report released earlier this month by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The EIA examined a scenario under which no new natural gas pipeline capacity is built between 2024 and 2050. The consequences for consumers and the climate were quite damaging; such a scenario also eviscerated our potential to provide secure and reliable energy to allies around the world. Under this no-pipeline scenario, energy prices will surge even higher. U.S. natural gas prices recently hit their highest intraday level in over 13 years as American drillers struggle to meet high worldwide demand. Without additional interstate pipeline infrastructure, EIA projects that the Henry Hub spot price for natural gas will rise an additional 11%. Unfortunately, the administration has done nothing to promote the kind of pipeline infrastructure build-out that we’ll need to support natural gas development adequately. In fact, we’ve been moving in the opposite direction, with large interstate natural gas pipeline projects such as the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, the Penn East Pipeline, and the Constitution Pipeline being shelved because of heightened legal and public pressure. Second, higher natural gas prices will result in higher carbon emissions. Although they may provide an opportunity in some instances for carbon-free power sources such as solar and wind, they are also likely to resurrect coal-fired power — in the EIA’s own words, the agency forecasts "increased coal-fired power generation, which would be more carbon intensive than the natural gas-fired generation it displaces.” That’s exactly the opposite result from what the Biden administration is trying to achieve. Third, inadequate investments in energy infrastructure will mean less geopolitical security for the U.S. and the world. Without sufficient pipelines and export terminals, the U.S. won’t be able the meet the call to provide additional volumes of natural gas to Europe. American LNG is already critically important to Europe and should play an increasing long-term role in Europe’s energy security and decarbonization goals.
Tennessee certified gas plan sidelined over FERC's reluctance to review criteria - Just days before Tennessee Gas Pipeline was hoping to offer a new pooling service for gas from producers certified to meet methane intensity standards, the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission rejected the company's proposal. But the regulator emphasized that it was primarily uncomfortable with Tennessee's proposal to have FERC weigh in on criteria for so-called responsibly sourced gas, preferring instead to allow market-driven initiatives to unfold more organically. FERC rejected the plan without prejudice to Tennessee refiling an alternative proposal that doesn't trigger such concerns. Except for the proposal to include the criteria for pooled certified gas in its tariff, FERC would otherwise find Tennessee's proposal to be just and reasonable, said the order, approved by all five commissioners. The proposal, if approved, would have sent a signal to the industry on market design for this nascent product, with the most recent filing supporting a certificate design over exchange-based physical gas trading hubs. Tennessee first proposed in December to offer the pooling service to encourage transportation and trading of gas from producers with third-party certification that their supply meets minimum environmental, social and governance standards. The option as proposed then would have allowed for aggregation of certified supplies at pooling points, with plans to use Project Canary and MiQ to certify the gas, using a methane intensity threshold. Tennessee subsequently added Xpansive Data Systems' Digital Fuels Program as a third, optional certifier. After some stakeholders including major shippers raised concerns that the pipeline company would serve as too much of a "gatekeeper" in defining certified gas and picking the certifiers, Tennessee proposed to place criteria in its tariff, allowing for FERC review. Further, it proposed to include the list of certifying agencies in its tariffs, and asked for a May 1 effective date. But FERC's April 29 order said it was unclear how the commission would evaluate Tennessee's decision to adopt specific criteria. "To date, based on the record in this proceeding, there are neither industry nor government-established standards that could guide the commission's review given the nascent [responsibly sourced gas] market," Further, FERC noted that there is no federal regulation for oil and gas methane emissions. The commission also worried that by acting on criteria, it could hinder development in the market and acceptance of further RSG standards and certification vendors.
Largest U.S. Fuel Pipeline Underused Despite East Coast Shortage - The main U.S. fuel artery should be nearly bursting with products headed to New York Harbor where prices are soaring. Instead, the Colonial pipeline has ample space available as a market structure prompts traders to export fuel rather than send it to the East Coast. The price of diesel for immediately delivery versus the next month widened to the largest ever gap in what’s known as a backwardated market structure. This means holding onto product -- whether by putting it in a storage tank or in a pipeline that takes weeks to reach its destination -- is a losing bet. Diesel prices have surged since the war in Ukraine scrambled global markets, as efforts to isolate Russia restricted supplies from one of Europe’s most important producers of fuels. U.S. Gulf Coast refiners have stepped up to fill the global void, sending more exports to Europe and Latin America at the expense of the U.S. East Coast. The effects are trickling down to consumers with the national average retail price for diesel rising to a record Friday. “The United States has become the marginal supplier of an export barrel,” “That’s why the Colonial pipeline has been underutilized even as fuelmakers on the Gulf Coast are cranking out as much diesel as they can. With exports rising, diesel tanks on the East Coast are the emptiest they have been in 26 years. The pipeline has not been full since late last year, according to the last update from the company. It’s especially unusual for the pipeline to have available space given that wholesale diesel in New York was fetching $1.23 a gallon more than on the Gulf Coast on Friday, more than ten times what it was two weeks ago. That premium is typically enough to draw shipments to New York. The arbitrage for shipping fuel on Colonial is considered open when the price difference between the two regions exceeds the pipeline tariff at around 6 cents a gallon. It is now more than 20 times that. However, the surge in prompt prices makes this a losing proposition for sellers who can also tap lucrative markets abroad. It currently takes more than 19 days to deliver fuel from Houston to Linden, New Jersey. The depreciation during the lengthy transit time means few traders are shipping on the line, leaving East Coast storage tanks precariously low.
Record Fuel Exports from USA Gulf Coast Drain Tanks -Record fuel exports from the U.S. Gulf Coast are eating into domestic supplies, leaving gasoline and diesel tanks on the East Coast emptier than they have been in decades. As much as 2.09 million barrels a day of gasoline, diesel and jet fuel shipped out of the refining hub in April, the highest level since oil analytics firm Vortexa began tracking the data in 2016. The bulk of the exports went to Latin America. The strong pull from overseas shows the world needs U.S. Gulf Coast refiners more than ever. But producers there will have to balance lucrative exports with domestic demand heading into the peak travel season this summer, with pump prices already at record highs for diesel and hovering just shy of peak for gasoline. Export demand will likely stay strong through the next few months as countries in South America continue to burn diesel fuel for power generation during the Southern Hemisphere’s winter season, when hydropower supply falls. Mexico, the largest overseas buyer of U.S. gasoline by far, will likely draw more from the U.S. Gulf Coast as high crude prices derailed the country’s plans to produce more fuel at home. When push comes to shove, U.S. consumers will be able to outcompete overseas buyers, said Andy Lipow, president of Lipow Oil Associates LLC in Houston. “Demand destruction will happen overseas first,” he said in a phone interview. Domestic fuel demand is expected to exceed 2019 levels this summer despite high prices, a government forecast shows. Meanwhile, the distillates segment of the largest U.S. domestic pipeline connecting fuelmakers on the Gulf Coast and consumers on the East Coast has been running below capacity since the beginning of the year.
U.S. natural gas production growth wanes as need arises (Reuters) - U.S. natural gas production growth is waning at the same time many countries are looking for new suppliers to help break their dependence on Russian gas after Moscow's invasion of Ukraine. The United States is already the world's largest producer of natural gas. But the two mainstays of production - the Appalachian region and West Texas - are seeing growth slow, with companies blaming lack of adequate pipeline infrastructure, despite prices near 14-year highs. Since Moscow invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, U.S. gas prices have soared about 50% as European countries look to the United States, the world's second biggest exporter, to sell more liquefied natural gas (LNG) to wean Europe off Russian fuel. Growth has slowed in Appalachia, which supplied about 37% of U.S. gas in 2021, because it has become increasingly difficult for energy firms to build new pipes to move gas out of the Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia region. With pipelines in the Permian Shale, the nation's second biggest gas supply basin, filling quickly, analysts said production growth in that Texas-New Mexico basin could slow significantly next year unless firms start building new pipelines soon. The Permian supplied about 19% of U.S. gas in 2021. Energy analysts expect benchmark gas prices will average $4.24 per million British thermal units (mmBtu) in 2022, which would be the highest annual average in eight years. The largest European economies import about 18.3 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) from Russia. The United States currently can export about 9.8 bcfd as LNG. Several companies are looking to boost exports, but substantial new LNG export capacity is not expected for at least two years. A billion cubic feet is enough gas to supply about five million U.S. homes for a day.
As Gas Prices Soar, Nobody Knows How Much Methane Is Leaking - No one knows how long natural gas had been seeping out of a meter at the Greenville Downtown Airport in South Carolina. A satellite chartered by Duke Energy Corp., the power company for the airport, eventually spotted the billowing greenhouse gas, and workers came to fix the leak. But in the intervening time between leak and discovery, an untold amount of methane—the main component of natural gas—escaped into the atmosphere. For the next two decades, all that gas will trap 84 times more heat than a similar amount of carbon dioxide. Duke says it’s the first U.S. utility to use satellites to search their own infrastructure for invisible leaks, both to save fuel that’s rarely commanded today’s skyrocketing prices and to help stem global warming. The company’s blindness to a dangerous methane plumefrom its own infrastructure surprised executives. And it underscores an even more concerning fact about the global energy industry: those involved in extracting, moving and burning oil and gas aren’t required to know anything about the actual volume of planet-warming pollution being released into the air. Lost gas from gaping leaks in pipelines and storage tanks isn’t just a climate catastrophe—it’s now an acute economic setback as well. Fallout from the two-month-old Russian invasion of Ukraine has intensified a worldwide energy crunch and set off a scramble to secure new supplies of natural gas. U.S. natural gas futures have been holding near a 13-year high after hitting $8 in April, just as Russia halted gas flows to Poland and Bulgaria last week in an escalating use of energy as a geopolitical weapon. But the rush to build new gas infrastructure is being undertaken without accurate measurements on how much gas is being wasted from existing pipelines and tanks. Estimates of the losses are based on emissions projections that prove to be disconnected from reality, which means the warming impact is also severely undercounted. While almost 8,000 power plants, oil and gas companies and refineries in the U.S. report their emissions to the Environmental Protection Agency each year, experts say those figures drastically underestimate the contribution to rising temperatures from the industry. Even with new methane-detecting technologies available, companies aren’t obligated to physically monitor infrastructure, and federal regulators rarely collect data of their own. Disclosure comes down to companies simply tallying figures—for example, how many gas wells they have—and applying an outdated formula developed by the EPA that assigns an assumed emissions rate.
NYMEX Henry Hub gas rises to mid-$7/MMBtu level amid lingering supply concerns - US gas futures prices edged back toward the mid-$7/MMBtu range in May 2 trading as domestic supply remains constrained by sluggish production and an enduring inventory deficit. As US upstream activity continues to build, though, the now aging rally faces increasing downside risk later this summer. In early trading, the June contract briefly edged up to $7.55/MMBtu while balance-of-summer futures traded into the mid-$7.60s/MMBtu. The market remained mostly in contango through next winter with January 2023 briefly pricing at nearly $7.90/MMBtu, data from CME Group showed. At a time of year when US gas prices typically trough, the NYMEX bulls are steering the market, apparently spurred persisting supply concerns this spring. In April, spring pipeline maintenances helped to keep US gas production sputtering around 93.2 Bcf/d. Following a steep New Year production decline in January, domestic output remains about 2 Bcf/d, or roughly 2%, below late-December levels, S&P Global Commodity Insights data shows. Low storage levels have added to the market's concern. As of the week ended April 22, US inventories are estimated at 1.49 Tcf. In it's latest storage report, data from the US Energy Information Administration showed the inventory deficit at 305 Bcf – its widest yet this year. An updated forecast published by S&P Global shows cooler weather and elevated heating demand helping to widen the deficit over 330 Bcf by the first week of May. After unseasonably cool weather last month, US temperatures are expected to trend closer to normal through mid-May, according to recent forecasts from the National Weather Service and S&P Global. Heating demand should average about 18 Bcf/d over the next week, undershooting the prior five-year average by about 250 MMcf/d. Gas demand from generators, meanwhile, is expected to average about 26.4 Bcf/d, setting a record high for the seven-day period thanks partly to the continued retirement of coal-fired generating capacity and the recent coal-to-gas fuel switching in the power markets. Based on the Weather Service's seasonal forecast for June, July and August, the outlook for gas-fired electric this summer looks more bullish. Nearly the entire Lower 48 states face an elevated probability for hotter-than-normal temperatures more concentrated risks across the Rocky Mountain and desert West and along the Northeastern Atlantic seaboard.
Natural Gas Tops $8 Again as US Output Slows Amid Strong Global Demand - Natural gas futures are skyrocketing on Tuesday as weather models and storage challenges supported the energy commodity. After enduring a modest decline following its last runup to $8, natural gas prices are back above this enormous level. Could energy markets see $9 before the summer? June natural gas futures rallied $0.478, or 6.32%, to $8.044 per million British thermal units (btu) at 12:47 GMT on Tuesday on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Natural gas prices are up 125% so far this year and have skyrocketed 170% over the last 12 months. US natural gas production growth has slowed down in the last month, despite soaring global demand. Despite the US being the world’s largest producer of natural gas, especially in West Texas and the Appalachian region, output has slumped. Many energy producers are blaming inadequate pipeline infrastructure.In Appalachia, for example, energy firms have been unable to construct new pipelines to transport natural gas out of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. In the Permian Shale, pipelines are filling quickly and it has been tough for companies to keep producing.Market analysts are forecasting that prices will average $4.24 per million Btu this year, the highest annual performance in eight years.Now, here is the problem for the natural gas industry: The largest European Union markets import roughly 18.3 billion cubic feet per day from Russia and the US can only export roughly 9.8 billion cubic feet per day.Even if energy companies produce more and try to increase exports, there is not enough infrastructure to support this goal. All eyes will be on Thursday’s natural gas storage report. The market is penciling in an inventory build of 33 billion cubic feet. Recent weather models are showing that summer temperatures are expected to heat up, adding to ballooning cooling demand, which could weigh heavily on storage levels. In other energy commodities, June West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil futures tumbled $1.09, or 1.04%, to $104.08 per barrel. July Brent crude futures shed $1.11, or 1.03%, to $106.47 a barrel. June gasoline futures slipped $0.0385, or 1.1%, to $3.4716 a gallon. June heating oil futures fell $0.0729, or 1.73%, to $4.1302 per gallon.
Natural gas surges 9% to highest level since 2008 as Russia's war roils energy markets -- U.S. natural gas surged Tuesday to the highest level in nearly 14 years as Russia's invasion of Ukraine wreaks havoc on global energy markets. Henry Hub prices jumped more than 9% at one point to a session high of $8.169 per million British thermal units (MMBtu) during morning trading on Wall Street, the highest level since September 2008. The contract later pulled back from its high, ending the day at $7.954 per MMBtu for a gain of 6.4%. Campbell Faulkner, senior vice president and chief data analyst at OTC Global Holdings, said the increase was sparked by a "flurry of tighter market conditions," including the European Union considering a sixth round of sanctions against Russia that could include the nation's energy complex. In addition, production is down in the U.S., and gas in storage is 21% lower than at this time last year. "Higher power burn this summer with zero coal gas ... switching will reduce the amount of spare gas for storage infill which is pushing prices up in a classic commodity cycle ('backwardation") to get gas into the market now," he added. Over the last two sessions, natural gas prices have jumped more than 8%, which follows a nearly 30% gain in April. The swift upward price action, which is also being fueled by surging demand for U.S. liquified natural gas, is adding to inflationary pressures across the economy. For example, consumers' electricity bills are rising as utility companies pass along their higher input costs.
Natural Gas Prices Hit Fresh 13-year High -On Tuesday, natural gas prices surged higher but settled off the season’s highs. The weather is expected to be mixed, colder on the West Coast and warmer on the East Coast for the next 2-weeks. LNG exports declined in the latest week, but natural gas arrivals at LNG export terminals continued to remain steady. U.S. LNG exports decrease by three vessels this week from last week. Twenty-three LNG vessels, nine from Sabine Pass, five from Freeport, four from Corpus Christi, three from Cameron, and one each from Cove Point and Calcasieu Pass, combined LNG-carrying capacity of 84 Bcf departed the United States between April 21 and April 27. On Monday, natural gas prices rose higher, hitting a new 13-year intra-day high. Support is seen near the 20-day moving average at 6.9. Target resistance is seen near the May highs at 8.16. The pattern looks like a cup-and-handle, a continuation pattern that follows the trend. .
U.S. Natural Gas Prices Hit A 13-Year High On Inventory Concerns | OilPrice.com - Natural gas prices in the U.S. continue to rally Wednesday, with futures soaring past $8 for gains of over 5% this morning, as inventory concerns mount ahead of a summer that promises high demand. In the U.S., natural gas prices hit $3.347, for a 5.29% rally as of 9:36 a.m. EST. In the previous session, U.S. natural gas hit a 14-year high, jumping more than 9%, before pulling back to close at just under $8. On Tuesday, the American Petroleum Institute (API) reported a draw in gasoline inventories of 4.50 million barrels for the week ending April 29—after the previous week's 3.91-million-barrel draw.This decline in stockpiles comes as weather forecasts show unusually high temperatures in some parts of the country for early May, which will mean an early start to the American air-conditioning season, signaling increasing demand for natural gas. Natural Gas Intelligence cited Bespoke Weather Services as saying that current inventory and production levels would not be sufficient to meet this demand, which could lead to a situation in which natural gas prices top $10 in the coming weeks. U.S. gas inventories are now an estimated 17% below normal for this time of year as exports hit new records and producers hold back from new production. Record volumes of fuel are being exported from the Gulf Coast, draining domestic supplies of both gasoline and diesel. According to Vortexa tracking data cited by Bloomberg, In April, U.S. companies were exporting up to 2.09 million bpd of gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel from the Gulf Coast.
As Natural Gas Prices Hit 14-Year High, Shale Awaits | Arkansas Business News Arkansas Public Service Commission Chairman Ted Thomas had heard about the problem from lawmakers, their constituents and regulatory colleagues. “Even my wife asked me what’s going on with our natural gas bill,” the utility regulatory chief told state legislators last month, describing a “triple whammy” of brutality in the market. Natural gas on the Henry Hub market was selling last week at nearly $7 per million British thermal units, its highest price in 14 years, after Russia cut off Poland and Bulgaria to punish their resistance to its invasion of Ukraine. That price is still about half the peak in 2008, when prices neared $14 per million BTU, but a shock to the system in a post-fracking world. Hydraulic fracturing revolutionized production after being applied to shale formations, including the Fayetteville Shale in Arkansas. Booming about the time gas prices hit $14, fracking unleashed a torrent of natural gas for more than a decade, glutting the market and sending prices below $2 several times between 2012 and 2020. As reserves grew and prices collapsed, fracking fell off in most U.S. shale plays. Producers stopped drilling in the Fayetteville Shale in 2015-16, and the industry’s workforce was decimated. Thomas’ “triple whammy” started with an extreme cold catastrophe in February 2021, when the Texas grid failed lethally. The crisis meant some utilities spent “four or five times the dollar cost of gas in 10 days than they did for the entire previous calendar year,” Thomas said. “We’ve had five years of low and stable natural gas prices. In fact, some natural gas producers went bankrupt.” The third problem, of course, is the war in Ukraine. “Europe is dependent on Russian natural gas,” and despite U.S. efforts to ramp up exports of liquefied natural gas, “it’s just part of what’s driving the price up for American consumers.” Looking back, Thomas said, fossil fuel defenders may have chosen the wrong carbon to protect as decarbonization became a political force on the left. “Fracking saved consumers billions and billions of dollars,” the PSC chairman continued. “Fracking is what drove coal bankruptcies, because gas and coal compete [as a fuel for generating electricity]. And you never heard that. … We should have defended fracking jobs instead of coal jobs. If we had, customers might be in a better place.” Sustained prices above $4 per million BTU will eventually stimulate gas drilling, said Hugh Daigle, a drilling expert and associate professor at the University of Texas. Daigle said drilling is already up, but mostly in fracking areas that produce both gas and oil, like the Permian in Texas. Oil prices have been high for months, with gas costs trailing along. “Fayetteville is a dry gas play, not producing oil,” said Daigle, who quoted studies suggesting that $4 gas is the break-even point in Arkansas’ gas fields. Some fracking companies are hiring, including Calfrac Well Services, which has 10 jobs open in Beebe and Searcy.
US natural gas storage rises 77 Bcf to 1.567 Tcf spurring NYMEX futures rally | S&P Global Commodity Insights - Chilly spring weather across much of the country curbed net injections to US natural gas storage in the final week of April, helping to widen the inventory deficit and propel a rally in NYMEX gas futures. The US Energy Information Administration May 5 reported a larger-than-expected injection of 77 Bcf to gas storage for the week ended April 29 in a build that barely undershot the prior five-year average. The injection was 16 Bcf more than anticipated from an S&P Global Commodity Insights' survey of analysts, which called for a 61 Bcf addition to stocks, and just 1 Bcf shy of the prior five-year average build. As a result, US working gas inventories climbed to 1.567 Tcf. The storage deficit to 2021 narrowed again as stocks climbed to 382 Bcf, or about 20%, below the year-ago level of 1.949 Tcf. The inventory deficit to the prior five-year average expanded to its widest yet this season, leaving stocks 306 Bcf, or about 16%, below the historical average of 1.873 Tcf, EIA data showed. The NYMEX Henry Hub June contract rebounded about 15 cents, or nearly 2%, after the storage report's release, rising to $8.30/MMBtu after falling steadily in overnight trading from fresh 14-year highs in the mid-$8/MMBtu range, CME Group data showed. Unseasonably low temperatures across the Midwest and the Northeast through April and even into early May have been a key driver of the NYMEX futures rally and the widening storage deficit. In the week ended April 29, population-weighted temperatures across the Upper Midwest averaged a chilly 54 degrees Fahrenheit, while the Northeast rose to just 55 F. During the week, US residential-commercial gas demand, led by the two key heating regions, briefly spiked to more than 25 Bcf/d, S&P Global Commodity Insights data showed. Storage builds of 15 Bcf in both the Midwest and the Northeast, totaled about 4 Bcf below average for the corresponding week. In the Mountain and Pacific regions, the weekly storage injections were also undersized, but more than offset by a larger-than-average build in the South-Central region. During the week in progress, a smaller but not insignificant jump in US heating demand to around 20 Bcf/d could limit storage injections again. According to preliminary forecasts S&P Global published, the EIA is likely to report a storage injection in a 65-75 Bcf range for the week ending May 6, compared with a five-year average injection of 82 Bcf in the corresponding week. The chilly start to spring this year has increased the call on already-strained US gas supply. After trending at more than 93 Bcf/d in April, domestic production has slumped since the start of May to average just 92.6 Bcf/d this month, according to S&P Global data. While the US rig count, at 803, is now estimated at its highest in over two years, US gas production has continued to flounder, trending about 2-3 Bcf/d below record highs recorded in December 2021.
U.S. natgas jumps to 13-year high on hot spring weather, strong LNG demand - (Reuters) - U.S. natural gas futures jumped about 4% on Thursday to a fresh 13-year high as hot spring weather boosted air conditioning demand, while much higher global prices kept demand for U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports strong. Traders said the increased domestic and export demand limits the amount of gas utilities can inject into storage for next winter. U.S. stockpiles were currently about 16% below normal for this time of year despite last week's near-normal injection. "Besides a big storage deficit, natural gas is also bid on the assumption the U.S. effort to supply the European Union (EU) with LNG ... will ultimately leave less gas for domestic consumption, as spare capacity and new production gets scooped up by desperate customers on the other side of the Atlantic," U.S. front-month gas futures for June delivery rose 36.8 cents, or 4.4%, to settle at $8.783 per million British thermal units (mmBtu), their highest close since August 2008 for a third day in a row. Earlier in the week, U.S. gas futures followed oil prices higher after the EU proposed a phased embargo on Russian oil in response to Moscow's Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine. Analysts said the proposed oil embargo increased the possibility the EU will also ban Russian gas in the future. In the spot market, meanwhile, gas prices in several parts of the United States and Canada soared this week as power generators burned more of the fuel to meet higher air conditioning demand during an early spring heatwave in the U.S. South and West. U.S. gas futures have already gained about 136% so far this year as higher global prices kept demand for U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports near record highs since Russia invaded Ukraine. Gas was trading around $34 per mmBtu in Europe and $24 in Asia. . Data provider Refinitiv said average gas output in the U.S. Lower 48 states has slid to 94.0 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) so far in May from 94.5 bcfd in April. That compares with a monthly record of 96.1 bcfd in November 2021. Refinitiv projected average U.S. gas demand, including exports, would slide from 90.8 bcfd this week to 89.9 bcfd next week as the weather turns seasonally milder. The forecast for next week was lower than Refinitiv's outlook on Wednesday. The amount of gas flowing to U.S. LNG export plants has held around 12.2 bcfd so far in May, the same as in April, and down from a record 12.9 bcfd in March. The United States can turn about 13.2 bcfd of gas into LNG.
