Exxon announces additional job cuts amid ongoing Covid-19 hit to oil demand
Pippa Stevens 


Exxon said Thursday that it intends to reduce its U.S. staff by around 1,900 employees.
The reductions will consist of both voluntary and involuntary programs.
"The impact of COVID-19 on the demand for ExxonMobil’s products has increased the urgency of the ongoing efficiency work," the company said in a statement.

© Provided by CNBC A view of the Exxon Mobil refinery in Baytown, Texas.

Exxon said Thursday that it intends to reduce its U.S. staff by around 1,900 employees as the energy giant continues to see its operations pressured by the coronavirus pandemic. The layoffs will occur through a mix of voluntary and involuntary programs.

Exxon said the reduction is part of ongoing reorganization efforts aimed at improving efficiency and reducing costs.

"These actions will improve the company's long-term cost competitiveness and ensure the company manages through the current unprecedented market conditions," a statement from the company said. "The impact of COVID-19 on the demand for ExxonMobil's products has increased the urgency of the ongoing efficiency work."

Earlier in October Exxon said it was cutting its European operations by 1,600 positions through the end of 2021. According to Edward Jones' Jennifer Rowland, the combined cuts represent about 5% of Exxon's global workforce.

The announcement comes as the oil and gas industry continues to feel the pain of the coronavirus pandemic. West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. oil benchmark, has recovered since plunging into negative territory for the time time on record in April, but the contract still trades at a deep discount to prior prices.

On Thursday WTI traded around $36. As recently as January it traded north of $62 per barrel.

Amid the decline in prices, energy companies have taken drastic measures to improve their balance sheets, including reducing staff and in some cases suspending dividends.

Exxon has repeatedly said that its dividend remains a priority. On Wednesday the company maintained its fourth quarter dividend at 87 cents per share, although this was the first time since 1982 that it didn't raise its payout. DIVIDENDS ARE WASTED CAPITAL

Exxon will report third quarter results on Friday before the market opens. Shares were up 2.6% during midday trading. For the year, the stock is down 53%.

Lawsuit seeks updated standards for industrial pollution controls

.
A coalition of 10 environmental groups is suing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), seeking to compel it to update standards for pollution control devices for facilities including petrochemical plants, gas processing facilities and municipal solid waste landfills

© Getty Images Lawsuit seeks updated standards for industrial pollution controls

The groups argue that the EPA has not complied with requirements to update the standards for the devices, called flares, for years, not making changes since two sets of standards were put forth in 1986 and 1994 respectively.

"EPA has admitted that flares operating under these outdated standards can release many times more toxic air pollutants into local communities than estimated. This can cause serious harm to public health," said a statement from Adam Kron, senior attorney for the Environmental Integrity Project, which is one of the groups suing.

The lawsuit argues that the flare requirements "no longer reflect the 'the best system of emission reduction'" under the Clean Air Act.

It cites a 2019 EPA memo stating that flares at facilities producing the compound ethylene were found to be about 90 percent efficient, as opposed to the assumed 98 percent.

The suit acknowledges that although the EPA has not put forth new across-the-board standards, it has updated standards for specific types of facilities like petroleum refineries.

An EPA spokesperson declined to comment, saying the agency doesn't comment on pending litigation.

The Head (1959) HORROR FULL MOVIE

Stars: Horst Frank, Karin Kernke, Helmut Schmid

Writer/Director: Victor Trivas A scientist invents a serum that keeps a dog's head alive after its body dies. When the scientist dies of a heart attack, his assistant keeps the head alive. Based on "Professor Dowell's Head," a 1925 science fiction story by Russian author Alexander Belyayev.

U.S. scientists create world's first 'living' brain aneurysm outside the human body

For the first time, researchers in the United States have duplicated a living brain aneurysm outside the human body — a feat that could potentially alter the ways in which brain surgeons treat the condition.

© Provided by National Post Using 3D printing, an LLNL team replicated an aneurysm in vitro and performed an endovascular repair procedure on the printed aneurysm, inserting a catheter into the blood vessel and tightly packing platinum coils inside the aneurysm sac.

