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Tag: Energy

  • Turkey’s Ceyhan oil port disrupted by weather as earthquake damage assessed

    Turkey’s Ceyhan oil port disrupted by weather as earthquake damage assessed

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    A satellite image showing the port of Ceyhan centred on August 18, 2015 in Turkey.

    Gallo Images | Gallo Images | Getty Images

    Adverse weather conditions are obstructing loading operations at Turkey’s Ceyhan port, where the impact of Monday’s immense twin earthquakes is still being assessed, according to oil traders and shipping sources.

    Operations were interrupted at the Ceyhan oil port — a critical hub for the discharge of crude oil and oil products, along with the loading of Azeri crude and a stream of Iraqi crude oil — on Monday, following two earthquakes that devastated Turkey and Syria, leaving over 5,000 dead. Turkey has declared a three-month state of emergency at regions struck by the earthquakes.

    Damage to the port is still being determined. Seasonally poor weather conditions are now impeding loadings, according to multiple shipping and trade sources who spoke on condition of anonymity.

    Ceyhan port serves state-owned refiner Tupras and Azerbaijani Socar’s Turkey-based Star refinery. It also exports volumes of two crude oil streams — the Azeri crude oil delivered through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) consortium’s pipeline, and the Iraqi Kirkuk blend crude oil transferred through the separate Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline. Loadings of the two crude oil terminals are undertaken from two different points within Ceyhan port, with BTC crude oil leaving the BTC terminal, while the Kirkuk blend sails from the Botas terminal.

    Lawk Ghafuri, spokesperson for the Kurdistan Regional Government, told CNBC that the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline that transits Iraqi Kirkuk blend crude oil for seaborne export into the Mediterranean had not restarted flows as of Tuesday morning, after interrupting deliveries on Monday.

    Ghafuri added that the pipeline has not sustained damage as a result of the earthquakes. An oil trade source familiar with KRG operations told CNBC that the pipeline could likely begin flows later Tuesday. 

    An oil tanker ship is awaiting to berth to load Kirkuk blend crude.

    Three trade sources, who preferred to remain anonymous as they are not allowed to talk publicly on the issue, estimated that the BTC terminal could see a longer restart, as local damage is still being assessed.

    One trade source and a shipping source pointed to potential impact on a tank, although it was not immediately clear if damage was sustained.

    The Botas International company, which operates the BTC pipeline section that traverses Turkish territory, said on Monday that no damage was detected on the crude pipeline at the time, according to a Google translation.

    Azeri crude state producer Socar did not immediately respond to a CNBC request for comment.

    The front-month Ice Brent contract with April delivery was trading at $82.25/bl at 15:54 GMT, up by $1.26/bl from the previous close price. The Nymex WTI contract with March expiry was at $75.66/bl, higher by $1.55/bl from the Monday settlement.

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  • New Sodium, Aluminum Battery Aims to Integrate Renewables for Grid Resiliency

    New Sodium, Aluminum Battery Aims to Integrate Renewables for Grid Resiliency

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    Newswise — RICHLAND, Wash.—A new battery design could help ease integration of renewable energy into the nation’s electrical grid at lower cost, using Earth-abundant metals, according to a study just published in Energy Storage Materials. A research team, led by the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, demonstrated that the new design for a grid energy storage battery built with the low-cost metals sodium and aluminum provides a pathway towards a safer and more scalable stationary energy storage system.

    “We showed that this new molten salt battery design has the potential to charge and discharge much faster than other conventional high-temperature sodium batteries, operate at a lower temperature, and maintain an excellent energy storage capacity,” said Guosheng Li, a materials scientist at PNNL and the principal investigator of the research. “We are getting similar performance with this new sodium-based chemistry at over 100 °C [212 °F] lower temperatures than commercially available high-temperature sodium battery technologies, while using a more Earth-abundant material.”

    More energy storage delivered

    Imre Gyuk, director of DOE’s Office of Electricity, Energy Storage Program, which supported this research, noted “This battery technology, which is built with low-cost domestically available materials brings us one step closer toward meeting our nation’s clean energy goals.”

    The new sodium-based molten salt battery uses two distinct reactions. The team previously reported a neutral molten salt reaction. The new discovery shows that this neutral molten salt can undergo a further reaction into an acidic molten salt. Crucially, this second acidic reaction mechanism increases the battery’s capacity. Specifically, after 345 charge/discharge cycles at high current, this acidic reaction mechanism retained 82.8 percent of peak charge capacity.

    The energy that a battery can deliver in the discharge process is called its specific energy density, which is expressed as “watt hour per kilogram” (Wh/kg). Although the battery is in early-stage or  “coin cell” testing, the researchers speculate that it could result in a practical energy density of up to 100 Wh/kg. In comparison, the energy density for lithium-ion batteries used in commercial electronics and electric vehicles is around 170–250 Wh/kg. However, the new sodium-aluminum battery design has the advantage of being inexpensive and easy to produce in the United States from much more abundant materials.

    “With optimization, we expect the specific energy density and the life cycle could reach even higher and longer,” added Li.

    Sodium battery shows its mettle

    Indeed, PNNL scientists collaborated with colleagues at the U.S.-based renewable energy pioneer Nexceris to assemble and test the battery. Nexceris, through their new business Adena Power, supplied their patented solid-state, sodium-based electrolyte to PNNL to test the battery’s performance. This crucial battery component allows the sodium ions to travel from the negative (anode) to the positive (cathode) side of the battery as it charges.

    “Our primary goal for this technology is to enable low-cost, daily shifting of solar energy into the electrical grid over a 10- to 24-hour period,” said Vince Sprenkle, a PNNL battery technology expert with more than 30 patented designs for energy storage systems and associated technology. “This is a sweet spot where we can start to think about integrating higher levels of renewables into the electrical grid to provide true grid resiliency from renewable resources such as wind and solar power.”

    Sprenkle was part of the team that developed this battery’s new flexible design, which also shifted the battery from a traditional tubular shape to a flat, scalable one that can more easily be stacked and expanded as the technology develops from coin-sized batteries to a larger grid-scale demonstration size. More importantly, this flat cell design allows the cell capacity to be increased by simply using a thicker cathode, which the researchers leveraged in this work to demonstrate a triple capacity cell with sustained discharge of 28.2-hours under laboratory conditions.

    Most current battery technologies, including lithium-ion batteries, are well suited for short-term energy storage. To meet the demand for 10-plus hours of energy storage will require the development of new, low-cost, safe, and long duration battery concepts beyond current state-of-the-art battery technologies. This research provides a promising lab-scale demonstration toward that goal.

    Variation on a grid resilience theme

    The ability to store energy generated by renewable energy and release it on demand to the electrical grid has driven rapid advances in battery technology, with many new designs competing for attention and customers. Each new variation must satisfy the demands of its own niche use. Some batteries, such as those having PNNL’s freeze-thaw battery design, are capable of storing energy generated seasonally for months at a time.

    Compared with a seasonal battery, this new design is especially adept at short- to medium-term grid energy storage over 12 to 24 hours. It is a variation of what’s called a sodium-metal halide battery. A similar design employing a nickel cathode as part of the system has been shown effective at commercial scale and is already commercially available.

    “We have eliminated the need for nickel, a relatively scarce and expensive element, without sacrificing battery performance,” said Li. “Another advantage of using aluminum over nickel is that the aluminum cathode charges more quickly, which is crucial to enable the longer discharge duration demonstrated in this work.”

    With this milestone reached, the team is focusing on further improvements to increase the discharge duration, which could greatly improve grid flexibility for greater incorporation of renewable power sources.

