Equities on Wall Street traded lower in the premarket session on Tuesday, as investors were discouraged by the Federal Reserve’s Chair Jerome Powell announcing the possibility of the Fed increasing interest rates to decrease the rate of inflation and the US Senate failing to approve a measure to suspend the debt ceiling. Notably, Federal Reserve Bank of New York leadership warned that tapering the United States central bank’s bond-buying “may soon be warranted,” The Dow Jones Industrial Average decreased 0.39% at 4:24 am ET, the Nasdaq 100 lost 1.34% at the same time. The S&P 500 traded 0.73% lower a minute later. The euro lost 0.14% against the dollar to trade for $1.16792 at 4:26 am ET.]
Shares drop for third day, yields soar as markets brace for rate hikes
LONDON (Reuters) – Global shares fell for a third successive day, while bond yields on both sides of the Atlantic soared on anxiety over when central banks might raise interest rates. MSCI’s All Country World Index, which tracks shares across 49 countries, was down 0.3% on the day after the start of trading in Europe. The 10-year U.S. Treasury yield hit 1.5444%, its highest level since Jun. 17, pulling up euro zone bond yields in its wake. Two-year Treasury yields surged to 18-month highs. A market measure of euro zone inflation expectations jumped to 1.81%, its highest level in two weeks. Surging yields pressured high-growth technology shares at the start of trading in Europe while fresh signs of a slowdown in China’s economy also weighed on investor sentiment, pushing the pan-European STOXX 600 index down over 1%. [.EU] Britain’s FTSE 100 index fell 0.5%, while Germany’s DAX fell 0.8%. France’s CAC 40 fell 1.1% and Italy’s FTSE MIB index slipped 0.6%. “The global equity market is having difficulties rising in a wall of worries as the energy crunch and re-pricing of the U.S. (and EU over the month) is potentially changing the timing and speed of future rate increases or at least tapering,” said Sebastien Galy, senior macro strategist at Nordea Asset Management. Rising yields also boosted the dollar, with the index that measures the greenback’s strength rising to a five-week high. The Japanese yen fell against the dollar and the euro as rising yields made the currencies more attractive to Japanese buyers. During Asian trade, Brent crude oil hit $80 a barrel for the first time in three years, driven by regional economies beginning to reopen from the COVID-19 pandemic and supply concerns. Gold prices fell to a 1-1/2-month low on Tuesday, with spot gold hitting its lowest level since Aug. 11 at $1,735.40 per ounce. London nickel and tin prices extended losses into a second session on Tuesday, as widening power cuts in top metals consumer China cause worries over downstream demand.
(Bloomberg) — Oil rallied at the start of the week’s trading on signs that the crude market is tightening amid a global energy crunch. West Texas Intermediate topped $75 a barrel after a run of five weekly gains, while Brent reached the highest level since October 2018. Prices are set to continue rallying as supply struggles to catch up with fast-rising demand, according to Trafigura Group’s co-head of oil trading Ben Luckock. His remarks came on the same day that Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said Brent could hit $90 a barrel by year-end as the market is in a bigger deficit than many realize.
Crude is rallying on signs that inventories globally are falling sharply, with demand hotting up ahead of winter and OPEC+ only slowly adding barrels back to the market.
As traders eye the prospect of large market deficits, Trafigura said longer-dated oil prices remain cheap at around $70 a barrel. So-called timespreads, which gauge market strength, have rallied sharply in recent weeks in another sign that traders are positive about the outlook.
“Observable inventory draws are the largest on record,” Goldman Sachs analysts including Damien Courvalin wrote in a note to clients. “This deficit will not be reversed in coming months, in our view, as its scale will overwhelm both the willingness and ability of OPEC+ to ramp up.”