It is hoped the move could reduce the time taken to decide and perform life-saving surgical procedures personalized to each patient, and so improve survival rates and patient outcomes.


An aneurysm looks like a bulge or balloon in a weakened point on the wall of a blood vessel, either in the heart or the brain. If the wall ruptures, it can lead to internal bleeding with life-threatening consequences for the patient. Aneurysms are especially difficult to both find and treat, given the delicate areas where they commonly occur.

Now, researchers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and scientists from Duke University and Texas A&M, have developed an external, artificial duplicate in the hopes of imitating the real-life environment in which aneurysms occur.

“We looked at the problem and thought that if we could pair computational modelling and experimental approaches, maybe we could come up with a more deterministic method of treating aneurysms or selecting treatments that could best serve the patient,” William Hynes, senior study author and engineer at the laboratory, told Science Alert.

Using gelatin-fibrin hydrogel, the team 3D-printed a structure in the shape of an aneurysm and then carefully added hCMECs — human cerebral microvascular endothelial cells — to the frame. The cells spread out over the next seven days and lined the aneurysm structure, forming a living 3D-printed aneurysm.

© LLNL A blood clot forming in the aneurysm structure proved the model a success.

Once the living structure was created, the team experimented on it by pumping cow blood plasma through the structure and then performing their own endovascular coiling — an operation in which a catheter is threaded through the body, to the aneurysm, via an artery in the groin. Once threaded, a coil is pushed through the catheter into the aneurysm. It is one of two methods by which doctors attempt to stop blood flow to the area of an aneurysm to prevent it from swelling and rupturing.

As a result of the coiling, a clot was formed at the site and disrupted blood flow, which meant the model worked.

“Now we can start to build the framework of a personalized model that a surgical practitioner could use to determine the best method for treating an aneurysm,” Hynes said.

There is still a long way to go before the model can be used by professionals in the field, the team stressed in its paper. The computer model of clots still needs to be finessed to both refine the living structures and better mimic the stresses placed on the walls of the impacted blood vessels.

The team also plans to feed real-world patient brain scans into the data to further refine the system’s accuracy.

UK
Too few companies disclose financial hit from climate change, regulator says

By Huw Jones REUTERS 

© Reuters/KACPER PEMPEL FILE PHOTO: Smoke and steam billows from Belchatow Power Station, Europe's largest coal-fired power plant operated by PGE Group, near Belchatow

LONDON (Reuters) - Too few companies specify their prospective financial hit from climate change under a voluntary global disclosure code that needs wider backing from asset managers and others to be fully effective, a global regulatory body said on Thursday.

Climate change can reduce the value of assets or subject companies to costs from flooding and other weather-related events, and a body dubbed the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) in 2017 published a voluntary set of disclosures to help inform investors.

The TCFD, set up by the Financial Stability Board (FSB) which coordinates financial rules for G20 countries, said more than 1,500 organisations worldwide had expressed support for TCFD-aligned disclosures to help cut carbon emissions, up 85% since last year's update.

But the level of disclosure remains inadequate, it said.

"Companies' disclosure of the potential financial impact of climate change on their businesses and strategies remains low," the TCFD said.

Just one in 15 companies reviewed disclosed information on the resilience of their strategy, far lower than other categories of disclosure such as governance and risk management, it added.

More backing was needed given the urgent demand for consistency and comparability in reporting, with support from asset managers and owners of assets likely to be insufficient to give investors the right information, it said.

The TCFD will seek better insight into reporting practices of asset managers and asset owners.

Ahead of the next round of global climate talks in Scotland next year, expectations are growing that the code will be made mandatory, as indicated by a Bank of England official this month.

The TCFD also published a consultation paper on making the code more forward-looking for banks, insurers and asset managers.

It singled out one potential yardstick known as implied temperature rise associated with investments or ITR. This is used by some firms already to estimate the global temperature rise associated with greenhouse gas emissions of a company, investment strategy or fund.