Natural Gas Futures Falter, Ending Furious Rally; Spot Prices Sputter - Natural gas futures retreated Friday, ending five days of frenzied rallying, as markets assessed an increase in production and traders took profits. The June Nymex gas futures contract fell 74.0 cents day/day and settled at $8.043/MMBtu. July dropped 71.3 cents to $8.128. The prompt month, which reached $8.783 on Thursday, still finished the week up 11%. Following a frenetic rally of its own this week, NGI’s Spot Gas National Avg. dipped 1.5 cents to close at $7.985 on Friday.Production, after hovering as low as 93 Bcf this week – far from highs above 96 Bcf earlier in the year – was back to around 95 Bcf on Friday, according to Bloomberg’s estimate. This provided some relief that output is beginning to recover following late-season blizzards in the North that caused freeze-offs and prolonged production interruptions. Spring maintenance work also has hampered output. Saal, StoneX’s senior vice president of energy, told NGI some market participants sold off to claim profits while others, viewing prices as simply too high, moved to the sidelines. “Pricing just got to a point where even the most aggressive buyers said enough is enough,” he said.The bump in production likely influenced markets as well. Though Saal noted output estimates have been choppy and are likely to remain so until maintenance culminates. Even then, production may struggle to keep pace with demand if summer cooling season starts early and proves intense, as forecasters are predicting. Saal also noted that exploration and production companies are grappling with soaring inflation that hit a four-decade high this year as well as chronic labor shortages.“We haven’t seen inflation like this in natural gas markets,” Saal said. “So it’s a big wildcard. And it’s really hard right now to pick a top as far as prices. We could still go higher.” Early summer weather in the South proved a catalyst for prices much of the week and could again, Bespoke Weather Services said.“We have some very impressive heat on the way in the South,” the firm said. Cooling degree days in Texas and neighboring states “are forecast to hit daily records potentially on several days over the next week to 10 days,” given forecasts for highs in the 90s and low 100s.Friday’s pullback aside, “momentum is clearly bullish and psychological resistance at the $9.00 mark may not hold for long,” said EBW Analytics Group’s Eli Rubin, senior analyst. “With little change in the storage trajectory,” he added, “the balance of price risks for natural gas into early summer remains sharply higher.”
Southwestern, CNX See Challenges, Advantages in Meeting Growing LNG Demand - The world’s growing appetite for U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) continued to take center stage during earnings calls at two more of the nation’s top exploration and production companies, with management at both acknowledging the opportunities and challenges that come with meeting rising demand. Southwestern Energy Co. said Friday it’s already sending a third of its production, or about 1.5 Bcf/d, to LNG export terminals. The company became the nation’s second largest natural gas producer last year after it entered the Haynesville Shale by acquiring Indigo Natural Resources LLC and GEP Haynesville. “We’re having conversations with current and future key LNG players and continuously looking at value-enhancing opportunities on a risk-adjusted basis…to enter into additional agreements down the line.,” Southwestern is also the largest producer in the Haynesville, where strong nearby LNG demand and higher domestic gas prices have set the stage for resurgent development. “There is going to be a very big call on demand of natural gas for this ramp up in LNG, and we think we’re positioned quite well – advantageously – to work in that space.” Europe and Asia, where natural gas prices have surged this year, are poised to compete more fiercely for LNG cargoes as buyers turn away from Russian imports in response to the invasion of Ukraine. U.S. natural gas prices are trading at a steep discount to overseas benchmarks, making American LNG even more attractive. The Biden administration has also committed to fast-tracking LNG plant approvals and sending more supplies to Europe as Russia threatens energy security on the continent. There are roughly 20 LNG projects under development in the United States. U.S. producers are seizing the moment this earnings season to promote the climate and economic benefits of American natural gas. During its call, the nation’s largest producer, EQT Corp., touted its initiative to boost U.S. LNG export capacity to 55 Bcf/d by 2030. CNX Resources Corp. CEO Nicholas DeIuliis chimed in with less optimism. He said that for all the talk about rescuing overseas buyers with additional supplies, there are significant domestic challenges that remain before higher output can be unlocked. He said the nation’s producers can’t ramp up gas volumes quickly because of infrastructure constraints. That’s particularly true in the Appalachian Basin, where CNX is a leading producer. Years of opposition from environmental groups have stopped pipeline projects altogether and created legal hurdles for other systems under development. DeIuliis said a large part of the setbacks are “simply and starkly because of policy that has consciously and methodically looked to strangle infrastructure investment in the pipes, processing, power generation and LNG infrastructure that is needed to meet the world’s energy demand.”
Terminal utilization high as new liquefaction projects gain steam - Utilization at US liquefaction terminals remained high and momentum for adding new capacity around the middle of the decade increased during the week to May 3, even as FOB Gulf Coast cargo values fell for the fifth straight week. S&P Global Commodity Insights assessed the Platts Gulf Coast Marker for US FOB cargoes loading 30 to 60 forward at $20.300/MMBtu on May 3, down $2.250/MMBtu week on week. Northwest Europe remained the best netback. GCM has fallen by almost two-thirds since its March 4 record high of $58.250/MMBtu, though the current level remains three times higher than a year ago. Cargoes have flooded the Atlantic Basin as the war in Ukraine led to fears of gas supply disruptions in Europe. Netbacks to the Gulf Coast remain strong, even with rising US feedgas costs. The NYMEX Henry Hub prompt-month contract was trading nearly 70 cents higher at $8.03/MMBtu as of afternoon in New York on May 3. Persistently sluggish production numbers and higher-than-normal demand have increased supply concerns, as expectations of a hot summer demand season complicate the potential for injections to close the storage deficit before winter 2022-23. In the week of April 26-May 3, US LNG export facilities nominated 12.2 Bcf/d of feedgas on average, a similar amount compared with the previous week. Overall, in April, US Gulf facilities nominated 4.6% less feedgas than in March, amid shoulder-season scheduled maintenance at Freeport LNG in Texas and Sempra Energy's Cameron LNG in Louisiana. Meanwhile, amid high spot prices in end-user markets, there has been a flurry of commercial activity during the first several months of 2022 tied to current and proposed US LNG export terminals, which offer long-term contracts with fixed fees and destination flexibility. That activity continued during the most recent week. French utility Engie agreed to a 15-year deal to buy 1.75 million mt/year of supply on a free-on-board basis from NextDecade's proposed Rio Grande LNG export facility in Texas, while Swiss commodity trader Gunvor agreed to a 20-year FOB deal to buy 2 million mt/year of supply from Energy Transfer's proposed Lake Charles LNG export facility in Louisiana. Both of those deals were announced May 2, with commercial startup targeted for as early as 2026.
Calcasieu Pass, the seventh U.S. liquefied natural gas export terminal, begins production - The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has authorized Venture Global Calcasieu Pass, LLC, (Venture Global)—the developer of the Calcasieu Pass liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminal—to commission the first six of nine liquefaction blocks. Each block contains two liquefaction systems called trains. The first authorization, issued in November 2021, was one of the initial steps toward full commercial service.Calcasieu Pass is a 1.3 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) liquefaction facility located in Cameron Parish, Louisiana. Similar to nearby LNG terminals Sabine Pass and Cameron, Calcasieu Pass will export LNG through the Calcasieu Ship Channel located on the Gulf of Mexico. Calcasieu Pass is the seventh U.S. LNG liquefaction export facility to begin producing LNG since 2016.In addition to 18 mid-scale liquefaction trains, the Calcasieu Pass facility includes an onsite natural gas-fired plant to generate electricity for the facility’s operations, three pre-treatment trains, two LNG storage tanks (with a capacity of 4.4 Bcf each), and two shipping berths capable of loading LNG vessels with carrying capacities of up to 185,000 cubic meters (4 Bcf). The Calcasieu Pass terminal receives its feedgas through Venture Global’s 24-mile, 42-inch diameter TransCameron Pipeline, which has interconnections with the ANR, TETCO, and Bridgeline pipelines.Since November 2021, Venture Global has received FERC approval to commission Blocks 2–6, most recently on March 30, 2022. Natural gas deliveries to the terminal have increased throughout 2022, averaging approximately 0.7 Bcf/d in April, according to PointLogic. With only three blocks left to authorize for commissioning, and given the pace at which the terminal has received FERC approvals to commission blocks, Calcasieu Pass could reach its full LNG production capacity of 1.3 Bcf/d baseload (1.6 Bcf/d peak) by the third quarter of this year. On March 1, Calcasieu Pass loaded and shipped its first LNG cargo, often called a commissioning cargo, aboard the tanker Yiannis, chartered by JERA Global Markets, which delivered the LNG to ports in the Netherlands and France. Calcasieu Pass loaded its first cargo 30 months after its final investment decision, which was the shortest amount of time of all the LNG export projects in the United States. As of April 27, Calcasieu Pass has shipped nine cargoes, according to Bloomberg Finance, L.P.
LNG Demand Driving Williams' $1.5B Investment in Natural Gas Pipeline Expansions - Midstream giant Williams is spending about $1.5 billion to grow its natural gas transportation capacity by nearly 2 Bcf/d over the next few years to accommodate growing demand, particularly for exports, according to management. One of the six transmission projects the Tulsa-based midstreamer is developing is a 364 MMcf/d expansion on the Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Co. (Transco) system, the country’s largest gas system. Williams management said Tuesday it has secured customer commitments for the Texas to Louisiana Energy Pathway Project to serve liquefied natural gas (LNG) demand. It is targeting an in-service for the expansion by the end of 2025. “As we look overseas to the energy crisis in Europe, we recognize the need for reliable, affordable and clean energy that can keep up with the growth that the world demands on a global scale,” CEO Alan Armstrong said. “Williams has critical infrastructure connected to the best natural gas basins in the United States to serve these growing needs.” Management cited ongoing demand for transportation capacity on the Transco system, not only for LNG but also power and industrial sectors. On the 1Q2022 earnings call, CFO John Porter said average daily transmission volumes for Transco increased by more than 6% year/year amid record winter demand. Transco revenues, he said, are driven by reserve capacity not throughput, “but continued growth in actual throughput does highlight the criticality of Transco service.” The higher gas price environment has done little to deter demand, according to Porter. “Admittedly, it has been somewhat surprising to us how inelastic this demand has remained.” Meanwhile, Williams last week closed on its acquisition of Quantum Energy Partners’ Trace Midstream. The purchase more than doubled its Haynesville Shale footprint to 4 Bcf/d-plus from 1.8 Bcf/d. As important, the deal included a long-term capacity commitment from a Trace customer to support the proposed Louisiana Energy Gateway (LEG). The project would move Haynesville supply to markets along Transco, as well as to growing industrial and LNG export demand along the Gulf Coast. Williams continues to see upside from its commodity price-exposed rates in the Haynesville, according to Porter. It also is seeing substantially higher volumes in the East Texas/Northwest Louisiana play, which drove an 11% overall increase in volumes in the company’s West segment. The company expects the strong sequential growth trajectory to continue throughout the rest of the year, especially in the second half, driven primarily by Haynesville drilling activity. Williams also is “close” to commercializing the LEG project, given “significant interest” by shippers. More than half of the 1.8 Bcf/d project is contracted, according to Armstrong. As part of the Trace acquisition, Quantum signed on to be an equity partner in the project.
Williams greenlights Transco expansion to move more gas from Texas to Louisiana - Williams plans to move forward with its Texas to Louisiana Energy Pathway natural gas expansion project after securing sufficient long-term transportation commitments, company executives said in a May 3 earnings call. The 364 MMcf/d expansion project on the Transcontinental Pipeline will primarily serve burgeoning LNG export demand along the Gulf Coast. Williams is anticipating the expansion to enter service in the fourth quarter of 2025. The Texas to Louisiana expansion project builds on Williams' strategy of growth through brownfield capacity expansions, especially on the Transco Pipeline. Expansion projects have surged in popularity in recent years, as midstream operators seek to increase capacity without having to navigate an increasingly tough permitting environment for newbuild pipelines. "We continue to set new records for contracted transmission capacity and expect this record-breaking performance to continue for many years to come as we execute on the six unique transmission expansion projects totaling 1.9 Bcf per day," CEO Alan Armstrong said. Four of the six transmission expansion projects are located on infrastructure in the Northeast, a region that flirted with production exceeding takeaway capacity in late 2021. Amid the expansion project announcements, Williams executives indicated that progress was being made toward a final investment decision on a potential greenfield pipeline, the Louisiana Energy Gateway, that would move up to 1.8 Bcf/d of Haynesville gas south to Gulf Coast LNG export terminals. "We are close to commercializing the Louisiana Energy Gateway project, and given significant interest by various shippers, we do expect to announce the final investment decision on that project soon," Armstrong said.
Gulf of Mexico oil drilling makes comeback, but won’t close supply gap — A new wave of oil platforms is sweeping into the U.S. Gulf of Mexico as crude prices are riding historic levels and demand for barrels is higher than ever. But don’t count on the new production to close the oil-supply gap that has plagued the world’s economies since the pandemic. Even with the new platforms coming online, Gulf oil production won’t grow substantially in the coming years as mature fields decline, according to analysts. BP Plc’s Argos and Shell Plc’s Vito — floating production platforms that are taller than 20-story buildings and have decks the size of football fields — will start pumping crude off the Louisiana shore later this year. They will join Murphy Oil Corp.’s King Quay, a behemoth that started producing oil in April, also off the Louisiana coast. Others from Chevron Corp., Shell and Beacon Offshore Energy are expected to start production in two years. Once all six platforms are online, they could produce up to 560,000 barrels a day. The timing for these new Gulf projects couldn’t be better. The offshore sector has been battered by back-to-back busts and a pandemic that forced mass layoffs and bankruptcies. But even with oil at $100 a barrel, a big comeback is unlikely. After a decade that saw one of the worst oil spills in U.S. history, shale’s ascendance and mounting climate-change concerns, some experts believe that the sun may be setting on the Gulf. “There’s probably some growth still left in the Gulf of Mexico, but it’s a more modest growth.” Last year, Shell said its global oil production had peaked in 2019 while BP in 2020 said it would cut oil and gas production worldwide 40% by 2030. Shell and BP are the two biggest Gulf producers. Since the first offshore rig was built off the coast of Louisiana in 1938, the Gulf of Mexico has been a reliable source of domestic oil. Its deep trove of reservoirs is responsible for about 14% of the U.S.’s crude production, second only to the country’s prolific shale fields. Gulf producers extracted 1.7 million barrels of oil per day in January, still shy of the pre-pandemic record of 2 million barrels a day. The U.S. Energy Information Administration expects Gulf output to remain flat through 2023, while S&P Global Commodity Insights projects production may recover to the pre-pandemic record by the end of the year. Energy consulting firm Wood Mackenzie is more bullish, forecasting crude and natural gas production this year could jump to the equivalent of 2.3 million oil barrels per day.
OTC 2022: Reaching net zero will require more investment in oil, gas and renewables - The pandemic had a unique impact on the energy industry and will pave the path of the energy transition on its way to net zero emissions, Society of Petroleum Engineers President Kamel Ben-Naceur said during a keynote presentation at the Offshore Technology Conference on Monday.The energy transition is looking more like a reality, as electric car sales jumped from 1 million to 2 million before 2018 to almost 7 million, or 9% of new cars sold, in 2021. Renewable power capacity continues to be added, and the industry is always learning about incentives of decarbonization, Ben-Nacuer said. He said recently, one ton of CO2 was valued at 100 Euros for the first time.There are a few different energy transition scenarios predicted by the International Energy Agency, and each one would bring different costs and results. For the first time, today’s pledges – if implemented on time and in full – would keep the rise in global average temperatures in 2100 to below 2 degrees Celsius, according to the presentation, but there’s still a large gap to 1.5 degrees Celsius.Decarbonization will require many combined factors to be successful, including avoided demand, CO2 capture and storage, hydrogen, bioenergy, technology performance, electrification, other renewables and other fuel shifts. But no matter the combination or policies, reaching the net zero emissions goal still requires more oil and gas investment, Ben-Nacuer said.
Permian natural gas outlet Whistler Pipeline to grow 25% with more compression | S&P Global Commodity Insights - Capacity of the Whistler Pipeline from the Waha header in the Permian Basin in West Texas to Agua Dulce in South Texas is slated to grow from 2.0 Bcf/d to 2.5 Bcf/d, with additional compression, operator MPLX said May 2 in announcing a final investment decision for the project. Three compressor stations are to be added, with in-service planned for September 2023. The additional compression would take Whistler to its maximum potential without building a new pipeline, MPLX said earlier this year. "The decision to move forward with this expansion project after securing sufficient commitments from shippers demonstrates our disciplined approach to investing," said Timothy J. Aydt, MPLX executive vice president and chief commercial officer. "Whistler has demonstrated its ability to provide reliable and cost-efficient residue gas transportation out of the Permian Basin, which is vital to our growing gas processing position, producers in the region and gas customers." The 450-mile, 42-inch diameter Whistler provides direct access to South Texas and export markets. An approximately 85-mile, 36-inch diameter lateral provides connectivity to the Midland Basin. Demand for Permian takeaway capacity is being driven by gas output associated with surging crude production, and the growing feedgas needs of LNG exporters. Restrictions on the flaring of associated gas also support future takeaway capacity demand from the Permian. With Permian producers eager to avoid the kind of basis blowouts that were commonplace before the most recent wave of intrastate pipelines came online in 2021, midstream companies have turned to brownfield expansion projects rather than proposing new pipelines. Expanding existing pipelines with established rights of way helps operators avoid the kind of permit-related delays that have plagued greenfield projects in recent years, adding a needed element of speed to the process. Analysis from S&P Global Commodity Insights estimates that current takeaway capacity is around 17 Bcf/d, which could be reached as early as the fourth quarter of 2023.
Are pipeline companies too powerful? Texas' unusual gas market faces fight over winter storm costs - As energy- and climate-related legislation passes through committees in the California legislature, some lawmakers are refusing to vote on bills critical to the state’s transition from fossil fuels.The 10 bills examined by Capital & Main would significantly expand California’s transmission infrastructure to deliver more electricity to homes and buildings, help the state bring more zero-carbon energy sources online and build more charging infrastructure for battery electric vehicles. These large-scale changes are essential to meeting the state’s emissions goals, which have been calibrated to limit global warming and stave off severe climate change. Combined, the 23 lawmakers who failed to approve legislation have taken more than $1.58 million from the oil and gas industry and its employees throughout their careers.Most are Republicans, but several are Democrats from oil- and gas-producing regions of the state. Those same areas, such as the San Joaquin Valley and Los Angeles’ South Bay, have some of the dirtiest air in the country, for which fossil fuel companies bear significant responsibility. In addition to making people sick, their wells and refineries warm the planet.Lawmakers’ obstructionism didn’t stop the legislation from advancing in the committees. But their mostly passive resistance could have an impact if the bills go to a floor vote.
Diamondback Holding Line on Permian Production – Despite High Prices, Demand - Permian Basin pure-play Diamondback Energy Inc. is not budging on plans to keep oil production flat this year, despite increased market tightness because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, said CEO Travis Stice.Diamondback “is committed to maintaining our current production levels, providing a significant supply of energy to our country and the world,” said Stice in presenting first quarter earnings. “While we believe that efficiently growing our production base is achievable over the long term, we do not feel that today is the appropriate time to begin spending dollars that would not equate to additional barrels until multiple quarters from today given the uncertainty and volatility currently in the market.”Midland, TX-based Diamondback operates in the Permian’s Midland and Delaware sub-basins, which have led recent growth in Lower 48 drilling and production. High oil and natural gas prices have benefitted producers, who nonetheless face numerous headaches.“Like many other industries, we are operating in a challenging environment,” Stice said. “We are seeing inflationary pressure across all facets of our business, with labor and materials shortages now present across the supply chain.” He added, “We are fortunate to have secured the necessary equipment, personnel and materials to run our capital program, but increasing activity today would result in capital efficiency degradation and would not meaningfully contribute to the global supply and demand imbalance in the oil market today.”As a result, “we are focused on maintaining our operational excellence and producing one of the lowest cost and environmentally friendly barrels in the world. By doing so, we expect to continue generating differentiated returns, hitting our production and capital targets and returning at least 50% of our free cash flow to our stockholders.”
Matador's Lower 48 Natural Gas, Oil Output Set to Climb 14% - Matador Resources Co., whose upstream operations span the Eagle Ford and Haynesville shales, as well as the Permian Basin, reported record production in the first quarter with plans to top that by the end of June. (matador asset map) “The first quarter of 2022 was another outstanding quarter both operationally and financially for Matador, highlighted by the successful completion of 26 gross operated wells with better-than-expected results,” said CEO Joseph Foran. The results mark the second straight quarterly production record for the Dallas-based independent. During the latest period, Matador completed and turned to sales 26.4 net wells in the Permian’s Delaware sub-basin. The producer has been focused on the Delaware, particularly in New Mexico. Average daily production volumes totaled 94,000 boe/d (57% oil), with the Delaware accounting for 89,400 boe/d (59% oil). There also was 2,800 boe/d from the gassy Haynesville and 1,800 boe/d (73% oil) from the Eagle Ford. Total average production for 1Q2022 was 8% higher than guidance. Its 2Q2022 guidance is about 107,000 boe/d, or a 14% sequential increase.
Lower 48 Oil Production Growth Forecasts Too Aggressive, Says Pioneer’s Sheffield - Projections of Lower 48 oil production growth this year are “way too high,” Pioneer Natural Resources Co. CEO Scott Sheffield said Thursday. Irving, TX-based Pioneer is among the largest producers in the Permian Basin, with operations focused on the Midland sub-basin. As evidence, Sheffield pointed to comments by oilfield services CEOs, including Halliburton Co.’s Jeff Miller and Helmerich & Payne Inc.’s John Lindsay, who indicated that drilling equipment was nearly sold out. Fracturing fleets “are pretty much used up,” particularly for the high-tech equipment, Sheffield told analysts during a conference call to discuss first quarter earnings. “The good-spec rigs are pretty much used up and you can always do newbuilds, but you’re going to pay significantly higher pricing, and you’re going to sign three-year type contracts. “So, I think in this world of returning capital to shareholders, I just don’t see that happening.” Due in part to the scarcity of equipment, production growth forecasts by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) and other prognosticators are “too aggressive over the next two years for U.S. oil production,” Sheffield said. EIA in its last Short-Term Energy Outlook forecast that U.S. oil output would rise by 800,000 b/d year/year in 2022 to average 12 million b/d, and by another 900,000 b/d in 2023. Pioneer, for its part, produced 637,756 boe/d during the first quarter, including 355,270 b/d oil, 152,929 b/d natural gas liquids (NGL) and 777 MMcf/d natural gas. These figures compare with 473,937 boe/d, 281,017 b/d, 105,675 b/d and 523.5 MMcf/d, respectively, in the year-ago period. Pioneer is sticking to its plans to cap annual production growth at 0-5% for the foreseeable future. The company is forecasting average production in 2022 of 623,000 to 648,000 boe/d, including 350,000-365,000 b/d oil, which would be essentially flat versus current levels. Sheffield said he does not expect natural gas takeaway constraints to be an issue in the coming months, citing recent announcements of planned capacity expansions. Pioneer has set an expected capital budget of $3.3-$3.6 billion for this year, to be fully funded by operating cash flow. The company expects to operate an average of 22-24 horizontal drilling rigs in the Permian Midland this year, and to place 475-505 wells on production. Pioneer is forecasting average drilled lateral length of 10,500 feet/well in 2022, which would be a 4% increase from 2021. The increase includes adding about 50 wells with 15,000-foot laterals to the 2022 program, management said. In 2023, this figure should double to about 100 wells, and reach “100 to 150 in future programs,” CFO Richard Dealy told analysts during the call. He estimated that 20-25% of Pioneer’s drilling program “will be those longer laterals for the foreseeable next five to seven years, probably.” The company also highlighted increases in its completed feet per day for its simultaneous fracturing (simul-frac) and zipper fleets. Pioneer’s completed feet per day increased by more than 20% in 2021 versus 2020, “with further increases expected in 2022,” management said. “Drilling longer laterals, reducing drilling days per well and completing more feet per day, among other operational efficiencies, continue to improve capital efficiency and is helping to mitigate cost inflation pressures being experienced by the industry,” management said. Dealy said Pioneer expects to feel cost inflation impacts most acutely this year in its purchases of steel, diesel fuel, drilling chemicals, “and to a much smaller extent,” fracturing sand. The CFO estimated that about 60% of Pioneer’s costs are locked in for the 2022 capital program, with the remainder subject to incremental inflation.
Continental Raising Capex, Output Guidance, Touts Oklahoma Natural Gas Gushers - Continental Resources Inc. has upwardly revised its 2022 forecast for capital spending, as well as oil and natural gas production, management said Thursday. Oklahoma City-based Continental is the top producer in the oily Bakken Shale and the gassy, liquids-rich Anadarko Basin. Following a pair of recent acquisitions, it also is the No. 2 leaseholder in the Powder River Basin and the No. 10 leaseholder in the Permian Basin. Continental’s updated capital program entails spending of $2.6-2.7 billion, up from previous guidance of $2.3 billion. The spending increase is expected to enhance the company’s return on capital employed and free cash flow versus previous projections, management said. Continental in late 2021 snapped up Pioneer Natural Resources Co.’s position in the Permian’s Delaware sub-basin in a deal valued at $3.25 billion. This followed a $215 million acquisition of 130,000 net acres in the oily Powder River Basin from Samson Resources II LLC. The new assets are showing “better than expected productivity, capital efficiency and resource potential,” COO Doug Lawler told analysts during a conference call to discuss first quarter earnings. Lawler joined Continental’s C-suite in January after serving as Chesapeake Energy Corp. CEO from 2013-2021. Continental reported average daily production of 373,810 boe/d during the first quarter, including 194,767 b/d oil and 1.07 Bcf/d natural gas. These figures compare to 307,942 boe/d, 151,852 b/d and 936 MMcf/d in the year-ago period. The Bakken led Continental’s quarterly oil and gas production at 171,401 boe/d, up from 160,577 boe/d in the first quarter of 2021. Anadarko output rose to 143,963 boe/d from 138,386 boe/d. In the Permian, production from the former Pioneer assets was 40,248 boe/d. Powder River Basin production grew to 11,653 boe/d from 2,464 boe/d in the year-ago period. Oil production is now expected to average 200,000-210,000 b/d in 2022, versus the prior forecast of 195,000-205,000 b/d. Continental expects to end the year producing about 220,000-230,000 b/d, management added. For natural gas, Continental has raised its annual production forecast to a range of 1.1-1.2 Bcf/d from 1.04-1.14 Bcf/d. The uptick in expected gas output is due to “strong early performance from our 2022 gas wells” in the South Central Oklahoma Oil Province (SCOOP) and Southern Trend of the Anadarko Basin, mostly in Canadian and Kingfisher Counties (STACK). The additional SCOOP and STACK volumes “are benefiting our free cash flow and return on capital employed,” Lawler said.