OPEC+ is scheduled to meet on Oct. 4. to review output policy after sticking with supply increases of 400,000 a day for recent months. Internal documents from the group have already highlighted the risk of the natural gas crisis ramping up demand. Citigroup Inc. said it remained “outright bullish” on crude as well as gas, according to a commodities outlook. On Monday, U.S. natural gas futures rose for a third day as inventory levels stayed low ahead of the heating season. NN: This is simply OPEC holding supplies back to create artificial shortages. The most treacherous markets i have ever seen, translation their is a hell of a lot of money to me made here. We now have a oil price shock (like in the seventies) to add to the run away inflationary pressures…… Its the whole inflationary enchilada. Wage inflation, wholesale inflation, embedded inflation, raw material inflation and consumed inflation. SO its to be expected that consumer inflationary expectations are soaring. We have now achieved embedded inflation. And the FED is trapped They will have to raise rates soon and a lot. And this oil/gas manipulation will not last much longer.
LONDON (Reuters) – Lengthy queues of vehicles snaked their way to gas stations in Britain on Saturday where an acute shortage of truck drivers has led to fuel rationing and some pumps running dry, and prompted the government to consider issuing temporary work visas. Across the country, motorists waited in long lines to fill up their vehicles. One big distributor said it was rationing sales and a number of operators said they were having to close some forecourts, provoking panic-buying.
“We’re looking at temporary measures to avoid any immediate problems, but any measures we introduce will be very strictly time limited,” a spokeswoman for Johnson’s Downing Street office said in a statement.”Like countries around the world we are suffering from a temporary COVID-related shortage of drivers needed to move supplies around the coun try.” NB: Bullshit, As part of the britexit war England refused to allow foreign truck drivers into England… Its called shooting yourself in the dick! The UK’s Road Haulage Association (RHA) says Britain is facing a shortage of some 100,000 drivers, a result of workers leaving the industry, Brexit and COVID-19, which put a stop to driver training and testing for about a year.
Boris Johnson ready to relax UK visa regime to tackle truck driver shortage
Boris Johnson has bowed to months of pressure from business by authorising a temporary visa scheme covering up to 10,000 foreign workers, in order to ease a shortage of lorry drivers that has caused widespread disruption. Ministers and officials met on Friday to sign off a package of measures, including issuing temporary visas to thousands of foreign truck drivers and meat processing workers following chaotic scenes at petrol stations and sporadic food shortages. Downing Street hopes to make a formal announcement as early as Saturday afternoon, according to Whitehall officials. The package is expected to “last three to six months, to see us through Christmas”, one said. Energy company BP announced on Thursday that a “handful” of petrol stations would temporarily close due to a shortage of drivers able to transport unleaded and diesel fuel. ExxonMobil also warned that a “small number” of its petrol stations had been affected. Johnson is expected to sign off approximately 5,000 visas for HGV drivers and a similar number for food processing workers, with a focus on the poultry industry.
Home secretary Priti Patel was previously the strongest opponent of giving temporary visas to foreign HGV drivers, arguing it would lead to a stampede of different industries demanding similar preferential treatment. She has since sided with transport secretary Grant Shapps to support the plan.
One person close to the situation said the prime minister was “completely fed up with bad headlines on this and wants it sorted and doesn’t care about visa limits any more”. An individual with knowledge of Friday’s meeting said “the PM indicated he would rather take the short-term hit on immigration as a trade off for not messing up Christmas”. The package will also include measures to reduce red tape for HGV drivers and a programme to encourage those who had left the industry to return. Lorry drivers currently do not meet the skills threshold to qualify for work visas in the UK under the government’s new points-based system. In recent months the government has resisted calls to offer temporary visas to foreign drivers in a bid to fill an estimated 100,000 vacancies. 5,000 highly conditional visas would not be enough. “Having admitted that immigrant labour is a part of the solution, why can’t we do it properly and give our exhausted food industry supply chain workers the reinforcements they desperately need?” Johnson’s move comes as Tory MPs worry about a broader “cost of living crisis” involving rising gas prices, inflation, an imminent national insurance increase, the end of the furlough scheme and cuts to universal credit.
The CBI business lobby group said its members had this week warned about “sharply increasing” material costs and shortages of key manufacturing components. Producers also faced “rocketing energy prices”, it added.