ITR could be useful in several ways but faces several significant challenges to calculating it more consistently, the TCFD said.

(Additional reporting by Simon Jessop; Editing by David Holmes)

Bełchatów Power Station - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bełchatów_Power_Station

The Bełchatów Power Station is the world's largest (nominal power of 5,102 MW ) lignite-fired power station, situated near Bełchatów in Łódź Voivodeship, Poland. It is the largest thermal power station in Europe, and fifth largest fossil-fuel power station in the world.

• Overview
• Carbon dioxide emissions
• See also
• External links

It produces 27–28 TWh of electricity per year, or 20% of the total power generation in Poland. The power station is owned and operated by PGE GiEK Oddział Elektrownia Bełchatów, a subsidiary of Polska Grupa

Polish president backtracks on abortion view amid protests

WARSAW, Poland — Poland's President Andrzej Duda said Thursday that women themselves should have the right to abortion in case of congenitally damaged fetuses, apparently breaking ranks with a conservative leadership that pushed a ban that has led to mass street protests.

© Provided by NBC News

“It cannot be that the law requires this kind of heroism from a woman,” Duda said in an interview with radio RMF FM.

© Jadwiga Figula Image: Women hold placards as they take part in a protest against the ruling by Poland's Constitutional Tribunal that imposes a near-total ban on abortion, in Gdansk (Jadwiga Figula / Reuters)

He spoke after seven straight days of huge protests across Poland following a constitutional court ruling declaring it unconstitutional to terminate a pregnancy due to fetal congenital defects. The ruling effectively bans almost all abortions in a country that already had one of Europe's most restrictive abortion laws.

That ruling has triggered huge nationwide protests, with young people heeding a call by women's rights activists to come to the streets to defend their freedoms.

Deep divisions that had been brewing for a long time in Poland are now erupting on the streets.

On Thursday night, men with a far-right group, All-Polish Youth, attacked women taking part in protests overnight in some cities, including Wroclaw, Poznan and Bialystok.

Their actions came after Poland's most powerful politician, ruling party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski, called for his supporters to turn out on the streets to defend churches after women disrupted Masses last Sunday and spray-painted churches.

© Jadwiga Figula Image: A woman takes part in a protest against the ruling by Poland's Constitutional Tribunal that imposes a near-total ban on abortion, in Gdansk (Jadwiga Figula / Reuters)

Many interpreted Kaczynski's call as permission for violence against the protesters.

Duda’s comments Thursday were in sharp contrast to his initial reaction last week, when he welcomed the ruling, and stressed his opposition to abortion even when a fetus is irreversibly damaged.

He also signaled a difference of opinion with Kaczynski on the issue of security, saying police should have the sole responsibility for protecting the streets.

Photos document U.S. eviction crisis as families struggle with pandemic

As hard-hit families struggle financially and rent moratoriums expire, John Moore of photo agency Getty Images spent more than a week with the Maricopa County Constables Office in Arizona photographing the eviction crisis many Americans are facing during the coronavirus pandemic.

© John Moore/Getty Images 

A woman is overcome with emotion after she was served a court eviction order for non-payment of rent on Sept. 30, 2020 in Phoenix. She and her daughter were forced to leave their apartment.

READ ON 

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/money/other/photos-document-u-s-eviction-crisis-as-families-struggle-with-pandemic/ar-BB1aveSO?ocid=msedgdhp

Tilting tanker off coast of Venezuela could spill 1.3 million barrels of oil into Atlantic

Devika Desai 

Fisherman in the Caribbean are calling for a state of emergency to be declared, after evidence emerged of an sinking oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, threatening to spill over 1.3 million barrels of oil into the ocean.

© Provided by National Post The Nabarima floating storage and offloading (FSO) facility, operated by the Petrosucre joint venture between Venezuelan state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela and Italy's Eni, is seen tilted in the Paria Gulf, between Venezuela and Trinidad and Tobago, October 16, 2020.

