A recent study found that psychedelic mushrooms tend to make people more resistant to authority and more connected with nature.
The post Why Shrooms Are Illegal: Study Shows Psychedelic Experiences Make You Resist Authoritarians appeared first on The Free Thought Project.
The last 5-months Crude Oil has experienced a strong rally and has been much stronger than the S&P 500 (gained 27% more), highlighted in the chart below-
CLICK ON CHART TO ENLARGE
This strong rally now has Crude testing what could be an important price zone for one of the worlds most important commodities-
CLICK ON CHART TO ENLARGE
The impressive 5-month rally in Crude is now testing the underside of two channels and its 38% retracement level of the 2013 highs/2016 lows at (2).
Crude is pushing on a very important price zone that bulls so want to see a breakout take place, not selling pressure to start. Smart money traders are betting Crude will head lower, similar to the degree they bet Crude would head lower in 2013/2014.
The Power of the Pattern is of the opinion that what Crude does here, could send an important intermediate message about the future direction of Crude Oil. Bulls would love to see a breakout at (2)!!!
Why you see chart pattern analysis with brief commentary:
There is a ton of news and opinions about markets and stocks that make the decision-making process more difficult than it needs to be.
I believe the Power of the chart Pattern provides all you need to see what is taking place in an asset and determine the action to take.
This approach has worked well for me and our clients and I encourage you to test it for yourself.
Send an email if you would like to see sample research and take me up on a trial of our Premium or Weekly Research where I provide actionable alerts on breakouts and reversals in broad market indices, sectors, commodities, the miners and select individual stocks
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One month after a mysterious radiation cloud was observed over Europe, whose source remained unknown last week speculation emerged that it may have been the result of a "nuclear accident" in Russia or Kazakhstan, on Tuesday Russian authorities on Tuesday confirmed the previous reports of a spike in radioactivity in the air over the Ural Mountains. In a statement, the Russian Meteorological Service said that it recorded the release of Ruthenium-106 in the southern Urals in late September and classified it as "extremely high contamination."
Earlier this month, France"s nuclear safety agency earlier this month said that it recorded a spike in radioactivity, and said that "the most plausible zone of release" of this radioactive material "lies between the Volga and the Urals" from a suspected accident involving nuclear fuel or the production of radioactive material. The agency noted, however, that it is impossible to determine the exact point of release given the available data. Luckily, it said the release of the isotope Ruthenium-106 posed no health or environmental risks to European countries.
France’s Institute for Radioprotection and Nuclear Safety published this graphic
to show radiation levels.
At the time, Russia"s state-controlled Rosatom corporation - the same company implicated in the Uranium One scandal - said in a statement that there had been no radiation leak from its facilities. That changed when the Russian meteorological service (Rosgidromet) reported that it had detected record levels of radiation in the villages located in Russia"s Ural region adjacent to Rosatom"s Mayak plant for spent nuclear fuel. Some calculated that the radiation exposure levels were up to 1,000x higher than the normal rate.
This Part of Russia is Literally Exposed to 1000x the Normal Radiation Rate https://t.co/3YY5fjGM9S pic.twitter.com/AKbOJqUrhh
— News Cult (@News_Cult) November 21, 2017
Mayak, located in the Chelyabinsk region, issued a statement on Tuesday denying it was the source of contamination. The plant said it has not conducted any work on extracting Ruthenium-106 from spent nuclear fuel "for several years." Full statement below:
“The contamination of the atmosphere with ruthenium-106 isotope registered by Rosgidromet is not linked to the activity of Mayak. The measurements which Rosgidromet has released suggest that the dose people might have received is 20,000 times less than the allowed annual dose and presents no threat at all to health.”
Quoted by Sputnik, the Rosatom represtative stated that there were "no incidents or accidents at nuclear facilities in Russia".
