#FATE OF #OIL PRICES TIED TO #TALKS

  March 21, 2022

' In the Know, Ahead of Markets, Deciding Wisely...'

OIL, COMMODITIES, RISKS, PRICES, VOLATILITY, ETC. WE ARE ALL OVER THE MAP WITH NO CLEAR PATH

• Oil gains as Russia-Ukraine talks stall
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• Oil Posts Second Weekly Decline as Volatility Rocks Markets

• The World’s Biggest Commodities Markets Are Starting to Seize Up
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• The global economy’s growing risks: stagflation, refugees and lockdowns

TALKS CREATE MORE UNKNOWNS

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Unprecedented #Panic in Energy #Markets - More Bad #News Coming

 

Market Panic Is Here

by Andreas Exarheas

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Market panic is here, according to Rystad Energy’s senior oil market analyst Louise Dickson, who made the comment in a statement sent to Rigzone on Wednesday.

In the statement, Dickson noted that Wednesday’s market situation was extreme “by any measure in historical oil pricing terms”, highlighting that it exhibited the largest ever prompt price premium.

“Investors, traders, and politicians alike are scrambling to address the worsening Russia-Ukraine standoff,” Dickson said in the statement.

“The initial upward price reaction after the conflict in Ukraine started six days ago is only intensifying. The current realistic scenario is that a large portion of Russian crude oil, as well as refined oil products, will no longer be palpable to the market and create a supply deficit for the duration of the armed conflict,” Dickson added.

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Editor's Comments

Going to be short here - there is no good news to report and it is starting to look like this could be worse than the 1929 crash because without secure and affordable energy sources it becomes impossible for the economic system to operate. Hyperinflation will cause massive spikes in interest rates and in turn burst the absurd price bubbles that have been created in realty, securities and currency valuations over the past 10 years due to the insanely low Disneyland policy rates administered by the Fed. 

Combine that with unprecedented levels of federal debt financing and you have a recipe for utter financial disaster when the ships come in.

Hang on to your hats folks!

T. A. McNeil

CEO Founder

First Financial Insights

How Bad Can It Get?

2022: #Energy limits are likely to push the world #economy into #recession

 Posted on January 18, 2022 by Gail Tverberg

In my view, there are three ways a growing economy can be sustained:

1. With a growing supply of cheap-to-produce energy products, matched to the economy’s energy needs.
2. With growing debt and other indirect promises of future goods and services, such as rising asset prices.
3. With growing complexity, such as greater mechanization of processes and supply lines that extend around the world.

All three of these approaches are reaching limits. The empty shelves some of us have been seeing recently are testimony to the fact that complexity is reaching a limit. And the growth in debt looks increasingly like a bubble that can easily be popped, perhaps by rising interest rates.

In my view, the first item listed is critical at this time: Is the supply of cheap-to-produce energy products growing fast enough to keep the world economy operating and the debt bubble inflated? My analysis suggests that it is not. There are two parts to this problem:

[a] The cost of producing fossil fuels and delivering them to where they are needed is rising rapidly because of the effects of depletion. This higher cost cannot be passed on to customers, without causing recession. Politicians will act to keep prices low for the benefit of consumers. Ultimately, these low prices will lead to falling production because of inadequate reinvestment to offset depletion.

[b] Non-fossil fuel energy products are not living up to the expectations of their developers. They are not available when they are needed, where they are needed, at a low enough cost for customers. Electricity prices don’t rise high enough to cover their true cost of production. Subsidies for wind and solar tend to drive nuclear electricity out of business, leaving an electricity situation that is worse, rather than better. Rolling blackouts can be expected to become an increasing problem.

In this post, I will explore the energy-related issues that are contributing to the recessionary trends that the world economy is facing, starting later in 2022.

[1] World oil supplies are unlikely to rise very rapidly in 2022 because of depletion and inadequate reinvestment. Even if oil prices rise higher in the first part of 2022, this action cannot offset years of underinvestment.