The Nabarima, a Venezuelan tanker partly operated by Italian energy giant ENI, was first noticed to be tilting in July. By August, crews discovered that water was leaking into the ship, threatening to sink it.

She is in “very poor condition,” tweeted Eudis Girot, the head of the Unitary Federation of Petroleum Workers of Venezeula on Aug. 31, warning that the tanker held about nine feet of water in her lower decks. Photos with the post showed flooding in various sections of the interior of the vessel.

Last month Gary Aboud, who represents the fishing community in Trinidad, got close enough to the tanker to show the gravity of the risk to the entire Southern Caribbean. “What we found was frightening,” Aboud said in a video posted online on Sept. 7.

The tanker appeared to be tilting at an angle of 25 degrees, Aboud said in the video, while pointing at the ship just a few feet away from him. Currently the ship is held in place by anchor chains, although it isn’t clear how strong the chains are, and how long they will be able to control the tanker. The chains “aren’t enough,” Aboud said, adding that poor weather could cause the tanker to flip.

The situation could also be exacerbated by a particularly active 2020 tropical cyclone season, which has already seen 28 cyclones, 11 hurricanes and four “major” hurricanes.

In his video, Aboud criticized Trinidad and Tobago government officials for a lack of response to the situation, which has now been ongoing for three months. An oil spill of this magnitude could wreck the livelihoods of over 50,000 local fisherman who rely on the sea, cause long term ecological harm to the biodiversity in the nearby coral reef, and pose a broader regional risk, Forbes reported.

“This requires national emergency,” Aboud said. “(I’m) calling on the government of Trinidad and Tobago to wake up and do something.”

International maritime reports have also been calling for action since early September, the Trinidad and Tobago Guardian reported, and government officials have asked for verification from Venezuelan officials on the status of the tanker.

In early September, Trinidad and Tobago Energy Minister Franklin Khan noted that initial reports from Venezuelan authorities described the vessel to be in upright and stable condition.

“The Energy Ministry through the Venezuelan Embassy has offered any assistance, technical or logistical to the Government of Venezuela that it may require. Also, the Minister of Energy is in contact with his Venezuelan counterpart for further updates as they become available,” a spokesman for Khan stated.

According to Khan, Trinidad and Tobago and Venezuela have a bilateral agreement which includes an oil spill contingency plan, “in the event of a genuine risk exists or an active spill occurs.” “This is the agreement that will govern the action of the Government,” he said.

Should the spill occur, it will be the fourth major oil spill from Venezuela in the past three months.

In early September, fisherman and experts confirmed that oil was leaking into the sea near Falcón State, in north-east Venezuela, from a cracked underwater pipeline linked to attempts to restart fuel production at a refinery.

The month before, photos showed beaches and mangroves around Moroccoy National Park, on the west-central Venezuelan coast, slicked in oil. The images quickly gained traction online before local officials said a clean up effort was taking place. Research released two weeks later by Simón Bolívar University attributed the oil spill to the incompetence of state authorities working at the nearby El Palito refinery, located 66 kilometres south of the park.

Man arrested after showering commuters with money from 30th-floor window

Helen Davidson in Taipei 

Chinese police have arrested a man after he scattered a “heavenly rain of banknotes” on commuters from his apartment window while allegedly high on methamphetamine.

© Photograph: REX/Shutterstock The man was taken into custody in Chongqing and was receiving treatment, police said.

Police said the 29-year-old was “in a trance” after taking drugs at his home on the 30th floor of a building in Chongqing, in south-western China, when he began throwing cash out of the window to the streets below.

Local media reported the “heavenly rain of banknotes from the sky”, and a video of the 17 October incident has been viewed more than half a million times.

The footage shows traffic slowed to a crawl, or completely stopped in some sections, as dozens of people left their cars or walked onto the busy road to catch the banknotes.

Police were called and the man was taken into custody. The police said in a statement he had been detained for taking drugs and was under investigation and receiving treatment.