The Mayak nuclear processing plant, located in the Urals, has also come out with a statement saying that "atmospheric pollution with ruthenium-106 that was found by Rosgidromet is not connected to the work of Mayak," since the work on the separation of ruthenium-106 from spent nuclear fuel (and the production of ionizing radiation sources on its basis) has not been carried out for many years at the facility.
Earlier, Rosgidromet confirmed that the the monitoring systems have detected an increase in the concentration of ruthenium over several parts of Russia. However, according to the press release, the concetration does not exceed the maximum permissible concetrations. The head of Rosgidromet, however, said that the automatic monitoring system detected an increase in the concentration of Ru-106 not only in Russia, but also in neighboring countries such as Poland, Romania, Bulgaria and Ukraine. According to him, the concentration in Romania was 1.5-2 times higher than the concentration in Russia.
The exact source of the spike, however, remains a mystery, though IRSN suggested that the cause might be an accident.
Mayak has been responsible for at least two of Russia"s biggest radioactive accidents. In 2004 it was confirmed that waste was being dumped in the local river. Nuclear regulators say that no longer happens, but anti-nuclear activists say it"s impossible to tell given the level of state secrecy. Also on Tuesday, Greenpeace said that it would petition the Russian Prosecutor General"s office to investigate "a possible concealment of a radiation accident" and check whether public health was sufficiently protected.
Authored by Haley Zaremba via OilPrice.com,
In the past year or so an unorthodox think-tank called Helena has been quietly bringing together an eclectic cross-section of brilliant individuals (mostly bright-eyed millennials) with ambitious goals. They’re focusing on the world’s biggest and most insurmountable problems: climate change and global security issues such as artificial intelligence, cryptocurrencies, and nuclear proliferation.
The elite and edgy group includes Nobel laureates, Hollywood stars, technology entrepreneurs, human rights activists, Fortune-list executives, a North Korean refugee, and more, but one of Helena’s most unique members is undoubtedly the 23-year old nuclear physicist Taylor Wilson, once known as “the boy who played with fusion”.
Taylor Wilson garnered international attention from the science world in 2008 when he became the youngest person in history to produce nuclear fusion at just 14 years old, building a reactor capable of smashing atoms in a plasma core at over 500 million degrees Fahrenheit - 40 times hotter than the core of the sun - in his parents’ garage. And this all happened after he built a bomb at the age of 10. As a child in Texarkana, Arkansas, Taylor became infatuated with nuclear science after trysts with biology, genetics and chemistry. At age 11, while his classmates were playing with Easy-Bake Ovens, Wilson was taking his crack at building a particle accelerator in an effort to makes homemade radioisotopes.
Soon after he created a mini-sun in his garage, the wunderkind won $50,000 at a science fair for building a counterterrorism device that has the ability to detect nuclear materials in cargo containers, an invention which he later presented to Barack Obama in another science fair, this one sponsored by the White House.
In addition to counterterrorism and nuclear fusion, Wilson has also focused his optimistic virtuosity on solving some of the major shortcomings of our health industry. In his teenage years, Wilson also created a production system for medical isotopes that can be injected into patients and used to diagnose and treat cancer. His design costs less than $100,000 and can be wheeled directly into a hospital room, with the hope to replace multimillion-dollar, warehouse-size facilities that serve the same function.
Before he was even legally able to drink a beer, Wilson had already racked up 4 million views between his two (yes, two) TED Talks (Yup, I Built A Nuclear Fusion Reactor and My Radical Plan For Small Nuclear Fission Reactors). He has a published biography written by author Tom Clynes as well as biopic in development to be directed by Jeff Nichols.
At 18, technically no longer a boy wonder but a legally-adult genius, Wilson skipped college and, armed with a $100,000 Thiel Fellowship, went straight to work trying to solve the same seemingly insurmountable problem that has had nuclear scientists scratching their heads for generation: how to translate the awesome power of nuclear fusion into harnessable energy that would change the future of this planet.