    And because it operates at a lower temperature, it can be manufactured with inexpensive battery materials, instead of requiring more complex and expensive components and processes as in conventional high-temperature sodium batteries, said David Reed, a PNNL battery expert and study co-author.

    More grid energy storage at lower cost

    In 2023, the state-of-the-art for grid energy storage using lithium-ion batteries is about four hours of energy storage capacity, said Sprenkle. “This new system could significantly increase the amount of stored energy capacity if we can reach the expected cost targets for materials and manufacturing,” he added.

    As part of the study, the researchers estimated that a sodium-aluminum battery design based on inexpensive raw materials could cost just $7.02 per kWh for the active materials. Through optimization and increasing the practical energy density, they project that this cost could be lowered even further. This promising low-cost, grid-scale storage technology could enable intermittent renewables like wind and solar power to contribute more dynamically to the nation’s electrical grid.

    Neil Kidner, a study co-author and president of Adena Power, a sodium solid-state battery manufacturer, is collaborating with PNNL to advance sodium-based battery technology. “This research demonstrates that our sodium electrolyte works not only with our patented technology but also with a sodium-aluminum battery design,” he said. “We look forward to continuing our partnership with the PNNL research team towards advancing sodium battery technology.”

    The research was supported by the DOE Office of Electricity and the International Collaborative Energy Technology R&D Program of the Korea Institute of Energy Technology Evaluation and Planning. The electrolyte development was supported by a DOE Small Business Innovation Research program. The nuclear magnetic resonance measurements were made in EMSL, Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory, a DOE Office of Science User Facility sponsored by the Biological and Environmental Research program.

    Learn more about PNNL’s grid modernization research, and the Grid Storage Launchpad, opening in 2024.

    ​About PNNL

    Pacific Northwest National Laboratory draws on its distinguishing strengths in chemistry, Earth sciences, biology and data science to advance scientific knowledge and address challenges in sustainable energy and national security. Founded in 1965, PNNL is operated by Battelle for the Department of Energy’s Office of Science, which is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States. DOE’s Office of Science is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit https://energy.gov/science. For more information on PNNL, visit PNNL’s News Center. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram.

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    Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

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  • New Western measures aim to turn up the heat on Putin’s oil revenues. Analysts are underwhelmed

    New Western measures aim to turn up the heat on Putin’s oil revenues. Analysts are underwhelmed

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    Freight wagons carrying oil and fuel at a petroleum products terminal in Riga, Latvia, on Feb. 2, 2023.

    Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

    The West’s latest attempt to ramp up its oil war against Russia may cause some market dislocation, but some energy analysts remain far from convinced that the restrictions will constitute a “transformative event.”

    An EU ban on Russian oil product imports came into effect on Feb. 5, following similar restrictions on EU crude oil intake, implemented on Dec. 5. The Group of Seven wealthy countries, the European Union and Australia on Friday on Friday set a ceiling for the price at which nations outside of the coalition may purchase seaborne Russian diesel and other refined petroleum products and still benefit from Western shipping and financial facilities.

    The price cap coalition, which is composed of Australia, Canada, the EU, Japan, the U.K. and the U.S., seeks to deplete Russian President Vladimir Putin‘s war chest amid Moscow’s ongoing hostilities in Ukraine.

    The EU and its G-7 allies said last week that it had set two price caps for Russian petroleum products — one is a $100 per barrel cap on products that trade at a premium to crude, like diesel, and the other is a $45 cap for petroleum products that trade at a discount to the same basis.

    Some analysts warned that the measures could cause “significant market dislocations” and that the EU embargo was more complex and more disruptive than what had come before.

    Not everyone shares this assessment.

    “There is an overwhelming assumption that this will be a huge disruption to everything. I don’t really think this will be a transformative event,” Viktor Katona, lead crude analyst at Kpler, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” on Monday.

    “I don’t really think that this will have the impact that a lot of people can imagine, and the main driver for this will be actually human creativity — and the constant search for a new solution, for a new supply chain or for a new route,” Katona said.

    “This will bring us basically into the same story that we had with the oil price cap back in December. People expected a lot of things. In the end, it never really happened,” he added.

    ‘Russia may struggle to compensate fully’

    As part of the sixth EU package of sanctions against Russia that was adopted in June last year, the 27-member bloc imposed a ban on the purchase, import or transfer of seaborne crude oil and petroleum products from Russia. The restrictions applied in early December and February, respectively.

    Russian President Vladimir Putin chairs a meeting with members of the Security Council via a video conference on Feb. 3, 2023.

    Pavel Byrkin | Afp | Getty Images

    Asked whether those predicting significant market disruption because of the measures targeting Russia’s refined oil products were likely to be wide of the mark, Katona replied, “I think they are. I would say that the main development of the past two weeks when it comes to Russian diesel has been happening not in Europe, but in North Africa.”

    Katona said North African countries were expected to receive at least 6 million barrels of ultra-low sulfur diesel from Russia, estimating that this was roughly one-quarter of what the European Union used to purchase from Moscow.

    He explained that a “substantial transformation clause” remains under question because North African countries are not members of the price cap coalition.

    “Basically, you drip one droplet of something else into a cargo of Russian diesel and it is already Moroccan, it is already Algerian, it is already Tunisian,” Katona said. “All of these countries have seen quite a substantial uptick in Russian diesel flows. And our expectation is that Feb. 5 kicks in, and there will be a lot of flows from North Africa, basically Russian in all but name.”

    Ahead of the Western ban on its oil supplies, the Kremlin reaffirmed its opposition to the measures and warned that it would cause further market imbalances.

    “It will lead to further imbalances on the international energy markets,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Friday, according to Russian news agency Tass. “Naturally, we are taking precautions to protect our interests from the risks associated with it.”

    Energy analysts at political risk consultancy Eurasia Group said that the latest wave of Western sanctions was likely to dislocate flows rather than cause a severe disruption of supplies, noting that oil-product markets have had several months of advance notice to prepare for the restrictions.

    “Still, while flows are readjusting, some disruption is possible, especially in the middle distillate market, which was already tight before the latest sanctions,” analysts at Eurasia Group said in a research note.

    “Russia may struggle to compensate fully for the loss of EU buyers, especially if a recovering China stops exporting so much surplus fuel and instead starts to import significant quantities again,” they added.

    ‘Shipments will take longer’

    “This is a very substantial disruption to really a key industrial field across much of the euro zone,” Edward Bell, commodities analyst at Emirates NBD, told CNBC’s “Capital Connection” on Monday.

    “Russia was the dominant external supplier of diesel to euro zone economies, so the fact that this embargo is now in place means that there will be a little bit of a readjustment and scrambling to get those additional barrels.”

    Bell said it appears as though Russia has so far been able to find new markets or expand diesel exports to historical markets, such as to Turkey and partners in North Africa and Asia. “All this means those shipments will take longer,” he added.

    “This is not a positive indicator in terms of the direction for prices going downward and easing the burden of energy prices on consumers but in terms of actually disrupting supply it doesn’t like we are in any kind of panic stations just yet.”

    Bell suggested Saudi Arabia’s diesel exports to Europe could be set for a “big uptick,” following the West’s embargo on Russian petroleum products.

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  • BP posts record 2022 earnings to join Big Oil profit bonanza

    BP posts record 2022 earnings to join Big Oil profit bonanza

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    The extraordinary scale of the oil and gas industry’s earnings has renewed criticism and sparked calls for higher taxes.

    Sopa Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images

    Oil major BP on Tuesday reported record annual profits, more than doubling last year’s total as fossil fuel prices soared following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

    The British energy giant posted underlying replacement cost profit, used as a proxy for net profit, of $27.7 billion for 2022. That compared with $12.8 billion for the previous year.

