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Mon, 27 Sep 2021
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Oil Well

28 percent of Gulf of Mexico oil production still offline following Hurricane Ida

Julianne Geiger
OilPrice.com
Thu, 16 Sep 2021 18:54 UTC
oil platform damage hurricanes gulf of mexico
© Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement
An oil platform toppled by hurricane winds in the Gulf of Mexico during the 2013 season.
Crude oil production in the United States had fallen sharply over the last two weeks in the wake of Hurricane Ida, but production for the next reporting period is on track to be down as well, as 28% of all crude oil production in the Gulf of Mexico still remains shut-in after the hurricane.

Meanwhile, WTI prices have risen from $69.21 per barrel as the hurricane hit, to $72.62 today — a nearly 5% rise.

Initially, the hurricane wiped out nearly all of the oil production in the Gulf of Mexico. Today — weeks later — 28.24% of Gulf of Mexico oil production is still shut in, according to BSEE, along with 39.4% of all gas production on the Gulf.
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Fire

Fire shuts down one of UK's most important power cables in midst of supply crunch

Jillian Ambrose
The Guardian
Mon, 20 Sep 2021 18:33 UTC
fire national grid power station england shortage
© PHil Moo
The fire at the National Grid site broke out just after midnight on September 15, 2021
Coal plants being warmed up as market prices surge to £2,500 per MWh from a norm of £40

A major fire has forced the shutdown of one of Britain's most important power cables importing electricity from France as the UK faces a supply crunch and record high market prices.

National Grid was forced to evacuate staff from the site of the IFA high-voltage power cable, which brings electricity from France to a converter station in Kent, where 12 fire engines attended the blaze in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

The fire has halted electricity imports via the 2,000 megawatt power cable until March next year and could not have come at a worse time for the UK's squeezed markets, according to experts. The UK faces record energy prices after a global gas market surge raised the cost of running gas power plants, which has been compounded by a string of power plant outages and low wind speeds.

Comment:

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Attention

Lancet U-turns over Covid lab leak theory: Publishes 'alternative view' calling for 'transparent debate' on virus origins

Glen Owen and Stephen Adams
The Daily Mail
Sat, 18 Sep 2021 18:07 UTC
peter Daszak wuhan laboratory covid
© 60 Minutes
It was revealed earlier this year that Peter Daszak – a British scientist with long-standing links to the Wuhan Institute of Virology – had secretly orchestrated a landmark statement in The Lancet. Pictured, Peter Daszak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, 2020
The Lancet medical journal has bowed to pressure over its heavily-criticised coverage of the disputed origins of the Covid pandemic by publishing an 'alternative view' from 16 scientists - calling for an 'objective, open and transparent debate' about whether the virus leaked from a Chinese laboratory.

It was revealed earlier this year that Peter Daszak - a British scientist with long-standing links to the Wuhan Institute of Virology - had secretly orchestrated a landmark statement in The Lancet in February 2020 which attacked 'conspiracy theories suggesting that Covid-19 does not have a natural origin'.

The now-infamous letter, signed by 27 leading public health experts, said they stood together to 'strongly condemn' the theories which they said 'do nothing but create fear, rumours, and prejudice'.
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Attention

Arizona just cross-checked 673,000 voter IDs with the Social Security Administration - 58% Had NO MATCH FOUND

Jim Hoft
The Gateway Pundit
Mon, 20 Sep 2021 17:39 UTC
vote registration form arizona
© Sky Schaudt/KJZZ
Arizona voter registration form.
What's going on?

In the last 10 weeks, Arizona has checked the voter registration credentials with the Social Security Administration (SSA) on 673,560 applicants.

This is a massive volume considering most States including Arizona typically process around 2,500 a month. They've processed more identities in the last 2 months than they've done in the last 9 years combined. Is someone scrubbing a database, or auditing "Federal Only" voters?

Comment:

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Attention

British meat industry warns of looming production halt: Firms running low on CO2 supply amid Covid, Brexit pressure


RT
Mon, 20 Sep 2021 17:08 UTC
butcher arranges different cuts of meat in his shop in Budapest, Hungary
© Laszlo Balogh / Reuters
The UK's meat industry has warned that problems regarding the supply of CO2 could halt production in coming weeks with some firms reporting as little as five-days' supply of the gas used to stun animals before slaughter.

Speaking to Sky News on Monday, Nick Allen of the British Meat Processors Association told Sky News that the UK was just weeks away from seeing British-produced meat start to disappear from supermarket shelves because of a shortage in carbon dioxide (CO2) used in the slaughter of animals.

Comment: Winter is coming: European energy crisis 'could get very ugly' as EU delays Russian gas supplies

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Alarm Clock

Why are global shipping costs continuing to skyrocket?