Wilson has said that despite this - or perhaps because of this - assimilating into the science community was no cakewalk. In a profile for the Atlantic in 2012, Wilson said, “These days, the scientific community accepts me. But getting to that point was tremendously hard... when people have dedicated their lives to something—and spent eight years in college—they just expect that a kid wouldn’t be up to doing it.” However, Wilson thinks his greenness is exactly what makes him a forward-thinker and therefore a great scientist.
“Kids have a certain predisposition to do things differently and see the world differently, and that’s helpful... I think that we get a lot of scientists now who are bent into a system, and we lose some of their boldness.”
It’s exactly this young, optimistic, and daring energy that likely brought Wilson to the Helena think tank this year. In this meeting of the millennial minds, from backgrounds as diverse as Texarkana and Pyongyang, from disciplines as far-flung as nuclear fusion and human rights activism, and a whole lot of hopeful energy, it’s hard to think that something incredible won’t come out of it.
With at least 29 dead, and over 3500 houses destroyed, the devastating series of fires that has ravaged Northern California"s Wine Country has to be seen to be believed. As smoke clogs the air up to 100 miles away and with schools and sports programs shut down across the entire NorCal region, this disaster is already being called states deadliest wildfire in history.
“These fires are a long way from being contained, so we’re doing the best we can for people that have been displaced and help them to hopefully rebuild their lives” said Barry Dugan, a Sonoma County spokesman.
Have already burned more than 191,000 acres - an area nearly the size of New York City.
Entire neighborhoods have been lost...
But the park survived...
But Kmart was not so lucky...
As the following shocking aerial footage shows, there is nothing left of some of the states (and country"s) most beautiful places to live...
Aerial footage shows the devastating aftermath of the wildfires in California: whole neighborhoods razed to the ground. At least 29 dead. pic.twitter.com/LpFgHxDgrq
— BNO News (@BNONews) October 12, 2017
But, as Michael Snyder notes, the true extent of the devastation will not be known until the crisis is over, and it looks like the worst chapters may still be ahead. USA Today is reporting that no rain is in the forecast, and strong winds are going to continue to push wildfires very rapidly across the region…
“No rainfall is forecast for ongoing fires in California,” the weather service said.
“Strong winds behind the front will bring elevated-to-critical fire weather threats to active fires across northern California today.”
Normally, it is one of the most beautiful areas on the entire planet, but now it is literally being transformed into a complete and total nightmare.
In a decision that could potentially have a profound impact on US trade policy, the US International Trade Commission has ruled that a flood of cheap, foreign solar panels is unfairly hurting US manufacturers, creating the opportunity for President Donald Trump to follow through on his protectionist campaign rhetoric and impose tariffs and import quotas as soon as November.
If Trump imposes the tariffs, what would be his second significant protectionist act targeting China since approving an investigation into the country"s controversial IP policies that some view as tantamount to starting a trade war. Tariffs would upend the $29 billion US solar industry, according to Bloomberg. More expensive prices for cells and panels would hurt demand for solar potentially reversing a trend of growing demand that has persisted for much of the past decade. Even before the Friday vote, some developers had halted construction and begun hoarding supplies, anticipating that tariffs could double the price of imported components.
The ITC is now set to deliver its recommendations to address the import surge to the president by Nov. 13, handing him an opportunity to score political points on three priorities: He can slap a tariff on China and argue he’s protecting US jobs, all while undermining an industry that competes with coal, an energy that Trump cultivated close ties with during the campaign. The ITC"s vote gives Trump a measure of cover to impose the sanctions.
The case was inspired by Georgia-based Suniva Inc., which filed for bankruptcy protection in April and followed up days later with the trade suit. The company is seeking import duties of 40 cents a watt for solar cells, and a floor price of 78 cents a watt for panels, which currently average about 32 cents worldwide. The US unit of German panel manufacturer SolarWorld AG joined Suniva to argue that the company had been driven to bankruptcy by a global glut of cheap cells, an industry dominated by China. Unlike earlier trade cases, this one would apply on U.S. imports from any nation.