Figure 1. Crude oil and liquids production quantities through 2020 based on EIA data. “IEA Estimate” adds IEA indicated increases in 2021 and 2022 to historical EIA liquids estimates. Tverberg Estimate relates to crude oil production.

The IEA, in its Oil Market Report, December 2021, forecasts a 6.4-million-barrel increase in world oil production in 2022 over 2021. Indications through September of 2021 strongly suggest that there was only a small rebound (about 1 million bpd) in the world’s oil production in 2021 compared to 2020. In my view, the IEA’s view that liquids production will increase by a huge 6.4 million barrels a day between 2021 and 2022 defies common sense.

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#CRISIS WATCH - #CRITICAL NEAR TERM #THREATS TO #HUMANITY

 

CRITICAL NEAR TERM THREATS TO HUMANITY

1 Exponential population growth and its commensurate economic growth on a finite planet. As MIT researcher modeling projected in 1972 we are now near collapse as we have exceeded the planet's carrying capacity. Sadly, we were warned long ago but did little if anything about it. https://donellameadows.org/archives/a-synopsis-limits-to-growth-the-30-year-update/ 

 

2 Exponential depletion of key industrial materials and energy resources plus freshwater will make it impossible to create and have a low energy future after 2050- if not, sooner. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdXdaIsfio8

3 Melting ice caps and particularly the Arctic circle where a BOE (Blue Ocean Event) could occur in 2-3 years and wipe out all life on earth due to ​an ​extreme heat comparable to prior mass extinction events. https://www.scientistswarning.org/2022/01/12/arctic-death-spiral/

4 Nuclear War - as populations grow and resources decline the chances of this event will increase - if we don't do it in Ukraine then Pakistan and India are the next possible conflict situations - as both face serious economic and political stresses due to growing populations and declining resources. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00794-y

5  Ecocide and biosphere destruction are leading to the current 6th extinction of thousands of species, plants, and wildlife annually both on land and sea - in all likelihood also one of the leading causes behind the ​possible lethal ​pandemics among many animals sweeping the planet today and tomorrow. https://www.endecocide.org/de/2015/09/30/stopping-the-sixth-extinction-ecocide-law/

• 6 - Complete Economic Collapse - we are running out of ​the ​key fossil fuel energy and material sources (oil, natural gas, and coal) ​while prices are ​also ​not high enough to entice oil producers to explore and develop properties. Moreover, US debt - both off and on the Federal Reserve balance sheet - is estimated to be over $100 trillion and cannot ​possibly ​be repaid by future generations from the economic production of goods and services as there will be no underlying energy and material resources for such activity which in turn backs the value of the dollar. 
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• Similar events are right now occurring in Lebanon, Turkey, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Venezuela, et al - all experiencing a collapse in their currencies for these reasons. An imbalance of resources, population, corruption, and national debt.  A situation that is becoming endemic in developing nations.
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• The US dollar may possibly lose its reserve currency status in the near future resulting in domestic hyperinflation bringing famine, massive social unrest, and violent internal conflict.  Another reason for the loss in status is that US bonds are now considered to be trash by top experts - i. e. worthless. Why? They can never be repaid in full without ample future resources and production and they are hence viewed to be in a technical de facto default by leading experts. 
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•  https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-former-king-of-his-asset-class-bill-gross-now-says-bonds-are-trash-11630574701
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• Moreover, it is utterly certain that cryptocurrency and blockchain cannot provide any solutions to our physical-mathematical predicaments because they are the greatest hoax and financial Ponzi scam in a long time with no real concrete value or tangible asset backing.
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• Ironically, High Technology and its deities are thus clearly not our saviors nor panacea - as all they really do is just make pillaging the planet much easier and more efficient in the short term. Thereby, their primary role is speeding our path to collapse and extinction. 
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• Also, so what if we can now possibly build fusion nuclear plants  - how will they help us to restore the lost topsoil, replenish freshwater and aquifers, replace non-renewable energy, reverse climate change, restore Arctic Ice and other non-renewable material resources? Not going to happen for 250 million years or so.