    Analysts polled by Refinitiv had expected net profit of $27.6 billion for full-year 2022. BP said its previous annual profit record was $26.3 billion in 2008.

    For the fourth quarter, BP posted net profit of $4.8 billion, narrowly beating analyst expectations of $4.7 billion.

    BP announced a further $2.75 billion share buyback, which it expects to complete prior to announcing its first-quarter 2023 results in early May. It also boosted its dividend by 10% to 6.61 cents per ordinary share.

    Shares of BP are up 0.8% year-to-date.

    Speaking to CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” Tuesday, BP CEO Bernard Looney described the earnings as a “good set of results.”

    “First of all, I hope you can see a company that is performing well, performing while transforming. We had our highest operations reliability in our history, we had the lowest production cost in 16 years so the business itself is running very well,” he said.

    “Secondly, we’re leaning into our strategy today. We’re announcing up to $8 billion more investment into the energy transition this decade and up to $8 billion more into oil and gas in support of energy security and energy affordability this decade,” he added. “And thirdly, it’s about making sure we return to our shareholders.”

    The results see BP join Big Oil’s profit bonanza.

    British rival Shell on Thursday posted its highest-ever annual profit of nearly $40 billion. Before that, U.S. oil giant Exxon Mobil reported a $56 billion profit for 2022, marking a historic high for the Western oil industry. Chevron‘s 2022 profits came in at a record $36.5 billion.

    The West’s largest fossil fuel companies are expected to have raked in combined profits of almost $200 billion for the year, according to Refinitiv data. France’s TotalEnergies is slated to report full-year earnings on Wednesday.

    The extraordinary scale of the earnings has renewed criticism of the oil and gas industry and sparked calls for higher taxes.

    “People across the country need look no further than their own front door – one of Britain’s own oil companies – which has been making records profit while so many Brits face hardship through no fault of their own,” said Jonathan Noronha-Gant, senior campaigner at advocacy group Global Witness.

    “Implementing a windfall tax to aid those struggling financially, paired with a significant increase in renewable energy and home insulation, could be the start of the end to the damaging fossil fuel era, both for people and the planet. BP is richer because you’re poorer,” Noronha-Gant said.

    ‘Energy trilemma’

    In recent quarters, Big Oil executives have sought to defend their rising profits and said the significant disruption to global energy markets due to the war in Ukraine has reaffirmed the importance of solving “the energy trilemma.”

    According to a statement to investors from BP CEO Bernard Looney late last year, this refers to “secure, affordable and lower carbon energy.”

    BP, which in 2020 set out its ambition to become a net zero company “by 2050 or sooner,” recently predicted that oil and gas would become a dramatically smaller part of the global energy mix by the middle of the century.

    In its latest annual energy outlook, published on Jan. 30, the company said it sees the share of fossil fuels as a primary energy source falling from 80% in 2019 to between 55% and 20% by 2050. The share of renewables in primary energy, meanwhile, was projected to grow from 10% to between 35% and 65% over the same time period.

    The wide range of outcomes reflects several possible paths for the energy transition. But in each of BP’s three scenarios, the pace with which renewables enter the global energy system is “quicker than any previous fuel in history,” the report said.

    — CNBC’s Catherine Clifford contributed to this report.

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  • Video: Roraima in Search of Safe and Sustainable Energy Autonomy

    Video: Roraima in Search of Safe and Sustainable Energy Autonomy

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    • by Mario Osava (boa vista, brazil)
    • Inter Press Service

    BOA VISTA, Brazil, Feb 06 (IPS) – Roraima, the northernmost state of Brazil, on the border with Guyana and Venezuela, is undergoing an energy transition that points to the dilemmas and possible solutions for a safe and sustainable supply of electricity in the Amazon rainforest.

    As the only state outside the national grid – the National Interconnected Electric System (SIN) – it is dependent on diesel and natural gas thermoelectric plants, which are expensive and polluting sources, that account for 79 percent of Roraima’s electric power.

    The financial and environmental cost is exacerbated by the transportation of fossil fuels by truck from Manaus, the capital of the neighboring state of Amazonas, 780 kilometers from Boa Vista, the capital of Roraima.

    But the people of Roraima pay one of the lowest prices for electricity in Brazil, thanks to a subsidy paid by consumers in the rest of the country.

    These subsidies will cost about 2.3 billion dollars in 2023, benefiting three million people in this country of 214 million people, according to the National Electric Energy Agency regulator.

    YouTube video player

    A fifth of the total goes to Roraima, which from 2001 to 2019 received electricity imported from Venezuela. This meant the state needed less subsidies while it enjoyed a degree of energy security, undermined in recent years by the deterioration of the supplier, the Guri hydroelectric plant, which stopped providing the state with energy two years before the end of the contract.

    Fortunately, Roraima has natural gas from deposits in the Amazon, extracted in Silves, 200 kilometers from Manaus, to supply the Jaguatirica II thermoelectric power plant, inaugurated in February 2022, with a capacity of 141 megawatts, two thirds of the state’s demand.

    Roraima thus reduced its dependence on diesel, which is more costly and more polluting.

    But what several local initiatives are seeking is to replace fossil fuels with clean sources, such as solar, wind and biomass.

    This is the path to sustainable energy security, says Ciro Campos, one of the heads of the Roraima Renewable Energy Forum, as a representative of the Socio-Environmental Institute (ISA), a pro-indigenous and environmental non-governmental organization.

    The city government in Boa Vista, the state capital, home to two thirds of the population of Roraima, has made progress towards that goal. Solar panels cover the roofs of the city government building, municipal markets and a bus terminal, and form roofs over the parking lots of the municipal theater and the Secretariat of Public Services and the Environment.

    In addition, a plant with 15,000 solar panels with the capacity to generate 5,000 kilowatts, the limit for so-called distributed generation in Brazil, was built on the outskirts of the city.

    In total there are seven plants with a capacity to generate 6,700 kilowatts, in addition to 74 bus stops equipped with solar panels, some of which have been damaged by theft, lamented Thiago Amorim, the secretary of Public Services and the Environment.

    In addition to the environmental objective, solar energy allows the municipality to save the equivalent of 960,000 dollars a year, funds that are used for social spending. Boa Vista describes itself as “the capital of early childhood” and has won national and international recognition for its programs for children.

    The Renewable Energies Forum and the Roraima Indigenous Council (CIR), which promote clean sources, say the aim is to reduce the consumption of diesel, a fossil fuel transported from afar whose supply is unstable, and to avoid the construction of the Bem Querer hydroelectric plant.

    The project, of which there are still no detailed studies, would dam the Branco River, Roraima’s largest water source, to form a 519-square-kilometer reservoir that would even flood part of Boa Vista. It would affect nine indigenous territories directly and others indirectly, said Edinho Macuxi, general coordinator of the CIR.

    Bem Querer would have an installed capacity of 650 megawatts, three times Roraima’s total demand. It has awakened interest because it would also supply Manaus, a metropolis of 2.2 million inhabitants that lacks energy security, and could produce more electricity just as the generation of other hydroelectric plants in the Amazon region is declining.

    Almost all of Roraima is in the northern hemisphere, and the rainiest season runs from April to September, when water levels run low in the rest of the Amazon region. The state’s hydroelectricity would therefore be complementary to the entire Brazilian portion of the rainforest.

    That is why Bem Querer is a project inextricably connected to the construction of the transmission line between Manaus and Boa Vista, already ready to start, which would integrate Roraima with the national grid, enabling it to import or export electricity.

    “We can connect, but we reject dependency, we want a safe and autonomous energy model. We will have ten years to find economically and politically viable solutions,” said Ciro Campos.

