Big Oil Still Betting On Plastics Despite Sector Going Bust

By Alex Kimani - Nov 25, 2024

Big oil is investing heavily in petrochemicals as a long-term hedge against an uncertain future for fossil fuels.

The International Energy Agency has reported that 90% of China’s increased oil demand from 2021 to 2024 comes from chemical feedstocks like LPG, ethane, and naphtha.

Both U.S. oil majors and Middle East oil companies are increasing their bets on petrochemicals.



Back in September, we reported that Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) signaled a willingness to raise its informal offer to 60 euros per share for a valuation of $12.6 billion for German plastics and chemicals maker Covestro. The latest offer would represent a premium of nearly 30% to Covestro's share price. ADNOC last raised its informal offer to 57 euros per share in July, although no final decision has yet been made.

ADNOC is going on a real M&A spree: Abu Dhabi’s national oil company is also looking to acquire Austria's integrated energy company OMV (OTCPK:OMVJF) in a potential merger of the two companies that could form an entity worth $30 billion.

At first glance, one deal makes plenty of sense while the other looks like a bummer. Last week, OMV announced a major natural gas discovery in the Norwegian Sea.

In a statement released on Friday, OMV said it had found preliminary estimated total recoverable natural gas volumes of up to 140 million barrels of oil equivalent (boe) after completing a drilling operation in the Norwegian Sea targeting its Haydn/Monn exploration prospects. The deepwater prospect is located 300 km west of the Norwegian mainland at a water depth of 1,064m.

Morgan Stanely recently predicted that natural gas markets are poised to enter a new cycle of demand growth thanks to surging LNG exports and rising electricity demand. Natural gas is currently enjoying a strong rally with prices jumping nearly 30% over the past two weeks on expectations of higher demand as production continues to slow down. Meanwhile, colder weather at the end of November is expected to boost heating demand, with European natural gas futures jumped above €48.2 per megawatt-hour on Monday, approaching the one-year high of €48.7 as the outlook of higher demand magnified the impact of uncertain supply.

In sharp contrast, petrochemicals are going through a huge bust cycle. Earlier in August, Covestro reported a 21%Y/Y fall in second quarter revenues to 3.7 billion euros. Covestro is hardly alone, with U.S. oil and gas giants facing a similar fate. Sluggish consumer demand as well as a deluge of new factories coming online over the past few years means petrochemical margins face a protracted downturn. The situation is so dire that Cologne-based Lanxness AG has called it a “Lehman 2” moment for the chemicals industry.

“It’s been a pretty dramatic downturn. With chemicals oversupplied right now, large oil companies will find other areas to invest in,” Joseph Chang, a New York-based analyst at ICIS, has told Bloomberg.

But Big Oil has chosen to play the long game here, and these companies are investing heavily in petrochemicals as a long-term hedge against an uncertain future for fossil fuels. Petrochemicals, which go into plastics, polyester and many other cheap and lightweight commodities that underpin modern life, could help oil companies stay afloat long after demand for transport fuels has peaked.

A 2023 review of the major oil and gas and chemicals companies found that over the next three years, Exxon Mobil Corp. (NYSE:XOM) plans to invest over $20 billion in expanding plastic production; CPChem will spend $14.5 billion and Dow Inc. (NYSE:DOW) plans to invest USD 10 billion.

A lot of those petrollars are flowing into the Chinese market. According to Ciarán Healy, oil market analyst at the IEA, ~6.7mn bpd, or 6.5 per cent of all global oil use, currently goes to supply China with petrochemicals. The International Energy Agency has reported that 90% of China’s increased oil demand from 2021 to 2024 comes from chemical feedstocks like LPG, ethane, and naphtha. IEA notes that between 2019 and 2024, additional Chinese production capacity for ethylene and propylene will exceed the combined current capacities of Europe, Japan, and South Korea. Between 2018 and 2023, China’s output of synthetic fibers alone rose by 21 million metric tons--enough to spin more than 100 billion T-shirts a year. A new breed of private refiners such as Hengli Petrochemical and Rongsheng Petrochemical has emerged in China whereby they are spending billions of dollars building plants specializing in chemicals, rather than gasoline and diesel.

Ironically, petrochemicals are crucial for the green energy transition, with EVs typically using more thermoplastics, foams, fibers and rubber pads than ICE vehicles. Indeed, U.S. chemical practice leader at Deloitte David Yankovitz has told the Financial Times that EV makers are substituting plastic resins for metal parts to make lighter cars. Yankovitz says that roughly three-quarters of all emissions-reduction technologies require chemicals, most of which are oil-derived. China has met much of that demand through domestic processing of imported crude. But the US shale oil boom has also formed a mutually reinforcing “symbiosis” with growing Chinese demand for petrochemicals. According to ICIS data, between 2019 and 2023, the U.S. was the only major producer to boost its polymer exports into China,

Exxon is currently building a petrochemical complex in southern China’s Guangdong province, as well as expanding its own chemical production at existing facilities on the U.S. Gulf Coast. According to Exxon, the chemical complex will produce performance polymers used in packaging, automotive, agricultural, and consumer products for hygiene and personal care.

“Demand for performance polymers will continue to increase in China, and we’re well positioned to meet the needs of that growing market,” “We look forward to progressing this exciting project as we work to build a competitive growth platform in Dayawan,” said Karen McKee, president of ExxonMobil Chemical Company, at the unveiling of the project in 2021.

Meanwhile, last year, Saudi Aramco acquired a 10% stake in Shenzhen-listed Rongsheng Petrochemical for $3.6bn, and has entered talks to buy a stake in Hengli Petrochemical, a top Chinese producer of chemicals for plastics. Last year, Aramco-owned S-Oil broke ground on a $7bn petrochemical factory in South Korea.