Tony Danker, CBI director-general, said: “This is now a major threat to our recovery, and the government needs to step up its response to a new level of both speed and boldness.” Transport secretary Grant Shapps said on Friday that the armed forces could be brought in to drive lorries if the situation worsened. He told the BBC there had been a “systematic shortage of drivers” for a “long time”, noting that many drivers had left the sector because of low wages caused in part by importing labour from abroad. About 20,000 EU drivers returned home during the pandemic, according to industry estimates, but a further 50,000 British drivers with HGV licences also stopped working during the past 18 months. NN: You are seeing a global failure of leadership.They just no shit do not understand the crises and truly do not know what to do. In fact they do nothing until their silly ass decisions blow up in their incompetent faces.
In a fresh update on China Evergrande story, the indebted property development giant is likely to be restructured into three separate entities, in a fresh deal that could be announced within days, Asia Markets reports on Wednesday, citing sources close to the Chinese government. The sources added that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is set to take control of Evergrande in an imminent deal. “The deal is being designed to protect Chinese nationals who have bought apartments from Evergrande, like the ones you see protesting on the streets and also those who have invested in Evergrande’s wealth management products.” “But the big thing is stemming any widespread economic flow-on effects that insolvency would cause on the China economy.” The risk sentiment remains elevated on the renewed optimism surrounding China Evergrande. Although the above report has little to no impact on the risk trades, so far. NN: My analysis is clear. Fireman to the rescue. The decision has been made from on high. China will restructure evergrande and it will not fail nor default. I was sure China would see a evergrande collapse would bring down the house of cards the real estate market. Let me clear here the global bubble real estate market is an enormous house of cards and a 2008 style real estate crash will be soon upon us. No matter how many tent revivals real estate Donald Trump wanna be attend on bended knee praying Lord please make sure this time it different. Its not!!
MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian energy giant Gazprom stands ready to increase natural gas supplies to Europe, Interfax news agency cited a Kremlin spokesman as saying on Sunday, amid a surge in gas prices. Dmitry Peskov also said, according to the news agency, that Gazprom is interested in more gas supply contracts. He was speaking about the low level of gas in storage across Europe. “Is it possible to get more gas from Gazprom and pump it in there? It’s possible. Gazprom is ready. Moreover, it has already covered all the additional (supply) requests,” he was quoted as saying. Russian gas giant Gazprom has been accused by the International Energy Agency (IEA) and some lawmakers in the European Parliament of not doing enough to increase its natural gas supplies to Europe, where gas prices have soared. Peskov reiterated that Gazprom meets all the obligations on gas supplies. “Is Gazprom ready for more, for signing more contracts? Gazprom is interested in it. That’s because our consumers in Europe are our main partners,” he said. Benchmark European gas prices have risen more than 250% this year, leading to higher power prices and a knock on effect on industries reliant on gas for their production such as fertilizer plants. NN: Their is truth and then their is greeneewineee truth. Relying on weather related sources for electricity is a failed experiment. Solar relies on sun light and clouds are the enemy of solar. Wind relies upon wind and needs a strong flow of wind… And when the wind dies down or stops you got no electricity. Well guess what its cloudy as hell in Europe and the north sea is seeing little wind. Now the grennieewenniees can chant, beat drums, go to their Shinto priest. Even sacrifice chickens. But unless the clouds go away and the winds blow they are fucked. The pipelines from Russia and dirty coal are all they are left with. They should have thought about all this before they shut nuclear power plants, shunned fracking and abandoned domestic source of natural gas. Now they are Putin’s Bitch…..
Sept 24 (Reuters) – The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Friday backed a booster shot of the Pfizer /BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for Americans aged 65 and older, adults with underlying medical conditions and adults in high-risk working and institutional settings. The decision by CDC Director Rochelle Walensky is aligned with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s authorization of the shot earlier this week and follows an August announcement of a broad booster rollout from her and other top U.S. health officials.