Enbridge, Nessel fight over Line 5 pipeline in holding pattern ⋆ Michigan Advance - When Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Attorney General Dana Nessel took office in 2019, both having campaigned on decommissioning Enbridge’s Line 5, they ushered in a flurry of legal and regulatory battles over the embattled oil pipeline.Two federal lawsuits could determine the fate of the 69-year-old Canadian pipeline that transports oil under the tumultuous waters where Lakes Michigan and Huron connect.Two main questions have yet to be answered: Who will determine whether Line 5 as it currently exists will be decommissioned? If the state wins a favorable decision, the existing Line 5 will be shut down. If Enbridge wins, the pipeline will continue to operate for years until the planned construction of a new, tunnel-encased pipeline is completed, when/if that project is approved.What will happen to the “tunnel project,” which Enbridge is seeking immediate approval for but is facing pushback from environmentalists and tribal citizens?There are currently two active lawsuits awaiting a decision in federal court. Both are overseen by U.S. Judge Janet Neff in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan.With the help of Christopher Clark of Earthjustice, the Advance breaks down where things currently stand.
Enbridge’s Line 5 pipeline faces second shutdown risk in the Great Lakes after Indigenous band asks U.S. court for injunction - The Line 5 energy pipeline is facing another threat of shutdown: a Wisconsin Indigenous band has asked a U.S. court for a quick judgment on an application to evict the pipeline from its land. The Bad River Band of the Lake Superior Tribe of Chippewa, which filed its application earlier this year, is asking a U.S. federal court for a permanent injunction that would require owner Enbridge Inc. ENB-T to “cease operation of the pipeline and to safely decommission and remove it.” This latest risk to Line 5 is on top of an effort by Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer to cease the pipeline’s operations over fear of an oil spill in the Great Lakes. The Canadian government is trying to quash that attempt via negotiations with the United States. Enbridge’s 1,038-kilometre pipeline is a crucial energy source for Ontario and Quebec that transports up to 540,000 barrels of petroleum a day – mostly from Western Canada. It takes a route to Ontario through Wisconsin and Michigan before re-entering Canada at Sarnia, Ont. Enbridge spokesperson Jesse Semko said the risk to Line 5 from Wisconsin, like the Michigan shutdown effort, is contrary to a 1977 treaty between Canada and the U.S. intended to “ensure the uninterrupted transmission” of pipelines. If Ottawa wants to take up the matter with Washington, it would likely have to invoke the treaty again, as it did with Ms. Whitmer’s shutdown order, international trade lawyer Lawrence Herman said. Easements granted for Line 5 to cross the Bad River Band’s reservation have expired, and while Calgary-based Enbridge has proposed to reroute the pipeline around the land, the Indigenous group is not prepared to wait. The pipeline’s future was put in jeopardy in 2021, after Ms. Whitmer ordered it shut down over fears of a spill where it crosses the Straits of Mackinac waterway in her state. It remains in operation, and Canada and the U.S. are in negotiations over the matter after Ottawa invoked the 1977 bilateral treaty. The application for summary judgment in Wisconsin asks the court to rule on the Bad River Band’s lawsuit without a trial.
Aging pipelines, pipeline leaks, oil spills pose problems for Illinois -The cleanup continues from a recent oil spill in Edwardsville, but statistics serve as a reminder that it was far from an isolated incident. The spill was first reported on March 11 when the 165,000-gallon-spill was found coming from a Marathon Pipe Line buried near Cahokia Diversion Channel. Some of the spill reached the water, prompting a massive cleanup effort, including some oil-drenched wildlife. Officials have said it will likely take months to complete the entire cleanup of the area, and dump trucks were transporting dozens of loads of clean dirt to the site Tuesday. “There have been 432 combined incidents of pipeline spills in Missouri and Illinois just since 2020, and 72 of those incidents have resulted in spills of more than 1,000 gallons of crude oil. These numbers are obviously deeply concerning to the environment and to our communities,” said Hannah Lee Flath, a spokesperson for the Illinois Sierra Club. “Unfortunately, all pipelines are at risk for incidents like this and it’s because of the aging infrastructure and how hard it is to do safety checks. We don’t think that they are kept up to date enough in order to be safe and for us to have that security and peace of mind that incidents like this won’t happen in the future.” Virginia Woulfe-Beile is the Three Rivers Project Co-Coordinator for the Piasa Palisades Group of The Sierra Club, which is based out of Alton. Woulfe-Beile notes that the Metro East is a crossroads for pipelines, whether going across the country or going into local refineries. “In my mind, it has always been a matter of not if there may be pipeline leaks, but when, because these types of things do fail,” Woulfe-Beile said. “We need to make sure that this is kept to a minimum and that when pipelines are built, they are using the best material and that they are monitored and kept in good maintenance to prevent spills.” The oil spill resulted in a lawsuit against Marathon Pipe Line by Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul. Still, Woulfe-Beile said that many questions remain, including what effects the spill might have on agricultural land. “We all know how it came out into Cahokia Diversion Channel, but we don’t know much seeped into the ground and possibly into the groundwater,” Woulfe-Beile said. “Also, we want to make sure that Marathon is being held accountable and we want to know what regulators and authorities are doing to ensure that a future spill doesn’t end up in the Mississippi River, which could be devastating. “We have this huge confluence of rivers and our wetlands and the natural resources we have around here, and our job is to protect them and to hold folks accountable. We’re concerned about the long-lasting impacts of this (Marathon) oil spill and how the impact can be remediated.”
'This valve had been known to leak': Documents show Superior oil refinery knew about equipment issues years before 2018 explosion | Wisconsin Public Radio The blast injured workers and caused a mass evacuation. Investigators found no evidence key equipment had been inspected by the refinery for years. Most workers were on break when an explosion rocked the Superior oil refinery, then owned by Husky Energy Inc., four years ago. In interviews with investigators after the incident, operations manager Brian McCusker recalled hearing two loud blasts that shook the control room of the refinery’s fluid catalytic cracking unit. I saw asphalt leaking out of the asphalt tank across the road," said McCusker, according to documents from federal labor regulators obtained by Wisconsin Public Radio. The blast knocked workers to the ground, injuring 36 refinery workers and contractors. Two workers suffered serious injuries including a punctured lung and spinal fractures while others walked away with minor cuts and bruises. Debris from the explosion struck a nearby tank and asphalt spilled into the refinery, catching fire and creating a large plume of black smoke that could be seen for miles. Many of the city’s 27,000 residents were forced to evacuate due to the smoke and fears that a tank containing the highly toxic chemical hydrogen fluoride may be compromised. Parents waited in bumper-to-bumper traffic to pick up their kids who were bussed to a nearby evacuation site. While no chemical release occurred, evacuees stayed overnight in Duluth at hotels and a local convention center until authorities lifted the evacuation order the next morning.The Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, previously fined the refinery more than $83,000 for failing to take steps to protect workers and prevent the incident. The company reached a nearly $70,000 settlement with the agency in 2018.Nearly 1,300 pages of documents from OSHA obtained by WPR shed new light on what refinery officials knew in the days leading up to the explosion. The documents also indicate the company was aware years earlier of issues with the very equipment investigators believe caused the explosion.These include problems with a critical valve malfunctioning days before the explosion and documented erosion on that key piece of equipment dating back to 2008. When the explosion happened on April 26, 2018, the refinery was shutting down its fluid catalytic cracking unit as it prepared for a five-week "turnaround," or a routine break in production conducted every five years by the refinery to perform maintenance. The unit uses heat and a sand-like catalyst to crack or break apart large hydrocarbons of crude oil into smaller molecules to make gasoline and other products. Calgary-based Cenovus Energy Inc., the refinery’s new owner, said officials have since taken steps to improve safety in their operations. Those actions will play a vital role in mitigating risks as the refinery will continue using hydrogen fluoride — which can be hazardous to human health if released — as part of its refining process to make gasoline.
The Permian Basin Oil Field Is Running Out of Workers, Materials—and Cash – WSJ - —America’s most prolific oil field is running out of the workers, cash and equipment needed to produce more oil. In the Permian Basin, the sprawling oil-rich region in West Texas and southeastern New Mexico, drillers are facing long delays and steep competition for everything from roughnecks to steel to fracking pumps.
The U.S. Shale Patch Is Facing A Plethora Of Problems - There is a fairly blithe assumption in government circles that shale production can be raised at will. That assumption is about to be put to the test as the American shale drilling and fracking industry attempts to respond to the entreaties and outright demands of legislators, members of the administrative branch’s leadership, and even the president himself to put more capital toward increasing production. This is happening, but at a level and rate that will be insufficient to boost production significantly. In fact, data from the most recent publication of the Energy Information Agency’s Drilling Productivity Report-DPR indicates trouble could lie ahead. As the graph taken from EIA-DPR data reveals, the rig count is going steadily higher, but production from the eight major shale basins has leveled off and, as of Feb, 22, has actually slightly declined. If the May edition of the DPR confirms this trend then there is going to have to be a drastic reevaluation of what will be expected from shale in the future. One obvious cause of the decline is not directly related to the rig count, but in the decline of Drilled but Uncompleted-DUCs, wells being turned to production. Over the last couple of years, operators have cut the DUC inventory from ~8,500 to ~4,200. A year ago in an Oilprice article, I predicted this point would come. It has now arrived as operators have drastically curtailed the DUC withdrawal that was maintaining and increasing production over the past couple of years. There are multiple reasons for this situation and the primary ones will be discussed in the remainder of this article. Recently I attended an industry conference, where the Keynote speaker- Richard Spears, an industry analyst, and consultant, spoke about a key difficulty in forecasting in regard to estimating the likely year-end rig count. His point was that events occur and make prior forecasts seem ridiculous. His case in point was the invasion of Ukraine, which was on no one's radar...until it happened, and immediately made every forecast up to that point out of date. Almost ludicrously so. He then took a poll of the room as to where we thought the land rig count would end up for 2022. He threw out numbers starting with 800, about a hundred higher than where we are now, and we responded when he hit the number that matched our personal belief. Virtually every hand rose with 800, about half dropped at 900, half again at 1,000, and just a few at 1,100. One or two hands stayed up at 1,200 and he stopped there. He then gave us his number, 800. This surprised me as I was one of the 1,100 hands. His justification for that number didn't surprise me, as it involved capital restraint, lack of financing, and logistics impacts that are causing inflation in the oilfield. All things I have discussed in prior Oilprice articles. An article in the Wall Street Journal put a personal spin on this situation, as they quoted a small independent driller’s frustration with being able to secure needed materials. “If somebody walked in and put a pile of money on the table and said, ‘Drill me a well next week,’ it isn’t going to happen,” said Jamie Small, president of private-equity-backed oil producer Element Petroleum III. “You just can’t get the stuff to do it.”
U.S. oil producers increased capital expenditures and cash from operations in late 2021 – EIA - In response to higher crude oil prices, financial results for 42 U.S. exploration and production (E&P) companies showed large increases in both cash from operations and capital expenditures in the fourth quarter of 2021 (4Q21). Cash from operations for the E&P companies reached $27.5 billion in 4Q21, the largest amount in any quarter since 3Q14. Compared with 3Q21, capital expenditures increased 60% to $15 billion. However, despite higher capital spending and increasing crude oil prices, crude oil production by the E&P companies was still 10% below pre-pandemic levels.We base our analysis of the E&P sector on the published financial reports of 42 publicly traded U.S. oil companies. These companies do not necessarily represent the sector as a whole. In 4Q21, these 42 publicly traded companies collectively produced 3.8 million barrels per day of crude oil in the United States, or about 33% of total U.S. crude oil production.The West Texas Intermediate crude oil price averaged $77 per barrel (b) in 4Q21, an increase of $35/b (82%) compared with 4Q20. An increase in crude oil prices generally results in higher production, but production has not grown in response to higher crude oil prices.One constraint on well drilling and completions is the ability of oil field service companies to provide the needed rigs and crews to bring a well online. Published financial reports for 14 U.S. oil field service companies show that less cash from operations over the past two years has led to decreased capital expenditures compared with pre-pandemic levels, likely resulting in reduced operating capacity.According to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data, employment in oil and natural gas extraction in March 2022 remained 8% below February 2020, its pre-pandemic value. Statements from oil field service companies during recent earnings calls suggest that inflationary pressures and industry shortages in labor and equipment continue to constrain operations.Another constraint on well completions is a declining inventory of drilled but uncompleted wells (DUCs). After drilling is finished, the well completion process involves casing, cementing, perforating, hydraulic fracturing, and other procedures required before crude oil production can begin from that well. After the crude oil price decline in 2020, E&P companies chose to complete wells at a faster rate than they drilled new wells.Completing more DUC wells kept operating costs low in the near term; however, production growth could slow if the number of newly drilled wells continues to remain lower than the number of completed wells. DUC inventories provide E&P companies with the flexibility to coordinate drilling and well completion to avoid operational delays, especially because of the long-term advanced booking that completion crews require. According to our April 2022Drilling Productivity Report, key U.S. oil-producing regions contained 3,423 DUCs in March 2022, the fewest number since May 2014.
Drilling for shale oil is getting more expensive at the worst possible time— Inflation in the oil sector is worsening and industry executives see no reason to expect cost pressures on everything from steel pipe to frac sand to ease any time soon. The price spiral has been so swift and dramatic that oil CEOs are being forced to revise annual spending plans higher just to preserve crude and natural gas output targets. Those same executives are warning that rampant oilfield inflation make any significant increase in domestic oil production much more difficult to attain despite the incentive of $100-a-barrel crude. Benchmark U.S. and international oil prices have surged more than 40% this year as strong post-pandemic demand crashed headlong into anemic growth in crude supplies and the worldwide market dislocations triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “Given the substantial supply-chain bottlenecks and scarcity of oil-service equipment and field personnel, any attempt to increase activity in the U.S. will be logistically challenging and capital inefficient,” The inflationary trend has hit every corner of the oil exploration and production cycle. Drillers said they’re experiencing sticker shock on everything from rigs and workers to diesel fuel and frack sand. Shale giant Continental Resources Inc. said the price of steel tubes used to line the interior of oil wells jumped about 7% in the month of March alone. Meanwhile, another shale specialist, Coterra Energy Inc., noted that it can take as long as two years to take delivery of pipes, compressors and other production equipment. Both companies said their drilling and production costs are up 16% to 20% from last year. That represents an acceleration from earlier this year, when the sector was bracing for cost hikes in the 10% to 15% range.
Devon launches its own mobile sand mine to cut fracing costs— Devon Energy Corp., one of the biggest oil explorers in the Permian Basin, is getting into the sand business to combat rising costs. The Oklahoma City-based company told investors of a new, so-called mobile frack-sand mine it launched on 15,000 acres of land it owns in the West Texas county of Loving. The mine is expected to save the shale giant more than $200,000 per well amid rising sand prices and can account for as much as a quarter of its sand needs in the Delaware half of the Permian Basin, Chief Operating Officer Clay Gaspar said Tuesday on a conference call. “Sand is one of those things that nobody worries about until it’s an issue, and then it’s a major major issue,” Gaspar said. Mobile sand mines are starting to slowly grow within the industry, offering a smaller footprint compared to permanent mines and are closer to the well site. The sand is crammed in cracks of oil-soaked rock during production. Devon said it’s also looking at expanding the mobile sand mines to the areas it operates in Wyoming and Oklahoma.
GOP blocks 3 land bills over proposed mining, drilling bans - Republican senators said they would present a united front against any bill proposing to withdraw federal lands from mining and drilling. Three ambitious public lands bills with broad local support failed to advance yesterday as Senate Republicans sent a clear message to their Democratic colleagues that they will strongly oppose legislation that bans energy development and mining on federal land. Republican members at yesterday's Energy and Natural Resources Committee markup say they want the committee to approve legislation advancing critical minerals extraction and oil and gas development, and they vowed to continue a united front against any bill proposing to withdraw federal lands from mining and drilling until it does so. Thus, the committee yesterday deadlocked 10-10 along party lines on S. 173 , the "Colorado Outdoor Recreation and Economy (CORE) Act," sponsored by Colorado Democratic Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper. It would extend varying levels of protection to more than 400,000 acres in the state, including banning oil and gas drilling in sections of the Thompson Divide. Bennet has championed the bill for years.
Biden officials plan large purchases to replenish oil reserve -The Department of Energy announced Wednesday it will solicit bids to buy 60 million barrels of oil to help start to replenish the record release from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) that President Biden approved earlier this spring to address high gas prices. The bidding process will begin in the fall, with a goal of replenishing about one-third of the 180 million barrels released in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The department said in a statement that it has timed the buyback and subsequent delivery for when it projects oil prices to have dropped significantly. It did not offer details on when delivery will take place. “The U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the largest emergency supply in the world, is a valuable tool to protect the American economy and consumers from supply disruptions — whether caused by emergencies at home or petro-dictators weaponizing access to energy resources,” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said in a statement. “As we are thoughtful and methodical in the decision to drawdown from our emergency reserve, we must be similarly strategic in replenishing the supply so that it stands ready to deliver on its mission to provide relief when needed most,” she added. The department said it will take steps to loosen buyback regulations to allow competitive bidding rather than the usual index-pricing system used for SPR sales. The buyback is separate from revenue-raising SPR sales mandated by Congress, which the department predicted will total around 265 million barrels between fiscal 2023 and 2031. Biden in late March announced the biggest-ever release from the SPR — 180 million barrels over six months — to offset price spikes that began months before and were exacerbated by the war in Ukraine. Before that, the administration had announced smaller SPR releases of 30 million barrels in March and 50 million in November.
Marathon Petroleum ramps up Q2 rates to meet strong ULSD, gasoline demand -- Marathon Petroleum, the largest US refiner, is ramping up rates at its refineries, with expectations of reaching 95% capacity in the second quarter to meet the rising demand for both diesel and gasoline as the summer driving season looms. The company is deferring some planned work to capture the strong current spot market environment, "backloading" the company's 2022 turnaround work, according to Ray Brooks, Marathon's head of refining, on the May 3 results call. "With current demands, we are really seeking to maximize our refining system as indicated by the second-quarter guidance," Brooks said, adding, "what this really means...is that we've looked at some fixed bed catalyst changes that we had planned for [Q2]. We've determined we have a little bit as far as catalyst activity. So we've deferred that out later in the year. "We're working right now to maximize distillate production across our system. Just to give you a little more color on that, that's something that we look at daily, make sure that we're maximizing the total recoverable distillate, the endpoint, and maximizing the front end of the distillate," he said. Increased ULSD exports tighten the USAC market Marathon, like its peers, has been running in maximum distillate mode to take advantage of global rising diesel cracks from tight supplies and backwardation in distillate markets. The company's total exports averaged 200,000 b/d at the end of Q1 and have moved up to an average of 250,000 b/d and 300,000 b/d so far in Q2, with barrels moving primarily into Latin America, but with some barrels moving to Europe. Brian Partee, Marathon's head of clean products, said that increased distillate exports have tightened the US Atlantic Coast market, which is seeing lower European imports as well as lower flows up the Colonial Pipeline, the main conduit of refined products from the USGC refiners to New York Harbor. But this is a function of timing, and the "run-up in the prompt front end of the cycle," he said, allowing Marathon to capture current high diesel prices immediately through export rather than waiting for the time it takes diesel to move up the Colonial Pipeline.
U.S. distillate stocks fall critically low: Kemp - Chartbook: https://tmsnrt.rs/3KNYcVl (Reuters) - U.S. distillate fuel oil inventories have fallen to a 14-year low as refiners prove unable to satisfy strong demand from freight hauliers and manufacturers, sending diesel prices surging and pulling crude prices higher in their wake. Stocks have fallen in 60 of the last 96 weeks by a total of 69 million barrels since the start of July 2020, according to high-frequency data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The depletion has more than reversed a 49-million-barrel build-up during the first wave of the COVID epidemic and lockdowns in the second quarter of 2020. By last week, stocks had fallen to just 104 million barrels, the lowest since 2008 and before that 2005 (“Weekly petroleum status report”, EIA, May 4). Distillate stocks are now 31 million barrels, or 23% below the pre-pandemic five-year seasonal average for 2015-2019. Inventories are on course to fall even further to a projected low of just 102 million barrels before the middle of the year, with a possible range of 97 million to 105 million barrels, based on seasonal trends over the last decade. The projected inventory outlook has tightened since the start of April, when stocks were on course to fall to a low of 107 million barrels with a range of 96 million to 114 million. The resulting shortages of distillate are driving prices for both distillate itself and crude sharply higher and are bleeding across into shortages and higher prices for gasoline and jet fuel.Distillate is mostly used in road and rail freight, manufacturing, construction, farming, mining, and oil and gas extraction, so consumption is very sensitive to the business cycle. In this instance, shortages are a symptom of the strong rebound in economic activity following the pandemic and its bias towards fuel-hungry merchandise rather than services. Similar shortages have been observed in the late stages of previous business cycles, with stocks rebuilding once the economy enters a mid-cycle slowdown or an end-of-cycle recession. The long-term time series shows distillate stocks do not replenish themselves spontaneously; they only recover when the economy goes into a "soft patch" or a full-blown recession. At present, refiners in the United States and the rest of the world do not have enough capacity to satisfy the high level of demand. The shortage is likely to be intensified later in 2022 and 2023 as a result of U.S. and European Union sanctions on Russia's petroleum exports because Russia is a major supplier of distillate fuel oil.
Exxon, Chevron will spend more on stock returns than production — Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp. will together give more cash to shareholders than they invest in oil and gas production this year even as political leaders call on the industry to increase output to help ease soaring consumer prices. The U.S. supermajors will shower investors with a combined $50.3 billion in stock buybacks and dividends this year, compared with $37.5 billion in total capital expenditures, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That gap is the highest since Big Oil’s heyday in 2008. In fact, for 11 of the past 15 years, Exxon and Chevron have actually done the opposite: Their combined capital expenditures have exceeded shareholder returns. U.S. President Joe Biden has implored oil companies to reinvest profits from surging oil prices into more production in an effort to curb rampant inflation and ease the energy shortages caused by Russia’s war against Ukraine. Some U.S. Democrats as well as European leaders have gone further, accusing Big Oil of “profiteering” from high energy prices and calling for a windfall tax on earnings. “Consumers should not get punched in the face so that Big Oil can stuff its overflowing coffers,” said Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen, a non-profit consumer advocacy group. Chevron is “very sensitive” to the needs of consumers, Chief Financial Officer Pierre Breber said on a Friday call with analysts. The oil giant is increasing production in the Permian Basin by at least 15% this year and has become much more efficient in recent years, meaning it can produce more oil with less capital spending than in the past. Chevron’s global production will be roughly flat this year but remains near a record high. “We’re growing energy supply in the U.S.,” Breber said. “At the same time, the objective for a capital-intensive commodity business is to do it in the most capital-efficient way. The more capital-efficient we are, the more capital gets returned to shareholders.” Exxon is plotting its own ramp up in the Permian Basin, with plans to grow output about 25% this year; it’s also accelerating offshore oil developments in Guyana. The Texas-based oil giant is also becoming more efficient due to $9 billion of cost cuts by 2023, enough to fund more than half its dividend. However, its first quarter production was just 3.7 million barrels a day, the lowest since the merger with Mobil more than two decades ago. When asked whether high energy prices could mean Exxon would increase capital spending above its guided range, Chief Executive Officer Darren Woods was blunt: “The short answer is no.”
Shale Explorers Boost Payouts Over Production - Shale drillers Diamondback Energy Inc., Devon Energy Corp. and Coterra Energy Inc. are boosting dividends while keeping oil output flat despite pleas from President Joe Biden to increase supplies and help take some the edge off of inflation. Diamondback announced a five-fold bump to quarterly payouts on Monday while Devon pledged to lift its dividend by 27% to a record $1.27 a share. Coterra also boosted distributions to shareholders. At the same time, all three shale specialists said they’re holding the line on crude and natural gas output. As oil and gas producers reap the fattest profits in years, corporate boards and management teams are grappling with pleas from politicians and consumer advocates to plow more of that cash into drilling so energy supplies expand and pump prices drop. Although Diamondback, Devon and Coterra are resisting that pressure, rivals including Exxon Mobil Corp., Continental Resources Inc. and Hess Corp. last week signaled they’re taking the brakes off of output. “Russia’s actions have increased the volatility in our sector, creating significant swings in commodity prices as a result of uncertainty around global oil supply,” Diamondback Chief Executive Officer Travis Stice said in a statement. “We do not feel that today is the appropriate time to begin spending dollars that would not equate to additional barrels until multiple quarters from today given the uncertainty and volatility currently in the market.” Diamondback, Devon and Coterra all posted stronger-than-expected first-quarter results on Monday. Diamondback raised its regularly quarterly payout by 17% to 70 cents a share, and declared a variable dividend of $2.35, bringing the total distribution to $3.05. Coterra lifted its combined regular and variable payout by 7% to 60 cents a share, payable on May 13.