By Alex Kimani for Oilprice.com

Are Iraq’s Oil Flows Through Kurdistan To Turkey Set To Resume?

By Simon Watkins - Nov 25, 2024,

Oil flows from Kurdistan to Turkey were halted due to legal disputes over unauthorized exports.

Russia's heavy involvement in Kurdistan's oil sector and Baghdad's push to integrate Kurdistan into a unified Iraq complicate the chances of a balanced resolution.

Baghdad appears intent on centralizing oil governance under a unified oil law, reducing Kurdistan's autonomy.



The resumption of oil exports from Iraq’s semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan through the Iraq-Turkey Pipeline (ITP) to the Turkish port of Ceyhan was discussed in detail last week by Iraqi Oil Minister Hayan Abdul-Ghani and the country’s Parliamentary Finance Committee, a senior energy sector source who works closely with the Oil Ministry told OilPrice.com. These flows were stopped on 25 March 2023 after the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) ordered Turkey to pay the Federal Government of Iraq (FGI) in Baghdad damages of US$1.5 billion for unauthorised oil exports organised by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Erbil. The ICC had ruled that Turkey had broken the terms of a 1973 agreement by allowing the oil exports from the Iraqi Kurdistan region without the consent of the FGI. “However, some big issues remain between the two sides [the FGI and the KRG], and restoring the oil flows [through Kurdistan to Turkey] depends on how these are dealt with in the coming days,” he added.

At the heart of any new agreement between the FGI and KRG is precisely the same basic trade-off that underpinned the original November 2014 deal struck between the two sides. This involved the Iraqi Kurdistan region effectively transferring oil produced in its region to the Iraqi government’s State Oil Marketing Organization (SOMO) for onward export as it saw fit, in exchange for which the Iraqi government would send the Iraqi Kurdistan a monthly dispersal of funds from the central Iraq government budget. Specifically, for the first year of the deal taking effect (2014), 17 percent of the FGI’s budget after sovereign expenses (around US$500 million at that time) was to be dispersed over the year on a monthly basis in exchange for the KRG organising the export up to 550,000 barrels per day (bpd) of oil from the Iraqi Kurdistan oil fields and Kirkuk to SOMO. This time around, the FGI Cabinet ordered the KRG on 5 November to immediately transfer its oil output to SOMO in one part of the new iteration of the old deal. On the other part of it, the Cabinet announced that it had approved a budget measure to pay the KRG for production and transport costs incurred in this process and had set a US$16 per barrel rate for international oil companies (IOCs) operating in Iraqi Kurdistan.

The devil is in such details and the scene is set for a repeat performance of the long-running saga of the failure of the previous deal of 2014. Barely three months into that agreement, and accusations began from both sides, with the KRG accusing the FGI of not paying the full amount promised, and the FGI accusing the KRG of not supplying the full amount of oil agreed. After that, matters between the two sides became progressively worse, and took a nosedive in 2017 after two seismic developments in the country. The first was the huge vote in favour of Kurdish independence in September, as analysed in full in my latest book on the new global oil market order. After this, the very basis of the deal became null and void when FGI and Iranian forces took back control of the oilfields in Kurdistan, including the major oil sites around Kirkuk. The FGI argued that the Kirkuk fields had been occupied illegally in the first place, having been under Kurdish control only since 2014 when the Iraqi army collapsed in the face of Islamic State. From that point onwards, the starting point of any negotiations for the FGI in Baghdad over budget disbursements to the KRG was that they should accord with the percentage share of the Kurdistan population in the overall population of Iraq. This, according to the FGI, was 12.67 percent – a long way from the 17 percent of the federal budget after sovereign expenses that had been the cornerstone assumption of the November 2014 deal.

The second huge event was Russia’s subsequent insertion of itself between the KRG and FGI, having effectively taking over Iraqi Kurdistan’s oil sector in late 2017 through three main means, as also detailed in my latest book. Russia provided the KRG with US$1.5 billion in financing through forward oil sales payable in the next three to five years. Second, it took an 80 percent working interest in five potentially major oil blocks in the region. And third, it established 60 percent ownership of the vital KRG pipeline by dint of a commitment to invest US$1.8 billion to increase its capacity to one million barrels per day. Consequently, Moscow considered itself well-placed at that point to leverage this presence into a similarly powerful position in the south of the country, particularly by striking new oil and gas field exploration and development deals with Baghdad as part of Russia’s role in intermediating in the perennial dispute over the November 2014 budget disbursements-for-oil deal. Russia not only challenged the percentage involved in the budget payments but also insisted through the KRG that oil flows that had been suspended in Iraqi Kurdistan following the September 2017 Referendum result would not restart fully until pipeline transit fees and pumping tariffs were paid to the Russian oil giant, Rosneft. By that time, the firm had a 60 percent stake in the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline. Moscow also wanted the FGI to look again at its decision to deem ‘invalid’ the assignment to Rosneft by the KRG of the five exploration blocks in Kurdish territory in which it had secured an 80 percent stake. These were estimated to have aggregate 3P reserves of 670 million barrels.

