BlackMask Breaking News

The cost of imported goods rose again in September largely because of higher oil prices, adding to a surge in U.S. inflation that’s the biggest in decades. The U.S. import price index climbed 0.4% last month, the government said Friday, reversing a decline in August that was the first in 10 months. Economists polled by The Wall Street Journal had forecast a 0.5% increase.

Oil prices climb, with WTI crude poised for an 8th straight weekly gain

Oil prices extended their rise to multiyear highs on Friday, with U.S. benchmark crude on track to score an eighth weekly gain in a row, finding support from expectations that global power producers will look to oil amid a shortage of natural gas and coal. Natural-gas futures , meanwhile, looked to give back Thursday’s gain and then some, with prices down by nearly 3% in Friday dealings — pulling prices down for the week. “A massive shortage of coal and natural gas in Asia and Europe has left the power plants reluctantly having to choose crude oil over natural gas — a pattern not seen for at least a decade,”  said Manish Raj, said chief financial officer at Velandera Energy Partners. “This is a stark reversal of the forgone conclusion of natural gas being the preferred fuel for power generation worldwide.,” he said. “The current trend is so astonishing that energy analysts had even stopped modeling the possibility of using crude oil for power generation; yet here we are amidst this energy crisis.” And “the increased oil demand from power producers further squeezes the already tight crude supplies,” said Raj.  NN: This argument that the only alternative is oil is bogus. As we speak they are restarting nuclear. To get coal from a mine especially a strip mine is start digging. Their are a hell of a lot of mothballed nuclear plants and coal fired power plants. Converting to oil is very difficult. Besides how do you get high prices lower. Keep the price high to long. Natural gas at these level will bring in a tidal wave of gas. And its their ready to ship anywhere you want it.

https://youtu.be/Jd87HrFSSZY

Something else they forget to tell you. Far more power is supplied by French nuclear reactors to England then the total power generated by wind and solar combined

(Reuters) – Britain’s National Grid expects its 2-gigawatt power link with France, which has been offline for an extended outage, to be running at half capacity a few days sooner than planned. Wholesale power and gas prices rose last month, squeezing already tight UK electricity supply further, after the IFA1 interconnector was damaged by a fire in Kent, affecting half, or 1 GW, of its capacity. The other 1 GW capacity was already offline due to planned maintenance which was later extended to Oct. 23. After a detailed assessment, National Grid said extensive work was needed to safely return the IFA1 to service. “We have been able to reduce the outage time of 1,000 MW of capacity at the IFA interconnector so that it will come back to service on 20th October, ahead of the 23rd October date we had previously published,” the grid operator said in a statement. The other 1 GW, which was affected by the fire, remains offline, with a partial return to service planned from 2022. National Grid said it will being 500 megawatts (MW) back to service from October 2022 to May 2023, which will result in a total of 1,500 MW of capacity available going into next winter, with full capacity achieved by October 2023. “We are completely focused on getting IFA safely returned to service as soon as possible and ensuring we are able to support security of supply,” it added. The IFA2 interconnector, a second link between Britain and France commissioned in 2020, is operating and not affected.  NN: After England shut down most of its nuclear reactors and scrapped plans to build more. The Brits had a problem for years. Greeeneeweennieee renewables were not able to make up for the power lost by the shut down of  nukes…. So what is a sold out STUPID politician to do? Admit that renewables were not working… Hardly!! Here is the trick. They quietly built 2  undersea electric cables to get power supplied by Nuclear  France. Easy answer and the millennials do not have to know the truth. France generates  80% of its power with nukes and has plenty of excess….. Now for the punch line. The English buy more power from France then all their wind farms and solar generate by a factor of 2.

The above agreement was made 2 years ago. The lefty greeeneewinnees got it stopped on environmental grounds

Israel cannot come to the rescue of Europe’s gas and energy supply crunch as it is unlikely to raise the level of its natural gas exports, a senior Israeli official told Bloomberg on Thursday. Udi Adiri, director general at the Israeli Energy Ministry, told Bloomberg that a cabinet committee in charge of the country’s gas policy would not recommend that Israel boost exports, as it would seek to ensure its own gas and electricity supply. Currently, Israel gas an export cap in place which is some 40 percent of the annual production of the gas companies. The firms have been calling on the government to allow them to export more, considering the severe crisis in Europe and the relatively small domestic market, especially compared to the huge gas reserves. Natural gas provides around 70 percent of Israel’s electricity generation. In recent years, several major offshore gas fields have come on stream in Israel, and the country has been exporting gas to countries in the Mediterranean. The Leviathan gas field—discovered in 2010—together with other fields discovered offshore Israel in the past decade such as Tamar, Karish, and Tanin, is expected to help Israel become energy independent. U.S. supermajor Chevron also has an interest in Leviathan, the biggest energy project in Israel ever, after it bought Noble Energy last year in the first major transaction in the U.S. oil industry since the pandemic started. Meanwhile, natural gas prices in Europe, although off the record-highs from last week, are still very high and volatile. On Thursday, the UK wholesale gas price and the European benchmark at the Dutch TTF hub rose as cooler autumn weather increased heating demand and as the market continues to wonder how much additional gas Russia could be willing to supply this winter. The European Commission said on Wednesday that “the current price increases are likely to be temporary,” but even after the market stabilizes next spring, prices would stay “higher than the average of the past years.” The Commission presented a toolbox for a coordinated approach to protect those most at risk in the immediate term, including by investigating “possible anti-competitive behaviour in the energy market.” NN:  The gas fields of the southern Mediterranean are the biggest in the world. They extend from Egypt to the south to Cyrpus to the north through Israel in the middle. I can tell you for a fact it was a done deal. Nobel Energy was about to get the contract to pipe the gas to Europe….. Funding was in place. And Israels slice of the pie would make Israel a major player. For the people of Israel 10 million of them meant they would all be millionaires over night. The pipeline would be layed in the shallow Mediterranean sea. Where their already are pipelines from Israel to Egypt, Jordan and to Israel’s electric generation stations and water desalination plants… You wanna know what happened. Putin realizing that this pipeline would free Europe from Russia’s death grip. So funded with endless money the greeneeweeinnes in Israel got the project stopped on the premise if Israel would supply the gas that would stop Europe’s move to renewable energy sources… Nobel Energy dropped out of the project and sold their interests to sleepy Chevron. YES you heard that right it was stopped to force Europe into renewable emery sources….. But that did not happen. Europe now burn more coal then ever. AND is now Putin’s bitch. And that meant Russia could finish the Nord Stream pipeline to Germany. Net result the largest gas field in the world is laying fallow. To add  insult to injury The lefties in Israel have pasted a law prohibiting oil expropriation on shore. Where their are potentially vast oil reserves…… now you know why I have checked out and live in self imposed exile in Europe…….  Picking off the worlds stupidness like a sniper…. So i can not change stupid…. OK i am now the tax collector getting stupid to pay us in our trades.