The CDC recommendation cleared the way for booster shots to start on Friday. Walgreens Boots Alliance and Walmart Inc said on Friday that boosters were available immediately for eligible individuals. They will also be rolled out in long-term care facilities and vaccination centers.
Walensky’s decision broke from a recommendation on Thursday by a group of expert outside advisors to the agency who had said that a narrower group of people should receive the extra shot. The CDC director is not obliged to follow the advice of the panel. “This was a scientific close call. In that situation, it was my call to make,” she told reporters at a White House briefing https://www.reuters.com/world/us/cdc-director-says-she-overruled-advisers-boosters-protect-workers-2021-09-24. The advisory panel specifically excluded people in high-risk jobs and those in close living conditions due in part to concerns about a rare heart inflammation side effect that has occurred primarily in younger men. They were also concerned the recommendation would be too broad to implement effectively. Walensky said the policy protects healthcare and frontline workers as well as religious and ethnic minority communities disproportionately impacted by the pandemic. “Many of our frontline workers, essential workers, and those in congregate settings, come from communities that have already been hardest hit,” she said. “It was a decision about providing rather than withholding access.” The panel did recommend boosters for older people and some with medical conditions that put them at higher risk of severe COVID-19. The authorization opens boosters to more than 20 million people who received their second Pfizer/BioNTech shot more than six months ago. The CDC on Thursday told its advisers that there would be no requirements to submit documentation to prove that people have the underlying conditions or work in at-risk settings. Scientists have been divided over the need for COVID-19 vaccine boosters, with some including those from the FDA and the World Health Organization saying there is inadequate evidence that they are needed by anyone other than older people and that priority should be given to people around the world who have yet to receive a first shot.
Pfizer and U.S. health officials have argued https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-looks-covid-19-boosters-curb-virus-spread-that the boosters prevent hospitalizations and deaths and that emerging data indicates they can slow mild infections as well.
The highly transmissible Delta variant of the coronavirus has driven a surge in COVID-19 cases in the United States that peaked on Sept. 1 and has since fallen about 25% to just over 120,000 cases per day, based on a 7-day moving average. The United States had authorized extra shots for those with compromised immune systems last month and around 2.3 million people have already received a third shot, according to the CDC. The CDC said about 26 million people would now be eligible for a Pfizer/BioNTech booster, including 13 million aged 65 or older. William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, said the shots will be widely available under this policy. “I’m skeptical that locations will be overwhelmed, but there may be some locations, particularly in high-income neighborhoods, where they might get a lot of people interested,” Schaffner said. NN: This is a step in the right direction… But 25% of the new infections are kids under 12 years old. And the vaccine for the kiddies has passed PhaseIII clinical studies which means it should be authorized. Get this healthy people between the ages os 12 to 65 are not eligible unless your in prison or a health care worker. Does that mean you got to break the glass at the local Post Office to get this desperately needed vaccine.
(Bloomberg) — China’s bans all cryptocurrencies: Digital currencies sold off after China’s central bank said all cryptocurrency-related transactions were illegal, according to a Q&A statement on the People’s Bank of China’s website. Bitcoin, the largest digital coin, fell as much as 8.9%, while Ether lost near 13%. The Bloomberg Galaxy Crypto Index, a gauge of some of the most-prominent cryptos, lost as much as 11%. “It’s the latest move in a multi-year clampdown on Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies,” said Antoni Trenchev, managing partner and co-founder of Nexo, a crypto lender. “For now, Bitcoin can’t catch a break. Bitcoin is being bombarded from all sides.” Chen Arad, chief operating officer at crypto risk surveillance firm Solidus Labs said “Though China’s move is particularly dramatic, it reflects on similar concerns regulators globally are sharing surrounding crypto market integrity and its role in illicit activity. Manipulation and fraud is not unique to crypto but, as a new asset class, digital assets present new challenges and have more to prove to regulators and the public.” Shares of crypto-related stocks, including Marathon Digital Holdings Inc (NASDAQ: MARA) Riot Blockchain Inc and Coinbase Global, Inc. (NASDAQ: COIN) are trading lower amid a decrease in the price of Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) and Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH). Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies traded lower Friday. NN: This is the battle mankind faces….. Governments all of them seek to control our money, investments, movements, new and information. We are rapidly losing all our freedoms. Crypto currencies are the current whipping boy of governments, they seek to destroy what they do not understand. Illegal activities in crypto coins are minuscule. Most illegal transactions involve cash and corrupt banks…. which their are no shortage.