None of these key parameters for the 2014 were ever fully and finally agreed by both sides, which is one reason why the FGI looks to have definitively shifted its focus to a different resolution of its ‘Kurdish problem’ – removing its last vestige of independence and rolling into a unified Iraq as just another province. The other reason is that neither of Baghdad’s two key sponsors – Russia or China – want a fractious semi-independent region that had close ties to the West disrupting their plans for Iraq. Ultimately, these plans are to maintain a client state in the very heart of the Middle East that together with neighbouring Iraq has the world’s biggest oil and gas reserves and considerable influence over the Shia Islamic states of the globe. This is why so many of the key questions surrounding the possible new deal between the FGI and KRG remain unanswered, despite last week’s long meeting on the subject in Baghdad. The main concern for any who think a workable resolution to the current oil export impasse is likely any time soon is the wording of the amendment to the Budget Law announced on 5 November that deals with compensating the KRG. It states clearly that, “Production and transportation costs for each field will be estimated fairly by an internationally specialized consulting entity, as agreed upon by the Federal Ministry of Oil and the KRG’s Ministry of Natural Resources, within 60 days of the law’s enactment.” Crucially though, it adds, “If no agreement is reached within this period, the Iraqi cabinet will select an international consultancy party without returning to the Kurdish authorities.”

Ultimately, according to the Iraq source spoken to by OilPrice.com last week, the FGI has no interest whatsoever in agreeing to any deal that empowers Iraqi Kurdistan in any way at all. “On the one hand, independent oil sales by the region jeopardise the oil flows that are meant to be sent to Baghdad to sell, and there is no upside to that for the FGI,” he said. “On the other hand, Baghdad does not want to send money to the region either as this will delay its being rolled into a unified Iraq,” he added. This longer-term intention was more than hinted at on 3 August last year, when Iraqi Prime Minister, Mohammed Al-Sudani, clear stated that the new unified oil law -- run, in every way that matters, out of Baghdad -- will govern all oil and gas production and investments in both Iraq and the Kurdistan region and will constitute “a strong factor for Iraq’s unity”.

By Simon Watkins for Oilprice.com

Natural Gas Set To Win Big Under Trump

By Leonard Hyman & William Tilles 

- Nov 25, 2024,

The Trump administration is expected to curtail environmental regulations, allowing utilities to transition from coal to natural gas without offsets or restrictions.

With abundant domestic supply, natural gas is positioned to dominate new power plant construction.  

(60% SUPPLIED BY ALBERTA BLENDED WITH US GAS FOR EXPORT)

High costs and the loss of environmental benefits as a selling point undercut the case for new nuclear plants.


Now that elections are over in the US, we thought it would be useful to review some of the broader policy implications of the changing administration for the electric utility industry. There are four themes we want to cover here: environment regulations, prospects for natural gas usage, power generation, new nuclear-powered generation.

The incoming Trump administration has made no secret of the fact that they believe climate change is a hoax or a non-issue. As a result we should assume that the mandate of the Environmental Protection Agency will be curtailed as much as possible. Obvious regulations heading for the chopping block include CO2 emissions standards and perhaps methane emissions remediation at gas wells. Our broader point here, regardless of one's personal views, is that this is not a radical departure from present policy. At present, utilities are beginning to experience record growth and they are ordering new gas fired power plants and considering life extensions for coal plants in addition to renewables. Our only question is whether or not we see a new coal fired plant built. This is what two large utilities, Duke and Southern Company, are doing so we can take it to be somewhat representative of the industry’s direction here. One caveat here is that Southern Company’s Georgia Power is experiencing extremely high demand growth from a cluster of planned data centers in the Atlanta metro area. Just to provide some orders of magnitude, the company’s Integrated Resource Plan for 2022 anticipated new power plant needs of 400 MWs. A year later this estimate was revised to 6,000 mws! And one respected analyst has suggested even this greatly revised figure is way low.

Our broader point here is that the US electric utility industry is getting the power plant transition it always wanted, from base load coal to base load natural gas unfettered by environmental regulations. The biggest difference to us is that the Biden administration permitted fossil fired new build with a lot of tut-tutting about offsets etc. Now the new build will continue, probably at an accelerated pace, but without the tut-tutting and without the environmental offsets.

Natural gas is clearly the big winner here as a prospective boiler fuel and for power plant builders. The US produces a lot of gas, especially from shale. We expect to see gas production ramp up, new pipelines will be considered, and new gas fired power plants ordered. The new administration has already promised to resurrect the Keystone Pipeline. But for the reasons cited above, that this expected growth was already happening, it’s hard to see how much incremental benefit the industry can get. The best we can say is that the industry benefits incrementally from regulatory benign neglect, kind of like the meatpacking industry.

Lastly, our ambivalence about the prospects for new nuclear development in the US should be understood in terms of the energy trilemma: nations want their electricity to have three principal characteristics—that it be affordable, secure (no Russian gas), and sustainable (no/low emissions). Once we eliminate environmental sustainability concerns from the mix, as we expect the incoming administration to do, then prospective power plants will be evaluated on the cost and security of domestic supply. This favors the construction of new gas-fired generation as we are beginning to see. Coal-fired plants would be a logical second choice. A new nuclear plant is about four times the cost of a new gas fired power station. If environmental benefits are considered irrelevant, why should anyone choose to build a new nuclear power station selling a commodity, electricity, produced at a very high price. If we think of a power plant as a factory selling widgets instead of energy, we should ask, why would anyone build a factory guaranteed to sell its product at a large loss? The question answers itself. They wouldn’t. This is the dilemma for new nuclear power plant construction. Economics is not on its side and never has been. And now their big selling point, zero carbon electricity, has been rendered irrelevant by the incoming administration. If we were advising the nuclear power industry, we would suggest they emphasize the security of supply in the context of heightened international tensions and forget about sustainability. Why? It’s the best argument they have.

In short, big spending, full steam ahead, and if we are right, spending more than the already big numbers the utilities now contemplate.

By Leonard Hyman and William Tilles for Oilprice.com

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M 

Singapore prosecutors say trader took $360 million in metal scam

Bloomberg News | November 27, 2024 |

Credit: Envy Motors

A Singapore businessman who convinced investors to put a total of S$1.5 billion ($1.1 billion) into a nickel trading scheme channeled a third of that into his own accounts, prosecutors said at the start of his trial.