    © Inter Press Service (2023) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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    Global Issues

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  • What Does Dreaming About Bears Mean? 7 Common Interpretations

    What Does Dreaming About Bears Mean? 7 Common Interpretations

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    Interpreting any dream is about identifying which real life situation is making its way into your dreaming mind, and further, identifying the way you feel in the dream and where/when you feel that same way in your life.

    So when it comes to bears, Loewenberg says, you need to figure out if the bear represents you or another person, because they often do represent overbearing people in our lives. “A good rule of thumb with any dream is to narrow down the way you would describe the bear in the dream—the behavior, the nature of the bear—then start with yourself. Does that fit you right now? If not, then work outward. Does that fit someone close to you that you’re dealing with right now?” she explains.

    From there, she adds, pay close attention to how you feel when you first wake up from the dream, or even how you felt in it. Did the bear make you feel frightened? Victimized? Soft? Someone or something in your life may be making you feel the same way.

    Then, of course, moving past the dream involves handling that real life situation or person, so you can have more peace of mind.

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    Sarah Regan

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  • Turkey ETF tumbles and lira slumps to record low after major earthquake adds to economic woes

    Turkey ETF tumbles and lira slumps to record low after major earthquake adds to economic woes

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    Turkey’s lira hit a record low and its stock market tumbled on Monday after a major earthquake killed nearly 1,500 people and wounded thousands of others in the country, piling on further economic hardship in a region already grappling with economic instability and geopolitical turmoil. Another 700 deaths have been reported in Syria, according to Reuters.

    The Turkish lira
    USDTRY,
    +0.05%
    fell to a record low of 18.83 against a strong dollar on Monday, while the country’s major stock index, the Turkey ISE National 100
    XU100,
    -1.35%
    — which tracks the performance of 100 companies selected from the National Market, real estate investment trusts and venture capital investment trusts listed on the Istanbul Stock Exchange — tumbled 1.4%. 

    The iShares MSCI Turkey ETF
    TUR,
    -1.88%    ,
    which tracks several dozen Turkish equities, slumped 1.9%. 

    Also see: 7.8-magnitude quake kills more than 1,900, knocks down buildings in southeast Turkey and Syria

    At least 1,498 people were killed and 8,533 people were injured in Turkey when a magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck central Turkey and northwest Syria early Monday morning, followed by another large quake in the afternoon, according to Yunus Sezer, the head of Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Agency.

    The U.S. Geological Survey estimated on Monday that there was a high probability that the economic losses from the initial earthquake could top $1 billion.

    The ICE U.S. Dollar Index
    DXY,
    +0.72%    ,
     a measure of the currency against a basket of six major rivals, jumped 0.7% on Monday.

    See: Oil prices look to extend last week’s slide

    Oil futures traded lower as of Monday morning despite news reports that Turkey has halted crude-oil flows to its export terminal in Ceyhan. Turkish pipeline operator BOTAS said there was no damage on main pipelines which carry crude oil from Iraq and Azerbaijan to Turkey, according to Reuters.

    Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government has stopped shipments through the pipeline which runs from Iraq’s northern Kirkuk fields to Ceyhan, the region’s ministry of natural resources said on Monday.

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  • The delayed impact of the EU’s wartime sanctions on Russia

    The delayed impact of the EU’s wartime sanctions on Russia

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    Press play to listen to this article

    Voiced by artificial intelligence.

    The EU was quick to hit Russia with sanctions after Vladimir Putin launched the invasion of Ukraine — but it took time and an escalation of measures before Moscow started to feel any real damage.

    Since the war started in late February last year, November was the first month when the value of EU imports from Russia was lower than in the same month of 2021. Until then, the bloc had been sending more cash than before the conflict — every month, for nine months. More recent data is not yet available.

    The main reason behind this? Energy dependency on Russia and skyrocketing energy prices. But that’s not the whole story: Some EU countries were much quicker than others to reduce trade flows with Moscow — and some were still increasing them at the end of last year.

    Here is a full breakdown of how the war has changed EU trade with Russia, in figures and charts:

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    Arnau Busquets Guardia and Charlie Cooper

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  • February 2023 Energy Report: Confusion & Opportunity Ahead

    February 2023 Energy Report: Confusion & Opportunity Ahead

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    The first theme I feel this month is a light cloud cover, which can feel like confusion. We can look at confusion as a bad thing, but it can actually be an indication of moving out of an old way of being. When we are growing spiritually and we haven’t set new patterns yet—but we have more awareness of the old pattern we want to release—we often do feel confused. 

    What is this new life? Who am I in this new way of being? We aren’t sure yet. And because our brains couple safety with the familiar, it can feel, well, unsafe. Or scary. Or just not right. I call this time between old patterns and new ones the “messy middle,” and I witness it a lot with my clients (and myself).

    It can, however, be a fun time if we shift our perspective a bit. If we look at it as, “What else is possible now?” instead of, “Oh my God, I have no idea what’s next!” we can be open to more possibilities.

    So, if you experience some of this confusion around what you want and where you’re going this month, know you aren’t alone. A lot of us will likely feel like the energy of January has left, and since then, it’s picked up a lot of steam—but that doesn’t necessarily mean the new direction is clear.

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    Natasha Levinger

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  • February Birthstone: What To Know About Amethyst & Its Properties

    February Birthstone: What To Know About Amethyst & Its Properties

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    In the modern crystal community and dating back for millennia, amethyst has been revered for its benefits and properties. According to Yulia Van Doren, author of Crystals: The Modern Guide to Crystal Healing and founder of Goldirocks, amethyst carries an energy that helps neutralize imbalances, and Askinosie says it brings peace of mind. “It can really help calm Aquarian and Piscean tendencies toward extremes,” Van Doren previously explained to mindbodygreen.

    This stone is also thought to serve as a reminder to treat your body and mind as the sacred temples they are, Van Doren notes, and make healthy choices and decisions. “You can never have enough amethyst around you, in my humble opinion—keep this purple crystal anywhere and everywhere,” she says.

    Askinosie also notes that amethyst’s high-vibrational purple color guides you to turn inward, so you can get back to a state of equilibrium. On a deep soul level, your spirit knows that you have everything you need to find inner peace—and amethyst helps you tune into that.

    And of course, with your mind stilled and the negative thought patterns quieted, amethyst is also excellent for strengthening your intuition and third-eye chakra. “The amethyst crystal is a highly spiritual stone that’s thought to help open up the third eye and connect people to their intuition. It’s also associated with mental clarity and psychic abilities,” Askinosie previously told mindbodygreen.

    For a quick ritual to calm your mind before you go to bed, Askinosie recommends four-step ritual with your amethyst:

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    Sarah Regan

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  • Adani Offshore Investor Has Links to Adani Family

    Adani Offshore Investor Has Links to Adani Family

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    A short seller’s allegations of fraud by Gautam Adani’s conglomerate center on whether his family wielded influence over Mauritius-based investors

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  • Abandoning wood cook stoves would be great for Africa, if families could afford it

    Abandoning wood cook stoves would be great for Africa, if families could afford it

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    Newswise — DURHAM, N.C. — Replacing traditional biomass-burning cookstoves across sub-Saharan Africa could save more than 463,000 lives and US $66 billion in health costs annually, according to a new analysis of the most socially optimal cooking technologies in Africa.

    But the promise of those outcomes alone may not be enough to hasten the adoption of cleaner alternatives, the researchers warn.

    The study, published in the open source journal Nature Sustainability, used a geospatial model to determine the best cooking options by location across the continent, weighing factors such as availability and cost of fuel, time spent gathering fuels and preparing meals, and impacts on health and the environment. In the model, everyone using a traditional cookstove – around 83 percent of households in sub-Saharan Africa, comprising nearly 1 billion people – would switch to stoves that delivered more benefits to both households and society.