BEIJING (Reuters) – Several local governments in China have set up special custodian accounts for property projects of its most indebted developer, Evergrande, to protect funds earmarked for housing projects from being diverted, media outlet Caixin said. Reeling under $305 billion of debt, Evergrande missed a payment deadline on a dollar bond last week, and its silence on the matter has set global investors wondering if they will have to swallow large losses when a 30-day grace period ends. The special accounts have been set up since late August in at least eight provinces where Evergrande has the most unfinished projects, the Chinese outlet said on Sunday, citing a source close to the developer’s management team. These include Anhui, Guizhou, Henan, Jiangsu and cities in the southern Pearl River Delta, it added.
The custodian accounts aim to ensure homebuyers’ payments are used to complete Evergrande’s housing projects, and not diverted elsewhere, such as to creditors, Caixin said.
In some southern cities, such as Zhuhai and Shenzhen, the offices of the housing regulator, the Ministry of Housing and Urban‑Rural Development, were also involved in overseeing and reviewing fund use by Evergrande’s projects, it said. Evergrande and the housing ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment. In recent months, the cash-strapped developer, which epitomises the borrow-to-build business model, has stopped repaying some investors and suppliers and halted building work at many projects across China. The housing regulator has also set a Sept. 24 deadline for regional offices to report on the funding gaps facing Evergrande’s unfinished projects, Caixin said, but it was not immediately clear if this had been met. By the end of June, Evergrande still had 1,236 projects for sale, it said in a semi-annual report, including those completed and under construction. Last week, the Wall Street Journal newspaper said Chinese authorities had asked local governments to prepare for a possible collapse of Evergrande, urging them to prevent unrest and mitigate ripple effects on the rest of the economy. NN: It is obvious that the Chinese government which is not the most forthcoming on information has decided on a massive bail out. And this has calmed markets worldwide……. Further reinforcing the buy on the dips myths for millennial soon to be wiped out social media ha ha ha traders beiive. It is not common knowledge that the Chinese Commonest government changed the capital rules earlier this year that started the dominoes falling. The peoples banks of China has lowered interest rates and capital requirements last week for real estate developers in essence allowing Evergrande to start to make interest payments. And finish projects in the works Our research and information services lead me to the conclusion Evergarande will take a haircut but survive… Crises adverted for now!
States are resisting a return to remote learning even as the delta variant leads to higher numbers of Covid-19 cases among children and teachers.
U.S. schools were counting on widespread vaccinations to help get all students back to in-person classes for the first time since early 2020. Mere weeks into the effort, signs of another taxing year are emerging amid scattershot safety rules and rising Covid-19 among children. Over the past month, with kindergarten through 12th grade in session, the country has reported almost 1 million cases among those under 18. Though kids typically are less likely than adults to become severely ill with Covid, they increasingly are contracting the highly contagious delta variant. As of Sunday, 2,000 schools nationwide had closed — 18% more than a week earlier, according to the Burbio tracker.
The solution is vaccines. Pfizer Inc. and partner BioNTech SE on Monday reported strong outcomes in trials for 5-to-11-year-olds. But federal approval for the shots isn’t expected until late October at the earliest. Until then, some of the biggest districts are pledging to avoid a return to the online lessons that jammed parents who couldn’t work remotely, stressed tech-poor areas and worsened the nation’s academic inequality.