Shares of First Solar popped because it’s panel technology would be excluded while shares of other solar companies tumbled.
Shares of Tesla, which bought Solar City last summer, remain at the lows of the day.
Most of the US solar industry, which uses the cheap panels for rooftop or utility-scale projects, oppose tariffs, arguing that inexpensive imports have driven a boom in US solar projects and tens of thousands of jobs hang in the balance. Abigail Ross Hopper, president of the Solar Energy Industries Association, called it an “ill-conceived case” driven by creditors wanting to recover some of their investments “in poorly run companies.”
“The petitioners made bad business decisions during the biggest boom in American solar energy history,” Ross Hopper said before the vote. “These companies are not worthy of an injury finding.”
The ruling is unusual because it relies on a rarely used provision of a trade law that offers companies a “global safeguard” that can result in broad, uniform protection against imports - not just tariffs on specific countries or companies. Under that 1974 trade measure, Suniva only had to prove that imports have caused it “serious injury” — not that foreign competitors did anything unfair or illegal. Also, Suniva"s majority owner, Shunfeng International Clean Energy Ltd., opposes the move. The ITC is also pursuing a separate global safeguard investigation of large residential washers as manufacturers, encouraged by Trump"s rhetoric, have filed more cases, believing the administration would follow up on a favorable ruling with sanctions.
Of course, tariffs would also complicate Trump"s relationship with China at a time when the administration is pressuring China to do more about North Korea.
Read the ITC"s full statement below:
The U.S. International Trade Commission has determined that Crystalline Silicon Photovoltaic Cells (Whether or Not Partially or Fully Assembled Into Other Products) are being imported into the United States in such increased quantities as to be a substantial cause of serious injury, or threat of serious injury, to the domestic industry producing an article like or directly competitive with the imported article in the United States.
As a result, the investigation will move to a remedy phase.
More information will be provided in a news release to be issued later today. That news release will replace this bulletin when it is available.
Authored by Nick Cunningham via OilPrice.com,
The skies are clearing over Houston, but the damage from the remaining elements of Hurricane Harvey has spread east to Port Arthur and Lake Charles along the Texas-Louisiana border. That has knocked more refineries offline, including the largest refinery in the United States.
In the aftermath of the storm, the most serious threat to the energy industry is the extended outage of refineries and pipelines, according to Goldman Sachs. The problem actually looks worse than it did earlier this week as the deluge has shifted towards Port Arthur, another refining hub. Motiva, which runs the U.S.’ largest refinery in Port Arthur, began to completely shut down its 600,000 bpd facility on Wednesday.
Goldman says the refinery shut downs, as of August 30, have spiked to 3.9 million barrels per day (mb/d), although upstream oil production outages have dropped below 1 mb/d. More ports are now closed – in addition to Corpus Christi and Houston, the ports of Lake Charles, Beaumont, and Port Arthur have shut down.
These outages, the investment bank says, will mean that the “ongoing recovery in production will only be partial.” The refinery and pipeline closures are “leaving the oil market long 1.9 mb/d of crude vs. last Thursday, short 1.1 mb/d for gasoline and 0.8 mb/d for distillate.”
More worrying is that the recovery might not be quick. While most refineries had controlled shut downs, there are quite a few, especially in the Port Arthur region, that have been inundated with water, which means that the damage to them is still unknown. Based on the past major hurricanes of Rita and Katrina, Goldman speculates that about 10 percent of the 4 mb/d of refining capacity that has been disrupted will remain offline for several months.
Other analysts agree that the damage could result in lengthier outages than many had hoped. “I"m actually quite concerned about Beaumont-Port Arthur because they just got a huge amount of rain in 24 hours, and we"ve already seen flooding within the refineries themselves, so we don"t know exactly how bad it"s going to be,” Andy Lipow, president of Lipow Oil Associates, told CNBC. “If it is bad, you"re looking at six to eight weeks of outages over in Beaumont-Port Arthur.”