U.S. shale’s cash bonanza is about to wipe out $300 billion loss— It may have taken an investor rebellion, a pandemic and a war in Europe, but U.S. shale oil and gas producers are now on the cusp of making back their losses from the last decade. The industry is on course to make $172 billion of free cash flow this year, enough to wipe out 60% of its losses from 2010 through 2019, according to Deloitte LLP. With smaller gains already chipping away at the $292 billion deficit in 2020 and 2021, U.S. shale should be back in the black next year. It’s been a long road. When small domestic oil and gas producers pioneered the combination of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing in the 2000s, it seemed like a wealth of riches was imminent. But they were almost too successful, pumping so much that natural gas prices spiraled into a long-term decline through the 2010s. A surge in oil output followed, and OPEC allowed crude prices to collapse in 2014 in an attempt to win back market share from the U.S., which later overtook Saudi Arabia as the world’s biggest producer. Investors also got burned. Shale companies borrowed heavily to fund production growth, resulting in massively negative cash flow. Energy went from more than 16% of the S&P 500 Index in 2008 to 2% in 2020. All those trends have now reversed. Shareholders pushed shale to become more financially disciplined, while the pandemic forced executives to cut back on production and spending. Now, with the war in Ukraine causing oil prices to soar above $100 a barrel, the turnaround is almost complete. The industry is now leveraging the “short-cycled nature of shales to quickly monetize an opportunity, without giving away discipline,” said Amy Chronis, managing partner of Deloitte’s Houston office. “The recent oil and natural gas price surge has given the shale industry a shot in the arm.” Investors are taking notice. Nine of the 10 top-performing stocks in the S&P 500 this year are oil companies. Energy is now 4.4% of the S&P 500 Index, up from 2.7% at the beginning of the year.
Shale Giants Dump Oil Hedges -U.S. shale giants stung by billions of dollars in hedging losses are spending big bucks to ditch their positions in a risky bet that prices stay high. Companies including Pioneer Natural Resources Co. and EOG Resources Inc. are poised to post historic profits when they report earnings this week. But those windfall earnings would be even higher if it weren’t for massive accounting losses from hedges that protect against falling prices while limiting upside potential. Producers in the aggregate are looking at about $42 billion in oil and gas hedging losses through 2023, according to BloombergNEF calculations of data from last year. While such a hit won’t necessarily affect their balance sheets — instead representing money left on the table — the sheer scale of the miss has companies spending hundreds of millions of dollars to exit their positions. Hess Corp. in March paid $325 million to exit some of its hedges – more than twice what it cost to enter the contracts six months earlier. Pioneer, which reported $2 billion in hedging losses in 2021, spent $328 million to drop its hedges. And EOG, with $2.8 billion in hedging losses in the first-quarter alone, has paid $85 million. The moves could pay off big. For Pioneer, dropping the hedges could generate more than $1 billion of additional revenue this year, according to energy researcher Enverus. But it’s also risky. If oil prices fall and producers aren't hedged, they could be left with losses in the billions — and those won't be just on paper. That kind of blowback would likely unravel all the hard work companies have put into earning back investor trust over the last couple of years. And it could bring another rollback to oil production at a time when global markets are incredibly tight. “My main concern about unwinding hedges is that you had unrealized losses on hedges as prices go higher,” “If you take off those hedges and make them realized losses and then prices come down, then you lose twice.” Producers can lose money on hedges in a couple of ways. Companies using so-called collars to insure against a downturn will buy put options that allow them to sell their oil at a predetermined price. But to fund those puts, they simultaneously sell bullish call options that pay a premium while capping their exposure to higher prices. Those hedging with swaps can incur losses when prices rise above the fixed levels at which they are sold. Such strategies paid off during the pandemic-driven crash of 2020, but turned painful as recovering economies and Russia’s war in Ukraine lifted energy prices to historic highs. Some producers have capped upside prices at $30 below where oil is currently trading. Laredo Petroleum Inc. — which capped upside at an average of about $69 for 2022 — had about 73% of its crude output for this year covered by hedges, according to a March investor presentation. Losses, meanwhile, topped $400 million by the end of 2021, according to data from BNEF.
Oil Prices Top $111 As Biden’s SPR Buyback Plan Leaks -- The Biden Administration will purchase 60 million barrels of crude in Q3 in an effort to replace volumes in the U.S. strategic petroleum for the first time in nearly 20 years, CNN reports, after authorizing a record release over six months.Citing an unnamed Energy Department official, CNN said what is referred to as a “long-term buyback plan” for oil would be announced later on Thursday.Delivery of those first 60 million barrels, according to CNN, would be paid for with revenue received from sales of emergency oil, while the time frame is not specific beyond “future years”.Oil jumped to $111.5 per barrel for Brent–the highest price since late March–and over $108 for WTI on news of the buyback plan, along with results of an OPEC+ meeting earlier today in which the cartel refrained from increasing output quotes beyond 423,000 bpd for June.The full process for replenishing the SPR will take years.Bloomberg cited UBS Group commodity analyst Giovanni Staunovo as saying that the market is now pricing in what amounts to U.S. plans to buy when the market is tight and inventories and spare capacity are low.On March 31st, U.S. President Joe Biden authorized the release of 1 million barrels of oil from the country’s strategic reserves per day for six months in a bid to bring down soaring oil prices as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.Over the next six months, the International Energy Agency (IEA) and the U.S. together are set to release a total of 240 million barrels of crude oil from their respective strategic reserves. During Thursday’s meeting, OPEC Secretary-General Mohammad Sanusi Barkindo said combined strategic reserve releases would mean that “the equivalent of over 1 mb/d for a period of eight months” would be “made available to the global market”.
Pipeline Operators Sued by the United States and North Dakota for Two Oil Spills - On Monday, the United States and North Dakota filed a complaint in the District of Montana against Bridger Pipeline LLC and Belle Fourche Pipeline Company alleging violations of the Clean Water Act (CWA) along with North Dakota state and federal law. According to the complaint, Bridger and Belle Fourche are Wyoming corporations that own and operate hundreds of miles of buried pipelines that gather and transport crude oil in Montana, North Dakota and Wyoming. The complaint also states that Bridger and Belle Fourche are affiliates and under the common control of the True Companies, a privately held conglomerate with operations focused on the oil and gas industry. Further, the complaint purports that Bridger owns and operates the Polar Pipeline, and Belle Fourche owns and operates the Bicentennial Pipeline. The plaintiffs allege that on January 17, 2015, the Polar Pipeline ruptured where it crosses the Yellowstone River, resulting in the discharge of approximately 1,257 barrels of crude oil into the Yellowstone River near Glendive, Montana. The Yellowstone spill allegedly resulted in oil sheens on the Yellowstone River which lasted for weeks and contamination of local drinking water. The complaint argues that the Yellowstone spill was a result of Bridger’s failure to conduct adequate risk analysis and was in violation of the CWA, Federal Pipeline Safety Regulations and North Dakota state law. Additionally, the complaint alleges that around December 1, 2016, the Bicentennial Pipeline ruptured resulting in the discharge of approximately 14,400 barrels of crude oil, including into Ash Coulee Creek, the Little Missouri River and their adjoining shorelines. The plaintiffs argue that the Ash Coulee spill was avoidable and was caused by Belle Fourche’s failure to address a known risk of slope failure, due to the hilly terrain the pipeline passed through, and to correct a miscalibrated flow meter at the bicentennial station. The plaintiffs further allege that Belle Fourche failed to immediately shutdown the Bicentennial Pipeline when it became aware of the spill causing further damage. Specifically, the complaint states that, despite clear discrepancies with the volume of crude oil at its pump stations caused by the rupture on December 1, Belle Fourche operated the Bicentennial Pipeline as usual until December 5, 2016. The complaint argues that the Ash Coulee spill resulted in the contamination of surface water, groundwater and soil at and near Ash Coulee Creek.
State, feds sue pipeline operator after 2016 spill leaked 600,000 gallons of oil in Billings County -The state of North Dakota and the federal government are suing a pipeline operator over a 600,000-gallon oil spill that contaminated the Little Missouri River and a tributary in 2016. The federal lawsuit filed against Belle Fourche Pipeline this week also names Bridger Pipeline as a defendant and raises allegations related to a 2015 oil spill in eastern Montana that affected the Yellowstone River. Both businesses are part of Wyoming-based True Companies. The suit seeks civil penalties related to the spills and reimbursement for nearly $100,000 the North Dakota Department of Environmental Quality has spent responding to the Belle Fourche spill. The total amount of civil penalties sought is unclear. A spokesman for Belle Fourche and Bridger said the companies are “very disappointed that the government decided to abandon settlement talks and file the lawsuit.” “We’ve been talking with them for a number of years and we believe we made good progress and ultimately believe we would have been able to reach a settlement,” spokesman Bill Salvin said. “Unfortunately, this takes that off the table.” Bridger last year reached a $2 million settlement with the federal government and Montana tied to the Yellowstone River spill, according to the U.S. Justice Department. The new lawsuit alleges violations of the federal Clean Water Act related to both spills, as well as violations of North Dakota law pertaining to the Belle Fourche spill.The pipeline segment where the spill occurred in Billings County “passes through hilly, unstable terrain, which is prone to failure and other mass movements,” according to the complaint. A landslide ruptured the pipeline, leaking 14,400 barrels of oil. A barrel holds 42 gallons. The spill reached Ash Coulee Creek, which is a tributary of the Little Missouri, as well as the river itself, contaminating water, soil and groundwater, according to court documents. Belle Fourche detected leaks by comparing the incoming volume of oil flowing through the pipeline to the outgoing volume based on data from a meter, the complaint says. A company “scheduler” receives daily information from Belle Fourche about volumes of oil shipped through the pipeline and on Dec. 3 noticed a discrepancy in the figures, reporting it to the company’s control room. A worker there reviewed recent pipeline data and spoke to a field employee, concluding that the discrepancy was the result of a miscalibrated meter and did not indicate a leak, the complaint alleges. While the miscalibration could explain a small discrepancy, it would not explain a major one, which “should have been apparent to Belle Fourche’s controllers” on Dec. 1, according to the government.
Natural Gas Futures Shoot Past $8 as Supply Concerns Mount – Mexico Spotlight - North American natural gas prices charged ahead this week amid worries over longer term supplies. In Mexico, meanwhile, natural gas demand is growing despite the higher prices. On Wednesday, the June New York Mercantile Exchange gas futures contract jumped 46.1 cents day/day and settled at $8.415/MMBtu. July rose 44.7 cents to $8.472.“U.S. production underwhelming, tight U.S. supplies, and hot conditions across Texas and surrounding states this weekend into early next week are viewed as the primary drivers of spiking natural gas prices this week,” NatGasWeather said.Mexico, meanwhile, continues to ramp up imports of natural gas as power demand rises with the hotter weather. “Mexico’s gas burns for power generation are starting strong in May,” Wood Mackenzie analyst Ricardo Falcón told NGI’s Mexico GPI. So far this month, power burns in Mexico are above 4.4 Bcf/d, up around 7% month/month. This is “already robust when compared to the 6% average of the preceding seven years for the same month/month period.”Power burns are driving pipeline imports from the United States, which are above 6 Bcf/d so far in May. NGI calculations had U.S. imports via pipeline into Mexico at 5.860 Bcf on Thursday. More than 75% of the gas arrived via South Texas.“Wood Mackenzie believes that there is room for additional growth in May, especially if Mexican dry gas output stays at the current level,” Falcón said. Mexico dry gas production fell by 11% in April to slightly below 2.5 Bcf/d. This month dry gas output in Mexico has been largely flat.Flat natural gas output across North America has been the general theme of ongoing earnings calls. Public exploration and production companies are set to shatter records this year in profits, but most of this money is being channeled back to shareholders, according to analysts at Rystad Energy.“Despite the robust growth in cash from operations, investments are not expected to grow significantly this year, inching up to $286 billion from $258 billion in 2021,” the analysts said in a note.In earnings calls, operators and midstream companies have added that demand isn’t being impacted despite the higher prices. U.S. natural gas transporter Williams CFO John Porter said this week that “it has been somewhat surprising to us how inelastic this demand has remained.”A natural gas shipper in Mexico City told NGI’s Mexico City GPI that “everything is the same despite the higher prices. We’ve seen some clients lower their consumption a little bit, but motivated more by the lack of other raw materials in their processes and not because of the price of gas.”Meanwhile, supply pressure in Europe continues to cast a shadow over energy markets. The European Union also appears on the verge of banning Russian oil imports, which could potentially lead to a reprisal from Russia, further squeezing the European natural gas market.
Europe Needs Natural Gas And America Could Help—If We Could Get Out Of Our Own Way – Forbes - Last week, Russia began enforcing its demand that European Union (EU) countries pay for Russian natural gas in rubles. Poland and Bulgaria were the first countries to have their Russian gas supplies halted, but they may not be the last: The European Commission reiterated that payments in rubles violate the economic sanctions placed on Russia. Now EU countries, which get on average 40% of their natural gas from Russia, are stuck between a rock and a hard place. Like Russia, the United States is a big producer of natural gas. Since Russia’s belligerent behavior and refusal to sell gas is hurting our European allies, it would be great if we could step in and provide some relief. This is a good idea in theory, but unfortunately our own policy decisions undermine it. As the figure below shows, America produces more natural gas than it uses, so exports to Europe are possible. In 2020, America produced 33.5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and the top five natural gas producing states were Texas, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and West Virginia. In 2020, the United States was able to export 2.7 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. The EU uses about 45 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day and imports 80% of that. So even if we sent all our extra natural gas to Europe, it would only provide about 75 days’ worth of supply. But the amount of gas we produce is not carved in stone. Public policies, global demand, and technological improvements all influence the supply of natural gas. Global demand is outside of our control, but we can change our domestic policies to make it easier to both produce natural gas and incentivize investment in additional capacity. The Marcellus Shale rock formation primarily sits beneath Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Maryland. It is the most productive shale formation in the country based on output, as shown in the figure below, providing around 25 billion cubic feet of gas per day. That is a lot of gas, but we could produce more if not for state and local bans on fracking. Maryland banned fracking in 2017 and New York’s legislature banned fracking in 2020, though former New York governor Andrew Cuomo essentially banned fracking back in 2014. New York used to produce a considerable amount of natural gas, producing 56 billion cubic feet in 2006. After Cuomo banned fracking production slowed, falling below 10 billion cubic feet by 2020. This decline occurred despite the fact that New York sits on 12 million acres of gas-rich Marcellus shale. More recently, in 2021, the Delaware River Basin Commission voted 4-0 to permanently ban fracking in the areas under its control. This includes seven northeast Pennsylvania counties that sit on top of Marcellus shale. So even though Pennsylvania allows fracking and is one of the country’s biggest producers of natural gas, these seven counties are now off limits. We can help our European allies quit Russian natural gas by producing more in America, but only if state and local governments revoke their regulations that prevent more production.
S Korea's SK Gas to buy supply from Energy Transfer's Lake Charles LNG - South Korea's SK Gas will buy 400,000 mt/year of supply from Energy Transfer's proposed Lake Charles LNG export facility in Louisiana under an 18-year deal announced by the US operator May 3. Some 5.1 million mt/year of the terminal's capacity has now been covered under long-term agreements, all of which were announced within the last month or so. Amid high spot prices in end-user markets, there has been a flurry of commercial activity during the first several months of 2022 tied to current and proposed US LNG export terminals, which offer long-term contracts with fixed fees and destination flexibility. The long-term deal with SK Gas Trading is on a free-on-board basis. The purchase price is indexed to the US Henry Hub benchmark plus a fixed liquefaction charge. First deliveries are expected to begin as early as 2026. The sale and purchase agreement will take effect upon Energy Transfer meeting certain conditions, including taking a final investment decision on the project. The other long-term supply deals tied to Lake Charles LNG are with Swiss commodity trader Gunvor, announced May 2, and with China's ENN and affiliates, announced March 29. Energy Transfer, which lost Shell as a joint venture partner in 2020, has proceeded with the development of Lake Charles LNG. Energy Transfer may reduce the size of the project to two trains with 11 million mt/year of LNG capacity, from three trains with 16.45 million mt/year of capacity, the company said in a US regulatory filing in February.
The U.S. Has Lost Its Position As The World’s Top LNG Exporter -After briefly surpassing Qatar and Australia as the world’s top LNG exporter, the United States lost the top slot to Qatar in April as volumes in the north dropped along with heating fuel demand, Bloomberg reports. Bloomberg data now shows that Qatar exported 7.5 million metric tons of LNG in April. American LNG production was somewhat reduced in April, Bloomberg notes, due to the end of the winter season and lower demand for heating fuel. With promises to help the European Union replace Russian gas and a new American export terminal due to come online soon, however, the U.S. could once again reclaim the top spot later in the year. In March, U.S. LNG exports rose 16%, according to Reuters. Soaring demand for U.S. LNG has now rebooted export projects that had previously languished, and the Biden administration has approved new export licenses for projects under development. Last week, the Biden administration authorized more LNG shipments from two U.S. plants under development. The move came as Russia cut off gas to Poland and Bulgaria for refusal to pay in roubles. One of those plants is Texas-based Golden Pass LNG, which is owned by Exxon and Qatar Petroleum and is expected to go online in 2025. The second is the Louisiana-based Magnolia LNG, owned by Glenfame Group LLC and expected to launch in 2027. Another factor adding to U.S. LNG exports in the coming months will be the ramp-up launch, on April 29, of the Louisiana-based Calcasieu Pass export terminal, which is the seventh export terminal to begin production in the United States since 2016. This terminal can turn around 3.1 billion cubic feet per day, according to the EIA, with two shipping berths that can load up to 185,000 cubic meters. Calcasieu shipped its first LNG on March 1st, and natural gas deliveries to the terminal have steadily increased since the beginning of the year. Three blocks are still awaiting approval at this plant, expected by year’s end.
BP Reports $20B Loss in 1Q Results - BP reported a loss of $20.4 billion, and an underlying replacement cost profit of $6.2 billion, in its first quarter 2022 results statement published on Tuesday. The reported loss for the quarter was primarily due to BP’s decision to exit its Rosneft shareholding and includes adjusting items before tax of $30.8 billion, BP outlined. This figure compared with a profit of $2.3 billion in the fourth quarter of 2021 and a profit of $4.6 billion in the first quarter of 2021. BP’s first quarter 2022 underlying replacement cost profit of $6.2 billion marked an increase from the $4.1 billion recorded in the previous quarter and the $2.6 billion recorded in the first quarter of last year. The 1Q 2022 underlying replacement cost profit was said to be driven by exceptional oil and gas trading, higher oil realizations and a stronger refining result, partly offset by the absence of Rosneft from the first quarter underlying result. BP reported an operating cash flow of $8.2 billion during the first quarter, compared to $6.1 billion in 4Q 2021 and 1Q 2021, and a surplus cash flow of $4.1 billion, compared to $2.9 billion in 4Q 2021 and $1.6 billion in 1Q 2021. The company’s net debt was said to have fallen to $27.5 billion at the end of the first quarter of 2022. This figure stood at $30.6 billion in 4Q 2021 and $33.3 billion in 1Q 2021. “In a quarter dominated by the tragic events in Ukraine and volatility in energy markets, BP’s focus has been on supplying the reliable energy our customers need,” BP’s chief executive officer Bernard Looney said in a company statement. “Our decision in February to exit our shareholding in Rosneft resulted in the material non-cash charges and headline loss we reported today. But it has not changed our strategy, our financial frame, or our expectations for shareholder distributions,” he added in the statement.
Oil is soaring. Will the majors stick with net zero? - Weeks after BP PLC declared it would go net zero in February 2020, oil prices plummeted to $18 a barrel because of the pandemic. Some analysts wondered if oil demand would ever recover, making it easier for other oil giants, like Equinor ASA and Shell PLC, to follow suit with net-zero plans of their own.Instead, the opposite has happened.Demand has come surging back to pre-pandemic levels, sending oil prices soaring to around $110 a barrel and offering a potential test of oil majors’ climate commitments. The clamor for oil has become more acute since Russia invaded Ukraine, with Western companies limiting purchases of Russian crude.It’s against that backdrop that the three European oil majors will report first-quarter earnings this week. Analysts expect all three — BP, Equinor and Shell — to boast substantial profits.The big question is what they plan to do with the money. Those companies have pursued a strategy of funneling investments to their best oil and gas fields, renewable projects and emerging technologies like hydrogen. BP and Shell explicitly pledged to gradually ratchet back oil production. One of the big questions entering this week is whether the majors unveil plans to increase oil production. Like many companies, the trio entered 2022 cautiously. Oil prices were already climbing at the start of the year, but companies were initially hesitant to increase investment in new drilling. Equinor initially targeted a 2 percent increase in production this year. BP predicted output would be flat while Shell said it expected production to fall in the first three months of the year.Shell, in particular, could face challenges ramping up production, Dewar noted. The company sold its assets in the Permian Basin, a Texas shale field, to ConocoPhillips for $9.5 billion last year (Climatewire, June 21, 2021).But so far, the European giants have focused on bolstering their balance sheets rather than drilling, paying down debt and funneling money to shareholders in the form of higher dividends, Russia will weigh heavily on BP and Shell. Both companies pulled out of the country after Russian President Vladmir Putin ordered his invasion of Ukraine. Exxon Mobil Corp. was able to post a $5.5 billion profit in the first quarter, despite writing off a $3.4 billion investment in its Sakhalin 1 operation in Russia.America’s oil majors have been reluctant to reduce oil output and embrace renewables, like their European counterparts, focusing instead on technologies like hydrogen and carbon capture and sequestration. A better preview of what to expect this week from the European giants could come from TotalEnergies SE, the French oil major.Total said last week it would deploy two additional gas rigs in the North Sea off Denmark, as part of a $15 billion budget for 2022. That was on the high end of what the company had initially forecast it would spend this year.But Total CEO Patrick Pouyanné dismissed the idea of an all-out drilling boom. “I don’t want to enter into the mistakes we have done on the previous supercycles where inflation costs rise and because any barrels might be profitable we’ll begin to drill anything,” he said.Instead, he said the company would focus on low-cost oil projects while continuing to pursue its strategy to achieve net zero by 2050.
As world demand increases, US natural gas production slows -As many countries look for new suppliers to end their dependence on Russian gas after Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, U.S. natural gas production growth has slowed. While the U.S. is already the world's largest producer of natural gas, and despite prices nearing a 14-year high, its two mainstays of production, the Appalachian region and West Texas, are seeing slower growth, with companies blaming a lack of adequate pipeline infrastructure. Since Russia invaded Ukraine on 24th February, U.S. gas prices have soared about 50 percent as European countries look to the U.S., the world's second largest exporter, to sell more liquefied natural gas (LNG). In Appalachia, which supplied about 37 percent of U.S. gas in 2021, growth has slowed because energy firms are finding it harder to build new pipes to move gas out of Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia. With pipelines in the Permian Shale, the nation's second largest gas supply basin, which provides some 19 percent of U.S. gas in 2021 filling quickly, analysts said production growth in that Texas-New Mexico basin could slow significantly next year unless firms start building new pipelines soon. Energy analysts expect benchmark gas prices will average $4.24 per million British thermal units (mmBtu) in 2022, which would be the highest annual average in eight years. Pipeline construction has slowed, and output growth dropped to an average of 4 percent in 2020 and 2021. Analysts at Bank of America said Appalachia "is nearing takeaway capacity limits." One giant project, the Atlantic Coast pipeline, was canceled in 2020 after costs rose from an estimated $6.0 to $6.5 billion to $8 billion, while another long-delayed project, Equitrans Midstream Corp's $6.2 billion Mountain Valley line from West Virginia to Virginia has been delayed by ongoing lawsuits.
Europe Gas Slips as Mild Weather, LNG Offset Russia Risk for Now - -- European natural gas edged lower amid mild weather and an abundance of supply arriving by tankers from global suppliers. Dutch next-month futures fell as much as 3.1% for a fourth consecutive daily decline before paring some of those losses. Higher-than-usual temperatures are expected across most of western Europe. The region has also imported huge amounts of liquefied natural gas on the back of muted consumption in Asia. Still, traders remain on edge due to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s request for ruble payments for gas supplied in April. Moscow has already cut supplies to Poland and Bulgaria for failing to comply with its new mechanism, and more regional suppliers will face payment deadlines in coming weeks. Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi said that setting up a ruble-denominated account to pay for Russian gas would be a breach of contract. “It’s very important that the EU Commission gives a clear legal opinion if payment in rubles is a violation of sanctions,” Draghi said at a press conference Monday. He urged clearer direction from the European Union as Italy is due to make payments in about two weeks, adding that the country will adhere to the EU’s guidance. Observed Russian flows transiting Ukraine and supplies via the Nord Stream pipeline were stable on Tuesday. Gas supplies to and from Germany via Russia’s Yamal-Europe link remained at zero despite capacity bookings, grid data show. Still, the EU is pushing ahead with efforts to line up alternative deliveries. The bloc will seek to step up cooperation with African countries to help replace imports of Russian gas and reduce dependence on Moscow by almost two-thirds this year. That mainly includes LNG from western African nations. Benchmark futures for next-month delivery declined 1.1% at 96 euros per megawatt-hour by 8:26 a.m. in Amsterdam.
East Med. gas could substitute only 20% of EU's Russian gas imports - Eastern Mediterranean natural gas resources could only substitute 20% of the EU's Russian gas imports at most if LNG facilities in Egypt work at full capacity and the proposed Turkiye-Israel pipeline is realized, according to Sohbet Karbuz, director of Hydrocarbons at the Mediterranean Observatory for Energy (OME). Karbuz said in an exclusive interview with Anadolu Agency that the only gas resources in the Eastern Mediterranean operational for exports are via two LNG facilities located in Egypt. These facilities broke a ten-year export record last year with a cumulative capacity of 19 billion cubic meters (bcm). If Israeli gas is brought into the equation over the next three to five years, Karbuz said Egypt could reach its full export capacity but this would only cover a 12% share of the EU’s demand. Furthermore, he argued that only an additional 10 bcm of gas could be exported under a best-case scenario from the Eastern Mediterranean in the next five to 10 years. With the EU target to cut two-thirds of its 155 bcm of annual Russian gas imports by the year-end and cutting all by 2027, he said it would be difficult to acquire replacement gas. 'This year's LNG imports from Egypt are projected to remain the same, and even if all these LNG cargoes are sent to Europe, this amount only equals 6% of the EU's total gas imports from Russia,' he warned. Assuming the proposed Turkiye-Israel pipeline is realized, he said it could only help the EU substitute only 20% of its Russian gas imports. “In short, Eastern Mediterranean gas cannot be an alternative to Russian gas. It only has a limited potential to substitute it,' he said.