    “From both a social perspective and a private perspective, it would be optimal for most of these households to use cleaner technologies,” says Marc Jeuland, Ph.D., an associate professor of global health and public policy at Duke who led the research. “And so that’s telling you that these polluting technologies are extremely damaging.”

    Traditional stoves typically burn wood or other solid fuels, generating indoor air pollution and climate-altering emissions. Cooking regularly on such stoves can cause respiratory disease, as well as contribute to global warming and deforestation. Stoves fueled by electricity or even liquid petroleum gas (LPG) mitigate those risks while also offering efficiencies in time and labor. Many African households using traditional stoves spend more than an hour a day gathering fuel to prepare meals, Jeuland notes.

    Despite those advantages, adoption of cleaner alternatives has been sluggish in Africa, which has lagged other regions in the transition away from polluting cooking technologies. In fact, according to the World Bank’s 2022 Energy Progress Report, the number of people using biomass-burning cookstoves actually increased by 50 percent between 2000 and 2020, as population growth outpaced conversion.

    Jeuland and colleagues describe the situation as a “severe market failure” that calls for new policies and incentives to stimulate growth of cleaner technologies.

    “Just because something may be beneficial from a social or private perspective doesn’t necessarily mean it’s affordable,” Jeuland says. The up-front cost of purchasing a new stove and ongoing fuel costs “are going to continue to be a barrier for many households in sub-Saharan Africa unless you really reduce those costs through subsidies of some form.”

    Jeuland favors subsidies that would reduce the cost of conversion for most families to “close to zero.” He also believes wealthy nations should help foot the bill, since a wide-scale shift to cleaner cooking technologies would lessen a climate problem that those countries bear the most responsibility for creating.

    “If rural Africans continue to harvest firewood for cooking, the contribution to climate change is pretty minimal. But because those damages are accumulating, the rich world should be paying to avoid them,” Jeuland says.

    But affordability is not the only obstacle. Many parts of Africa do not have reliable electricity or infrastructure to deliver gas for LPG stoves, Jeuland says. The researchers’ model, designed by a team of energy systems engineers at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden, accounted for regional infrastructure differences, picking the technology best suited for each location’s unique circumstances.

    In the model selecting for the highest net benefits, about two-thirds of households across sub-Saharan Africa would be best off using LPG stoves, with another 30 percent, mostly in urban areas where grid power is available, using electric. Smaller populations in the poorest and most remote locations would use biogas or improved biomass stoves, which burn more cleanly than traditional cookstoves. Even when factoring only benefits to the household, the model suggests eight in ten people in sub-Saharan Africa should switch to cleaner technologies.

    The results can help governments and nonprofits target their efforts to encourage conversion, Jeuland says. Doing more to inform people about the potential benefits of switching and developing technologies that are well-suited to local cultures and customs will also be critical, he adds.

    But one other area Jeuland would like to explore is how to influence who is at the table when household cooking preferences are discussed. In traditional societies where women and children are exerting most of the cooking labor, men still often make most of the financial decisions.

    “Women tend to not have as much bargaining power, and their preferences are down-weighted in these households,” Jeuland says. “And so we need to be thinking about how to empower women in these decisions.”

    This research was partially supported by the Clean Cooking Alliance and The Royal Institute of Technology

    CITATION: “A Geospatial Approach to Understanding Clean Cooking Challenges in Sub-Saharan Africa,” Babak Khavari, Camilo Ramirez, Merc Jeuland, Francesco Fuso Nerini. Nature Sustainability, Jan. 12, 2023. DOI: 10.1038/s41893-022-01039-8

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    Duke University

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  • The spillover effects of rising energy prices following 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine

    The spillover effects of rising energy prices following 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine

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    Newswise — Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine from February 24, 2022, energy prices rose by up to 20% worldwide for five months. WTI crude oil was $92.77 per barrel on February 24, 2022, but rose and averaged $106.96 (+15.3%) from February 28 to August 3. Furthermore, energy consumer price indexes (energy CPI) increased consecutively for five months, when comparing February and July, in OECD (18.0%) and G-7 (18.9%) countries, hitting their highest year-over-year growths ever since tracking began in 1971 in OECD (40.70%) and G-7 (39.43%) in June 2022. 

    Because energy use is merely an intermediate input, rising energy prices may have little impact on real gross domestic product (GDP). Meanwhile, rising energy prices may decrease social surplus, slowing economic growth. When energy prices rise, consumers primarily buy less durable goods, e.g., cars and new houses, and firms may reduce their investment spending due to uncertainty. Also, because fossil fuels are primarily used as intermediate inputs upstream in the supply chain, higher energy prices lead to higher global costs (due to spillover effects). 

    For such a shock analysis, input-output analysis (IOA) is favored to examine the spillover effects in the supply chain. In particular, the Leontief quantity model—the most popular demand-driven model—is the de-facto standard for both demand and supply analysis. However, it has issues. The model is not theoretically consistent with the supply analysis, and, more importantly, it is likely to overestimate monetary damage because price and quantity are inelastic.

    A new study from researchers at Kyushu University finds that if the price increases by 20% in Russia’s mining and quarrying (M&Q) sector alone, there will be almost no effects globally. That is, global prices will rise by only 0.13% across all sectors globally (weighted average), reducing social surplus by 0.28% of the pre-invasion monthly GDP ($22,295 million per month).

    Meanwhile, if prices increased by 20% globally in every M&Q sector, global prices will rise by 3.15% across all sectors, reducing the social surplus by 6.83% of the pre-invasion monthly GDP ($551,080 million per month). This case is roughly equivalent to Russian M&Q (energy) prices being five times higher (+497%), demonstrating the magnitude of geopolitical risk. 

    Research Lecturer Michiyuki Yagi and Professor Shunsuke Managi in the Urban Institute and the Department of Civil Engineering, Kyushu University, reached these conclusions by updating the world IO table to 2021 values (56 sectors in 44 countries) and analyzing the two scenarios above using the Leontief price model with the exogenous price elasticity of demand at the monthly level, a method developed by the authors in 2020*. As advantages, this model is theoretically suitable for supply analysis and will not overestimate monetary damages because price and quantity are perfectly elastic to each other. 

    Regarding the policy implications, with a price change of only 20%, Russia’s energy sector alone has little global impact because the economic scale is relatively small. Second, if energy prices rise globally, the most affected are three energy-related sectors (M&Q, coke/petroleum, and electricity and gas supply), metal, mineral products, electrical equipment, chemical products (manufacturers), air transport, and construction (service sectors). Finally, if energy prices rise, policymakers should focus on the downstream sectors of buyers or consumers. They will be more damaged than sellers or producers as they have to buy fewer quantities at higher prices. In terms of energy (fossil fuel) prices, the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine (was an economic shock that) cost consumers or buyers (in the world) primarily 2.85% of the pre-invasion annual GDP ($2.7 trillion) in five months following the invasion.

    The results of this research was published online in the journal Economic Analysis and Policy (the Economic Society of Australia) on January 4, 2023.

    For more information about this research, see “The spillover effects of rising energy prices following 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine,” Michiyuki Yagi and Shunsuke Managi, Economic Analysis and Policy. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eap.2022.12.025

    *Yagi, M., Kagawa, S., Managi, S., Fujii, H., Guan, D., 2020. Supply Constraint from Earthquakes in Japan in Input-Output Analysis. Risk Analysis. vol. 40 (9), pp.1811-1830. https://doi.org/10.1111/risa.13525

    ###

    About Kyushu University
    Kyushu University is one of Japan’s leading research-oriented institutes of higher education since its founding in 1911. Home to around 19,000 students and 8,000 faculty and staff, Kyushu U’s world-class research centers cover a wide range of study areas and research fields, from the humanities and arts to engineering and medical sciences. Its multiple campuses—including the largest in Japan—are located around Fukuoka City, a coastal metropolis on the southwestern Japanese island of Kyushu that is frequently ranked among the world’s most livable cities and historically known as a gateway to Asia.