In 2017, also in Chongqing, a woman walked into traffic throwing bank notes behind her, prompting a police officer to pick them up as he followed her. Local media reported she told police she threw the 16,000 yuan (US$2,300) because she was in a bad mood.

Last year a man who threw 100,000 yuan into the air after having a bad day at work asked for people to return his money. Shishi city police in Fujian said the man’s actions caused a traffic jam and people fell over each other trying to grab the cash.

Hong Kong teen activist Tony Chung charged with secession

A teenage Hong Kong democracy activist was charged on Thursday with secession, the first public political figure to be prosecuted under a sweeping new national security law Beijing imposed on the city.

© ISAAC LAWRENCE Tony Chung, 19, is a former member of Student Localism, a small group that advocated Hong Kong's independence from China

Tony Chung, 19, appeared in court two days after he was arrested by plainclothes police in a Hong Kong coffee shop opposite the US consulate, charged with secession, money laundering and conspiring to publish seditious content.


He was remanded into custody until his next court hearing on 7 January and faces between 10 years to life in prison if convicted under the new law.

Chung is a former member of Student Localism, a small group that advocates Hong Kong's independence from China.

The group said it disbanded its Hong Kong network shortly before Beijing blanketed the city in its new security law in late June but kept its international chapters going.

The legislation -- a response to huge and often violent pro-democracy protests that swept the city last year -- outlawed a host of new crimes, including expressing certain political views such as advocating independence or greater autonomy for Hong Kong.

© ISAAC LAWRENCE Chung and three others were first arrested by a newly created national security police unit in July on suspicion of inciting secession via social media posts

Chung and three other members of Student Localism were first arrested by a newly created national security police unit in July on suspicion of inciting secession via social media posts.

On Thursday, Amnesty International said the charges showed authorities were wielding the law to criminalise peaceful political expression.

"The intensifying attack on human rights in Hong Kong has been ramped up another notch with this politically motivated arrest in which a peaceful student activist has been charged and detained solely because the authorities disagree with his views," said Joshua Rosenzweig, head of Amnesty's China team.

- Aiming for US consulate? -

Speculation has swirled that police moved on Chung because he was hoping to ask for asylum at the US consulate in Hong Kong.

A little-known group calling itself Friends of Hong Kong put out a statement shortly after Chung's arrest on Tuesday saying it had been trying to arrange for Chung to enter the US consulate that day and seek sanctuary.

AFP was not able to independently verify the group's claim and Chung has been unable to comment because he has remained in police custody since then.

His bail conditions from his first arrest prevented him from leaving Hong Kong.

Asylum claims to the US have to be made on arrival in the country or via a United Nations refugee referral programme.

With some very rare exceptions, consulates and embassies do not tend to grant asylum as doing so could spark a huge diplomatic tussle.

Local Hong Kong media this week reported that four people who may have been trying to help Chung entered the US consulate on Tuesday but were turned away.

The US consulate has declined to comment.

A small but growing number of Hong Kongers have fled the city since Beijing's crackdown on democracy protesters and recent asylum cases are known to have been successful in both Germany and Canada.

- New law -

China bypassed Hong Kong's legislature to impose the new security law, keeping its contents secret until it was introduced.

It targets a wide array of acts deemed as secession, subversion, terrorism and colluding with foreign forces.

Along with mass arrests and an anti-coronavirus ban on public gatherings it has largely succeeded in stamping out mass protests and dissent.

But the root causes of last year's huge rallies remain unaddressed and the city is still deeply polarised.

Critics say the law's broad wording has delivered a hammer blow to the semi-autonomous city's freedoms.

The legislation also ended the legal firewall between Hong Kong and the authoritarian mainland, empowering China's security agents to operate openly in the city for the first time.

Beijing has said it will have jurisdiction over the most serious national security offences.

Around two dozen people have been arrested under the new law, including newspaper tycoon Jimmy Lai, a staunch Beijing critic.

Only two have so far been charged -- Chung and a man who allegedly rode his motorbike into a group of police during a protest.

su-jta/rma