Gas Prices Could Rocket in the Near Term - If Russia implements gas shutoffs to more countries unwilling to pay in Rubles, in addition to Poland and Bulgaria, prices could rocket in the near term. That’s according to Rystad Energy analyst Nikoline Bromander, who said many European energy ministers are actively exploring and discussing how to effectively phase out Russian oil and gas while keeping the lights on and avoiding a full-blown domestic energy crisis. “As these countries look for alternative sources of energy, any decrease in sales will negatively impact Gazprom’s income and could lead to operational issues,” Bromander said in a statement sent to Rigzone late Monday. “Russia will have to find a balance between reduced domestic production, domestic storage availability and diversity of pipeline exports,” Bromander added. To accept Putin’s terms, European buyers may make Dollars or Euro payments into an account at Russia’s Gazprombank, which is later converted into Rubles and transferred into a second account for the payment to be finalized, according to the Rystad analyst. “After Gazprom shut off gas to Bulgaria and Poland, many European countries could accept Putin’s payment terms in fear of suffering the same fate,” Bromander said. “For instance, gas distributors in Germany and Austria are currently working on ways to accept Putin’s demand for payment in Rubles,” the analyst added. “Not all countries have readily available alternatives to Russian gas, and as new and upgraded infrastructure requires considerable time and financial investment, many countries could struggle to replace a sudden drop in supply,” Bromander continued. Bromander outlined that Russian pipeline exports are stable after supplies to Poland and Bulgaria halted last week and added that the reversed flow from Germany to Poland is also stable. In a separate statement sent to Rigzone last week, Bromander and fellow Rystad analayst Kaushal Ramesh described the gas embargo on Poland and Bulgaria as Russia’s first shot back at the West. In her opening remarks at the press conference of the Extraordinary Energy Council on May 2, Kadri Simson, the European commissioner for energy, outlined that Gazprom’s decision to suspend gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria marked “another turning point in the current crisis”. “It is an unjustified breach of existing contracts and a warning that any Member State could be next,” Kadri warned. “It is also an attempt to divide the EU, to which we must respond by reinforcing our unity and solidarity,” Kadri added. “The Commission has provided guidance to the Member States on the issue of payment in Rubles. We made clear that this is a unilateral change to contracts, unjustified by commercial reasons, and it is perfectly legitimate under commercial law to reject it. We have explained that payments in Rubles lead to a clear breach of sanctions, as they provide assets for the operations of the Central Bank,” Kadri continued.
Dutch dockers refuse to unload ship with Russian diesel cargo - Dutch dock workers are refusing to unload a tanker with a consignment of Russian diesel in the port of Amsterdam, a day after a similar action by dockers kept the ship from entering Rotterdam port.The Sunny Liger, a 42,000-tonne tanker was lying at anchor off Amsterdam on Saturday, while port companies were mulling her entry into the Dutch capital.On Friday, dock workers in Rotterdam also refused to handle her cargo.“Late last night we requested all parties in the port of Amsterdam not to let the ship dock and not to (handle) it,” the FNV trade union’s harbour worker branch chairwoman Asmae Hajjari said.“The ship will not enter the Amsterdam port,” she added in a tweet.The European Union has imposed a wide range of sanctions on Moscow since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24. However, oil and gas are not part of the punitive measures.Dockworkers in Sweden had already turned away the tanker, after which it set course for the Netherlands.“Russia is financing the war in Ukraine with the cargo,” the FNV union said in a statement thanking the Swedish workers for turning the ship away.Sailing from Primorsk near Russia’s St Petersburg a week ago, the Marshall-Islands-flagged tanker’s final destination was Amsterdam, according to the maritime website MarineTraffic.com.“At the moment the ship lies at anchor in the North Sea. So far it has not applied for permission to enter the harbour,” Port of Amsterdam spokeswoman Marcella Wesseling said.“In principle we cannot refuse her entry because she doesn’t fall under the sanctions regime (against Russia),” Wesseling told AFP.Wesseling said the ship could be allowed into port once it has made a formal request, but “only if it was safe for it to do so”.“If there is any doubt about this, we can decide otherwise,” Wesseling said.“The port’s nautical service providers and terminal have indicated that they have concerns about the safety surrounding the handling of this ship,” she stressed.A company responsible for towing the ship into port said it would decline if asked, saying it could lead to an unsafe situation if protesters want to block the ship from entering, the Dutch commercial news station RTL Nieuws reported.Dutch foreign minister Wopke Hoekstra said Friday legally the Sunny Liger could not be refused entry into a Dutch port, but that he supported the dock workers’ actions.
America Is the World's Largest Oil Producer. So Why Is Losing Russia's Oil Such a Big Deal? - The federal government does not claim any right to the oil or gas under private land. It has no policy tool to quickly increase or decrease drilling. During the first half of the 20th century, when America truly dominated the global oil industry, one government in the United States actually was able to set prices at the global level in the same way that the OPEC Plus cartel does today. But this happened, remarkably, at the state level. The Texas Railroad Commissionopened and closed the state’s formidable taps.Texas’s easy-to-reach resources have since dried up, so the commission no longer plays its price-setting role. Now Texas oil comes from modern horizontal fracking wells, which take six to eight months to produce their first drop of oil.That means, under the U.S. oil industry as it exists today, there is no way to spin up new oil production in a few weeks or months. But more important, it means that U.S. oil companies have developed the opposite of independence. Since Congress lifted the ban on oil exports in 2015, all American-drilled oil and some of our natural gas have been priced on the international market. Global market forces, not our abundance of domestic fossil fuels, set the price of oil and gasoline in the United States.This has exposed every fracking company to the volatility of the global oil market. Twice over the past decade, oil prices surged enough that frackers responded by drilling more wells and putting more oil on the global market. Each time, they drilled so much oil that prices crashed again, ruining their investment and driving a wave of consolidation in the industry. By far the worst of these bust cycles happened during the pandemic. Today, the U.S. fracking industry, which used to comprise hundreds of firms, has been whittled down to several dozen companies.The industry, which has twice betrayed its investors, now has financial PTSD. Fracking companies are so worried about shanking their investors that they have barely drilled new wells as prices have climbed. (Last week, as Russian oil fell off the global market, the number of fracking wells in the U.S. actually went down.) This new “capital discipline” has turned the industry into something of a cartel. Scott Sheffield, the head of Pioneer Natural Resources, the country’s biggest shale company, declared last year that no fracking company would drill a new well even if the price of oil went above $100 a barrel—which it has. “All the shareholders that I’ve talked to said that if anybody goes back to growth, they will punish those companies,” he said.This means that although America may be “energy independent” on paper, American consumers have won no benefits from this independence, and American officials cannot assert this independence in any meaningful way. Market dynamics, not overzealous regulations, have imprisoned the industry.That hasn’t stopped lobbyists from pretending otherwise. The American Petroleum Institute recently sent a policy wish list to the Department of Energy. The letter chides the White House for pursuing “false solutions” to the country’s high energy prices. It asks, for instance, that the Biden administration speed up several regulatory processes, such as a new five-year offshore-leasing plan. It implies that the government should loosen certain environmental regulations. Many of these ideas wouldn’t start to affect the oil market for several years. The API makes no estimate of how many thousands of barrels a day its members would produce, nor does it promise that these ideas would fill the gap left by Russian producers.
Russia raises crude exports via key routes despite lower output — Russia’s crude oil exports in the first 28 days of April jumped more than 17%, with hikes recorded for flows via all key pipelines and ports even as the nation’s production declined. The country exported an average of 4.66 million barrels a day over the period to its key markets via pipelines and port facilities operated by Transneft PJSC, according to Bloomberg calculations based on data from the Energy Ministry’s CDU-TEK unit. Deliveries via the nation’s ports jumped nearly 54%, compared with the prior month, while supplies via the Druzhba pipeline to Europe and the ESPO conduit to China grew 7.8%, the calculations show. The only direction where the flows dropped compared with the same period in March was the Druzhba pipeline leg toward Germany, according to the data. At the same time, Russia’s oil output fell to 38.4 million tons, or an average of 10.05 million barrels a day, according to Bloomberg calculations based on the data. That’s 8.7% below production in March and the lowest level for the nation since November 2020. Russia, which accounts for roughly 10% of global crude output, has faced an unprecedented wave of economic sanctions as western countries and their partners try to end the invasion of Ukraine by curbing the Kremlin’s revenues. The real impact of these overlapping measures has hard to gauge, with key statistics on production and overseas shipments pointing in different directions. That’s because the country’s refineries have been processing less crude as they lose overseas markets and domestic fuel demand drops, freeing up more crude for export. Some nations, such as the U.S. and the U.K., have announced outright bans on imports of Russian crude and oil products. The European Union is considering such restrictions, even though they could hurt the regional economy. As Western customers look elsewhere, Russia has been able to find new markets, notably in Asia, by offering its crude at deep discounts.
EU leans towards Russian oil ban by year-end, diplomats say - The European Union is leaning towards a ban on imports of Russian oil by the end of the year, two EU diplomats said, after talks between the European Commission and EU member states this weekend. The European Union is preparing a sixth package of sanctions against Russia over the invasion just over two months ago of Ukraine that Moscow calls a special military operation. The package is expected to target Russian oil, Russian and Belarusian banks, as well as more individuals and companies. The Commission, which is coordinating the EU response, held talks dubbed "confessionals" with small groups of EU countries and will aim to firm up its sanctions plan in time for a meeting of EU ambassadors in Brussels on Wednesday. EU energy ministers are also due to meet in the Belgian capital on Monday to discuss the issue. The EU diplomats said some EU countries were able to end their use of oil before the end of 2022, but others, particularly more southerly members, were concerned about the impact on prices. Germany, one of the bigger buyers of Russia oil, appeared to be willing to go along with the end-2022 cut-off, the diplomats said, but countries including Austria, Hungary, Italy and Slovakia still had reservations. Some EU countries have proposed opting for a cap on the price they are willing to pay for Russian oil. However, it would still leave them forced to pay higher prices for supplies from elsewhere.
The Coming EU Embargo of Russian Oil, Russia’s Economic Challenges, and the Question of Operational Capacity by Yves Smith - When the EU commits to a measure to undermine Russia that the US opposed as unproductive, one has to wonder when rationality and self interest left the room. The West is only beginning to suffer the cost of blowback from economic sanctions against Russia in terms of higher energy and food costs, which are soon to be followed by price increases and shortages of other commodities where Russia has significant market share. Yet the EU is launching an embargo of Russian oil, just after Poland, Bulgaria, and Finland have decided to cut themselves off from Russian gas, and Russia is also in a spat with Germany after Germany seized Gazprom’s operations there.The EU is set to provide more details about its scheme this week, so we’ll give only a high level discussion now.There is always the possibility that the EU program will be unexpectedly well thought out, particularly in terms of contingency planning, despite the idea only having been mentioned as a possibility at the start of March and getting more serious interest in early April.Our concern is the limited time to consider such a big change means there may be quite a few unknown unknowns. To give an idea of scale of study it takes to understand a system, it took a team of physicists 7 years to identify and map the physical inputs and outputs of Australia and deliver their findings in the early 2000s. And at least in Germany, and I suspect in other EU countries, energy rationing schemes have industry taking the cuts first, households last. In a world of extended supply chains and just-in-time manufacturing, which creates fragility and tight coupling, it’s all too easy to have energy-shortfall-induced problems at one company propagate to others in the same sector.Admittedly, the EU is not planning to wean itself fully off Russian oil until the end of the year, but that still seems aggressive.It’s even more difficult to judge the Russian side of the equation, but we’ll also briefly discuss the latest update by its central bank governor, Elvira Nabiullina, which we’ve embedded at the end of this post.
EU proposes gradual ban on Russian oil in sixth round of sanctions against Moscow - The European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, on Wednesday put forward new sanctions against the Kremlin, which will include a six-month phase out of Russian crude imports. Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, and evidence of war crimes, has pushed the European Union to take bolder steps on energy sanctions. But imposing measures that could reduce, or fully cut, Russian energy supplies to the EU has been a complicated task for the bloc. This is because the region is reliant on Russia for several sources of energy, including oil. In 2020, Russian oil imports accounted for about 25% of the bloc's crude purchases, according to the region's statistics office. "Let us be clear: it will not be easy," European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said during a speech at the European Parliament on Wednesday. "Some member states are strongly dependent on Russian oil. But we simply have to work on it. We now propose a ban on Russian oil. This will be a complete import ban on all Russian oil, seaborne and pipeline, crude and refined." Oil prices were trading about 3% higher on Wednesday morning. Brent crude futures were at $108.30 a barrel in late-morning deals in Europe. The ban had been a highly controversial topic within the EU, but the move gained more momentum after Germany backed the idea. Two EU nations — Slovakia and Hungary which are both highly dependent on Russian energy — have been demanding exemptions. Von der Leyen chose not to give any details on exemptions during her speech, but three EU officials, who did not want to be named due to the sensitive nature of the issue, confirmed to CNBC that the commission's proposal includes this flexibility — giving Hungary and Slovakia a longer period of time to phase out Russian oil.
E.U.'s Russian oil ban could reduce global emissions - The European Union’s plan to phase out imports of Russian oil could have the added benefit of reducing the fossil-fuel-based emissions that are rapidly warming the planet. The proposed ban, announced yesterday as part of the E.U.’s latest sanctions package, is largely an attempt to further deprive the Kremlin of the revenue it’s using to fund its war in Ukraine. However, the move could also end up further reducing Russian production and incentivizing Europe to accelerate its move away from fossil fuels, according to energy experts. Much depends on what gets final approval as policymakers continue talks on the embargo. Under the proposal, imports of Russian crude oil to most of the E.U. would stop within six months, with refined products to follow by the end of the year. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the phased-in embargo will allow Europe to secure alternative supplies of oil from outside Russia and minimize the impact on global oil markets. “Let us be clear, it will not be easy. Some member states are strongly dependent on Russian oil. But we simply have to work on it,” she said yesterday when announcing the package to the European Parliament. Hungary and Slovakia are pushing for an extra year to cut their imports, and opposition from them and other member states could lead policymakers to water down parts of the initial proposal, according to a note from Oslo, Norway-based research firm Rystad Energy. Part of what will come with an embargo is an element of forced demand reduction, since there’s not enough supply available elsewhere to make a one for one swap for Russian imports, said Abhiram Rajendran, head of oil markets research at Energy Intelligence and adjunct research scholar at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy. Russia’s oil production has already taken a hit due to a ban on imports by the U.S and United Kingdom, as well as some self-sanctioning by major traders and oil companies. The International Energy Agency’s latest oil report said Russian production had fallen by 700,000 barrels a day as of early April. Russian deliveries of oil imports to the E.U. fell by 20 percent in mid-April, compared to the period before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to an analysis by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air. At the same time, oil deliveries from Russia to destinations outside the E.U. grew by 20 percent. But shipments to those new destinations “are nowhere near enough to make up for the fall in exports to Europe,” CREA said in its latest research.. An E.U. embargo could deal a further blow by forcing Russia to permanently close some of its aging oil wells, said analysts. Rystad Energy estimates that an E.U. embargo could reduce Russian exports and upstream oil production by 2 million barrels of oil per day within six months. “So we are looking at the overall shrinking oil production capacity of Russia, which will likely lead to reduced emissions from the Russian oil and gas sector,” said Maria Pastukhova, a senior policy advisor for climate think tank E3G.
Lured by cheap oil, India becomes largest customer of Russian Urals crude - India emerged as the largest buyer of Russian Urals crude in April enticed by hefty discounts, as several of the grade's regular European customers have boycotted this oil following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Urals has been trading at record-lows in recent weeks, with some deals being done at discount of almost $40/b to the Platts Dated Brent crude oil benchmark. Around a quarter of Russia's seaborne crude exports of the medium sour Urals in April is poised to travel to the South Asian country, according to trading sources and ship tracking data. Russia exported 627,000 b/d of Urals crude to India in April compared to according to 274,000 b/d and zero in March and February respectively, according to data from commodity intelligence firm Kpler. Seaborne Urals crude exports averaged 2.24 million b/d, its highest since May 2019, despite sanctions and boycotts by several of Europe's refiners, Kpler data showed. Until Russia's invasion of Ukraine, India very rarely bought Russian oil. But with Russian crude trading at record-lows in recent week weeks, Indian refiners have been unable to resist buying cheap crude despite pressure from Western governments. The medium sour grade Urals was assessed at its lowest level ever relative to Dated Brent at minus $39.40/b CIF Rotterdam on April 29, according to S&P Global Commodity Insights' Platts assessment. The price of Russian Urals CIF Rotterdam averaged $69.89/b in April, according to Platts data. This compares with a monthly average of $104.40/b for United Kingdom's Forties, which is similar in quality to Urals.
ExxonMobil Declares Force Majeure on Sakhalin-1, Writes Off $3.4 Billion in Q1 -- Exxon Mobil Corp. has declared force majeure on its Sakhalin-1 operations offshore Sakhalin Island in the Russian Far East, attributing its decision to a disruption in crude oil shipments and a subsequent slowdown in production following the West’s imposition of sanctions against Russia over the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.Exxon subsidiary Exxon Neftegaz Ltd. (ENL) operates Sakhalin-1 under a production-sharing agreement (PSA) in which it holds a 30% stake in partnership with the Japanese Consortium, Sakhalin Oil and Gas Development (SODECO), which holds another 30%; India’s ONGC Videsh Ltd. with 20%; and a further 20% held by Russia’s state-owned Rosneft.In its Q1 earnings call on 29 April, ExxonMobil announced that it had recorded a $3.4 billion charge related to its Sakhalin-1 investment, reflected as an unfavorable identified item which “mainly impacts the upstream segment.”The company estimated its Q1 earnings at $5.5 billion ($1.28 per share assuming dilution) and reported that the $3.4 billion charge related to its planned exit from Sakhalin represented $0.79 per share assuming dilution.Exxon’s chairman and CEO Darren Woods told investment analysts participating in the analysts call that Sakhalin-1 operations represented “less than 2% of our total production” in 2021, “about 65,000 oil equivalent barrels per day, and about 1% of our corporate operating earnings.”A poster child for world records in extended-reach drilling, Sakhalin-1 initiated oil production in 2005 and is today exporting about 273,000 B/D of light, sweet “Sokol” grade crude (a grade similar in quality to that produced in the US Permian Basin). South Korea is the principal buyer of Sokol along with some sales going to Japan, Australia, Thailand, and the US, according to Exxon.India’s ONGC Videsh told Reuters on 2 March that it did not see “any immediate impact” on Sakhalin-1’s operation when asked to comment after Exxon declared that same day its decision to exit about $4 billion in assets (including Sakhalin-1) and cease all of its Russian activities. In late March, another partner in the PSA, Japan Petroleum Exploration Co. (Japex) said, in unveiling its long-term business plan, that it planned to keep its stake in Sakhalin-1, Reuters reported at the time. Japex owns a 15.28% stake in the SODECO consortium.
BP to pay more than $65,000 over 2020 jet fuel spill in Adelaide's Port River - Petroleum giant BP will pay a $48,000 fine and other costs for spilling jet fuel into Adelaide's Port River in 2020. The UK-registered fuel company BP Shipping Limited has agreed to pay $65,319 to avoid prosecution by South Australia's Environment Protection Authority (EPA). The EPA said it received 16 complaints about the spill, with residents reporting health effects from the fumes. BP's payment includes a $48,000 civil penalty and more than $17,000 in technical expenses. The company will additionally pay almost $11,000 in legal costs, but the EPA conceded the fine had been reduced because of BP Shipping's "good compliance record". The fuel spill happened on February 29, 2020, when BP vessel British Engineer was moored at Largs Bay, transferring A-1 jet fuel to the onshore terminal owned by Mobil. A-1 fuel is variously described as kerosene-like and kerosene-based, and is among the most common fuels used in the global aviation industry. It is also regarded as toxic — according to BP's website, the fuel can "cause severe and potentially fatal" consequences if ingested. The 2020 spill occurred when a pressurised liquid chemical hose on the ship failed, sending an "unknown quantity of fuel onto the deck of the ship and into the Port River", the EPA said. It found the company did not take "all reasonable steps" to prevent the hose failure.
Thai, Malaysian oil companies pull out of Myanmar gas project - Thailand’s oil state-run oil company PTTEP and Malaysia’s Petronas have withdrawn from the Yetagun gas project, becoming the latest energy firms to pull out from Myanmar after a military coup in February 2021. “The withdrawal is part of the company portfolio management to refocus on projects that support the energy security for the country,” PTTEP chief executive Montri Rawanchaikul said in a statement late on Friday. PTTEP said its stake would be reallocated proportionately to the remaining shareholders with no commercial value, pending regulatory approval. The Thai company has a 19.3 percent stake in the Yetagun gas field in the waters of southern Myanmar. Carigali, a subsidiary of Petronas, owns 40.9 percent. The Myanmar public has a 20.5 percent stake, and the Japanese Nippon Oil has 19.3 percent. Petronas, operating the project since 2003, said the decision followed a review of the “asset rationalization strategy” to adapt to the “changing industrial environment and accelerated energy transition.” International energy companies like Chevron and Total pulled out of Myanmar after the military coup ended the fledgling Myanmar democracy. The companies denounced alleged human rights abuses committed by the coup junta. At least 1,803 people have died in the alleged brutal repression of Myanmar security forces on peaceful and unarmed protesters, nonprofit Assistance Association for Political Prisoners data showed.
Perenco shuts Gabon oil terminal after 300 000-barrel leak - Anglo-French oil company Perenco has shut its Cap Lopez oil terminal near Port Gentil in Gabon after a storage tank leaked more than 300 000 barrels of oil, it said in a statement. The oil, which amounts to more than Gabon’s daily crude output, leaked into retention tanks on Thursday and did not spill into the surrounding area, the company said. The cause of the spill was not yet clear and Perenco has opened an investigation. Reuters was unable to reach the site on Saturday. “A situation of force majeure has been declared, in order to secure the facilities and prevent any environmental damage,” the statement said. No marine pollution has been detected yet, it said. A spokesman said that it could take a few days to pump the oil back into the tanks. Gabon, in Central Africa, produces about 200 000 barrels of oil a day. Output from its mature fields have declined in recent decades, down from around 370 000 barrels a day in 1997.
Gunmen Storm Shell Owned Military Checkpoint in Nigeria --Gunmen in the Nigerian Bayelsa state stormed a military checkpoint owned by the Shell Petroleum Development Agency in three boats recently, according to Dryad Global’s latest Maritime Security Threat Advisory (MSTA) report, which was updated on May 2. One person died and one member of military personnel was injured during a gunfight, the MSTA outlined. Rigzone has asked Shell for comment on the incident but has not yet received a reply at the time of writing. Also in Nigeria, the country’s senate passed a bill imposing jail sentence of at least 15 years for paying a ransom fee for someone who has been kidnapped, and the act of kidnapping is now punishable by death, the MSTA highlighted. “It remains unclear how the new law will be enforced and how this would impact the payment of ransom by K&R insurance on behalf of the shipping companies,” the MSTA noted. Looking elsewhere, the MSTA pointed out that numerous European port workers and protestors across Europe have refused to unload Russian oil tankers. “Dutch dockworkers refused to unload a tanker carrying Russian oil after it was rejected entry to Swedish, Rotterdam, and Amsterdam ports,” the MSTA stated. “The European Union has thus far excluded oil and gas from its stringent sanctions on trade, however, it is set to propose a ban on Russian oil by the end of the year with restrictions on imports introduced gradually until then,” the MSTA added. “Nonetheless, there is an impetus amongst many European dock workers to refuse to unload the oil in a show of ‘international solidarity’ despite the absence of sanctions,” the MSTA continued. Dryad’s latest MSTA also noted that the force majeure at Marsa El Brega continues in Libya due to protests demanding Prime Minister Dbeibah step down. “On 1 May 2022, the NOC announced the ‘temporary lifting of the force majeure from the Zeuitina oil terminal’ in order to allow two tankers to load to allow for enough space to store the displaced volume of the crude oil,” the MSTA stated. “The concessions in addition to the resumptions of operations at El Sharara oil field signal the potential of the series of force majeures being lifted shortly,” the MSTA added. Dryad Global’s previous MSTA, which was updated on April 25, highlighted that an explosion at an illegal oil refining depot in the Nigerian Rivers state left more than 100 people dead. This MSTA also pointed out the refining effects of clashes between government-allied militias in Al-Zawiya and noted that reports indicated that Houthi Rebels had continued their attacks on the Marib government stronghold despite a truce.
Iran boosts oil exports as China cuts imports from Russia -Iran is boosting oil exports in the current year as major oil buyers like China are cutting back imports from Russia due to the war with Ukraine, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing data from commodity data provider Kpler. As reported, Iranian oil exports increased by 30 percent in the first quarter of 2022 compared to the previous year, to reach 870,000 barrels per day (bpd). The jump in Iran’s oil exports in Q1 was the fastest among all producers in West Asia, while the volume of exports is estimated to be the highest since former U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew from the so-called Iranian nuclear deal in 2018, the report said. China is a major buyer of Iranian crude oil which has never stopped shipping in the Islamic republic’s oil even during the sanctions. Now, the Asian country is emboldened to import more oil from Iran, not expecting to be hit by U.S. sanctions “because Washington has its plate full with Russia,” a Kpler analyst told the Journal. Earlier this month, Washington Free Beacon, an American conservative political journalism website, said in a report that Iran’s “fleet of ghost ships” has been successfully sidestepping U.S. sanctions, delivering millions of barrels of crude oil and petroleum products to foreign destinations. The report claimed that Iranian oil tankers have shipped at least $22 billion worth of oil only to China since 2021. According to Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, the country’s oil exports have increased by 40 percent in recent months. Iran’s crude oil production in March reached 2.546 million bpd to register a 7,000-barrel increase compared to the figure for February, according to OPEC’s latest monthly report. The country produced 2.539 million bpd of crude oil in February, the report said citing secondary sources. The Islamic Republic’s average crude output for the first quarter of 2022 stood at 2.528 million bpd indicating a 56,000-bpd increase compared to the figure for the fourth quarter of the previous year, the report indicated. The country’s heavy crude oil price also increased by $19.36 in March, to register a 20.8 percent rise compared to the previous month, according to the OPEC report.