Ng Yu Zhi, a former accountant, faces 42 charges including fraud, forgery and money laundering. He’s accused of leading investors in his Envy Group to believe they could profit from physical nickel trades, thanks to his purchases of discounted metal from an Australian mine. In reality, the scheme was “pure fiction,” the prosecution said in an opening statement

In fact, no cheap nickel was purchased, so there was none to sell. There was no agreement with the mine, and no forward contracts for the sale of the metal, prosecutors said.

“The Envy companies paid earlier investors not with returns generated from physical nickel trading, but with the moneys invested by other investors,” they said.

Over a period of six years, Ng’s companies received money from a total of 947 investors, including many high-profile figures in the city state, misappropriating nearly S$482 million to fund his lavish lifestyle and extravagant purchases from art and jewelry to high-end cars.

Ng faces 108 charges, but only 42 will proceed, and he pleaded not guilty to those on Tuesday. The prosecution plans to call on evidence from 58 witnesses.

The nickel scam is the latest in a series of scandals in the financial and commodities-trading hub, now working to restore a reputation for good governance.

Earlier this month, former oil tycoon Lim Oon Kuin, 82, was handed a 17-and-half year jail sentence for cheating HSBC Holdings Plc and instigating forgery. In October, S. Iswaran became the first ex-cabinet minister to be jailed in almost half a century, after pleading guilty to charges including obstruction of justice.

(By Yihui Xie)

Resolute Mining forks out further $50 million to Mali for detained employees

Reuters | November 28, 2024 

The Syama gold complex in Mali. (Photo by Philip Mostert | Resolute Mining.)

Australia’s Resolute Mining said on Friday it paid a further $50 million to Mali as part of negotiations to settle a tax dispute for the release of its CEO and two other executives who were detained by the government earlier this month.


Shares of the miner rose as much as 7.2% before paring some gains to trade at 5.4% higher, as of 0002 GMT.


The miner’s top boss Terence Holohan and two other employees were released by Mali government, the company had said in a statement on Nov. 21.

The executives had gone to the capital city of Bamako to hold discussions with the mining and tax authorities regarding general activities related to the company’s business practices in Mali.

After negotiating with the West African nation’s government, Resolute had agreed to pay $160 million to resolve the tax dispute, with $80 million being already paid, the company said in a statement on Nov. 18.

The Perth-headquartered company expects to pay the remaining $30 million by the end of this year, it said.

Resolute also said that operations at its Syama mine had not incurred any problems and continued as usual.

Syama gold mine – one of the company’s two operational mines – contributed nearly two-thirds of its annual sales of 329,061 ounces (9.33 metric tons) in 2023.

Resolute owns an 80% stake in the project, while Mali’s government holds the rest.

(By Rajasik Mukherjee; Editing by Rashmi Aich)

November 26, 2024

Barrick Confirms Arrest of Four Malian Employees, Reaffirms Commitment to Resolution of Disputes

Press Release Communiqué de presse

Toronto – Barrick Gold Corporation (NYSE:GOLD)(TSX:ABX) today confirmed that four employees of its Loulo-Gounkoto mining complex had been charged and detained pending trial. While Barrick refutes these charges, it said it would continue to engage with the Malian government to find an amicable dispute settlement that would ensure the long-term sustainability of the complex.

President and chief executive Mark Bristow said that since September 30, the company had been actively seeking to finalize a Memorandum of Agreement that would guide Barrick’s partnership with the government in future, including the state’s share of the economic benefits generated by the complex and the legal framework under which this would be managed.

“Our attempts to find a mutually acceptable resolution have so far been unsuccessful, but we remain committed to engage with the government in order to resolve all the claims levied against the company and its employees and secure the early release of our unjustly imprisoned colleagues,” he said.

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M 

Fake Gibson Guitars Worth $18M Seized at Los Angeles/Long Beach Ports

CBP reported the seizure was worth $18 million if the guitars had been genuine Gibson products (CBP)

Published Nov 27, 2024 7:29 PM by The Maritime Executive

 

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) announced the seizure of the 3,000 guitars that were intercepted at the Los Angeles/Long Beach Seaport. The counterfeit Gibson electric guitars, which originated from Asia, would have been worth an estimated $18 million had they been genuine.

They were seized after authorities flagged suspect containers and represented one of the largest seizures of counterfeit musical instruments. CBP, which apprehended the fake guitars working in conjunction with Homeland Security Investigations, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, and Gibson representatives, did not reveal the country of origin or vessel that transported the suspect containers.

Gibson confirmed that the red, black, and orange electric guitars, including knockoffs of its famous Les Paul models, were counterfeit. The company confirmed to the authorities that its authentic guitars are only made in the U.S.

The seizure of the fake electric guitars comes as Gibson is celebrating its 130th anniversary this year. For the iconic brand that was founded in 1902 in Kalamazoo, Michigan, the seizure was a major win in determination to protect its legacy of quality and craftsmanship, legendary music partnerships with artists, and efforts to promote and create more musicians.

Cheryl M. Davies, CBP Director of Field Operations in Los Angeles, said the fake Gibson guitars could have ended in the hands of unsuspecting consumers through e-commerce, street markets, unauthorized retailers, and person-to-person transactions.

 

 

Ranked among the busiest container operations in the U.S., the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach continue to record significant seizures of counterfeit goods. China and Hong Kong are the key sources of fake goods, with seizures from the two Asian countries accounting for 46 percent of counterfeit seizures and 84 percent of the value of counterfeit seizures. CBP highlights that a record-breaking $1 billion worth of counterfeit products were seized in 2022. That compares with the total cargo worth about $300 billion that passed through at the twin ports last year.