Ultimately, that could mean that upstream oil producers will be unable to return to full production. Damage to pipelines, storage and processing facilities will also inhibit a full recovery. "It will be a while before operations can return to normal and the U.S. refining industry is bracing itself for an extended shutdown," Stephen Brennock of PVM wrote in a research note.
The prospect of lasting damage to the energy industry is sinking in. “Back to normal is months, not weeks, for exports and for the industry and the region. We have to acknowledge that,” Barclays analyst Michael Cohen wrote.
While much of the focus is (rightly) centered on the effect on gasoline supply, the refinery outages could eat into crude oil demand for quite some time. In fact, on balance, Goldman says that the supply outages could be outweighed by the destruction of demand. Houston alone accounts for around 750,000 bpd of oil demand. Goldman Sachs estimates the region will see demand fall by about 0.7 mb/d in the first month after the storm.
That will make “it harder for OPEC to rebalance the market and maintain bullish sentiment," Barclays" analysts said. OPEC has been struggling to drain inventories for almost a year, but without a substantial portion of U.S. refineries online, inland crude oil storage facilities in the U.S. could fill up once again. And the dip in demand could mean OPEC’s time horizon for balancing gets pushed out a bit more into the future, just as the cartel was hinting that it might have to extend its production cuts anyway.
But the problem is more complex because U.S. data will be much “noisier and less useful as a high frequency indicator at the very time OPEC needs it most,” Barclays says. Storage might increase, refinery runs will bounce around, production figures will edge up slowly – in short, the trend lines that the market has become accustomed to will be all out of whack. And because the U.S. offers the most transparent data, closest to real-time as one can get, it has an outsized impact on market psychology. The data will be really messy for weeks to come, which will complicate OPEC’s strategy.
WTI crude prices managed to scramble back up to pre-API-tumble levels ahead of DOE"s data dump this morning with all eyes on gasoline inventories, which did not disappoint showing a small draw (in line with expectations) along with crude"s draw which was roughly in line with API and expectations. Production continues to rise to highest since July 2015.
API
DOE
Builds in products (gasoline and distillates) according to API is weighing on markets (and a big shift from last week"s massive crude draw), but DOE data showed a draw for gasoline (in line with expectations) and a draw for crude (in line with expectations)
Total Crude Oil Inventories dropped to the lowest since Jan 2016... But as is very clear, remains dramatically over-stocked relative to pre-2015 norms...
One crucial data point that Bloomberg"s Javier Blas notes: total U.S. oil stocks (which includes crude, refined products and the volatile "other oils" category) were unchanged last week. That"s not what the bulls need.
Amid all the bluster, we found it ironic that Crude imports from Venezuela climbed 52 percent to 987,000 barrels a day, also the most since April.
U.S. Fuel Demand Fell 0.72% in Past Four Weeks
Despite stabilization in rig counts, US crude production continues to trend higher, jumping to its highest since July 2015 last week...
A weak dollar and some BTFDing in stocks managed to scramble WTI up to the pre-API levels ahead of the DOE data... (NOTE: futures puked a little right before the print). After the data, the machines were confused but the trend for now is higher as $48 stops are run...
But its mostly noise as the algos cant decide which way to trend for now.
Bloomberg Intelligence energy analyst Vince Piazza sums up the mixed picture:
The crude stockpile drop was basically in line with mean estimates.
The net draw across the petroleum value chain is a modest positive.
However, a drop in refinery utilization foretells ebbing of demand, as driving season comes to an end.
The bearish view is reinforced by output above 9.5 million barrels a day and pushing higher, based on management commentary from 2Q earnings calls.
Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,
With a rare solar eclipse approaching and millions of people flocking to locations around the United States that are in or near the path of totality, some may not realize that the celestial event poses an extreme danger.