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    Kyushu University

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  • Researchers: Energy-efficient construction materials work better in colder climates

    Researchers: Energy-efficient construction materials work better in colder climates

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    Newswise — The researchers from Lithuania and Cyprus claim that the energy payback period of using phase change materials, new technology in the construction industry, is the shortest in a colder climate. The optimal location for their usage is the interior on the northern side of the building. The study provides informed answers regarding the application of PCMs to improve buildings’ energy efficiency.

    In recent years, phase change materials (PCMs) used to improve the energy efficiency of buildings are gaining momentum. PCMs can store and release large amounts of energy – when in a solid phase, they can absorb heat, providing a cooling effect and when a PCM is in its liquid phase it can release heat, providing a warming effect.

    “The ice melting to water is a phase change material, as is butter melting to oil. Why is it special? When material changes phase, it also absorbs and releases energy. In construction, these materials are encapsulated, i.e. the micro PCM capsules are integrated into a building element, such as concrete,” explains Paris Fokaides, a principal investigator at Kaunas University of Technology (KTU), Lithuania.

    Together with colleagues from Frederick University in Cyprus, KTU researchers were conducting a study in different European regions aiming to calculate the efficiency of the application of PCMs for the energy upgrade of the existing buildings. Their research revealed that the efficiency and energy payback period of PCM depends on certain conditions, such as the geographical location and the wall orientation of the building.

    “The thermal performance assessment of existing buildings is highly valuable information, which can be useful when making renovation decisions,” says Eglė Klumbytė, a researcher at KTU Faculty of Civil Engineering and Architecture, a co-author of the study.

    According to her, it is important to understand how and where to use the appropriate materials for maximum efficiency.

    In cold climates, the investments pay off in less than a year

    The work examines the application of PCM coatings in diverse meteorological conditions in Europe, for all major buildings’ orientations. In total, 16 numerical simulations were carried out for the four calendar months of January, April, July and October and for three latitudes of Athens, Milan and Copenhagen.

    “We wanted our research results to be globally applicable, that’s why we chose the locations with typical climatic conditions in Southern, Central and Northern Europe,” says Fokaides.

    The first 8 numerical simulations were performed with phase change material integrated into the building element structure and the other 8 simulations – in the absence of PCM. The PCM thickness incorporated was 4 cm. The annual energy saving was calculated for four typical months, representing the four seasons of the year (winter, spring, summer, and autumn).

    “One of the main study outcomes highlighted the fact that PCM performed better under cold conditions,” says Klumbytė.

    According to the researchers, this makes perfect sense – firstly, in colder conditions, PCM absorbs more energy, and secondly, since in colder climates the buildings use more energy (electricity, heating, etc.) the energy saving in these conditions is more efficient.

    “In the study, we have developed the energy payback period concept, which means the balance between the energy used to produce these materials and gained while using them. Energy payback period indicates how long it will take for the energy that is saved in the PCMs to eliminate the energy costs of their production,” explains Fokaides.

    The study revealed that PCM implementation can contribute to energy savings in certain cases, varying from 0.24 up to 29,84 kWh/m2a and energy payback periods from less than a year to almost 20 years. The longest energy payback period was calculated in warmer climates, and the shortest – in colder locations. The optimal orientation for placing PCMs is west and east in Athens, east and north in Milan, and north in Copenhagen. Also, PCMs work best when they are integrated into interior structures.

    Researched topics never discussed before

    “The developed numerical model demonstrates the ability to carry out a thermal assessment under diverse conditions with accurate results. The main goal of the European Union is sustainable environmental development. Our study can greatly contribute towards achieving this goal,” Klumbytė is convinced.

    According to Fokaides, the above-described study is researching topics that have not been discussed in scientific literature before. The optimal location of the phase change material in the building, its optimal orientation and the energy payback period are entirely new concepts in the broad theme of the energy performance of the built environment.

    “However, being a Greek, I cannot overlook the fact that the first description of an eco-friendly building was written by Socrates 2.5 thousand years ago. Back then, he indicated that the northern wall of a building needs to be thicker compared to the southern, thus our idea that wall orientation is crucial when considering its structural composition is related to that of Socrates,” says a KTU researcher.

    The KTU researchers claim that the methodology and dataset provided in this work can be used for further development of the buildings’ thermal assessment tools. Currently, the team is starting a new 1.5 million worth research project, which will focus on the digitalisation of the findings. This could include developing smart sensors to measure building elements’ thermal performance in real-time and other aspects. According to scientists, this topic has vast potential for commercialisation.

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    Kaunas University of Technology

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  • Arctic blast threatens negative-50ºF temperatures in New England, while Texas power grid is again sputtering

    Arctic blast threatens negative-50ºF temperatures in New England, while Texas power grid is again sputtering

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    Rising temperatures offered some hope Friday for frustrated Texans days after they lost power — and in many cases heat — in a deadly winter storm, while a new wave of frigid weather rolling into the Northeast led communities to close schools and open warming centers.

    Wind chills in some higher elevations of the Northeast could punch below minus 50º (minus 45º Celsius) as an Arctic front swept in from Canada, forecasters said.

    “Some of the most extreme weather was expected atop New Hampshire’s Mount Washington, the Northeast’s highest peak, where winds gusted to nearly 100 miles per hour and wind chills could reach minus 100º Fahrenheit. ”

    In Texas, officials in Austin compared damage from fallen trees and iced-over power lines to tornadoes as they came under criticism for slow repairs and shifting timelines to restore power. More than 240,000 customers across the state lacked power early Friday, down from 430,000 on Thursday, according to PowerOutage.us.

    “Our heat source is our fireplace … and we’ve been in bed, snuggled up under like five or six blankets,” Edward Dahlke, of Spring Branch, southwest of Austin, told KSAT-TV. “Just think that our utility companies need to do a better job making sure our infrastructure is maintained properly.”

    See: Frustrated Texans endure another icy winter storm with no power, heat

    Pauline Frerich, also of Spring Branch, told KSAT that she had no way to prepare a meal without electricity, and that she worries about the cost of replacing hundreds of dollars of spoiled food. As the storm swept over this week, the indoor temperature fell to 29 degrees (-1 Celsius), and the sounds of tree limbs breaking unsettled her.

    “And you didn’t know, was it on the roof, was it just in the yard?” Frerich told KSAT. “But it’s very nerve-wracking.”

    Power failures were most widespread in Austin. Impatience rose there among nearly 123,000 customers days after the electricity first went out.

    Thursday night, officials backtracked on early estimates that power would be fully restored by Friday evening. Damage was worse than originally calculated, they said, and they could no longer provide an estimate.

    “The city let its citizens down. The situation is unacceptable to the community, and it’s unacceptable to me,” Austin Mayor Kirk Watson, a Democrat, said at a news conference Friday. “And I’m sorry.”

    The outages recalled the 2021 blackouts in Texas, when hundreds of people died after the state’s power grid was pushed to the brink of total failure because of a lack of generation. There have been no reports of deaths from this week’s power outages, though the storm and freeze have been blamed for at least 12 traffic fatalities on slick roads in Texas, Arkansas and Oklahoma.

    In New England, temperatures began plunging Friday morning.

    “The worst part of the upcoming cold snap is going to be the wind,” which has already topped 80 mph (129 kph) in higher elevations, said National Weather Service lead forecaster Bob Oravec. Frigid wind chills — the combined effect of wind and cold air on exposed skin — are expected Saturday.