Iran's oil minister visits Venezuela, strengthening sanctioned OPEC members' alliance -Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro and Iranian petroleum minister Javad Owji met May 2 in Caracas, local media reported, deepening ties between the two OPEC members who have helped each other boost their vital crude oil production in defiance of US sanctions. Venezuela, which has had difficulty securing diluent required to produce its Orinoco oil due to the sanctions, has imported several cargoes of Iranian condensate since October to blend with its extra heavy crude, helping output rebound from historic lows. Little detail was given of the official business conducted, with Venezuela releasing no official details and Iran's oil and foreign ministries declining to confirm the trip. Owji and more than a dozen delegates arrived in Caracas on April 30 without prior announcement. According to local media, the delegation visited the Paraguana refining complex in western Venezuela with the president of state-owned PDVSA, Asdrubal Chavez, before Owji's meeting with Maduro at the Miraflores Palace. "A productive meeting to deepen the ties of brotherhood and cooperation in energy matters," Maduro said in a message posted on his social networks. Owji also met separately with Venezuelan counterpart Tarek el-Aissami, according to a televised report by Venezolana de Television, the state-owned broadcaster. "Caracas and Tehran reviewed the alliances they maintain in the OPEC Declaration of Cooperation, the opportunities for bilateral cooperation in the oil, gas and petrochemical sector, as well as in the multilateral," the Venezuelan petroleum ministry said on social networks. S&P Global Commodity Insights previously reported that seven 2 million barrel cargoes of Iranian condensate have arrived at the Jose terminal, one of Venezuela's main oil ports, located in the northeast. The shipments arrived in September, October, November, January, February, March and April, and have helped Iran clear some of the volumes it had accumulated in floating storage as it has struggled to find buyers. Venezuela has used the condensate to produce its extra heavy Merey 16 crude, some of which it has shipped to Iran to sell, under their deal.
Libya losing $60 million a day in oil installations shutdown - Libya is losing tens of millions of dollars a day from the shutdown of its oil facilities, while global prices are at their highest in years, the country’s oil minister said. Oil is the lifeblood of the North African country trying to move past a decade of conflict since the fall of ruler Muammar Gadhafi in a 2011 NATO-backed uprising. But since mid-April, Libya’s two major export terminals and several oil fields have been held hostage to the country’s latest political schism. “Production has fallen by about 600,000 barrels a day,” half the prior level, Oil and Gas Minister Mohammed Aoun said in an interview with AFP at his office in Tripoli. “Calculating the sale price at $100 a barrel, losses are at least $60 million daily,” he said. Since Russia began its invasion of Ukraine in February, triggering Western sanctions, global crude prices have reached levels unseen since 2014. On Friday, the US benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude traded above $106 per barrel. The price of Brent crude exceeded $109 a barrel. The Libyan closures follow the selection in February of a new prime minister, Fathi Bashagha, by Libya’s eastern-based parliament in a direct challenge to Tripoli-based interim Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah. Analysts say eastern Libyan forces who back Bashagha have forced the closure of the oil facilities in a bid to press Dbeibah to step down, but the incumbent insists he will only hand power to an elected successor. The political bloc supporting Bashagha is aligned with Libya’s eastern-based Libyan national army commander, Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, who in 2019-20 led a failed offensive against Tripoli, when his forces also blockaded oilfields. Haftar’s external backers include Russia, which belongs to the OPEC+ crude producers’ group.
IRAQ DATA: Federal oil exports rise 4% in April amid higher OPEC+ quota -Iraq's federal oil exports, excluding flows from the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region, rose 4.2% month on month in April, oil ministry data showed May 1, amid a higher OPEC+ quota. Total federal exports reached 3.380 million b/d in April, compared with 3.244 million b/d in March, according to ministry data. In March, federal oil exports had fallen 2.1%. Exports from southern oil terminals stood at 3.270 million b/d in April, up 2.3% from a month earlier. Exports of Kirkuk crude via the Turkish port of Ceyhan more than doubled to 99,702 b/d. Iraq's OPEC+ quota rose to 4.414 million b/d in April from 4.370 million b/d in March as the group continued to relax oil output curbs. Iraq is likely unable to increase oil exports in response to the surge in global oil prices and Russia-related supply disruptions, Deputy Prime Minister Ali Allawi said April 19 during a visit to Washington, exacerbating the ability of OPEC+ to boost its output to compensate for production shortages that have helped lift prices near record highs.OPEC+ approved on March 31 another modest oil production increase, saying it saw no need to respond to oil disruptions from the Ukraine war being waged by Russia. The OPEC+ agreement called on the 23-country producer alliance to boost output by 432,000 b/d in May. Under the deal, quotas for some countries were amended in line with production baseline changes agreed last July for Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq, the UAE and Kuwait that reflect their higher spare capacity. OPEC+ ministers are due to meet May 5 to decide on June production levels.
As of 2021, China imports more liquefied natural gas than any other country - In 2021, China imported more liquefied natural gas (LNG) than any other country, according to data from Global Trade Tracker and China’s General Administration of Customs. Prior to 2021, Japan had been the world’s largest LNG importer for decades, according to data from Cedigaz.China’s LNG imports averaged 10.5 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d), a 19% increase compared with 2020. LNG imports accounted for more than half of China’s overall natural gas imports and 30% of China’s total natural gas supply in 2021.China began importing LNG in 2006 and, with the exception of 2015, has imported more LNG each year since then. China has rapidly expanded its LNG import capacity, which was estimated at 13.9 Bcf/d in 2021. By the end of 2022, China’s regasification capacity could increase by 2.8 Bcf/d to 16.7 Bcf/d, according to data by S&P Global Platts. In 2021, China imported LNG from 25 countries. The largest six suppliers—Australia, United States, Qatar, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Russia—provided 8.9 Bcf/d, or 85%, of China’s total LNG imports.Since China lowered tariffs on LNG imports from the United States from 25% to 10% in 2019, U.S. LNG exports to China have increased and in 2021 averaged 1.2 Bcf/d. The United States was the largest supplier of spot LNG volumes to China last year. During 2022 and 2023, several new long-term contracts between China and the United States are expected to start from the Sabine Pass and Corpus Christi terminals for a combined estimated volume of up to 0.5 Bcf/d. The new U.S. LNG export terminal at Calcasieu Pass will supply China’s two national energy companies—Sinopec with 0.13 Bcf/d and CNOOC with 0.2 Bcf/d—starting next year.
China flips to selling LNG export cargoes as pandemic curbs dent demand -- China, the world’s largest LNG importer, has become a seller of LNG export cargoes as domestic demand wanes amid pandemic movement curbs in Shanghai and fears of similar restrictions being imposed elsewhere in the country as authorities move decisively to stem the spread of COVID-19. “Except for the big three national oil companies – PetroChina, Sinopec and CNOOC– which have an obligation to ensure natural gas supply, others LNG importers were heard to have resold many of their LNG imports recently,” a trade source with an LNG terminal in south China told S&P Global Commodity Insights. LNG terminals were still profiting from selling long-term LNG cargoes in the domestic market, but reselling LNG cargoes in the international market was proving more profitable, the source said. A trade source with one of the top three state-owned oil majors said it was considering diverting some summer LNG supplies to other places where prices were higher. “China’s demand for natural gas, especially for LNG, is expected to slow down this year,” he said. This comes as an COVID-19 outbreak in Beijing has sparked fears of a Shanghai-style lockdown there. Mass testing for COVID-19 has also been ordered in several other major cities such as Hangzhou and Guangzhou, adding to concerns of further restrictions. “Not only spot LNG cargoes, but also those term contract volumes with destination flexibility are expected to be resold to other places where prices are higher this year,” a third trade source said.
China processed record amounts of crude oil in 2021 but exported less gasoline and diesel --China processed record amounts of crude oil in 2021 to meet rising domestic consumption of petroleum products. In the second half of the year, China processed slightly less crude oil and began exporting significantly less gasoline and diesel than in the first half of the year to ensure sufficient domestic supply.According to China’s National Bureau of Statistics, China processed a record 14 million barrels per day (b/d) of crude oil in 2021, a 4.6% increase from 2020. Crude oil processing in China was particularly high in the first half of 2021, in response to high demand both domestically and elsewhere in Asia. Despite more refinery capacity, crude oil processing decreased by 0.4 million b/d in the second half of 2021 compared with the first half.Beginning in August 2021, several COVID-19 outbreaks in China led to mobility restrictions, which in turn reduced domestic demand for petroleum products. Mobility restrictions during the Winter Olympics and COVID-19 travel restrictions that began in March 2022 in several parts of China continued to reduce demand for petroleum products in China at the beginning of this year. China’s crude oil processing has also declined because relatively high crude oil prices are making importing crude oil more expensive.In addition, China’s refiners met their petroleum product export quotas in the first half of the year. They were not granted a second batch of export quotas until August, and those quotas were relatively low. These quotas set the maximum amounts of each product that refiners can export and are disseminated on a rolling basis.China’s exports of diesel and gasoline ended 2021 at lower levels than at the beginning of the year. Low petroleum product exports have continued into 2022 because China’s first batch of export quotas in 2022 were 56% lowerthan its first batch in 2021. Because of these quotas, in February 2022, China exported the lowest amount of diesel since early 2015.
Oil prices drop amid data showing weak growth in China - Oil prices fell on Monday, pushed by slow economic growth concerns in China, the world's biggest oil importer, due to Covid-19 pandemic. International benchmark Brent crude cost $103.34 per barrel at 1230 GMT for a 3.55% loss after closing the previous session at $107.14 a barrel. American benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) traded at $100.71 per barrel at the same time for a 3.80% drop after the previous session closed at $104.69 a barrel. Factory activity in China contracted for a second month to its lowest since February 2020 due to Covid-19 quarantine measures, data released on Saturday showed. As the cases of Kovid-19 continue to increase in China, the authorities are trying to control the situation through lockdowns and isolation. Experts believe the government's strict zero-Covid strategy is putting a strain on the economy. Meanwhile, Libya's National Oil Corp said on Sunday it would temporarily resume operations at the Zueitina oil terminal, which was offline since mid-April. Low fuel demand in China and additional supply from Libya offset global supply concerns and relieved pressure on oil prices.
June WTI Futures Bounce Off $100 on OPEC+ Supply Shortfall - Reversing morning losses, oil futures powered higher in afternoon trade Monday, sending the U.S. crude benchmark above $105 per barrel (bbl) on the back of a growing supply shortfall among Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and ten allied producers outside the cartel that are expected to approve this week another 432,000-barrel-per-day (bpd) production increase for next month despite the potential for deeper output losses in Russia -- OPEC+'s second largest oil producer. Monday saw another session of volatile trading triggered by reports suggesting OPEC continues to badly underperform production quotas with the shortfall growing to 200,000 bpd last month, meaning the cartel was only able to raise output a little over 40,000 bpd. That does not include a production target of 200,000-bpd allocated for 10 producers outside the cartel-led by Russia, with preliminary data showing production from Russia and Kazakhstan was sharply depressed last month. In a month-on-month comparison, Russia's oil production in the first 19 days of April was 8.2% lower than the March average, reaching around 10.11 million bpd. It could further fall to 8.74 million bpd or 17% by the end of the year as Western traders and bankers shun dealing with Russian oil, according to the country's finance minister, Anton Siluanov. The International Energy Agency forecast that almost 3 million bpd in Russian production would be turned off starting in May. Against this backdrop, OPEC+ ministers are set to wave through the predetermined production increase in June on Thursday (5/5), with Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates, two countries with the spare capacity to increase their output to cover shortfalls, seeing no need to further expand their production. OPEC+ cited market uncertainty tied to China's oil demand and the extent of production losses in Russia as the reason for maintaining their gradual monthly production increase, according to reports. China's refusal to abandon its zero-COVID policy that entails strict containment measures is fanning fears over what is viewed as a looming recession in the world's second largest economy. Beijing has begun the process of school closures along with mandatory COVID-testing for 21 million residents. In Shanghai, a city of 25 million people, authorities continue to resort to extreme lockdown measures. Analysts estimate that at least 20% of China's oil demand has been wiped out during March and April as lockdowns proliferated. In financial markets, U.S. dollar index drifted higher in afternoon trade Monday, hitting an intrasession high of 103.775, just shy of last week's 103.950 -- a level not seen in twenty years, as investors fled to the safety of safe-haven currencies. Dollar strength is making it more expensive for overseas buyers to purchase dollar-denominated commodities such as oil. Greenback's strength comes ahead of U.S. central bank's monetary policy meeting scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday, which is expected to see Federal Reserve officials hike borrowing costs by 0.5%, which would be the biggest rate hike since 2000, with several more increases in the federal funds rate projected before the end of the year. On the session, NYMEX West Texas Intermediate futures for June delivery gained $0.48 to settle at $105.17 bbl, and the international crude benchmark July Brent contract advanced $0.44 bbl to $107.58 bbl. NYMEX June RBOB rallied 6.77 cents to $3.35101 gallon, and the front-month ULSD contract surged 18.77 cents to a $4.2049 gallon settlement.the Consumer Credit Report for March was released by the Fed on Friday of this week, and it showed that overall consumer credit, a measure of non-real estate debt, grew by a seasonally adjusted $52.4 billion, or at a 14.0% annual rate, as non-revolving credit expanded at a 7.4% annual rate to $3,441.5 billion, while revolving credit outstanding grew at a 35.3% rate to $1,097.5 billion, the largest jump since January 2006...
Oil Slides as China Lockdowns Outweigh Proposed EU Russia Oil Ban (Reuters) -Oil prices fell by more than 2% on Tuesday as demand worries stemming from China's prolonged COVID-19 lockdowns outweighed the prospect of a European embargo on Russian crude. Beijing is mass-testing residents to avert a lockdown similar to Shanghai's over the past month. The capital's restaurants were closed for dining in while some apartment blocks were sealed shut. Brent crude settled down $2.61, or 2.4%, at $104.97 a barrel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude ended $2.76, or 2.6%, lower at $102.41. "There are real concerns about whether Chinese demand, which is a huge factor in global demand, will remain strong in 2022," said Gary Cunningham, director at Tradition Energy. Prices remain high, however, with Brent crude having reached $139 in March for its highest since 2008 after Russia's invasion of Ukraine exacerbated supply concerns that were already driving a rally. The European Union is working on a sixth round of sanctions against Russia, with officials saying that European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is expected to spell out the plans on Wednesday, including a ban on imports of Russian oil by the end of this year. Price action is likely to remain volatile as traders weigh the impact of China's lockdowns against the West's oil sanctions and ahead of a U.S. Federal Reserve meeting on Wednesday. "We have a market that's in flux and reacting from headline to headline in a very choppy trading range," Also in focus will be the latest round of U.S. inventory and supply reports. Nine analysts polled by Reuters estimated on average that crude inventories decreased by 800,000 barrels last week.
WTI Slides 2% Ahead of Stock Data, Fed's Call on Rates -- Oil futures nearest delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange and Brent crude on the Intercontinental Exchange accelerated losses in afternoon trade Tuesday, with the West Texas Intermediate contract falling more than 2%. The losses came as investors positioned ahead of the weekly release of U.S. inventory data and the likelihood for the biggest interest rate hike from the U.S. Federal Reserve since at least 2000, which has the potential to slow anticipated gains in summer oil demand. Fanning concerns over a sharp slowdown of the U.S. economy, manufacturing data for April showed business activity unexpectedly dropped to the lowest level since May 2020, strangled by rattled supply chains and employment challenges. Measures of both new orders and production decelerated to 1-1/2-year lows yet remained above the threshold that indicates growth. "Demand registered slower month-over-month growth likely due to extended lead times and decades-high material price increases and consumption softening amid labor force constraints," said Timothy R. Fiore, chair of the Institute for Supply Management Manufacturing Business Survey Committee. Further evidence of economic slowdown could be found in U.S. first-quarter GDP data, showing a sharp deceleration of growth during the first three months of the year, down to a negative 1.4% compared to 6.9% recorded in the final months of 2021. Against this backdrop, the U.S. Federal Reserve Open Market Committee is poised to decide Wednesday on the largest interest rate hike in the U.S. since at least 2000 to slow the record surge in consumer prices. Nearly 100% of investors expect FOMC to raise interest rates by 50-baisis points Wednesday, followed by similar increases in June and July, according to CME Fed WatchTool. Some analysts forecast the FOMC could even announce a 0.75% increase this summer as it battles a record surge in inflation. Such a move, however, could lead to recessionary pressures in the U.S. economy. Tuesday's lower settlements also follow reports that some members of the European Union seek exemptions from any potential ban on Russian oil imports, which is expected to be part of a sixth sanctions package against Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine. Hungary and Slovakia Tuesday morning reiterated their opposition to such a move, claiming it would be economically impossible for them to exit from Russian energy trade. At settlement, NYMEX West Texas Intermediate futures for June delivery fell $2.76 to $102.41 per bbl, and the international crude benchmark July Brent contract declined $2.61 to $104.97 per bbl. NYMEX June RBOB eased 0.89 cent to $3.5012 per gallon, and the front-month ULSD contract plunged 12.22 cents to $4.0827 per gallon.
Oil prices jump 3% as EU plans ban on Russian oil | The Straits Times - Oil prices jumped on Wednesday (May 4) as the European Union, the world’s largest trading bloc, spelt out plans to phase out imports of Russian oil, offsetting demand worries in top importer China. Brent crude futures rose US$2.94, or 2.8 per cent, to US$107.91 a barrel by 3.46pm Singapore time amid thin trading volume, with China and Japan closed for holidays. West Texas Intermediate crude futures rose US$3.02, or 3 per cent, to US$105.43 a barrel. European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen on Wednesday proposed a phased oil embargo on Russia over its war in Ukraine, as well as sanctioning Russia’s top bank, in a bid to deepen Moscow’s isolation. The Commission’s measures include phasing out supplies of Russian crude within six months and refined products by the end of 2022, Ms von der Leyen said. She also pledged to minimise the impact on European economies. European energy prices jumped after the announcement as a ban, if agreed by EU governments, could boost demand for natural gas and coal while prompting Moscow to retaliate. Benchmark gas futures for delivery next month surged as much as 7.4 per cent to €106.75 per megawatt-hour (MWh), while the equivalent British contract soared 9.8 per cent. German power for next year, a European benchmark, gained 5.4 per cent to €216 per MWh by 10.15am local time. Europe relies on Russia for about 25 per cent of its oil and about a third of its gas needs. The proposed EU sanctions, which also include cutting off more banks from the international Swift payment system, add to concern about energy supplies just a week after Gazprom gas halted shipments to Poland and Bulgaria due to a dispute over payment terms. “Our central scenario envisions more interruptions of Russian gas supplies to Europe going forward,” said Mr Mark Haefele, chief investment officer at UBS Global Wealth Management. “Some of the targeted countries may experience economic stagnation or mild contractions in the process.” He does not expect a complete halt in all Russian gas supplies to Europe.
Oil Rallies After Rate Hike and Looming Russian Oil Embargo -- Nearby-month delivery oil futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange and Brent crude traded on the Intercontinental Exchange accelerated gains in afternoon trade Wednesday, sending both crude benchmarks as much as 5% higher. The moves came after the U.S. Federal Reserve raised interest rates by 50 basis points -- the most since 2000 -- to quell surging inflation that stands to undermine demand growth domestically and globally at a time when the European Union moved to phase-out Russian imports of oil and refined products.European Commission on Wednesday finalized a sixth package of economic sanctions against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. In a major policy shift, the majority of the EU member-states agreed to phase-out Russian oil imports in measured steps that would require a six-month transitional period for crude oil and a 12-month period for petroleum products, including gasoline and diesel fuel.Hungary and Slovakia are the only two members of the 27 EU countries that were granted an extended period until the end of 2023 due to their high dependency on Russian energy supplies. "We see no plan or guarantees in the current proposal to manage even a transition period nor what would guarantee Hungary's energy security," said Zoltan Kovacs, a spokesman for the Hungarian government. Acknowledging the risks, German Economy Minister Robert Habeck said that he cannot guarantee that regional supplies will not be disrupted but believes the EU transitional period is adequate. In financial markets, U.S. Federal Open Market Committee on Wednesday approved a rare 0.5% increase in overnight borrowing costs, bringing the central bank's benchmark federal funds rate to a target range between 0.75% and 1%. This marked the most aggressive monetary policy tightening in decades, which is aimed at rapidly reducing the pandemic-era stimulus that has contributed to rising price pressures across the U.S. economy. FOMC, which usually lifts interest rates in 0.25% increments, last raised rates by 0.5% in 2000. In a statement released Wednesday afternoon, FOMC said it "anticipates that ongoing increases in the target range will be appropriate," setting the stage for another large rate hike at the Fed's meeting next month on June 14-15. Further supporting the oil complex, U.S. Energy Information Administration inventory report on Wednesday revealed a much larger-than-expected drop in domestic fuel stocks as demand gasoline and diesel picked up in recent weeks. Distillate stocks currently stand at the lowest level in over 14 years and some 22% below the five-year average at 104.9 million barrels (bbl).EIA said domestic refiners processed 15.5 million bpd of crude oil during the final week of April, 218,000 bpd lower compared with the previous week's processing rate. The refining capacity utilization rate unexpectedly fell 1.9% from the previous week to 88.4% compared with consensus among analysts for a 0.4% increase. U.S. commercial crude stockpiles rose by 1.3 million bbl to 415.7 million bbl and are now about 15% below the five-year average. Analysts expected crude stockpiles would fall by 200,000 bbl from the prior week. Oil stored at Cushing, Oklahoma, the delivery point for U.S. stocks, increased 1.4 million bbl from the previous week to 28.8 million bbl. U.S. crude oil production remained unchanged at 11.9 million bpd. At settlement, NYMEX West Texas Intermediate futures for June delivery advanced more than $5 to $107.81 per bbl, and the international crude benchmark July Brent contract topped $110 bbl, up $5.17. NYMEX June RBOB rallied 15.11 cents to a $3.6523-per-gallon settlement, and the June ULSD contract spiked 11.43 cents to $4.1970 per gallon.
OPEC+ forecasts oil surplus as high prices and lockdowns bite into demand expectations - OPEC+ anticipates oil supply to exceed demand later this year by nearly two million barrels per day, ahead of an expected meeting tomorrow between ministers from the group’s member states. The expanded cartel is forecasting weaker oil demand growth, amid rising inflation from soaring crude oil prices, the resurgence of the Omicron variant across China and market disruption caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The company, which consists of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and multiple allies including Russia, has downgraded its expectations for world oil demand from 4.15m barrels per day to 3.67m, a 480,000 daily drop on its previous forecasts. The forecasts were made in an internal report seen by news agency Reuters, which expects supply to exceed demand by 1.9m barrels this year, which is also 600,000 – higher than previous estimates. It also predicts OECD oil stocks slightly exceeding the 2015-2019 average in the fourth quarter. The report was prepared ahead of a meeting of the OPEC+ Joint Technical Committee meeting taking place later today. Despite the drop in demand, OPEC+ is set to agree another small increase in production targets for June, even as Russian sanctions bite into the country’s output. Under a deal reached in July last year, OPEC+ has been targeting increases of 432,000 bpd every month until the end of September, to unwind its remaining production cuts. However, the organisation has persistently failed to reach raised production targets this year, with multiple members failing to hit hiked production quotas amid capacity issues and concerns over future supply gluts leaving them exposed. The OPEC+ meeting later this week follows the European Union proposing a phased oil embargo on Russia, as part of its six package of sanctions following the invasion of Ukraine. Russia’s own forecasts showed output may fall by as much as 17 per cent in 2022, according to an economy ministry document seen by Reuters. The document suggests Russian oil output may decline to between 433.8m and 475.3m tonnes – equivalent to between 8.68m and 9.5m barrels per day – in 2022, from 524m tonnes in 2021.
OPEC+ maintains modest hike in oil production as EU weighs up Russian import ban - OPEC+ has agreed a modest increase in its oil production targets next month, following a meeting earlier today, despite Western pressure to significantly ramp up supplies. The organisation, which consists of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies including Russia, has committed to boosting output by a further 432,000 barrels per day. This is in line with existing, gradual plans to unwind curbs made in 2020 when the pandemic hammered global demand expectations. The group has consistently ignored Western calls to significantly speed up increases of oil production with requests from both US President Joe Biden and the Prime Minister Boris Johnson falling on deaf ears. However, OPEC+ has also persistently failed to reach its own raised output targets since the start of the year, with multiple members missing pledged increased production quotas. This is a consequence of capacity issues, alongside fears of both a supply glut and antagonising key member Russia – with the bloc committed to neutrality following the invasion of Ukraine. Two sources present at the meeting told news agency Reuters that delegates completely avoided any discussion about sanctions on Russia, wrapping up talks in near record time of just under 15 minutes. These factors have contributed to supply shortages and elevated concerns of disruption this year, helping to drive oil prices above the $100 milestone across both major benchmarks. Following multiple rallies, which saw Brent Crude prices peak at a 14-year high of $139 per barrel in March, the International Energy Agency agreed last month to release record volumes of oil stocks to help to cool prices and offset supply disruptions from Russia. The pledged flooding of the market with 240m barrels caused prices to drop significantly, while lockdowns in China have continued to weigh down prices in recent weeks. However, the prospect of fresh rallies is increasingly plausible, with the European Union (EU) leaning towards phasing out Russian oil imports over the next six months. This will be a key feature in a sixth package of sanctions against Russia, as it ramps up pressure on the country following its invasion of Ukraine. “Re-routing Russian output from Europe to willing buyers in Asia, in the presence of sanctions, is already so challenging that even Russia has admitted its production will decline significantly. This problem will likely get worse. This leaves EU members competing with other consumers for the remaining available supply.” He also suggested that OPEC+ “continues to view this as a problem of the West’s own making”, rather than as a fundamental supply issue that it should respond to.