“Kids need to be in school — that sort of emerges as the consensus,” Jesse Sharkey, president of the Chicago Teachers Union, said in an interview. “You have to have layers of safety. What we’re seeing is a really uneven picture.” Preventing spread is not so simple in parts of the country where rules are relaxed or non-existent, as Republican governors and lawmakers invoke personal freedom or discount Covid’s health effects. In Utah, where school mask mandates are banned, aerospace executive Brad Plothow and his wife, Stefanie, are home-teaching their two younger children who are at risk for respiratory illness. Two older girls are attending classes in person: One is vaccinated, and the other, just shy of the age 12 minimum, is in a classroom running a pair of high-efficiency air purifiers bought by the Plothows. “When they come home, we’re nervous,” said Brad Plothow, 39, of Lehi, 30 miles (48 kilometers) from Salt Lake City. “They gargle, shower and spray down their backpacks. The thinking is: What are the vectors that could create a problem for our younger kids?” Three times over the past four weeks, the family received word of possible school exposure, but the girls tested negative. When federal approval comes through on shots for those under 12, Plothow said, all his kids will be protected. In South Carolina, where several school districts have gone virtual, state lawmakers from both parties are calling for a special legislative session to overturn a rule that forbids districts from requiring masks. But in a state that’s given enough vaccinations for just 52% of the population, Governor Henry McMaster, a Republican, says parents should make the decision. “This school district, this county has done a grand job of using all the tools, all the information, and assimilating the data necessary to understand what we’re dealing with,” McMaster said on Sept. 15 during a tour of Camden Elementary School — 35 miles northeast of Columbia — which sanitizes surfaces and isolates students with high temperatures. Even multiple protection layers are no guarantee. New Jersey, with 130,000 teachers and 1.3 million kids in public and charter schools, requires masks and staff vaccinations, among other precautions. Of the seven schools forced to shut since in-person classes started, four have reopened and three remain virtual, state Education Commissioner Angelica Allen-McMillan said Wednesday at a Trenton virus briefing.
A Sept. 3 U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report on a Marin County, California, school traced at least two dozen cases to an unvaccinated teacher who had read aloud maskless. The outbreak occurred even though most staff had had shots and the school had followed CDC recommendations on masking, routine testing, building ventilating and staying home when symptomatic “to ensure safe in-person learning in schools.” In recent days, a growing number of cases are driving some states to renew safety calls. In New York, where 54% of 12-to-17-year-olds are vaccinated, Governor Kathy Hochul on Tuesday called remote learning “an interesting experiment” that was “a disaster.” She urged parents in areas dense with schools to send vaccine-eligible youngsters to mobile sites set up near basketball courts and parks. “Keeping them unvaccinated during a global pandemic — which is not over yet, my friends — is something I can’t comprehend as a parent,” she said. Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont is seeking to extend the statewide school mask mandate beyond Sept. 30. “A lot of families started moving to Connecticut because they wanted their kids in schools and we’re able to do that safely,” Lamont, a Democrat, said Tuesday on Bloomberg Television.
Nationally, at least 361 teachers have died of Covid-19 since the pandemic began in March 2020, according to a compilation by Education Week. New York City as of Wednesday has logged 91 deaths of teachers, food-service workers, secretaries and other school employees, according to its education department. In Manhattan, Public School 79 on Monday became the city’s first school this term to go remote after 19 staff members tested positive. “We still need everybody to wear masks — we need all of those layers there,” said Anna Bershteyn, an assistant professor at New York University Grossman School of Medicine’s population health department, who advised the city on its return to classrooms.
For the week ended Sept. 16, there were 226,000 child Covid cases, accounting for more than one-quarter of all U.S. positives, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association.