“Counterfeit goods fund criminal enterprises that engage in forced labor, smuggling, drug trafficking, and other illicit activities,” said Africa R. Bell, LA/Long Beach seaport CBP Port Director. “Counterfeiters are only interested in making a profit – they do not care about you or your family’s well-being or the well-being of our economy.”

CBP said it has developed proactive, aggressive, and dynamic enforcement measures to deter the importation of illicit goods and protect U.S. consumers and businesses, the objective of which is to fight intellectual property thefts. This comes when the menace of counterfeits is worsening, with the agency seizing 19,724 shipments containing goods that violated Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) in the 2023 fiscal year. This equates to nearly 23 million counterfeit goods with a value of a staggering $2.7 billion if they were genuine.

New Hampshire's Port Director Fights Witness Tampering Charges

The harbor at Portsmouth, New Hampshire (Carol Highsmith / public domain)

Published Nov 27, 2024 10:46 PM by The Maritime Executive

 

The head of New Hampshire's port authority has pleaded not guilty to state charges of witness tampering and falsifying physical evidence, among other alleged offenses. 

Geno Marconi, 73, is head of New Hampshire’s Division of Ports and Harbors, which oversees the harbor at Portsmouth and the tidal section of the Piscataqua River. Among other facilities, the waterway is home to Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, one of the Navy's four nuclear-capable repair yards. 

Marconi stands accused of improperly obtaining motor vehicle records and giving them to an alleged co-conspirator, Bradley Joseph Cook, the chair of the division's advisory council. The documents were records for "N.L.," identified by New Hampshire public media as Neil Levesque, vice chairman of the Pease Development Authority (PDA), which oversees Marconi and the state ports division.

Marconi has also been charged with witness tampering (retaliation), falsifying physical evidence and obstructing government administration.

Cook, Marconi's colleague on the port advisory council, faces a separate charge of perjury. He allegedly made false statements to a grand jury about whether he had been in contact with Marconi about the "pier use permit of N.L. [Neil Levesque]." Prosecutors have declined to provide further details of the case for the time being. 

Marconi has been on leave from his post at the Division of Ports and Harbors since April. His wife, state supreme court justice Anna Hantz Marconi, stands accused of interfering in the investigation by allegedly asking Gov. Chris Sununu to intervene in her husband's case. 

Hantz Marconi faces one charge of "attempt to commit improper influence" for calling the governor to talk about the charges against Geno Marconi. According to prosecutors, she told Gov. Sununu that the investigation into her husband's activities was meritless and driven by petty, personal biases, and that it needed to be wrapped up quickly. Hantz Marconi is on leave from her post at the state's highest court and has said that she plans to fight the charge.

According to his official biography, Geno Marconi grew up on New Hampshire's working waterfront and has been employed at its seaports since 1975. He holds a 1600-Tonne Master license, and he captained tugs, small cruise ships and other vessels over the course of his career. He is a recipient of the International Association of Maritime and Port Executives' lifetime achievement award (2023), and served as chairman of New Hampshire's Advisory Committee on Marine Fisheries. 

Biden officials make last-ditch push for Greenland mining investment

Reuters | November 26, 2024 |

Stock image.

The outgoing administration of US President Joe Biden is making a last-ditch push for mining companies and others to invest in Greenland, a move aimed at cementing its critical minerals diplomacy and boosting Western supply of materials for the energy transition.


Before President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January, Biden and his staff have been taking multiple steps to shore up their legacy, including boosting aid to Ukraine and rushing to approve US mine permitting and financial incentives.

Jose Fernandez, the State Department’s under secretary for economic growth, energy and the environment, spent four days in Nuuk last week to meet with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Minerals Resource Authority.

Greenland, a semi-autonomous part of Denmark and host to one of the largest US Air Force bases, contains large deposits of most of the minerals considered critical by the US Geological Survey.

“That was my attempt to provide to investors a glimpse of what opportunities exist in Greenland,” Fernandez told Reuters. “Greenland wants to become the next mining frontier.”

Critical Metals licence for Greenland rare earths deposit extended

The visit culminated in an eight-hour conference call last Wednesday from Nuuk moderated by Fernandez between Greenland officials and more than 70 Japanese, European and US mining companies and other potential investors.

Diplomats from Australia, the United Kingdom and the European Union, as well as the US Export-Import Bank and the European Investment Bank, joined the call, which focused on seven projects, including a rare earths project from Neo Performance, a nickel project from Anglo American and a molybdenum project from Greenland Resources.

“In Greenland, we see the development of critical minerals as a shared global responsibility, where our country can take on a leading role,” said Naaja Nathanielsen, Greenland’s minister for industry, trade, minerals, justice and gender equality.

The US State Department has been offering permitting, mapping and other regulatory advice to Nuuk officials, as well as helping to draft a mining investment law, all aimed at prodding investment in Greenland at standards considered higher than Chinese-linked rivals.

“Yes, we want to get their critical minerals and use them in our economy, but we don’t want to do that at their expense,” said Fernandez.

Trump, who takes office in January, unsuccessfully tried to buy Greenland from Denmark during his first term.

“I cannot forecast what the next administration will do, but the business case will not change,” Fernandez said. “The demand for critical minerals worldwide is increasing exponentially.”

(By Ernest Scheyder; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

Peru’s Congress removes energy and mines minister amid sector protests

Reuters | November 26, 2024 

Peruvian Minister of Energy and Mines, Rómulo Mucho. (Image by MINEM).

Peru’s Congress removed Energy and Mines minister Romulo Mucho from his post on Tuesday amid protests from small-scale miners in the Andean nation.