Oil Prices Top $111 As Biden’s SPR Buyback Plan Leaks -- The Biden Administration will purchase 60 million barrels of crude in Q3 in an effort to replace volumes in the U.S. strategic petroleum for the first time in nearly 20 years, CNN reports, after authorizing a record release over six months.Citing an unnamed Energy Department official, CNN said what is referred to as a “long-term buyback plan” for oil would be announced later on Thursday.Delivery of those first 60 million barrels, according to CNN, would be paid for with revenue received from sales of emergency oil, while the time frame is not specific beyond “future years”.Oil jumped to $111.5 per barrel for Brent–the highest price since late March–and over $108 for WTI on news of the buyback plan, along with results of an OPEC+ meeting earlier today in which the cartel refrained from increasing output quotes beyond 423,000 bpd for June.The full process for replenishing the SPR will take years.Bloomberg cited UBS Group commodity analyst Giovanni Staunovo as saying that the market is now pricing in what amounts to U.S. plans to buy when the market is tight and inventories and spare capacity are low.On March 31st, U.S. President Joe Biden authorized the release of 1 million barrels of oil from the country’s strategic reserves per day for six months in a bid to bring down soaring oil prices as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Oil steadies near $110/bbl; strong dollar offsets supply worry - Oil prices steadied on Thursday, under pressure from a stronger dollar and a drop in global stock markets while supported by supply worries after the European Union (EU) laid out plans for new sanctions against Russia including an embargo on crude. Brent futures added 76 cents to settle at $110.90 per barrel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude settled 45 cents higher at $108.26 per barrel. The U.S. dollar rebounded to its highest since December 2002, a day after the Federal Reserve affirmed it would take aggressive steps to combat inflation. A strong dollar makes oil more expensive for holders of other currencies. Wall Street stocks tumbled as investors shed risky investments, worried the Fed might hike rates more this year to tame inflation. The EU sanctions proposal, which needs unanimous backing from the 27 countries in the bloc, includes phasing out imports of Russian refined products by the end of 2022 and a ban on all shipping and insurance services for transporting Russian oil. "The oil market has not fully priced in the potential of an EU oil embargo, so higher crude prices are to be expected in the summer months if it's voted into law," Japan said it would face difficulties in immediately cutting off Russian oil imports. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, Russia and allied producers (OPEC+) agreed to another modest monthly oil output increase. Ignoring calls from Western nations to hike output more, OPEC+ agreed to raise June production by 432,000 barrels per day, in line with its plan to unwind curbs made when the pandemic hammered demand. A U.S. Senate panel advanced a bill that could expose OPEC+ to lawsuits for collusion on boosting oil prices. Congress has failed to pass versions of the legislation for more than two decades, but lawmakers are worried about rising inflation and high gasoline prices. Prices for near-term Brent and WTI oil futures are much more expensive than for future months, a situation known as backwardation. as futures for both benchmarks through April 2023 were in "super-backwardation" with each future month at least $1 a barrel below the prior month. Yawger said that situation could change as the U.S. government buys crude to replenish strategic crude reserves.
WTI Pares Gains amid Equities Rout as Market Rethinks Fed- While ULSD futures declined, West Texas Intermediate and the gasoline contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange and Brent crude traded on the Intercontinental Exchange settled Thursday's session with modest gains that were limited by a selloff in the U.S. equity market as investors reassessed comments from U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell as more hawkish, as Powell on Wednesday indicated the central bank is prepared to introduce more aggressive interest rate hikes to quell inflation but risk tilting the U.S. economy into recession. Stocks on Wall Street suffered their worst day of the year on Thursday, sending Dow Jones Industrials as much as 1,315 points or 3.9% lower and S&P 500 down 5.9%. Thursday's selloff appears to have been triggered by concerns over potential recession amid an aggressive path of interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve after the central bank raised interest rates by 50 basis points on Wednesday. "What's happening right now is exactly what the Federal Reserve wants to happen. They want a weaker stock market. They want higher bond yields," said former New York Federal Reserve President Bill Dudley. Faced with a red-hot jobs market and very high inflation, Powell has conceded that financial conditions must be tightened, meaning lower stock market valuations and more expensive credit for companies with weak balance sheets. On the economic data front, initial jobless claims for the final week of April jumped to a more than two-month high 200,000 but still remained consistent with tightening labor market conditions, according to economists. The Labor Department's Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey this week showed there were a record 11.5 million job openings on the last day of March. Meantime, a series high 4.5 million Americans quit their jobs in March, with data dating back to 2000. Underlining Thursday's rally in oil markets, Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and Russia-led partners agreed on a planned production increase of 432,000 barrels per day (bpd) for June, sticking to a Moscow-backed agreement reached in July 2021 to return production shut-in during the early days of the pandemic in small, incremental steps. The decision comes despite repeated calls in recent months from the United States and other oil-consuming nations for the coalition to tap into remaining spare capacity in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates -- two producers that can still rapidly increase output to offset a supply deficit on the global market. Russian crude production has already fallen more than 1 million bpd since the invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24 in response to reduced demand for its oil overseas and in the domestic market. Of the 10.1 million bpd of crude oil that Russia produced in 2021, it exported more than 45% or 4.7 million bpd. The majority of Russia's crude oil and condensate exports, nearly half of Russia's total exports, are typically sent to Europe. For Russia, it's highly unlikely demand from China and India, Asia's largest importers, could replace the lost export demand from Europe. At settlement, NYMEX June WTI futures advanced $0.45 per barrel (bbl) to $108.26 bbl, and ICE July Brent crude futures gained $0.76 to $110.90 bbl. NYMEX June RBOB edged up 0.64 cents to $3.6587 gallon, and the June ULSD contract declined 15.57 cents to $4.0413 gallon.
Crude oil futures extend gains as concerns linger over EU ban on Russian oil -Crude oil futures climbed for the third straight session during mid-morning Asian trade May 6, erasing earlier losses, as concerns lingered over the prospect of tighter supply after the European Union's embargo on Russian oil, while OPEC+ went ahead with its planned supply increase at its latest meeting. At 10:26 am Singapore time (0226 GMT), the ICE July Brent futures contract was up 42 cents/b (0.38%) from the previous close at $111.32/b, while the NYMEX June light sweet crude contract rose 42 cents/b (0.39%) at $108.68/b. OPEC and its Russia-led partners on May 5 approved another modest 432,000 b/d increase in production quotas for June, continuing to look past the impact that the war in Ukraine has had on the market as they benefitted from a windfall in oil revenues, analysts said. Even with an expected European ban on Russian oil supplies set to squeeze global supplies further, the 23-country OPEC+ alliance insisted that current supply-demand indicators "pointed to a balanced market," according to a statement after the group met for just 13 minutes to reaffirm its plan for monthly measured quota hikes. As has been the case for past months, however, the pledged supply increases from the producer group will likely fall short, with most members of the alliance already unable to raise output because of a lack of investment or internal disruptions. "The group is struggling to hit output quotas due to disruptions and a lack of investment in fields," said ING analysts Warren Patterson and Wenyu Yao in a May 6 note. "Lagging production is unlikely to change anytime soon, particularly given the weaker demand for Russian oil, which will eventually lead to output decreasing." The prospect of tighter supply, as the EU moves ahead with an embargo on Russian oil to be fully phased in by year-end, saw both front month ICE Brent and NYMEX crude contracts gradually reversing losses of more than $1/b in early morning trade. Investors were also mulling the US Department of Energy's plans to buy back 60 million barrels of crude for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, or one-third of the massive drawdown that just started flowing, at lower prices; likely in the second half of 2023. In outlining the plan announced May 5 to refill the emergency oil stockpile based on a future delivery window, the DOE said it was aiming to encourage US drillers to boost activity and "lower prices this year by guaranteeing this demand in the future at a time when market participants anticipate crude oil prices to be significantly lower than they are today." "The market was surprised by the announcement that the US Energy Department would start purchasing oil to refill the nation's strategic reserve. This is likely to exacerbate the tightness in the oil market," ANZ Research analysts Brian Martin and Daniel Hynes said. Dubai crude swaps and intermonth spreads were higher in mid-morning trade in Asia May 6 from the previous close. The July Dubai swap was pegged at $102.60/b at 10 am Singapore time (0200 GMT), up 56 cents/b (0.55%) from the May 5 Asian market close. The June-July Dubai swap intermonth spread was pegged at $2.37/b at 10 am, up 7 cents/b over the same period, and the July-August intermonth spread was pegged at $1.89/b, up 6 cents/b. The July Brent-Dubai exchange of futures for swaps was pegged at $8.65/b, up 28 cents/b.
Oil Gains 1.5%, Posts Another Weekly Rise on Supply Concerns (Reuters) -Oil prices rose nearly 1.5% on Friday, posting a second straight weekly increase as impending European Union sanctions on Russian oil raised the prospect of tighter supply and had traders shrugging off worries about global economic growth. Brent futures rose $1.49, or 1.3%, to settle at $112.39 per barrel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude climbed $1.51, or 1.4%, to end at $109.77 a barrel. "In the near term, the fundamentals for oil are bullish and it is only fears of an economic slowdown in the future that is holding us back," said Phil Flynn, an analyst at Price Futures Group. For the week, WTI gained about 5%, while Brent nearly 4% after the EU set out an embargo on Russian oil as part of its toughest-yet package of sanctions over the conflict in Ukraine. The EU is tweaking its sanctions plan, hoping to win over reluctant states and secure the needed unanimous backing from the 27 member countries, three EU sources told Reuters. The initial proposal called for an end to EU imports of Russian crude and oil products by the end of this year. "The looming EU embargo on Russian oil has the makings of an acute supply squeeze. In any case, OPEC+ is in no mood to help out, even as rallying energy prices spur harmful levels of inflation," PVM analyst Stephen Brennock said. Ignoring calls from Western nations to hike output more, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, Russia and allied producers (OPEC+), stuck with its plan to raise its June output target by 432,000 barrels per day. However, analysts expect the group's actual production rise to be much smaller due to capacity constraints. "There is zero chance of certain members filling that quota as production challenges impact Nigeria and other African members," said Jeffrey Halley, senior market analyst Asia Pacific at OANDA. On Thursday, a U.S. Senate panel advanced a bill that could expose OPEC+ to lawsuits for collusion on boosting oil prices. On the supply side, U.S. oil rig count, an early indicator of future output, rose five to 557 this week, the highest since April 2020. []RIG/U] Money managers cut their net long U.S. crude futures and options positions in the week to May 3, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) said. Investors expect higher demand from the United States this autumn as Washington unveiled plans to buy 60 million barrels of crude to replenish emergency stockpiles. Yet signs of a weakening global economy fed demand concerns, limiting oil price gains. On Thursday, the Bank of England warned Britain risks a double-whammy of a recession and inflation above 10%. It raised interest rates a quarter of a percentage point to 1%, their highest since 2009. Strict COVID-19 curbs in China are creating headwinds for the world's second-largest economy and leading oil importer. Beijing authorities said all non-essential services would shut in its biggest district Chaoyang, home to embassies and large offices.
Oil Up this Week as EU Moves Closer to Russian Ban - Oil closed Friday at a six-week high on signs the market is tightening as members of the European Union moved closer toward banning Russian crude. West Texas Intermediate futures posted its first back-to-back weekly gain in two months. The EU intends to ban Russian crude in six months and oil products by the end of the year to punish Moscow for its war on Ukraine. The bloc has proposed giving Hungary -- which has pushed back against an embargo -- and Slovakia an extra year to comply, people familiar with the matter said Friday. “Crude prices just want to head higher as energy traders completely fixate over the looming European sanctions on Russian oil,” said Ed Moya, senior market analyst at Oanda. “No one wants to be on the wrong side of a major crude supply disruption headline, so whatever oil price dips that happen will be short-lived.” The U.S. government said Thursday that it would begin buying crude to replenish the nation’s reserve. While the process could begin in the fall, the actual deliveries won’t take place until later in the future. Oil has rallied more than 40% this year as the invasion of Ukraine upended commodity markets. This week’s advance -- the third in the past four -- has come despite lingering concerns that lockdowns in China to combat Covid-19 outbreaks are hurting consumption. “Chinese oil demand has been down 1.5 million barrels per day,” due to the lockdowns, according to S&P Global Inc. Vice Chairman Dan Yergin.. But knowing China’s ways, it is expected to stage a strong rebound and that would affect all commodity prices, he added. This week, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies did announce another modest increase in supply, there’s doubt the alliance will be able to deliver the full volume. WTI for June delivery advanced $1.51 to settle at $109.77 a barrel in New York. Brent for July rose $1.49 to $112.39 a barrel. Oil-product markets have also shown signs of strength this week, especially in the U.S., where nationwide holdings of gasoline and diesel have dropped. Gasoline futures are trading near a record high after a weekly gain of about 6%.
NYMEX RBOB Ends at Record High on Strong Payroll Report - While the prompt month ULSD contract was again an outlier with a lower close, oil futures nearest delivery settled Friday's session higher, sending the front-month gasoline contract to a record-high settlement of $3.7590 gallon following the release of a strong employment report in the United States that has boosted optimism for robust demand growth for the motor transportation fuel this summer despite surging inflation and a record surge in fuel prices. On the session, NYMEX June RBOB futures rallied 10.03 cents or 2.7% for a record-breaking settlement on the spot continuous chart of $3.7590 gallon, while on an intraday basis reached a fresh eight-week high $3.7970, with the record high at $3.8904 gallon traded on March 7. In contrast, NYMEX June ULSD futures settled below $4 gallon for the first time since April 22, down 8.7 cents at $3.9543 gallon. Crude contracts pared some of their morning gains with NYMEX West Texas Intermediate June futures settling just below $110 bbl after hitting an intrasession high of $111.18 per barrel (bbl). The international crude benchmark Brent contract for July delivery settled at a six-week high $112.39 bbl, up $1.49 or 1.6% from Thursday's session close. U.S. economy added 428,000 new jobs in April, narrowly beating expectations for a 400,000 gain, while the unemployment rate remained unchanged at 3.6%, just 0.1% above the February 2020 50-year low. April marked the 12th consecutive month of job growth above 400,000, which bodes well for gasoline demand in the United States as a strong labor market typically underpins gains in fuel consumption. Government data this week showed gasoline demand in the United States increased for the third consecutive week through April 29 to 8.856 million barrels per day (bpd), while demand for middle distillates jumped to a seven-week high 3.956 million bpd. Stocks of middle distillates in the United States stand at a critically low level at 104.942 million bbl, roughly 22% below the five-year average. Inventories are expected to fall even further to a projected low of just 102 million bbl before the middle of the year, with a possible range of 97 million to 105 million bbl, according to analysts. Distillate fuels are mostly used in road and rail freight, manufacturing, construction, farming, mining, and oil and gas extraction, so consumption is very sensitive to economic activity. Against this backdrop, European Commission this week proposed an outright ban on imports of Russian fuels, such as distillates, beginning early next year and crude oil imports by October. The decision will most certainly tighten the world market even further with no immediate replacement for the Russian oil currently available on the global market.
Iran agrees to resumes gas deliveries to Iraq - Iraq and Iran reached an agreement on Thursday for Iranian gas supplies to Iraq to resume, with Baghdad repaying debts owed to Tehran, Iraqi Electricity Minister Adel Karim was quoted by the state news agency as saying. In December 2021, the electricity ministry said the reduction in Iranian gas supplies had caused a power loss of around 3,400 megawatts. An Iraqi delegation, headed by Karim, visited Tehran on Tuesday to discuss the resumption of Iranian gas supplies. The visit proceeded “positively” as the two sides had reached an agreement to resume natural gas supplies to Baghdad, Ahmed Mousa, spokesperson for the Iraqi electricity ministry told state media on Thursday. “The visit emphasised on raising the volume of imported gas to Iraq and releasing it in amounts that would suffice the Iraqi need and paying the amounts of debt,” Mousa stated, adding that “the ministry hopes to add four thousand megawatts with an entry of additional … units, to raise production to 25 thousand megawatts in the summer.” The trip came less than two weeks after Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi directed the electricity ministry to assign a team to discuss natural gas supplies with Iran. Iraq, with a population of some 41 million people, is grappling with a major energy crisis and suffers regular power cuts. Despite its immense oil and gas reserves, Iraq remains dependent on imports to meet its energy needs. Neighbouring Iran currently provides a third of Iraq’s gas and electricity demand, but supplies are regularly cut or reduced, aggravating daily load shedding. Iraq expects to be sent 55 million cubic feet of gas from Iran starting May 1, more than double the 25 million it receives at the moment, the electricity minister said.
Missile attack on oil refinery in Iraq’s Erbil hit oil tank, fire erupted - Six missiles targeted the KAR Group oil refinery in Iraq's northern city of Erbil on Sunday, leading to fire erupting in on of the man oil tanks, Iraq’s security forces said. The fire was brought under control, the security forces added. Earlier on Sunday, Kurdistan’s anti-terrorism authorities said six missiles landed near the refinery, adding that the missiles caused no casualties or material damages. Erbil-based TV Rudaw quoted the anti-terrorism authorities as saying the missiles were fired from the Nineveh province. Three missiles also fell near the refinery on April 6, without causing any casualties. In March, Iran attacked Erbil with a dozen ballistic missiles and one person was injured in the attack.
Massive fire breaks out at oil depot in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa -- About 30 oil tankers were gutted in a massive fire that broke out at an oil depot in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, local media reported. A police official told Dawn that one person was injured in the blaze. The blaze started around 3 pm at the Tarujaba oil depot in the Nowshera district on Saturday and was brought under control late at night, according to fire and rescue officials, reported Dawn. At least 20 firefighting vehicles took part in a taxing effort to put out the flames. According to a statement issued earlier about 150 tankers were parked in the yard and about 20 were gutted in the blaze. Looking at the intensity of the fire, fire brigades from Mardan and Peshawar were also called for the dousing operations. The cause of the fire has not been ascertained yet. Over 100 oil containers have been removed from the burning oil depot, ARY News reported citing rescue sources.
Saudi to extend oil loan to Pakistan, discussing dollar deposits - Saudi Arabia will extend an oil loan facility to Pakistan and is considering rolling over dollar deposits as the South Asian nation looks to rein in one of Asia’s highest inflation rates and stave off a current-account crisis. The Kingdom is discussing options including extending the term of a $3 billion deposit with the State Bank of Pakistan, the countries said in a joint statement Sunday after Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif met Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Pakistan welcomed Saudi Arabia’s decision to extend the agreement to finance crude exports and oil derivatives, according to the statement, which didn’t offer details. Sharif, who took office last month after a joint opposition ousted premier Imran Khan, faces the politically tough task of stopping Khan’s fuel subsidies and raising pump prices if he’s to get a loan from the International Monetary Fund. Anti-inflation protests are already roiling parts of the region as the war in Ukraine stokes the costs of everything from crude oil to coal. Saudi Arabia pledged $4.2 billion in assistance to Pakistan when Khan visited the kingdom in October. That included a deposit of $3 billion with the State Bank of Pakistan to help shore up its reserves and a facility to finance oil derivatives trade worth $1.2 billion during the year. Sharif recently rejected a proposal from his minister to raise local fuel costs, days after vowing discipline to unlock $3 billion pending from an IMF loan agreement that was suspended amid the political turmoil in Pakistan. An IMF team will visit Pakistan after May 7 and hold talks on the issues around subsidies on petrol and electricity. Pakistan has seen its foreign exchange reserves fall to less than two months of import cover after a delay in the IMF loan program. It is also resorting to power cuts as electricity plants face fuel and funding shortages.
Al-Qaeda chief blames US for Ukraine invasion in new video - Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri made an appearance in a pre-recorded video to mark the 11th anniversary of the death of his predecessor Osama bin Laden. Al-Zawahri says in the video that “US weakness” was the reason that its ally Ukraine became “prey” for the Russian invasion. The 27-minute speech was released Friday according to the SITE Intelligence group, which monitors militant activity. The leader appears sitting at a desk with books and a gun. Urging Muslim unity, al-Zawahri said the US was in a state of weakness and decline, citing the impact of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan launched after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Bin Laden was the mastermind and financier behind the attacks. “Here [the US] is after its defeat in Iraq and Afghanistan, after the economic disasters caused by the 9/11 invasions, after the Corona pandemic, and after it left its ally Ukraine as prey for the Russians,” he said. Bin Laden was killed in a 2011 raid by US forces on his compound hideout in Pakistan. Al-Zawahri’s whereabouts are unknown. He is wanted by the FBI and there is a $25 million reward for information leading to his capture.
Putin Signs Executive Order to Begin “Special Economic Measures” aka Sanctions by Yves Smith - Why has Russia taken so long to retaliate against Western sanctions? One possibility is it’s because Putin and his team didn’t see the need to do all that much immediately given economic blowback. A second is that they wanted to wait for the gas for roubles arm wrestling to play out before applying new pressure. Regardless, Putin’s executive order sets up an initial framework for what we like to call sanctions. I wish Russia had posted the actual order; the embedded document below is a summary. Putin pointedly calls these punishments “retaliatory special economic measures”. This may seem like a distinction without a difference, but Russia and China both take the view that economic sanctions are illegal unless approved by the UN, which clearly is not happening here. When I come across an explanation of how Russia thinks it has threaded this particular legal needle, I’ll be sure to make mention in Links or a post. The executive order directs Putin’s staff to come back in ten days with initial targets, which at this point are only individuals, and to…define additional criteria for transactions whose implementation and obligations shall be banned under the Executive Order.Admittedly this document is broader and less specific than Putin’s announcement that Russia would require payment for gas by unfriendly countries be paid for in roubles, where he included enough additional boundary conditions as to considerably constrain how the process might work (that’s why we were able to outline the mechanism in advance, with the actual version adding only a couple more wrinkles). And it’s clearly intended to be expanded in scope.The basis for the countersanctions is the violation of international law. The seizure of $300 billion of foreign exchange reserves and the German Gazprom operations, and Poland’s moves to expropriate Novatek’s pipeline infrastructure would all seem to be on the list.Even though the initial targets are to be individuals, the text indicates the scope is broader: “special economic measures are to be applied to certain legal entities, individuals and organisations under their control.”The document at points describes individuals at targets and at other points legal entities and organizations; I doubt the underlying Executive Order is imprecise as to what applies to whom, but we’ll have a better idea in due course. But here is the potential zinger:In addition, the document imposes a ban on exporting products or raw materials manufactured or extracted in Russia when they are delivered to individuals under sanctions, or by individuals under sanctions to other individuals.Limiting this section to individuals seems almost besides the point, since individuals are seldom in the business of buying Russian products or commodities. However, it’s not hard to see that if and when the list expands to include organizations and companies, Russia could inflict a lot of pain by limiting exports of key commodities. If I were them, materials critical to weapons manufacture would be at the top of the list. Cars might be next given how important auto manufacture is to many economies.
McDonald's has lost around $100 million in wasted food and other inventory after shutting its Russian and Ukrainian restaurants - McDonald's has lost around $100 million in wasted inventory sinceit shut its restaurants in Russia and Ukraine amid the ongoing conflict, it said on Thursday.The fast-food giant closed its 108 restaurants in Ukraine in late February, and most of its 850 outlets in Russia in mid-March.McDonald's said in its first-quarter earnings it had incurred "$27 million of costs related to the continuation of employee salaries, lease, and supplier payments, as well as $100 million of costs for inventory in the company's supply chain that likely will be disposed of due to restaurants being temporarily closed."McDonald's CFO Kevin Ozan told investors that it would cost the company between $50 and $55 million a month to keep its infrastructure going in Ukraine and Russia, echoing comments he'd previously made.Ukraine and Russia represented around 2% of the company's system-wide sales in 2021, McDonald's has said. The $112 billion it reported in total system-wide sales suggests that McDonald's Ukrainian and Russian restaurants brought in just over $2 billion in revenues last year.The continued costs and lost sales appear to have affected McDonald's bottom line. Though its total revenues rose, the company's expenses soared, and its first-quarter net profit fell28% year-over-year.McDonald's announced on March 8 that it was closing its Russian restaurants but would continue to pay its roughly 62,000 staff in Russia, as well as its workers in Ukraine.
Russia Will Quit International Space Station Over Sanctions - The head of Russia’s space program said Moscow will pull out of the International Space Station, state media reported, a move it has blamed on sanctions imposed over the invasion of Ukraine.