THEY ARE NOT HUMANITY'S DEITY nor A PANACEA

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• https://ourfiniteworld.com/2021/12/03/is-it-possible-that-the-world-is-approaching-end-times/
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• Quite simply, therefore - the writing is on the proverbial wall. Do the numbers and mathematics.
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• So that is it in a nutshell; meaning we may either only have a few years left or barely enough reserves in terms of energy, fresh water, topsoil, and material resources to get us to 2050. The solutions are not in economic or green energy schemes as we are well over the carrying capacity of the planet. 
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• Population and resource ratios are way out of balance and still growing. We remain pawns subject to the unforgiving physical laws of the universe just like bacteria in a petri dish endlessly pursuing energy and procreating  - thereby causing all the energy available to be consumed. That law being- Entropy. 
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• It is not negotiable.  

        We have always shared this law and its Paradise Lost with all other living cellular species past, present, and future.  

• Any hope of a longer sustainable future however appears to largely rest in achieving a dramatic drop in population below; say,  1 billion in the next decade or so  - albeit such a reduction seems to be merely wishful thinking - as we are too far down the road and beyond tipping points whereby the threats of an Arctic BOE,  lethal worldwide pandemics, global famine and disease, economic and monetary collapse, or nuclear war are very real near term possibilities. We ran out of time to get it right.
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Conclusion

It is very unlikely we can reduce populations in short order or remedy all of the critical threats mentioned. Our biggest mistake? Humanity had failed to understand and apply the implications of the exponential function to the population, climate, ecological, and resource constraints of a finite planet. And now we head towards the same destiny as the other 99% of the species who once lived on and enjoyed the wonderful treasures of this paradise. Now lost.

  This is the greatest shortcoming of the human race.

:1

https://youtu.be/kZA9Hnp3aV4

#Climate #Chaos Emerges From Devil's #Bargain - July #Temperature Update -James #Hanson and Makiko #Sato

Editors Comments My good friend and fellow climate activist, Dr. James Hansen together with Dr.Makiko Sato provide a highly detailed and professional report monthly on global temperature trends so you can keep up-to-date on recent news and measures. Dr. Hansen is often referred to as 'The Father Of Global Warming' because of his 1988 testimony before Congress that exposed the imminent perils caused by global warming. I highly recommend you Subscribe to this FREE report and consider making a donation to the MOST IMPORTANT ISSUE that humanity faces at this very moment   - T A McNeil

Fig. 1.  Left: monthly global temperature anomalies.  Right: Nino 3.4 temperature anomaly for past six years and 7 months, and NCEP forecast (green line).   July Temperature Update: Faustian Payment Comes Due Subscribe Future Reports  13 August 2021 James Hansen and Makiko Sato July global temperature (+1.16°C relative to 1880-1920 mean) was within a hair (0.02°C) of being the warmest July in the era of instrumental measurements (Fig. 1, left).  That’s remarkable because we are still under the influence of a fairly strong La Nina (Fig. 1, right).  Global cooling associated with La Ninas peaks five months after the La Nina peak,[1] on average. Something is going on in addition to greenhouse warming.  The 12-month running mean global temperature (blue curve in Fig. 2) has already reached its local minimum.  Barring a large volcano that fills the stratosphere with aerosols, the blue curve should rise over the next 12 months because Earth is now far out of energy balance – more energy coming in than going out. How far is the recent global temperature above the 50-year warming trend?  The best measure is probably the average deviation from the trend line of the two El Nino maxima and the two La Nina minima that followed.  That average is 0.14°C.  That’s a lot, and we know that it’s a forced change, driven by a growing planetary energy imbalance.

Fig. 2.  Global surface temperature relative to 1880-1920 average.