Peruvian small-scale miners have been demanding a two-year extension of a program that allows them to operate temporarily, which authorities say has expanded illegal mining.

President Dina Boluarte must accept Congress’ decision within 72 hours and appoint a new energy and mines minister, an important position in the world’s third-largest copper producer and a market segment key to the local economy.

The congressional panel which ruled on Mucho’s position was made up of nearly 80 legislators from both sides of the aisle. Of them, four voted against his removal and 13 lawmakers abstained from the vote.

A government bill sent to Congress last week gave small-scale miners a six-month period to formalize their activities after the current program expires on Dec. 31, but miners say that is not enough time.

(By Marco Aquino; Editing by Anthony Esposito and Kylie Madry)

Madagascar lifts suspension on Energy Fuels’ critical minerals project

Staff Writer | November 28, 2024 

The Toliara project in southwest Madagascar. Credit: Base Resources

Madagascar has lifted its suspension on Energy Fuels’ (NYSE: UUUU, TSX: EFR) 100%-owned Toliara critical minerals project, aiding the company’s diversification from uranium as it restarts development on what could be a “crown jewel” in the African nation’s economy.


The Madagascar government initially suspended the project back in November 2019, pending negotiations on its fiscal terms.

Energy Fuels’ CEO Mark Chalmers said the suspension lift represents a “very significant step” in the project’s development, as it allows the company to re-establish social programs and advance the technical, environmental and social activities necessary to achieve a financial investment decision, which it expects to make in early 2026.

The company acquired the Toliara project in April with its purchase of Australia’s Base Resources for A$375 million ($241 million). At the time, Chalmers said the project would provide a large portion of the raw materials needed for the company’s rapidly expanding REE (rare earth elements) oxide production facility in Utah.

“Having closely evaluated countless mining projects around the world during my 45-year career, I believe the Toliara project is truly a ‘generational’ mining project, having the potential to provide the US and the rest of the world with large quantities of critical minerals for many decades,” Chalmers said in Thursday’s news release.

Energy Fuels’ stock surged 7.1% to C$10.24 as of 2:00 p.m. ET following the announcement, taking the US-based uranium producer’s market capitalization to C$2.1 billion ($1.5bn).

Potential 38-year mine

The Toliara project currently holds a mining permit that allows production of titanium and zirconium minerals, including ilmenite, rutile and zircon. Following the suspension lift, Energy Fuels said it will look to add REE production to the existing mining permit.

According to a definitive feasibility study from 2021, the Toliara project, underpinned by Ranobe deposit, is estimated to contain 904 million tonnes in ore reserves at 6.1% heavy mineral, which are sufficient to support an initial 38-year mine life.

The study estimated an after-tax net present value of (10% discount rate) of $1 billion, an after-tax internal rate of return of 23.8%, undiscounted life-of-mine free cash flows of $5.9 billion, and initial capital expenditures of $520 million to achieve first production.

These results are based on the production of ilmenite and zircon alone. The Ranobe deposit also contains large quantities of monazite, a rich source of REEs used in magnets (neodymium and praseodymium, dysprosium and terbium), electric vehicles, and a variety of clean energy and advanced technologies.

Incorporating the monazite production, Base Resources released in 2023 a prefeasibility study that improved the economics: $2 billion after-tax NPV, 32.4% IRR and $10.7 billion cash flow. The initial capital cost was $591 million.

Supply for White Mesa mill

According to Energy Fuels, the Toliara project is expected to be a cornerstone source of monazite supply, providing a long-term and large-scale supply at 21,800 tonnes per annum to the White Mesa mill for processing into REE oxides and other advanced REE materials.

Processing monazite from Toliara will also add approximately 75,000 lb. of low-cost uranium production (at an incremental cost of approximately $8 per pound) per year at the mill, totaling approximately 3 million lb. of recovered U3O8 over the life of the project, according to company estimates.

As the monazite will be a very low-cost byproduct of Toliara’s primary ilmenite and zircon production, the total cost of production of REE oxides at the mill is expected to be low-cost and globally competitive, the company says.

Israel Fired on Journalists in Lebanon Just Hours After Ceasefire Began

Israel’s attack on the journalists marks the first violation of the ceasefire, a press group said.

By Sharon Zhang , 

Truthout

November 27, 2024

A picture shows the destruction and debris on Beirut's southern suburb of Haret Hreik on November 27, 2024, which was targeted by Israeli strikes hours before a Hezbollah-Israel ceasefire took effect.

AFP via Getty Images


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Israeli forces fired on two locations in southern Lebanon just hours after a much-vaunted ceasefire agreement began on Wednesday morning, declaring that the southern region is still a military zone.

Lebanon’s news agency reported that Israeli forces opened fire on two journalists in the southern town of Khiam. Both journalists, one working for The Associated Press and the other for Sputnik, were wounded and have been hospitalized for their injuries.

The Syndicate of Lebanese Press Editors head Joseph al-Qassifi confirmed the attack and said that it marked the first violation of the ceasefire agreement.

“We saw people checking on their homes and, at the same time, we were hearing the sounds of tanks withdrawing,” said one of the wounded journalists, Abdelkader Bay, to Agence France-Presse (AFP).

“While we were filming, we realised there were Israeli soldiers in a building and suddenly they shot at us,” Bay said. “It was clear that we were journalists.”

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Another journalist, Ali Hachicho, who was not wounded in the attack, said that Israeli soldiers began firing at the group as soon as the reporters began documenting their actions. “When I put the camera to my eye to film them, I started hearing the sound of bullets between our feet,” Hachicho told AFP.

Israeli forces also opened fire on vehicles in south Lebanon after the ceasefire began.