    The worst wind chills in the populated areas of the Northeast shouldn’t go lower than minus 40º (minus 40º Celsius), he said.

    Wind gusts as high as 40 mph raised the prospect of power outages in Maine, and communities began opening warming stations.

    Even cold-weather sports were curtailed. Some ski resorts scaled back operations, eliminating night skiing and reducing lift operations. A popular weekend pond hockey tournament was postponed, and the National Toboggan Championship pushed Saturday’s races back by a day.

    Schools closed Friday in Boston and in Manchester, New Hampshire’s largest city. “In these conditions, frostbite can develop in as little as 30 minutes,” an announcement on the Manchester district’s website read. “This is simply too cold for students who walk home.”

    Some of the most extreme weather was expected atop New Hampshire’s Mount Washington, the Northeast’s highest peak and home to a weather observatory, where winds gusted to nearly 100 mph (160 kph) and wind chills could reach minus 100 (minus 73 Celsius).

    The system is expected to move out of the region Sunday.

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  • Canada’s Preeminent Industrial Filter Products Solution Provider Expands Into the US Market

    Canada’s Preeminent Industrial Filter Products Solution Provider Expands Into the US Market

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    Vytal Filtration Technologies announces an expansion into the United States market with the opening of a sales office in California.

    Press Release
    –

    Feb 3, 2023 06:00 EST


    EDMONTON, Alberta, February 3, 2023 (Newswire.com)
    –
    Vytal Filtration Technologies is pleased to announce the opening of a new office in Visalia, California. Through this expansion, Vytal will bring most of the filtration solutions offered to its Canadian customers to this very significant geographic market. The California office will focus on the energy, food and beverage, municipal water, agriculture, wine, and power generation industry segments. 

    CEO Brian Jones remarked, “We are proud to partner with Paul Deming and confirm his appointment as Vice President, Western United States, for Vytal. Paul brings several decades of process filtration experience to Vytal and will provide outstanding leadership to drive the future success of our business in this market.”

    Cal Bunko, Founding Partner of Vytal will support Paul and Vytal with this important entrée into the United States market. Cal commented, “I am excited to bring Vytal expertise and innovative technologies to this market and to help customers achieve their goals. I am pleased to be supporting Paul as he brings his 30+ years of filtration experience to Vytal in the Western United States market.” 

    Paul Deming added, “I am very excited to be involved with Vytal and lead their growth plans for the Western United States market. I look forward to connecting with old customers and friends as well as making many new ones over the coming years as we build this business.” 

    Vytal is driven to keep the world healthy, productive, and clean. Vytal’s mission is to help customers maximize efficiency and uptime by delivering the best industrial filtration solutions. Vytal employees have a wealth of knowledge, which they combine with a broad portfolio of filtration products. Vytal’s employee expertise, in combination with its portfolio of solutions, helps build enduring relationships with customers as they help solve their filtration challenges.

    Vytal Filtration Technologies is proud to be part of the Hokanson Capital group of companies www.hokansoncapital.ca. Where others see obstacles, Hokanson Capital sees opportunities. Where most investment funds have rigid, unforgiving parameters, Hokanson Capital works with entrepreneurs across a range of businesses from early stages through to businesses with a long history. For Hokanson Capital, it is about partnering with people in a shared vision.

    To learn more about Vytal Filtration Technologies please visit us at vytal.ca, vytalusa.com or contact us at info@vytal.ca or infousa@vytalusa.com.

    Source: Vytal Filtration Technologies

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  • Sanctions on Russian crude oil have ‘failed completely,’ oil analyst says

    Sanctions on Russian crude oil have ‘failed completely,’ oil analyst says

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    The G-7, the EU and Australia implemented on Dec. 5 a cap on Russian oil prices.

    Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

    Sanctions imposed on Russian crude oil have so far “failed completely” and new price caps could prove immaterial as well, analysts told CNBC.

    The European Union is planning to ban imports of refined petroleum products from Russia, including diesel and jet fuel, from Sunday.

    The 27-member bloc has already banned the purchase and import of sea-borne Russian crude oil since December.

    In addition, the bloc — along with its allies in the Group of 7 and Australia — has set a price cap on Russian seaborne crude oil, which bars the use of Western-supplied maritime insurance, finance and other services unless they are sold below $60 per barrel.

    They are part of global efforts to curb Moscow’s ability to raise funds for its war in Ukraine.

    The price cap “was invented by bureaucrats with finance degrees. None of them really understand oil markets,” Paul Sankey, president and lead analyst at Sankey Research, told CNBC’s “Street Signs Asia” on Thursday.

    “Its been a total bomb, it has failed completely.”

    Sankey underlined it has been tough for oil markets because Russian oil supply hasn’t really been interrupted and “they’ve sustained exports at high levels.”

    “I heard it from a great source that the Saudis have been asking around as to how come Russian oil is still flowing,” he said.

    “That brings the question of what will happen with the sanctions coming up on products, because it just doesn’t seem to work.”

    Even though volume has remained robust, the price of Russia’s Urals oil blend has fallen since before the war. Average price for Russia’s Urals oil blend was $49.48 per barrel in January this year, according to Reuters which quoted the finance ministry. That’s below the price cap of $60 set by the EU and G-7, and down 42% from January last year, according to Reuters.

    Ahead of the proposed price caps on Russia’s refined products on Feb. 5, member states had yet to agree on a price cap, according to Reuters. It is hoped that a deal can be reached by Friday.

    Read more about energy from CNBC Pro

    Price cap on refined oil products

    Still, Vandana Hari, founder of analytics firm Vanda Insights, said she too was skeptical about the upcoming restrictions on Russian refined oil products.

    “The crude price cap was pretty inconsequential,” Hari told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” on Thursday.

    “I think the refined product caps that they’re planning — about a $100 [per barrel] for diesel and clean products and perhaps around $45 for dirty fuels like fuel oil — are probably going to be immaterial as well.”

    Russian oil will find its way into the markets that are “still welcoming it” like China and India, according to Hari.

    “China and India have benefited quite a big deal last year from heavily discounted Russian crude prices and the same’s going to happen to Russian refined products,” Hari noted, although it could be more complicated for Moscow to find markets for such products, she added.  

    Both China and India have increased their purchases of Russian oil in the wake of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, benefiting from discounted rates.

    Two uncertainties are the reason that OPEC is standing still, analyst says

    Sankey further noted “oil friendships are greasy” and there’s a lot of different ways to move Russian oil around the world bypassing the price caps.

    “One of the things people have highlighted is look at Malaysian oil. Its crude oil exports to China is at 1.5 million barrels a day,” said Sankey. “Malaysia only produces 400,000 barrels a day. I don’t think that’s Malaysian crude. So there’s plenty of stuff moving around outside these … theoretical caps. “

    China reopening

    Separately, Hari said China’s sudden reopening is unlikely to move the needle on oil prices in the near term.

    Hari highlighted she does not believe oil prices will hit $100 per barrel anytime soon as a result of China’s reopening, but it could happen more gradually.

    There’s still a high degree of uncertainty around China’s oil demand, she added.

    “The initial boost in Chinese demand is obvious. We are seeing a lot of travel happening domestically, internationally… that’s positive for jet fuel. But when does the Chinese economy actually pick up momentum again? I think that’s a big question.”

    — CNBC’s Sam Meredith contributed to this article

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  • Shell adjusted profit of $9.8 billion beats forecasts, boosted by soaring energy prices

    Shell adjusted profit of $9.8 billion beats forecasts, boosted by soaring energy prices

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    LONDON–Shell PLC became the latest oil giant to post record annual profit last year, joining U.S. peers in surging back from early pandemic losses on soaring energy prices.