As noted by Karl Denninger at The Market Ticker, while the August 21st solar eclipse may be a once in a lifetime sight to see, the actual act of seeing it may cause serious damage to your eyesight:
You’ve probably seen various sites talking about safety issues. The issues are real, and what I’m sharing with you on this post is important.
Read it, understand it, do not believe for one second that any of this can be trifled with and if you have young people around you make damn sure they understand all of this as well.
There will be thousands of people who will either damage or entirely lose their eyesight tomorrow and there is exactly zero that a doc in the ER or anywhere else will be able to do for you if you wind up screwing yourself by being ignorant, stupid or both.
Please do not be one of the people that have that happen.
Denninger’s full warning can be found here.
Because the eyes do not have pain receptors, if you are looking at the eclipse you will not know that your eyes are literally burning.
There will be no forewarning that you are about to lose your eyesight. And there will be nothing a doctor can do to restore your vision once the damage has been done.
Sun glasses will not help.
Only a commercial grade visual-rated solar filter will safely protect the eyes and as reported earlier this week, even those have been counterfeited and sold at places like Amazon.com.
We urge our readers to speak with friends and family about this very serious threat to your vision, especially if you have young children.
Map:
Fusion is the epitome of “high risk, high reward” scientific research.
If we were to ever successfully harness the forces that power the stars, mankind could have access to power that is almost literally too cheap to meter. However, as Visual Capitalist"s Nick Routley notes, reaching that goal will be a very expensive, long-term commitment – and it’s also very possible that we may never achieve a commercially viable method of fusion power generation.
Today’s video, by the talented team at Kurzgesagt, explains how fusion works, what experiments are ongoing, and the pros and cons of pursuing fusion power generation.
Fusion involves heating nuclei of atoms – usually isotopes of hydrogen – to temperatures in the millions of degrees. At extreme temperatures, atoms are stripped of their electrons and nuclei move so quickly that they overcome their “mutual repulsion”, joining together to form a heavier nucleus. This process gives off massive amounts of energy that investors and researchers hope will propel mankind into an era of cheap and abundant electricity, but without the downsides of many other forms of energy.
I would like nuclear fusion to become a practical power source. It would provide an inexhaustible supply of energy, without pollution or global warming.
– Stephen Hawking, award-winning theoretical physicist
Stars are so large that fusion occurs naturally in their cores – but here on Earth, we’re trying a number of complex methods in the hopes of replicating that process to achieve positive net energy.
The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), an experimental reactor currently being built in the south of France, will house the world’s largest ever tokamak – a doughnut-shaped reactor that uses a powerful magnetic field to confine plasma. Construction of the facility began in 2013 and is expected to cost €20 billion upon completion in 2021.
Research organizations see ITER as a crucial step in realizing fusion. Though the facility is not designed to generate electricity, it would pave the way for functional reactors.
There are some who claim that the bureaucracy of government-funded labs is hampering the process. As a result, there is a pack of private companies, fueled by high-profile investors, looking to make commercially-viable fusion into a reality.
Tri Alpha, a company in southern California, is hoping their method of spinning magnetized plasma inside a containment vessel will be a lower-cost method of power generation than ITER. In 2015, they held super-heated hydrogen plasma in a stable state for 5 milliseconds, which is a huge deal in the world of fusion research. The company has attracted over $500 million in investment in the past 20 years, and has the backing of Microsoft co-founder, Paul Allen.
Helion Energy, located in Redmond, Washington, believes they are only a few years away from creating nuclear fusion that can be used as a source for electricity. Their reaction is created by colliding two plasma balls made of hydrogen atom cores at one million miles per hour. Helion Energy’s ongoing research is funded in part by the U.S. Department of Energy’s ARPA-E program, which the Trump administration slated for elimination. Thankfully, Helion still counts Peter Thiel’s Mithril Capital and Y Combinator as supporters.