The Israeli military claimed it fired warning shots at the vehicles because they were approaching an area for Israeli military operation, saying that the shots were fired in defense.

According to Lebanon state media, however, Israeli forces actually fired five artillery shells at civilians trying to return to the village of Kfarkela, along the country’s southern border. No casualties were reported from the firing.

Over 1 million people displaced by Israel’s attacks have been flooding southern Lebanon after 14 months of intense Israeli bombings on the region and two months of a ground invasion, attempting to return to their homes — or what little is left of them after Israel has systematically worked to destroy whole towns in the region.

Lebanese and Israeli officials finalized the ceasefire agreement on Tuesday night, with the truce starting on Wednesday at 4 am local time. Since Israel escalated its aggression against Hezbollah, over 3,800 people have been killed in Lebanon, including over 200 children killed by Israel just over the past two months.

The agreement gives Israeli forces 60 days to withdraw from south Lebanon, while Hezbollah is slated to withdraw to north of the Litani River to be replaced by Lebanese soldiers.

Israeli forces have reportedly declared a curfew in southern Lebanon, saying that it is “absolutely forbidden” for people to travel in southern Lebanon starting from 5 pm on Wednesday to 7 am on Thursday. The army issued a threat to civilians, saying that doing so “exposes you to danger.”

Just before the ceasefire, Israeli forces majorly stepped up their attacks, dropping dozens of bombs on south and east Lebanon and Beirut as the deal was finalized — including an attack in which they bombed at least 20 places in two minutes in Beirut.

The Battle for Democracy in the US Must Take On the Military-Industrial Complex

Leftists have long had an understanding of “the deep state” that goes beyond Trump’s fearmongering conspiracy theory.

By Peter Handel , 

Truthout

November 28, 2024

For years, President-elect Donald Trump has portrayed himself as the central victim of the “deep state” — a phrase that now conjures up right-wing paranoia and anti-government fearmongering. But well before Trump held power, the term was used by leftists — and its meaning has played a critical role in its analysis of power.

In Who Owns Democracy?: The Real Deep State and the Struggle Over Class and Caste in America, Charles Derber and Yale R. Magrass reclaim this term and expose the deep state for what it is: a nexus of powerful corporate, military and governmental elites who undermine democracy to retain their wealth and power — sometimes overtly, but more often quietly. They also share a nuanced and historical perspective on how the deep state was born and the struggles and contradictions within it.

Charles Derber, professor of sociology at Boston College, has written 28 books on politics, democracy, fascism, corporations, capitalism, climate change, war, the culture wars and social change. His bestselling books include The Pursuit of Attention and The Wilding of America.

Yale Magrass is a chancellor professor of sociology at University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. He is the author/coauthor of nine books, most coauthored with Charles Derber, and 80 articles. His books include Bully Nation, Glorious Causes and Capitalism: Should You Buy It? The following transcript has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Peter Handel: Can you explain the difference between Trump’s deep state and the one that the left has historically recognized?

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Charles Derber and Yale Magrass: Americans are told they live in a democracy where the common people rule and elect a government that is accountable to them. The left, at least since the time of Karl Marx, has challenged this, saying the state is really a tool of the bourgeoisie or the capitalist class, who own the overwhelming majority of corporate wealth. Often dubbed “the 1 percent,” they are the ruling class. As Marx put it, “The executive of the modern state is nothing but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie.”

While not disputing the power of the capitalist class, 1950s sociologist C. Wright Mills introduced the term “power elite.” Mills described a triangle of power, in which corporate elites ally with the upper echelons of the civilian government bureaucracy and the military. He proposed that there is a convergence of interests among them, and they rule jointly at the expense of common people.

Ironically, there has long been an overlap between this left-wing analysis and the analysis of right-wing movements like the John Birch Society who see the United States as ruled by Wall Street in total disregard for the values or interests of ordinary citizens. Similar to the left analysis, the right also suggests that behind the official elected state is another state with the real power. Trump’s use of the “deep state” draws on this longstanding far right idea.

Trump’s deep state includes the unelected security apparatus within the elected state — including the Pentagon, the CIA, the FBI. This is the part of Trump’s deep state that we agree is part of the “real” deep state. It wields great power and is central to the military-industrial state that the left has long critiqued.

But Trump’s concept of the deep state, in most other ways, is deeply misleading. Trump focuses on the liberals in the social service agencies, academia and the media as central to his deep state. He argues they set policy with an agenda and values at odds with the people who he considers “real Americans,” mostly white, native-born, living outside the coasts and often lacking college education. His version of the deep state does not include the capitalist class. Indeed, he would consider leftists who oppose capitalism part of the deep state.

How does the deep state — the one Mills and you document — operate and can you expand on how it differs from Trump’s view?

The “military-industrial complex” is close to the core of the power elite and includes huge defense contractors like Lockheed Martin and Raytheon along with their allies in the Pentagon. They make policy without the knowledge of all but a tiny minority. In fact, most of what they do is classified.

In Who Owns Democracy, we show that the “real” deep state does not include most of the civil servants in the regulatory and social welfare government agencies that Trump targets. Rather, it is dominated by corporate capitalist elites, including the military-industrial complex. Trump sees them as part of the “people” and opposing his deep state. We show how the real deep state — the triangle melding private wealth, leaders of civilian government agencies and the national security establishment — came into being and gained control over the nation. The corporate elite that we see as central to the power elite and the real deep state is seen by Trump as champions of freedom and of the true people of America.

You take a deep dive into the history of the deep state and how it developed in the U.S. In fact, you show that the U.S. was formed by the union of two deep states. Tell us a bit more about this history, which is very much alive today.