Some districts say for the most part, lessons are going as planned. In Philadelphia, James Garrow, a spokesman for the city’s health department, said four schools closing among hundreds was “definitely not the worst-case scenario.” “Anybody would be silly to believe there would be no cases in schools,” Garrow said. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio on Monday doubled testing to weekly, but at the same time loosened quarantine rules to boost attendance. He has said students need to be in class, and remote learning should not be an option. “There’s a number of kids out of school right now,” he said. “Our goal is to avoid that whenever possible so as long as we can do it safely.” In Chicago, Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Monday said she was disappointed in the city’s slow rollout of teacher and student testing. Among 22,000 teachers and 341,000 students, just 5,451 samples had been collected as of Tuesday, according to the district’s Covid page. Officials report 329 student and 142 adult cases since school started. “There should have been a much more robust plan and infrastructure in place,” Lightfoot told WTTW public television. In Georgia, where Republican Governor Brian Kemp maintains that masking and vaccinating should be personal choices, almost 60% of statewide cases as of Sept. 14 were in schools. And in Colorado, where school masking is optional, statewide transmission is highest among those ages 6 to 17.
Last week, Colorado school cases almost doubled over seven days, to 1,583. Denver, the state’s largest public district, on Wednesday reported 35 staffers and 170 students tested positive, and 220 kids “The risk to children right now is higher than it’s ever been during the pandemic because of the delta variant being more transmissible,” state epidemiologist Rachel Herlihy said. NN: As we predicted sending the children back to school vaccinated is a BIG mistake. The hell of it is the Pfizer vaccines has finished its Phase III trials and its safe and it works. But it will be delayed until after the holidays and for many it will come to late. We are prototyping our kiddie fun masks,…… Maybe then can help:
(Bloomberg) — European electricity producers are snapping up coal cargoes as a shortage of natural gas forces utilities to burn the dirtiest of fossil fuels. A shipment for delivery next month at a major European hub traded at $200 a metric ton, the highest since 2008, according to traders who saw the transaction on the globalCOAL platform. Several utilities stepped into the market this week to secure supplies before the start of the winter, said the traders, who asked not to be identified because the deals are private.
Europe is facing an energy crunch after a long and cold winter left gas stockpiles depleted. Replenishing them hasn’t been easy, with limited supplies from Russia and Norway forcing Europe to fight for cargoes of liquefied natural gas in the spot market. Low wind speeds have compounded the continent’s energy woes, prompting utilities to turn to dirtier fossil fuels to bridge the shortfall.
“We are observing some tightness also in the coal market,” Marco Saalfrank, head of continental Europe merchant trading at Axpo Solutions AG, said in an interview at the Gastech conference in Dubai this week. Profits for coal-fired power plants have “turned positive, increasing the production.” Energy prices are soaring just as Europe is trying to push for a more ambitious climate deal when world leaders meet in Scotland later this year. Coal’s comeback is likely to make those talks difficult for politicians from the U.K. to Spain and Italy, which are already dealing with the fear of voter backlash from rising energy bills. The cargo of 50,000 metric tons that changed hands on Friday was for delivery in the Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp hub, traders said. And it’s not only spot prices that are rising, futures for next-year delivery also surged as much as 4.1% to $139 a ton, the highest since 2008. Rising demand from utilities is depleting stockpiles at European ports. Coal supplies have fallen as major producers Colombia and Indonesia have struggled with heavy rain, while some mines elsewhere have closed because of the pandemic. Investment in new mining projects has almost come to a halt in recent years, with banks cutting lending to coal companies as the world seeks to avert the worst effects of climate change. “Gas supply is short, coal supply is short and renewables aren’t going great and we are now in this crazy situation, it’s the only way we can describe it,” Dale Hazelton, head of thermal coal at Wood Mackenzie, said by phone from Singapore last week. NN: Is it not amazing how STUPID these people are. Here is a news flash solar in paces that are cloudy most of the winter do not work. And wind farms are as unpredictable as a millennial at a gay bar. They are against all fossil fuels including GODS gas… Plentiful Natural gas clean burning. Which is abundant enough to power every vehicle and fire every electric generation plant on the planet. All we got to do is tap the global fracking deposits and pipe the stuff to the plants. Did you know that England and Germany that are facing an elective shortage are burning more and more coal. Did you know both countries have a ban on fracking their vast natural gas deposits… Its like the grennieewinnie electric mobile… Its basically a remote coal powered electric motor…….
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