Emily Newton
Global Trade
Tue, 10 Aug 2021 17:14 UTC
global shipping

Analysts believe the global shipping costs will not return to more manageable levels during 2021.
Global shipping costs are reaching rarely seen levels, putting strain on logistics teams and product purchasers alike. Here's a closer look at some of the reasons for this phenomenon.

Worsening Container Delays Create Bidding Wars

Port backups were among the issues of the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Unfortunately, they persist now, limiting the number of containers each port can efficiently accommodate. Relatedly, the shipping customers outpace the available space in each container. That problem makes prices rise so high that some entities lose out because they cannot afford to pay them.

Port Backups Cause Headaches

Some port backups are so severe that ships arrive unable to dock. That's an ongoing situation at Washington State ports in Tacoma and Seattle. U.S. Coast Guard representatives helped redirect some vessels as they waited days or weeks to unload. Some ended up in unusual locations, such as off the Puget Sound. The offloading delays also cause a container shortage that affects new freight.

Comment:

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Bad Guys

Winter is coming: European energy crisis 'could get very ugly' as EU delays Russian gas supplies


RT
Mon, 20 Sep 2021 17:01 UTC
snow paris umbrella
© Reuters / Gonzalo Fuentes
Europe is bracing for a difficult winter, having turned to weather-dependent sources of energy like wind and solar power over fossil fuels while natural gas storages have run low.

"It could get very ugly unless we act quickly to try to fill every inch of storage. You can survive a week without electricity, but you can't survive without gas," Marco Alvera, CEO of Italian energy infrastructure company Snam SpA, told Bloomberg.

European gas prices broke historic records this month, edging close to an unprecedented $1,000 per 1,000 cubic meters. The price spike can be partly blamed on supply chains being unable to meet the rising energy demand in both the household and industry sectors as the global economy gets back on the rails after the global Covid-19 crisis. However, experts say major Western economies have become too dependent on renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar power. And this doesn't seem to pay off, with the Wall Street Journal reporting last week that low winds in the North Sea were brewing chaos for energy networks.
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Laptop

Why is there a chip shortage?

Chris Baraniuk
BBC
Fri, 27 Aug 2021 00:01 UTC
microchip plant technician
© Getty Images
Computer chips plants are working flat out.
The tech industry is at a crunch point.

Today, millions of products - cars, washing machines, smartphones, and more - rely on computer chips, also known as semiconductors.

And right now, there just aren't enough of them to meet industry demand. As a result, many popular products are in short supply.

Comment: See also:

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Black Cat

These dangers loom over the fragile US economy in the next 12 months

Brandon Smith
Alt-Market.us
Sat, 11 Sep 2021 00:00 UTC
terrorist
The U.S. and most of the world is at the threshold of what I would call a nexus point in history. There are establishment forces at play that seek to impose a permanent authoritarian presence within our nation in the name of Covid "safety." This includes lockdown mandates and restrictions on economic participation for the unvaccinated (including being unable to keep a job).

At the same time, only 53% of the public has been fully vaccinated against Covid. A significant number of the unvaccinated seem likely to dig in their heels and will refuse to comply.

We are at an impasse. With incessant fear mongering over the latest covid variants and the government obsession with 100% vaccination, the pro- and anti-vaccine groups are squaring off. It is a conflict between those who see their submission to the vaccination as a badge of personal responsibility and civic-mindedness versus those who see it as merely an excuse for authoritarianism. Unless pro-vax people choose to stand down and walk away from the fight, our economic future will grow increasingly unstable.

This is the foreboding backdrop of our economic tale, and it is important to keep in mind that the technocratic exploitation of the covid non-crisis as a push for supremacy is going to color EVERYTHING that happens in our financial system from now on. You cannot talk about our economic condition without including the effects of the pandemic theater.
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Flashlight

Goldman warns of blackout risk for European industry this winter

Elena Mazneva and Javier Blas
Bloomberg
Wed, 15 Sep 2021 16:47 UTC
industry waterfront
© Peter Boer/Bloomberg
Europe's soaring energy markets are exposing the risk of power blackouts this winter, especially if freezing weather worsens the region's already exceptionally low natural gas inventories, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

While higher gas prices can trigger supply and demand adjustments to offset the tight market, these are largely already priced in, Goldman analysts including Samantha Dart said in a note. As a result, a colder-than-average winter would mean Europe needing to compete with Asia for supplies of liquefied natural gas, driving prices even higher.

And there's a "non-negligible risk" that LNG directed to Europe won't be enough to prevent a depletion of gas inventories by the end of winter, especially if weather is cold in both Europe and Asia, the analysts said.
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