From the very founding of the United States, there existed at least two deep states, a northern proto-capitalist one and a southern slave-based one that we call American proto-fascism. One was based on class power and one on caste power. While you theoretically can rise or fall in class, a caste is a state you are born in and keep for life. In order to gain the support of the majority, the two early deep states essentially obscured their mutual rule and presented themselves as democratic representatives of common people against the British crown, really British Parliament.

The founding of America was an uneasy marriage between the emerging northern and southern deep states. The two deep states united to gain independence from British control over taxes, trade and expansion across the continent. They shared economic interests in the slave trade and taking ownership of the Western territories.

But the honeymoon would fade rapidly as the differences between the class-based deep state and caste-based deep state began to drive very different northern and southern agendas. The South wanted an America embodying a feudal caste paradise of happy, white nobility presiding over slaves in an expanding agrarian society. It was proto-fascist because it eliminated large parts of the population from rights and citizenship because of their race or blood.

The North wanted to build a modern industrial state that would serve a growing capitalist class in a post-agrarian urban society based on manufacturing and finance. It also had authoritarian features based on class power by the rich, but it rejected proto-fascism based on race or biology; it was incompatible with the capitalist ideology that everyone had the right to rise and gain class power.

How did this marriage finally unravel and how did the northern and southern deep states evolve after the Civil War up until the present era?

The differences in the class and caste deep states were too deep for the founding marriage to survive. Less than 100 years after the revolutionary marriage, the two deep states divorced in a literal civil war. At first, the South controlled the federal government, but after the North crushed the South in the Civil War, it made the official elected state its tool. The surviving southern deep state never really forgave the northern victor, and vowed it would “rise again.” While the North would gain control of the new federal capitalist state, the Jim Crow regime would sustain the influence of American “fascist ghosts” in the South and much of the nation.

The post-Civil War federal capitalist deep state of robber barons like Carnegie, Morgan and Rockefeller used the federal government to crush labor unions, build infrastructure and make the world safe for American investment through military adventurism. As World War I approached, the American capitalist deep state was building an empire in competition with the British, French and German. Until World War I, the United States maintained a modest military, but in one year, it built the world’s largest. After the First World War, the United States reduced its military as the remaining British and French empires patrolled the world for American investment. During the Second World War, the United States again built the world’s largest military, but this time the American deep state realized there’s gold in them there wars, and transformed the United States into a permanent garrison state. The deep state’s military-industrial complex became a permanent fixture which dwarfed the deep state of the past.

But after the failure of Reconstruction in 1876, southern caste power in the form of Jim Crow resurrected itself in many southern and western state governments and economies. The southern caste deep state did, indeed, rise again and sustained a form of American neofascist authoritarianism born in the Confederate South. The American fascist ghosts literally cloaked themselves in the white sheets of the Ku Klux Klan and the racial codes of the Jim Crow. Hitler was fascinated by American proto-fascism and told German scientists to study American racial theories and social practices. American fascism actually helped to give rise to European fascism.

Trump is today’s leader of American fascism, seeking to restore racial caste power and integrate it again with the class power of the corporate class he grew up in. The Democrats reject the Jim Crow fascist ghosts but are largely allies with the militarized corporate deep state that has ruled the nation since the Civil War and the Gilded Age’s robber barons. Class and caste power still hold deep control over both parties and the nation.

You say that both Democrats and Republicans have cynically used the legitimate concerns raised by identity politics to undermine the kind of class solidarity required to take on ruling elites. How so?

The Reagan “revolution” sought to dismantle the New Deal restraints on unfettered corporate power. President Ronald Reagan saw that if he could divide the working classes by race or caste — through culture wars and white Christian nationalism — the corporate deep state could regain unfettered national control. Trumpism is the latest stage of the Reagan backlash, but Trump has been more aggressive in uniting class and caste in his new version of American fascism.

When President Bill Clinton and Barack Obama abandoned the New Deal, they helped turn the Democratic Party toward identity politics and an embrace of caste reform rather than class politics. This turn to race and gender helped solidify Reagan’s resurrection of the corporate deep state. The Democratic embrace of corporate power and the military-industrial complex is a fatal flaw morally and politically.

Who Owns Democracy? concludes with a chapter on how leftist movements can resist the deep state and the attacks on democracy. How do you think activists can most effectively challenge antidemocratic forces?

Throughout Who Owns Democracy? we show that class and caste elites in the two deep states have long owned U.S. democracy. But ordinary working people have always risen to challenge both forms of power. Anti-caste movements have included antebellum abolitionism, the 1960s civil rights movements and feminism. Populist movements in the 1890s Gilded Age began to challenge early corporate class power. Labor movements, especially in the 1930s New Deal and Great Society, rose more recently to challenge class power, as did Occupy Wall Street about a decade ago and progressives like Sen. Bernie Sanders today.

As the gap between the 1 percent (or perhaps the 1 percent of the 1 percent) and ordinary citizens grows, mainstream liberals and Democrats have done little to address the needs of people feeling left behind. They have focused on race and gender while neglecting the real grievances of the white working class, and in fact many people of color, who face a deteriorating standard of living and an uncertain future. Trump successfully presented himself as their “voice” and laid the blame for their anxiety on “bleeding heart liberals” in the deep state and immigrants who should not be living with “true Americans.” To resist Trump and win power, the left must show it offers solutions that will produce a better life for all working people. This requires resurrecting a class politics that topples the militarized corporate deep state to create deep democracy in the economy as well as in the political system. We desperately need now a left populism aiming to destroy the militarized neofascist capitalism embodied in Trumpism.


This article is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), and you are free to share and republish under the terms of the license.


Peter Handel is a freelance writer in the San Francisco Bay area.