General Fusion, located in Burnaby, B.C., is taking a different approach. Their piston-based reactor is designed to create energy bursts lasting thousandths of seconds, rather than a sustained plasma reaction. Heat recovered bursts would be used to generate electricity much like nuclear power plants, minus the long-term radioactive waste. General Fusion has attracted millions of dollars in funding, including investment from Bezos Expeditions and the Business Development Bank of Canada.
Though commercially viable fusion is still a long way off, each new technological breakthrough brings us one step closer. With such a massive payoff for success, research will likely only increase as we get closer to bottling a star here on Earth.
It was a busy week at the coal-face.
On Monday, BP"s annual review of global energy trends showed that coal production dropped by record numbers in 2016.
Coal production fell off by 231 million tonnes of oil equivalent (mtoe), a unit of energy common in the energy industry, roughly the equivalent of 6.2 percent of all coal on Earth.
As PopularMechanics.com reports, the decline was most prominent in two of the planet"s largest powers, the United States and China. The U.S, which elected a president dedicated to reviving the coal industry, saw production fall by 33 mtoe, an 8.8 percent fall in total usage. China, which is aggressively pursuing renewable energy, saw a drop off of 26 mtoe, a 1.6 percent change. The UK, which began a transition program to low carbon energy usage in 2009, more than halved its usage of coal, a 52.5 percent down to 12 mtoe, bringing it to its lowest levels in BP"s recorded history.
In a separate report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) on Friday, officials noted that U.S. coal consumption in 2016 — 677 million short tons — is the lowest figure since 1984.
Then, on Tuesday, President Trump proudly tweeted about the opening of the first new coal mine in recent memory...
Congratulations!
"First New Coal Mine of Trump Era Opens in Pennsylvania" https://t.co/aIRllxNLQA
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 12, 2017
Corsa Coal Company will operate the mine in Somerset County, Pa. - outside of Pittsburgh. Corsa CEO George Dethlefsen said the mine will be a boon to the struggling local economy. He praised Trump"s easing of regulations and encouragement for fossil fuel exploration. Dethlefsen told Leland Vittert that for the 70 positions available in the mine, 400 people applied.
"It"s a hard day"s work every day, but it"s worth it," one miner said.
Vittert said the news contrasts with Hillary Clinton"s message that she would "put a lot of coal miners out of work."
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf (D), who endorsed Clinton, joined the mine company in watching a video message from Trump commemorating the occasion.
And then on Thursday, we got Industrial Production data showing that Coal Mining Production is exploding...
h/t @DonDraperClone
Make Coal Great Again indeed... though of course the base effect may slow this exuberance dramatically.
President Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday, repealing many of the environmental regulations introduced by his predecessor Barack Obama and rescinding a moratorium on the leasing of federal land to coal mining companies. In “ending the war on coal”, Trump tries to make good on his campaign promise to bring thousands of unemployed coal miners back to work and secure U.S. energy independence.
As Statista"s Felix Richter notes, Trump, like many of his supporters, blames Obama’s environmental policies for the coal industry’s decline, which, as the chart below illustrates, started long before Obama took office in 2009. While it is true that coal consumption and mining employment did drop significantly during Obama’s presidency, experts keep pointing out that the decline was caused primarily by the rise of natural gas and only secondarily by environmental regulation.
You will find more statistics at Statista
In the late 2000s, a boom in natural gas production, driven by new hydraulic fracturing (fracking) technology, drove down prices for natural gas and the demand for electricity produced from coal subsequently plummeted. In 2000, coal accounted for more than 50 percent of U.S. electricity generation. By 2016, that percentage had dropped to around 30 percent with natural gas going the opposite direction. When natural gas surpassed coal for the first time in 2016, the EIA concluded that the rise of gas “was mainly a market-driven response to lower natural gas prices that have made natural gas generation more economically attractive”.