The Energy Information Administration reported on Thursday that U.S. crude inventories rose by 6.1 million barrels for the week ended Oct. 8. That defied expectations for an average 500,000 barrel decline expected by analysts polled by S&P Global Platts. The American Petroleum Institute on Wednesday reported a 5.2 million-barrel climb, according to sources. Supply data were released a day later than usual this week due to Monday’s Columbus Day holiday. The EIA also reported a weekly inventory decline of 2 million barrels for gasoline, but said distillate supplies were “virtually unchanged”from  last week. The EIA data also showed crude stocks at the Cushing, Okla., storage hub edged down by 1.9 million barrels for the week. NN: As you are seeing at $80 oil it won’t take long for producers to gear up. Everyone is making money at this price. Talk about incoming……

(Reuters) – Richmond Federal Reserve President Tom Barkin on Thursday said the U.S. central bank has cleared a path for what he hopes to be a “seamless” start to a reduction in its support for the economy, but that it will take more time to determine when interest rate hikes will be appropriate. “We still have a lot to learn about whether recent inflation levels will be sustained and how much room we have to run in the labor market until we get to maximum employment,” Barkin said in remarks prepared for delivery to the Forecasters Club of New York. “As COVID-19 hopefully eases, I expect the answers to these questions to become clearer.” Fed policymakers feel that labor markets have healed enough to start reducing their crisis-era support for the U.S. economy “soon,” and probably by the middle of next month, minutes from the Sept. 21-22 policy meeting showed on Wednesday. That language provided the “advance” warning the central bank had promised to give before starting to reduce its $120 billion in monthly purchases of Treasury bonds and mortgage-backed securities, Barkin said in his remarks. About half of the Fed policymakers believe the central bank will have to start raising interest rates by the end of next year, forecasts released on Sept. 22 showed, with all but one believing it will be necessary by the end of 2023. The Fed does not reveal policymakers’ individual interest rate forecasts, nor the economic assumptions they are based on.  Barkin said on Thursday he’d like to provide that information.  “Doing so would provide a clearer picture of each FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee) member’s individual reaction function, and taken as a whole, this could help shed more light on the Fed’s overall reaction function,” he said. NN: This is crazy shit: I understand wait to you see the white in their eyes. But the Fed is waiting till you see their boot on your neck. This is beyond reckless…. OK that means more money for you and me….. When they soon panic!

PARIS (Reuters) – French far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen said that if she is elected president next year she will end all subsidies for renewable energy and will take down France’s wind turbines. Le Pen, who will be the candidate of the Rassemblement National party in the April vote, made it to the second round of the 2017 election, and is expected to do so again, although some recent polls have shown that right-wing talk-show star Eric Zemmour could best her if he decides to run.

“Wind and solar, these energies are not renewable, they are intermittent. If I am elected, I will put a stop to all construction of new wind parks and I will launch a big project to dismantle them,” she said on RTL radio.

She added that she would scrap the subsidies for wind and solar, which she said added up to six or seven billion euros per year and put a heavy burden on consumers’ power bills.

Le Pen also said that she would provide strong support for France’s nuclear industry by allowing the construction of several new nuclear reactors, fund a major upgrade of France’s existing fleet and would back the construction of small modular reactors as proposed by President Emmanuel Macron.

In a 2030 roadmap for the French economy presented this week, Macron proposed billions of euros of support for electric vehicles, the nuclear industry and green hydrogen – produced with nuclear – but made little mention of renewable energy.  France produces about 75% of its power in nuclear plants, which means its electricity output has among the lowest carbon emissions per capita of any developed country. However, it also lags far behind Germany and other European nations in wind and solar investment. There is an active anti-wind movement, which is supported by the far right and centre right, notably by Xavier Bertrand, the leading conservative contender in the presidential vote. NN: The grenniewinnies have overplayed their hand… especially in Europe. The masses will rise up when they are cold this winter and energy prices triple. Their intransigence will be their demise. Zero carbon emissions cannot happen over night. Not only is the infrastructure not their. But the technology does not exist yet…… Natural gas is a clean burning low carbon emission  bridge fossel fuel… It’s a great bridge. Nuclear has a zero carbon foot print. A carbon  neutral future neutral can not work on solar and wind alone… Remember the infrastructure for natural gas and nuclear isfor the most part  in place