    Shell’s
    SHEL,
    +3.00%

    SHELL,
    +2.24%

    SHEL,
    -0.83%
    $41.6 billion full-year profit surpassed the London-based company’s previous record of $31.4 billion in 2008, measured on a net current-cost-of-supplies basis–a figure similar to the net income that U.S. oil companies report.

    The results bring to more than $132 billion the combined profit last year of the three big majors including historic results from Chevron Corp. and Exxon Mobil Corp., reported during the past week. Their hauls, driven by strong global energy demand, erase billions of dollars of losses incurred during Covid lockdowns as global travel and economic activity sputtered.

    Shell’s earnings included fourth-quarter profit on a net current-cost-of-supplies basis of $11.4 billion, compared with $11.2 billion in the year-ago period. Results were boosted by strong performance in Shell’s liquefied natural-gas business, which benefited from soaring global demand after Russia cut off pipeline gas supplies to Europe.

    Adjusted fourth-quarter earnings, which strip out certain commodity-price adjustments and one-time charges, were $9.8 billion. That beat the consensus forecast of $8 billion for the quarter in a survey of 28 analysts compiled for Shell by an outside firm.

    Shell’s results are the first reported under Chief Executive Officer Wael Sawan, who took over the role Jan. 1 from longtime boss Ben van Beurden. The 48-year-old Mr. Sawan, a dual Lebanese-Canadian national who joined Shell in 1997, rose through the ranks to oversee Shell’s natural-gas business, which has driven record profits, and more recently renewable energy.

    Write to Jenny Strasburg at jenny.strasburg@wsj.com

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  • 212 Angel Number Meaning + What To Do If You Keep Seeing It

    212 Angel Number Meaning + What To Do If You Keep Seeing It

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    According to medium Megan Michaela Firester (aka Mystic Michaela), the number one in numerology relates to your ability to create—hence why she calls it the “Architect” number.

    “When you see this number, it’s a strong sign from the universe that you are being supported with powerful forces to manifest in your life,” she tells mindbodygreen, adding, “Whether this is love, career, health or a courageous pursuit, you are being reminded that you create your own reality.”

    And in the case of the number two, Firester says it’s about building your life with gratitude. She calls it the “Trust” number, and it’s a call to not only hope for not only big things to work out for you, but little things, too. “This number reminds you that you’re never alone, and that the many little things you can be grateful for are supporting a miraculous and cumulative outcome,” she notes.

    As Richardson previously explained to mindbodygreen, “The number two has a soft, gentle energy signature. It’s a number that represents harmony, cooperation, and presence in the here and now.”

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    Sarah Regan

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  • Overcoming the Currency Mismatch to Finance Clean Energy in Developing Countries

    Overcoming the Currency Mismatch to Finance Clean Energy in Developing Countries

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    A wind energy generation plant located in Loiyangalani in northwestern Kenya. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS
    • Opinion  washington dc
    • Inter Press Service

    WASHINGTON DC, Jan 31 (IPS) – Meeting our climate change goals will require massive investments in clean energy projects, in both advanced economies and across the Global South.  But financing projects in the latter group of countries requires an increase in foreign capital inflows that will be constrained by currency exchange rate risk. Creating an innovative Exchange Rate Coverage Facility can help to overcome this constraint.

    Over the coming two decades, annual energy emissions across the Global South (not counting China) are currently projected to grow by 5 Gt.  Analysis by the International Energy Agency, the World Economic Forum and the World Bank shows that reversing this dynamic so as to meet the climate goals of the Paris Agreement, while also supporting the development needs of these countries, will require a four- to seven-fold increase in clean energy investments by 2030 from the current level of $150 billion.

    Significantly, most of the needed clean energy projects provide domestic-oriented services (such as power from solar or wind power plants, public transit systems, building efficiency retrofit campaigns, electric vehicle charging stations). These generate local currency revenues.

    Although much of the funding for these projects will come from domestic resources, the sheer magnitude of the required investment will necessitate significant amounts of foreign capital, potentially $180 billion or more per year by 2030.

    Exchange rate risk (i.e., the potential that the local currency devalues relative to the foreign currency loan or other investment) is a major impediment to mobilizing large foreign capital flows for these projects (albeit, not the only one).

    This risk translates into many problematic impacts. Notably, it increases the cost of capital, raises the financial liabilities of domestic stakeholders as their local currency depreciates, and, perhaps most significantly, constrains the level of foreign investment.

    While currency hedging and other options exist (including specialized programs for developing countries), they can be expensive and are lacking for many Global South currencies, particularly at the long tenors, low cost and large scale required to support many clean energy investments.

    If this currency risk cannot be overcome, it will be impossible to mobilize the level of foreign capital inflows that developing countries require to grow their energy systems with a low-emissions trajectory. This poses risks for both rich and poorer countries in the global effort to lower greenhouse gas emissions.

    What to do to address this impediment? We propose an Exchange Rate Coverage Facility (ERCF), a blended-finance vehicle that would be funded by a combination of host country stakeholders, multilateral/bilateral development and climate agencies, and climate-engaged international capital.

    The ERCF would be established as an offshore facility to absorb currency exchange risk on its balance sheet. It would issue guarantees protecting international lenders against this risk (see figure 1), while in parallel helping to insulate domestic sponsors from it. The Facility would pay any and all shortfalls between the value of contracted local currency (LC) payments and foreign currency (FC) debt repayments if the local currency (LC)depreciates relative to pre-defined  exchange rate .

    Figure 1: Clean Energy Exchange Rate Coverage Facility Model

    Under our proposed financing structure, the Facility would be a “blended finance” vehicle funded by the following :

    (i) carbon credits generated by the clean energy project that are assigned to the Facility, which would cover “first loss”;

    (ii) multilateral development banks (including guarantees counter-guaranteed by host countries), development finance institutions and other development/climate agencies, providing funding for defined subsequent losses; and

    (iii) international capital, including philanthropies, sovereign wealth funds, and interested private institutions, covering “third loss”.

    A fuller description of this facility is set out in the report: “Scaling Clean Energy Through Climate Finance Innovation: Structure of an Exchange Rate Coverage Facility for Developing Countries.”

    Figure 2: The “Ladder” of Coverage for Local Currency Depreciation in the ERCF

    The Facility could generate multiple benefits:

    (i) catalyzing additional foreign financing for clean energy projects in developing countries;

    (ii) lowering exposure of local project stakeholders to currency exchange rate shifts, thereby reducing prospect of tariff increases if the LC depreciates;

    (iii) reducing the cost of foreign financing to clean energy projects;

    (iv) facilitating scalability of coverage;

    (v) supporting the growth of carbon credits projects and markets;

    (vi) enabling funders to leverage financial impact through blended-finance structure; and

    (vii) flexibility to include specialized windows (e.g., country-specific programs, including under the Just Energy Transition Partnerships being discussed with South Africa, Indonesia, Vietnam and others).

    To mobilize international capital flows in the magnitude required to achieve the dual objectives of sustained development and low emissions, there is a need for new financial tools.

    The proposed blended-finance ERCF is being incubated as a solution to address currency exchange risk as part of the initiative on Mobilizing Investments for Clean Energy in Emerging Economies. Its proponents welcome interested organizations and individual experts to join forces on the implementation of a pilot Facility to facilitate increased funding for the global clean energy transition.

    Authors: Philippe Benoit, Adjunct Senior Research Scholar, Center on Global Energy Policy, Columbia University; Jonathan Elkind, Senior Research Scholar, Center on Global Energy Policy, Columbia University; Justine Roche, Energy Initiative Lead, World Economic Forum

    This piece was first published by the World Economic Forum

    © Inter Press Service (2023) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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