China and Russia are working on homegrown alternatives to the SWIFT payment system. Here's what they would mean for the US dollar. -In the aftermath of Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, someRussian banks were banned from SWIFT, the Belgium-based messaging service that lets banks around the world communicate about cross-border transactions. The ban has hampered cross-border transactions for Russia's trade and financial systems, isolating the country economically.Now, both Russia and China are looking to establish alternatives to the US dollar hegemony.Russia is touting an alternative ruble-based payment system called the System for Transfer of Financial Messages (SPFS). The system was set up in 2014. In late April, the country's central bank said it would start keeping the names of participants secret.China's Cross-Border Interbank Payment System (CIPS) — which processes payments in Chinese yuan — also has potential to replace SWIFT. The system has an expansive network of 1,280 financial institutions, said Peter Keenan, the cofounder and CEO of Apexx, a payments provider that used to work with Russia's domestic Mir payment card. That's compared to SPFS' much smaller network of 400 users.There are few alternatives to SWIFT, Keenan told Insider: "This is one of the reasons why Russia is looking to CIPS and an alternative for Asian payments specifically."China's central bank launched CIPS in 2015 with the aim of internationalizing the use of the yuan. CIPS still relies largely on SWIFT for cross-border messaging, but it has the potential to operate on its own messaging system, said PS Srinivas, a visiting research professor at the National University of Singapore's East Asian Institute.Russia's SPFS, on the other hand, has been limited to domestic use. New members are not likely to join now, as the move could be construed by the US and its allies as trying to help Russia evade sanctions, Srinivas wrote in a March report. But Moscow is working with Beijing to connect it with CIPS to work around the SWIFT ban,Reuters reported.The US dollar is the dominant currency used in 88% of the world's trade, according to the results of a triennial Bank for International Settlements survey last conducted in 2019.But if CIPS were used to settle more trade, it would create a Chinese-yuan driven alternative to the dollar-dominated SWIFT system. China does have ambitions to make the yuan the most dominant reserve currency in the world, but it has a long way to go, mainly because Beijing still manages its value tightly. It also isn't fully convertible to other currencies on the global market right now.Russia's demand of energy payments in rubles is significant because the country is an energy powerhouse — so the rise of an alternative currency for the industry could cause knock-on impact on a world trading system dominated by the dollar. However, experts say Russians won't allow themselves to become so dependent on USD, and instead expect a pivot to China.
Clash of Christianities: Why Europe cannot understand Russia --Christianity, once again, at the heart of a civilizational battle – this time among Christians themselves. Western Europeans see the Orthodox and eastern Christians as satraps and a bunch of smugglers, while the Orthodox regard the Crusaders as barbarian usurpers bent on world conquest. Under an ubiquitous, toxic atmosphere of cognitive dissonance drenched in Russophobia, it’s absolutely impossible to have a meaningful discussion on finer points of Russian history and culture across the NATO space – a phenomenon I’m experiencing back in Paris right now, fresh from a long stint in Istanbul.At best, in a semblance of civilized dialogue, Russia is pigeonholed in the reductionist view of a threatening, irrational, ever-expanding empire – a way more wicked version of Ancient Rome, Achaemenid Persia, Ottoman Turkey or Mughal India.The fall of the USSR a little over three decades ago did hurl Russia back three centuries – to its borders in the 17th century. Russia, historically, had been interpreted as a secular empire – immense, multiple and multinational. This is all informed by history, very much alive even today in the Russian collective unconscious. When Operation Z started I was in Istanbul – the Second Rome. I spent a considerable time of my late night walks around Hagia Sophia reflecting on the historical correlations of the Second Rome with the Third Rome – which happens to be Moscow, since the concept was first enounced at the start of the 16th century.Later, back in Paris, banishment to soliloquy territory seemed inevitable until an academic pointed me to some substance, although heavily distorted by political correctness, available in the French magazine Historia.There’s at least an attempt to discuss the Third Rome. The significance of the concept was initially religious before becoming political – encapsulating the Russian drive to become the leader of the Orthodox world in contrast with Catholicism. This has to be understood also in the context of pan-Slavic theories springing up under the first Romanov and then reaching their apogee in the 19th century. The apparently monolithic liberal west itself also cannot be understood if we forget how, historically, Europe is also a two-headed beast: one head may be tracked from Charlemagne all the way to the awful Brussels Eurocrat machine; and the other one comes from Athens and Rome, and via Byzantium/Constantinople (the Second Rome) reaches all the way to Moscow (the Third Rome).Latin Europe, for the Orthodox, is seen as a hybrid usurper, preaching a distorted Christianity which only refers to St. Augustine, practicing absurd rites and neglecting the very important Holy Ghost. The Europe of Christian Popes invented what is considered a historical hydra – Byzantium – where Byzantines were actually Greeks living under the Roman Empire.Western Europeans for their part see the Orthodox and the Christians from the East (see how they were abandoned by the west in Syria under ISIS and Al Qaeda) as satraps and a bunch of smugglers – while the Orthodox regard the Crusaders, the Teutonic chevaliers and the Jesuits – correctly, we must say – as barbarian usurpers bent on world conquest.In the Orthodox canon, a major trauma is the fourth Crusade in 1204 which utterly destroyed Constantinople. The Frankish chevaliers happened to eviscerate the most dazzling metropolis in the world, which congregated at the time all the riches from Asia.That was the definition of cultural genocide. The Frankish also happened to be aligned with some notorious serial plunderers: the Venetians. No wonder, from that historical juncture onwards, a slogan was born: “Better the Sultan’s turban than the Pope’s tiara.”
The Situation In The Ukraine - Let’s try to examine the roots of the conflict. It starts with those who for the last eight years have been talking about “separatists” or “independentists” from Donbass. This is not true. The referendums conducted by the two self-proclaimed Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk in May 2014, were not referendums of “independence” (независимость), as some unscrupulous journalistshave claimed, but referendums of “self-determination” or “autonomy” (самостоятельность). The qualifier “pro-Russian” suggests that Russia was a party to the conflict, which was not the case, and the term “Russian speakers” would have been more honest. Moreover, these referendums were conducted against the advice of Vladimir Putin.In fact, these Republics were not seeking to separate from Ukraine, but to have a status of autonomy, guaranteeing them the use of the Russian language as an official language. For the first legislative act of the new government resulting from the overthrow of President Yanukovych, was the abolition, on February 23, 2014, of the Kivalov-Kolesnichenko law of 2012 that made Russian an official language. A bit like if putschists decided that French and Italian would no longer be official languages in Switzerland.This decision caused a storm in the Russian-speaking population. The result was a fierce repression against the Russian-speaking regions (Odessa, Dnepropetrovsk, Kharkov, Lugansk and Donetsk) which was carried out beginning in February 2014 and led to a militarization of the situation and some massacres (in Odessa and Marioupol, for the most notable). At the end of summer 2014, only the self-proclaimed Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk remained.At this stage, too rigid and engrossed in a doctrinaire approach to the art of operations, the Ukrainian general staff subdued the enemy without managing to prevail. The examination of the course of the fighting in 2014-2016 in the Donbass shows that the Ukrainian general staff systematically and mechanically applied the same operative schemes. However, the war waged by the autonomists was very similar to what we observed in the Sahel: highly mobile operations conducted with light means. With a more flexible and less doctrinaire approach, the rebels were able to exploit the inertia of Ukrainian forces to repeatedly “trap” them.In 2014, when I was at NATO, I was responsible for the fight against the proliferation of small arms, and we were trying to detect Russian arms deliveries to the rebels, to see if Moscow was involved. The information we received then came almost entirely from Polish intelligence services and did not “fit” with the information coming from the OSCE—despite rather crude allegations, there were no deliveries of weapons and military equipment from Russia.The rebels were armed thanks to the defection of Russian-speaking Ukrainian units that went over to the rebel side. As Ukrainian failures continued, tank, artillery and anti-aircraft battalions swelled the ranks of the autonomists. This is what pushed the Ukrainians to commit to the Minsk Agreements.But just after signing the Minsk 1 Agreements, the Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko launched a massive anti-terrorist operation (ATO/Антитерористична операція) against the Donbass. Bis repetita placent: poorly advised by NATO officers, the Ukrainians suffered a crushing defeat in Debaltsevo, which forced them to engage in the Minsk 2 Agreements.
21 utility workers have died in Ukraine war, gas CEO says - Ukraine’s top utility executive rushed into a bomb shelter as air defense sirens wailed recently in Kyiv to warn of a possible bombing by the Russian military. Later that day, he did it again. Between scrambles for cover, Yuriy Vitrenko, the CEO of Ukraine’s largest state-owned utility, Naftogaz, had received a phone call about an employee being killed by shelling. It was the 21st death of a Naftogaz worker in two months. He also got news that attempts were unsuccessful to reconnect gas service in a small village that had been shelled, leaving survivors in the town of 11,000 people without heat, working cooktops and warm showers. “It seems like we’re getting used to it,” Vitrenko said. That’s one day in the life of Ukraine’s top power broker. Vitrenko is at the intersection of a ravaged country whose people are trying to survive, while they hope to find remnants of their once-modern world. A hot meal, a warm room, maybe a shower. Across Ukraine, more than 600,000 people have been cut off from Naftogaz’s services as a result of the war. “It makes the lives of those who are cut off from gas supply not bearable, so I would say this is a humanitarian catastrophe in general,” Vitrenko told E&E News in a telephone interview. “Because of heavy bombing and shelling, there is no gas, no electricity, no water, sometimes even beyond the point of survival.” In these times, even an energy executive can offer war strategy. In his conversations with the White House, Vitrenko has offered his views about how to weaken Russia’s use of energy as a weapon of war. As Vitrenko sees it, two of the most powerful tools are a major expansion of U.S. liquefied natural gas, and climate policies that reduce demand for oil and gas. Each could deliver a blow to the Russian economy, he said. Ramping up U.S. oil and gas production and flooding the market with U.S. liquefied natural gas would temper Europe’s reliance on Russian gas, he said. So, too, would reducing oil and gas consumption in America.
Attacks on Mariupol steelworks intensify as Russia looks to end standoff; fate of Ukraine's Donbas in the balance Russia's progress in eastern and southern Ukraine is being closely monitored as its forces appear to have escalated assaults on those regions.Having re-focused its attacks away from northern Ukraine and the capital Kyiv, Russian forces are now looking to take full control of the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine in order to create a land bridge from Russia to Crimea, territory it annexed in 2014. In the latest update from the Ukrainian military, its spokesman said Russian forces "are focusing their efforts on blocking and trying to destroy Ukrainians units in the Azovstal" steelworks where soldiers and civilians have been holed up for up to two months."With the support of aircraft, the enemy resumed the offensive in order to take control of the plant," Ukraine said in its update Thursday morning.Another 344 civilians were evacuated from the city and suburbs of the southern port city of Mariupol and are on the way to the Ukraine-controlled city of Zaporizhzhia, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly address. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said the Russians have made uneven progress in the Donbas region, following weeks of resupply and repositioning efforts. Nonetheless, the U.S. and its allies are rushing to send additional security assistance amid an intensified Russian assault in eastern and southern Ukraine.
The entire village reduced to ashes by Myanmar military- According to local sources, Junta troops burned down a town with over 800 households in Sagaing Region's Kalay Township last weekend after clashes with defense forces. Residents of Ah Shey See, a village in the township's southern part near the Magway Region's border, claim regime forces set fire to their homes late Sunday evening. "They set fire to every house they could see." "On the outskirts of the village, only a few houses were spared," said a resident who did not want to be identified. According to aerial photographs, most of the village has been reduced to ashes. Only about 40 structures have survived. After a full day of fighting between the Kalay People's Defence Force (PDF) and around 200 junta troops, the attack on the village began. The battle started early Sunday morning and lasted until about 5 p.m. when the PDF fighters were forced to retreat. The soldiers allegedly stole as much as they could from the villagers' homes before setting the fire.
China lockdowns wreak havoc on economy as Xi pledges support - China’s stringent lockdowns to curb COVID-19 infections are taking a significant toll on the economy and roiling global supply chains, with President Xi Jinping under pressure to deliver on pledges to support growth. The damage from shutdowns in April in major financial hub Shanghai, auto manufacturing center Changchun and elsewhere was laid bare by the first official data for the month released over the weekend. Both manufacturing and services activity plunged to their worst levels since February 2020, when the nation imposed a range of restrictions amid its initial coronavirus outbreak centered in Wuhan, according to purchasing managers surveys. The offshore yuan weakened in the wake of the data. Embedded Image The strain on global supply chains is also becoming apparent, with the PMI data showing suppliers face the longest delays in more than two years in delivering raw materials to their manufacturing customers. Inventories of finished goods climbed to the highest level in more than a decade, while indexes for exports and imports slumped. The figures came a day after the Communist Party’s Politburo, led by Xi, promised to meet its economic targets while at the same time sticking with its COVID Zero policy to curb infections. Economists see the two goals as contradictory, with many cutting their growth projections to well below the government’s official target of around 5.5 per cent. Xi appeared to soften his stance toward the private sector, telling the Politburo meeting that the healthy development of private capital should be encouraged. At the same time, he said capital must be regulated and shouldn’t undermine the objectives of common prosperity. The pledges by top leaders came as omicron virus outbreaks continue to spread, with growing fears of a lockdown in Beijing. The capital city tightened COVID requirements over the weekend after more infections were reported following rounds of mass testing of its 22 million population. Citizens are now required to provide negative nucleic acid test results within 48 hours in order to enter any public venue during the five-day Labor Day holiday. Dining-in at restaurants is banned during the period, and indoor venues including theaters, internet cafes and gyms will suspend operations. The Universal Studios theme park in Beijing also announced it would temporarily close from Sunday to comply with epidemic prevention measures. In Shanghai, where large swaths of the population have been locked down for a month or more, the government announced on Sunday that six districts met the criteria for zero community spread of COVID-19 and can loosen restrictions. Zero community spread means reporting no local COVID infections for three consecutive days and if the new daily case counts are less than 0.001 per cent of the area’s population for the same period. As manufacturer to the world, the lockdowns in China mean possible shortages of goods and add another risk to global inflation. Despite repeated calls from the authorities to ensure smooth logistics, container goods were still left sitting at Shanghai’s port for weeks.
China’s hardline COVID lockdowns taking bite out of economy, hurting demand - From electric vehicles to fast food, industries across China are feeling the impact of COVID-19 lockdowns as demand plummets. Before the lockdowns, EV sales in China, the world’s second-largest economy, were booming. Tesla sales in China jumped more than half in the first quarter while sales from its rival, BYD, quintupled, according to Reuters. China is sticking to a strict "zero-COVID" policy even as many other countries are easing restrictions and seeing if they can live with the virus. Much of Shanghai — a finance, manufacturing, and shipping hub — remains locked down, disrupting people's lives and dealing a blow to the economy. Millions remain restricted to their buildings or compounds in Shanghai under a lockdown that has only slightly eased. Showrooms, stores, and malls in Shanghai, China's largest city, are shut and the city’s 25 million residents are only shopping for basic necessities. A dealer of a premium German car brand in Jiangsu province, told Reuters that the current lockdowns "could be worst than the first wave of COVID in 2020, when the economy recovery was quick and strong." "Nowadays, there are more uncertainties in the economy, and the stock and property markets are not doing well," he said. Credit Suisse analysts said they believe the COVID control measures are putting consumption on a downward spiral, writing in an April 19 research note: "We the consumer sector as being at major risk of the prolonged pandemic and further tightening continue across China." City officials across China are trying to mitigate these problems by artificially propping up demand, giving residents millions of dollars’ worth of shopping vouches to encourage spending. Guangdong on Friday, for instance, began handing subsidies of up to 8,000 yuan ($1,200) to encourage sales of "new energy vehicles" like Volkswagen and BYD.
Shanghai’s zero Covid nightmare - Why even many wealthy people in China’s richest city can’t reliably get food — and what it says about the country’s political system. In late March, Chinese authorities warned the residents of Shanghai that they would soon be trapped in their homes. They were given little time to prepare provisions for what they were told would be a few days trapped at home to combat the spread of Covid-19.It’s three weeks later, and China’s largest city remains in lockdown. The government has failed to provide sufficient food, leading to starving people and the emergence of a barter economy among residents. Medical care for non-Covid ailments is difficult to access, leading to reports of people dying of injuries and easily preventable diseases. Shanghaiers are furious,clashing with police and venting rage out their windows to an empty city. Robots and drones patrol the streets and the skies, sending eerie messages instructing citizens to remain calm and “control your soul’s desire for freedom.”On top of all of that, it’s not exactly clear how much Covid-19 spread and death the most extreme measures have actually prevented. (Official reports claim there have been 400,000 cases in the city of 28 million.)How could this happen to a city as wealthy and cosmopolitan as Shanghai? And what does the situation tell us about the Chinese political system?To answer these questions, I reached out to Mark Frazier, a professor at the New School who studies urban politics in Shanghai and China more broadly. According to Frazier, the situation in Shanghai reflects a government dogmatically committed to its “zero Covid” policy — of preventing any community spread of the coronavirus — even as the contagiousness of the omicron variant renders the policy basically infeasible.The commitment reflects deep flaws in the Chinese response to the pandemic, ranging from a failure to push a mass vaccination campaign to an ideological commitment to proving that China’s autocracy “works” better than liberal democracy. Yet at the same time, Frazier cautions against assuming that the scenes on display in Shanghai will galvanize a mass protest movement against the Communist Party — something that observers outside China predict far more than it actually happens. A transcript of our conversation follows, edited for length and clarity.
China Censors National Anthem Lyrics Used as Lockdown Protest - China's national anthem, "March of the Volunteers," seemingly offered clear instructions to Shanghai residents frustrated with the government's oppressive COVID-containment lockdown: "Rise up, people who don't want to be slaves."But when the inhabitants of the Chinese Communist Party's birthplace began posting that stirring first line on Weibo, China's version of Twitter, censors blocked it, along with another commanding line: "Arise! Arise! Arise!"The national anthem is among the most potent identifiers of a country's tradition, history and beliefs. In its early years, China's anthem, the theme song of the popular 1935 film "Sons and Daughters in a Time of Storm," urged resistance to the invading Japanese.But despite the composition's patriotic origins, China's censors have squelched the first line and its other passionate parts throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.Censors tackled the national anthem soon after COVID-19 was first identified in humans in December 2019 in Wuhan. The official silencing of Dr. Li Wenliang, who issued warnings about the contagious new virus that killed him, sparked anger among netizens who posted the same lyrics on Douban, China's version of Reddit, according to the Language Log website. Then, Chinese authorities blocked the anthem's first line because it contained "radical current politics or ideology," according to Twitter posts.
Shanghai’s lockdown is giving China’s online grocery apps a second chance - For over a week in April, the 24-year-old Shanghai resident had to get her phone out at these five points every day to refresh a different grocery delivery app in hopes of grabbing a hard-to-get delivery slot.During Shanghai’s ongoing month-long lockdown, these online grocery apps have been a lifeline for stranded residents. Song says that about 60 to 70% of her groceries have been purchased through online apps since the lockdown began. Without them, she would have run out of food. The Shanghai lockdown is the latest stage of a two-year roller-coaster ride for the online grocery industry in China. Its rise and fall and rise again has mirrored the tightening and loosening of China’s covid-19 restrictions: apps like Dingdong, Alibaba’s Hema, and Meituan’s Maicai have struggled whenever lockdowns are relaxed. Now, as China continues with its zero-covid strategy, the harsh lockdown measures have given the industry another chance to shine after a year of disappointing business returns. Whether it continues to succeed when things are back to normal is another question.Around 2015, Chinese tech companies, including Alibaba, started experimenting with ideas to incorporate grocery shopping into the country’s thriving e-commerce landscape. It wasn’t until 2018 and 2019 that the industry really began to take off, with dozens of new startups competing for attention and investments. But growth was modest; startup failures were common. It was the first nationwide lockdown in China, in the first few months of 2020, that really supercharged the industry’s growth. As Chinese people first began to grapple with what it meant to be sheltering in place, they relied on these apps, most of which launched in 2018 and 2019, to have their supplies delivered. It soon grew into one of the hottest new tech industries in China, with venture capital funding pouring in and tech giants like DiDi and Meituan eager to take a slice. A February 2021 McKinsey report predicted that “online grocery shopping will likely be one of the most contested and contentious consumer facing sectors in China in 2021.” And contested it was, as players in the market were not afraid to spend: according to an anonymous executive at the now-defunct Chengxin Youxuan, the e-grocer arm of DiDi, quoted in the Chinese business publication Caixin, “The entire market was burning at least 10 billion yuan ($1.57 billion) every month.” In June 2021, startups Dingdong and MissFresh filed to go public in the United States on the same day, racing to be the first Chinese publicly traded online grocery company.
Global manufacturers lose momentum as inflation worsens: Kemp - Chartbook: https://tmsnrt.rs/39zSCZN (Reuters) - Global manufacturing growth has started to decelerate as supply chain problems, the rising cost of energy and raw materials, and the conflict between Russia and Ukraine take their toll. Slower growth in manufacturing output and freight transport is inevitable after the recovery from the pandemic, when consumer spending shifted to merchandise from services. As quarantines and other social-distancing restrictions are lifted, spending is being redirected back towards services such as transport, tourism and hospitality, sapping some of the demand for goods. Slower manufacturing and freight growth will be quietly welcomed by policymakers since it is likely to ease supply chain bottlenecks and take some of the heat out of energy prices and inflation. But as the sector loses momentum, it will become more vulnerable to shocks or policy errors that could turn a mid-cycle slowdown into a cycle-ending recession. The range of possible outcomes for growth and inflation is wide and the room for policy errors is very narrow. U.S. manufacturers reported another fairly widespread expansion in business activity last month but fewer firms are reporting growth compared with 2021. The Institute for Supply Management’s purchasing managers’ index slipped to 55.4 in April from 57.1 in March and 60.6 at the same point last year. The composite indicator is in the 69th percentile for all months since 1980 down from the 96th percentile a year ago. The new orders measure, which is the most forward-looking component of the index, has slipped to the 35th percentile from the 93rd a year ago. The relative weakness of new business likely portends a further slowdown in manufacturing growth over the next six months. In the eurozone, manufacturers also reported a slower expansion last month, with the purchasing managers’ index down to 55.5 in April from 56.5 in March and 62.9 last year. The region’s purchasing index has dipped to the 74th percentile for all months since 2006 compared with the 99th percentile a year ago. European manufacturers are likely to experience an even deeper slowdown in the months ahead as sanctions on Russian coal, oil and possibly gas raise input costs and squeeze consumer and business spending. In North America and Europe, the manufacturing sector is still expanding, but momentum is ebbing fast and the slowdown is likely to deepen as inflation and higher interest rates squeeze household spending. In China, manufacturers have already been hit far harder than in the other regions because they are also struggling with increasingly frequent coronavirus outbreaks and lockdowns. China’s manufacturing index slipped to 47.4 in April from 49.5 in March and 51.1 in April 2021, according to the country’s National Bureau of Statistics. The index has fallen to its lowest since February 2020, when the first wave of the pandemic was raging, and before that January 2009, when the economy was in the midst of the recession caused by the financial crisis. China’s manufacturers already appear to be on the brink of recession as lockdowns close factories and disrupt supply chains. Over the last week, the top message from policymakers and the state-run media has been the need to restart the economy while maintaining epidemic controls, an acknowledgement of how serious the slowdown has become.
End of easy money brings a US$410B global financial shock - The global shift away from easy money is poised to accelerate as a pandemic bond-buying blitz by central banks swings into reverse, threatening another shock to the world’s economies and financial markets. Bloomberg Economics estimates that policy makers in the Group of Seven countries will shrink their balance sheets by about US$410 billion in the remainder of 2022. It’s a stark turnaround from last year, when they added US$2.8 trillion — taking the total expansion to more than US$8 trillion since COVID-19 arrived. That wave of monetary support helped prop up economies and asset prices through a pandemic slump. Central banks are pulling it back — belatedly, in the view of some critics — as inflation soars to multi-decade highs. The dual impact of shrinking balance sheets and higher interest rates adds up to an unprecedented challenge for a global economy already hit by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and China’s new COVID lockdowns. Unlike previous tightening cycles when the U.S. Federal Reserve was alone in shrinking its balance sheet, this time others are expected to do likewise. Their new policy, known as quantitative tightening — the opposite of the quantitative easing that central banks turned to during the pandemic and the Great Recession — will likely send borrowing costs higher and dry up liquidity. Already, rising bond yields, falling share prices and the stronger U.S. dollar are tightening financial conditions — even before the Fed’s push to raise interest rates gets into full swing. “This is a major financial shock for the world,” “You are already seeing the consequences of tapering in reduced dollar liquidity and dollar appreciation.” The Fed is expected to raise rates by 50 basis points at its May 3 to 4 policy meeting and several times thereafter, with traders seeing about 250 basis points of tightening between now and year’s end. Officials are also expected to start trimming the balance sheet at a maximum pace of US$95 billion a month, a quicker shift than most envisaged at the start of the year. The U.S. central bank will achieve this by letting its holdings of government bonds and mortgage-backed securities mature, rather than actively selling the assets it bought. Policy makers have left open the option that they might, at a later stage, sell mortgage bonds and return to an all-Treasuries portfolio. In 2013, the Fed’s balance-sheet plans caught investors by surprise and triggered an episode of financial turmoil that became known as the “taper tantrum.” This time around, the policy has been well telegraphed, in the U.S. and elsewhere. Asset managers have had time to price in the effects, which should make a wrenching shock on the markets less likely.
Citi trader error sparks flash crash in European markets - A flash crash in European stock markets yesterday was sparked by an error in a single sell-order trade by a Citigroup employee, it has emerged. European shares plunged rapidly yesterday after a sharp drop in Nordic stock markets, when a trader made a calculation error involving an index which included Swedish stocks. Citi acknowledged the cause of the plunge in a statement, saying that one of its traders made an error when inputting a transaction. “Within minutes, we identified the error and corrected it,” the firm said. Sweden’s benchmark OMX 30 plunged as much as 7.9 per cent before recovering to close 1.9 per cent, while the brief contagion spread into the Europe Stoxx 600 index, spurring a slide of as much as 3 per cent before recovering to trade down 1.5 per cent. A Nasdaq spokesperson confirmed yesterday that the plunge had been caused by a trader error. “The reason for the drop was a sell event by a market participant. We have not identified any disturbances in Nasdaq´s systems,” a Nasdaq spokesperson in Stockholm said in an emailed statement. “Furthermore, after a review, Nasdaq has not seen any reason to cancel trades that were made during this event.”
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