Fig. 3.  Annual growth of GHG climate forcing (red is trace gases, mainly CFCs).    Graph shows 5-year means, except 2019 value is the 3-year mean and 2020 is 1-year mean. READ MORE ABOUT THE AUTHORS James E. Hansen Dr. James Hansen, formerly Director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, is an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University’s Earth Institute, where he directs the Program on Climate Science, Awareness and Solutions. He was trained in physics and astronomy in the space science program of Dr. James Van Allen at the University of Iowa. His early research on the clouds of Venus helped identify their composition as sulfuric acid. Since the late 1970s, he has focused his research on Earth’s climate, especially human-made climate change. Dr. Hansen is best known for his testimony on climate change to congressional committees in the 1980s that helped raise broad awareness of the global warming issue. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1995 and was designated by Time Magazine in 2006 as one of the 100 most influential people on Earth. He has received numerous awards including the Carl-Gustaf Rossby and Roger Revelle Research Medals, the Sophie Prize and the Blue Planet Prize. Dr. Hansen is recognized for speaking truth to power, for identifying ineffectual policies as greenwash, and for outlining actions that the public must take to protect the future of young people and other life on our planet. Click here for Dr. Hansen’s web page Click here to download Dr. Hansen’s CV Click here for Dr. Hansen's Twitter Click here for Dr. Hansen’s Facebook page THE FATHER OF GLOBAL WARMING  Congressional  Testimony 1988                                                  Makiko H. Sato Dr. Makiko Sato has devoted her career to researching our global climate. Before joining Climate Science, Awareness and Solutions, she spent the last few decades working closely with Dr. Hansen at NASA GISS after obtaining her PhD in physics. Her research interests include analyzing the computational results of climate modeling due to different climate forcings such as greenhouse gas increase, ozone depletion and stratospheric and tropospheric aerosol changes and analyzing global change data, especially atmospheric temperature. Dr. Sato analyzes and updates figures for critical climate diagnostics and feedback and climate forcings. All figures are available to the public on her website. Click here for Makiko’s website and updated figures

The #Methane Time #Bomb Now An #Emergency

 Why The Climate Emergency is now The Methane Emergency

by Paul Gilding

Even rapidly accelerating the end of fossil fuel burning will not slow warming in a timeframe relevant to this threat. If we don’t change our approach there is a reasonable likelihood the climate will go through tipping points that will then self-accelerate and we will have lost control. The road to economic collapse and global chaos is then quite a short one. - P Gilding

 

              “Ignore Gilding at your peril” -  Thomas Friedman - NYT 

 

https://countercurrents.org/2021/08/why-the-climate-emergency-is-now-the-methane-emergency/

Whereas CO2 drives warming slowly over a century, methane drives warming quickly – in around a decade. During this time, it is very potent. While methane is often reported as having 28 times more warming impact than CO2, this is when the two are compared over 100 years. That timeframe is now irrelevant given the challenge we face – which is to reducing warming in a decade.  Over 10 years, methane is in the order of 90-115 times more dangerous than CO2.  It is the nuclear weapon of climate change – a weapon of mass destruction.

 

 

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The Methane Time Bomb

LEARN MORE

 

They Say A #Picture Is Worth A #Thousand Words

 

                                 I AGREE 

WHY?

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  • Be sure to wash your hands and all will be well 

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  •  Another Picture Worth A Thousand Words. 

    
    
    
  • August 5, 2021
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  • The question is why do we overpopulate? Because it is evidenced to be innate in biological entities to comply with the universal laws of entropy and consume more energy to survive and procreate for another day. It is an endless battle - as chaos drives the pursuit to grow, acquire, and use more energy to return the systems to a temporary equilibrium. Only to start the cycle once again. 
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  • We observe this phenomenon in the smallest of cell constructs to the largest of vertebrate creatures (remember the mice utopia experiment) - ultimately they outgrow their respective habitats and go extinct. I have seen no evidence anywhere in the universe that any biological construct has dispensation from the laws and cycle of entropy and thus its consequential guaranteed final outcome - EXTINCTION
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  • In the end, all biological constructs are imprisoned in a Devil's Bargain that cannot be breached or voided to avoid its slings and arrows of outrageous misfortune.

  
  

                 T A McNeil

         CEO Founder

         First Financial Insights Inc 

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There Are Exponential Limits to Growth We Cannot Defeat.

WATCH

The Final Warning