Repealing environmental regulation will likely slow down the decline of the coal industry, but it is highly doubtful that it will reverse a trend that has been ongoing for decades. By easing fracking limitations, President Trump’s anti-regulation policy may even worsen the coal industry’s situation as laxer extraction rules could drive down the price of natural gas even further.
After API"s surprise draw across all major categories, DOE reported the 7th weekly crude build in a row (even as crude imports plunged). Gasoline, Distillates, and Cushing all saw draws even as crude production rose to new cycle highs - back above 9mm bbl/d.
So here is a question for the crude bulls from Bloomberg"s Javier Blas: the U.S. imported way less crude last week (down 1.2 million b/d week-over-week, to 7.3 million b/d) and exported again lots (1.2 million b/d, or nearly 100,000 b/d week-over-week). And yet, crude stocks build-up again. So where"s is the rebalancing?
API
DOE
7th weekly crude build in a row but major draws across the other categories...
Notably, Bloomberg"s Javier Blas points out that U.S. refinery intake traditionally reaches a seasonal bottom between the second half of February and the first half of March. Last week intake, at just 15.5 million, was already low already and any further reduction would make a big increase in crude stocks more likely. Refinery Utilization tumbled to its lowest since April 2013...
Furthermore, some crude that was on floating storage in so-called contango deals is coming now in-land, increasing imports; but U.S. Crude oil exports rose above one million barrels a day for the first time on record the week ended Feb. 10. WTI averaged $2.26 a barrel below global benchmark Brent this year, making U.S. crude more attractive to overseas buyers.
As a reminder, US crude inventories are already at a new record high...
As are gasoline inventories...
Gasoline demand rose in the last week but remains down over 5% YoY...the biggest drop in 16 years.
Production remains on a rising trend - back above 9mm barrels/day, tracking the lagged rig count and suggesting - noise apart - considerably more production to come...
Bloomberg"s Javier Blas concludes:
I don"t see yet any sings of the U.S. domestic oil market rebalancing, despite the best efforts by OPEC. What"s becoming more and more clear is that the domestic industry is ramping up activity faster than most have predicted. OPEC cuts have lifted prices and created space for U.S. production overseas. OPEC failed to kill shale, and now it"s throwing it a big economic incentive to prosper.
WTI and RBOB rallied overnight following the API data and while both initially spiked on the print, they are falling now.. what will happen 15 minutes after?
Finally we remind readers of what happens next...for the last four weeks, bang on at the 3:45 pm London time (15 minutes after the DOE release), the algo emerged when bearish EIA figures also triggered buying.
Just like it did last week...
And the week before...
And the week before that...
* * *
No buying panic today yet...
To sum up...
Following big recent builds and API"s report overnight, oil held below the $53 level before DOE data confirmed the builds in crude and gasoline were even larger than API. Cushing saw a smaller than expected draw and Distillates an unexpected build. This is the 5th weekly crude build in the last six weeks and crude production also rose once again to its highest since April 2016.
API
DOE
3rd weekly build in crude in a row (5th in last 6 weeks) and 4th major build in gasoline stocks...
As Bloomberg notes, those gasoline numbers are probably the biggest negative from this week"s report.
The stockpile has risen for 9 of the last 11 weeks and inventories are building in an already over-supplied market. Gasoline days of supply has jumped to 28.8 versus 27.1 a week ago. That inventory overhang just isn"t going away.
Crude oil inventories are 132 million barrels, or 37%, above the 5-year average level for the time of year.
Production continues to trend higher with lagged rig counts
Meanwhile, gasoline stocks rose another 6.8 million barrels to 253 million, and now stand 3.4%, or 8.2mmbbls, higher than this time last year.
Demand fell
Total U.S. imports of crude 7810k b/d vs 8378k b/d
Imports into U.S. by country in b/d:
* * *
The reaction was a kneejerk to the lows of the day (with stocks at the highs) and then the standard machine-driven ramp...
But Gasoline pricesd are plunging...total gasoline demand fell to the lowest level since February 2014.
