CCS NOT CLEAN NOR GREEN

These 2 oil companies say they've reached 'net-negative' emissions through carbon capture 

A CLOSED SYSTEM SO OF COURSE IT HAS NO EMISSIONS

CO2 is stored using carbon capture technology, which also helps produce more oil

ANOTHER FORM OF FRACKING


Kyle Bakx · CBC News · Posted: Jan 25, 2021 

The injection well at Enhance Energy's Clive project is used to send CO2 emissions bought from an oil refinery and fertilizer factory underground. The CO2 is cooled, so there is always frost on the wellhead, and used to help extract more oil. (Kyle Bakx/CBC)

Banks, grocery stores, soda pop makers — it seems like every day, another company is pledging to become a "net-zero" emitter of greenhouse gases — at some point years or decades in the future.

But a pair of Alberta companies say they've not only achieved the mark but are actually storing more emissions underground than they are producing from their operations.

Enhance Energy and Whitecap Resources both use carbon capture technology to stash emissions far below the surface.

For Enhance, the company buys the CO2 from a refinery and a fertilizer plant in central Alberta. The CO2 is transported through a pipeline to its facility north of Red Deer, where it is pumped into an old oil reservoir. The CO2 helps to free up more oil and increase the amount of crude produced at the site, a process known as enhanced oil recovery (EOR).

The private Calgary-based firm began operations last fall. So far, executives say about 4,000 tonnes of CO2 is stored underground every day, which they say is the equivalent of taking 80,000 vehicles off the road — a point of pride for the company.

Because they're getting the CO2 from the two large plants but only extracting a small amount of oil at this point, on balance, they say they're burying more CO2 than their oil will produce.

"I get a warm feeling when I come on site and see that injection well," said chief executive Kevin Jabusch. "That's very rewarding. It makes the 10-year effort to put this project together worth it."

Federal goal is net zero by 2050

Many in the industry, as well as some environmental groups, support the development of carbon capture technology, although there are concerns about how emission reductions are calculated and whether capturing carbon disincentivizes industries from taking action to produce fewer emissions in the first place.

The federal government has set a target of reaching net zero by 2050 and released a blueprint to achieve that goal in December, including hiking the carbon tax from the current price of $30 per tonne to $170 by 2030.
The world should be looking for the cheapest, lowest-carbon source of energy.- Kevin Jabusch, Enhance Energy

Instead of calling Enhance an oil company, Jabusch describes it as a "carbon mitigation company" and said if the carbon tax rises as expected, the day might come when Enhance no longer will need to produce oil anymore to be profitable.

Currently, the company generates revenue from oil production and from selling the carbon credits it gets for sequestering emissions. Alberta charges a carbon tax on heavy industrial emitters, but the province also has a system for companies to earn credits by reducing or storing emissions.

Jabusch said the Alberta government's carbon tax program for large industrial emitters measures and monitors the carbon they sequester, but that data is not available publicly.

Injecting CO2 to increase output

Production from Enhance's Clive field is around 200 barrels of oil per day, but with CO2 injection, the company expects output to gradually grow to between 4,000 and 5,000 barrels per day over the next five years.

"We're very negative today over the full cycle of our of our operation," said Jabusch, "and in the long term, we think it would be very close to zero.

"Where carbon pricing is headed, we think there's going to be a strong incentive to maximize the amount of CO2 we put in the ground."

Enhance Energy is part of the Alberta Carbon Trunk Line project, which takes emissions from the Nutrien Redwater fertilizer factory and the North West Redwater Sturgeon refinery northeast of Edmonton to Enhance's oil reservoirs near Clive. (CBC News Graphics)

Whitecap has a similar, but much larger, carbon capture project in Saskatchewan. Emissions from a coal power plant in the province and from a coal gasification facility in neighbouring North Dakota are transported to an oilfield near Weyburn, south of Regina.

In each of the last two years, about two million tonnes of CO2 were injected and stored, executives said. The figures are currently being audited.

The Weyburn facility has operated since 2000 and was acquired by Whitecap in 2017. With growing focus on sustainability and climate change, investor interest in the project has intensified over the last year, said chief executive Grant Fagerheim.

"We're starting to get some of the bigger funds, not just from Canada, but in the U.S. for sure, and around the world," he said.

Unlike Enhance, Whitecap does not account for the emissions that will be generated from the eventual use of its oil, saying it has no control over how it is used, making it difficult to calculate.

Enhance Energy says it currently produces about 200 barrels of oil per day, but with the help of carbon capture technology, plans to expand to 4,000 or 5,000 barrels a day. (Kyle Bakx/CBC)

Varying definitions of 'negative' emissions

How a company determines whether it claims net-zero or net-negative status varies across the industry and can depend on the emissions that a given company is counting, which are often broken into three groups, or scopes:

Scope 1 includes direct emissions from the activities of an organization, such as its industrial operations or the heating of its buildings.

Scope 2 refers to indirect emissions, such as if the company uses electricity from a CO2-generating source, such as a gas-fired power plant.

Scope 3 also includes indirect emissions, but ones that are out of the organization's control. For an oil company, Scope 3 includes tailpipe emissions from vehicles or when oil is converted into plastics. The combustion of fuel is often the largest source of emissions from a barrel of oil, compared to production, transportation and refinery activity.

Alberta carbon capture project hits another milestone ahead of schedule and below cost

CBC EXPLAINS 

ITS NOT FIGHTING CLIMATE CHAMGE ITS FRACKING OLD WELLS

Carbon capture: What you need to know about catching CO2 to fight climate change

For Enhance, the company said it is net negative on Scope 1, 2 and 3 while Whitecap said it's net negative on Scope 1 and 2.

By that definition, Whitecap expects to remain net negative even as its oil production increases by an estimated 65 per cent this year following deals to acquire Torc Oil & Gas and NAL Resources Management.

"We will still be a net-negative emitter," he said. "It is nice to be in this position at this particular time."

Projects can carry hefty price tag

Fagerheim says he would like to build new carbon capture facilities but that they can be complex projects requiring a large capital investment and new infrastructure, including pipelines.

"I believe that people will see the light of day, but ultimately, we're doing what's best for ourselves, and carbon capture utilization and storage is potentially a way into the future," he said.

The two largest carbon capture projects in Alberta, including the Carbon Trunk Line that Enhance is part of, cost more than $1 billion to develop, and both required hundreds of millions of dollars in government support.

There's growing interest in carbon capture projects. Last week, Tesla chief and billionaire Elon Musk promised a $100 million US prize for development of the "best" technology to capture carbon dioxide emissions.

In Canada, one of the challenges with investing in a carbon capture project is the uncertainty about the level of carbon tax in the future since the approach to carbon pricing varies by political party.

WATCH | Is carbon capture a solution for the oil industry and climate change?

VIDEO AT THE END

Debating the value of enhanced oil recovery

There are differing viewpoints on the technique to capture carbon emissions and use the CO2 to produce more oil from aging reservoirs. 

Environmental concerns

Environmental leaders have often had mixed feelings about carbon capture facilities because while harmful emissions are stored underground, the technology may just be enabling industries to maintain the status quo and not focus enough on reducing the use of fossil fuels.

"The science is fairly clear: we are going to need carbon capture in order to tackle the climate crisis," Jan Gorski, an analyst with the Pembina Institute, a non-profit organization that produces research, analysis and recommendations on policies related to Canadian energy.

"Enhanced oil recovery is a way to ramp up carbon capture and drive down the costs and improve the technology as we work to eventually deploy that to tackling these more challenging sources where we really don't have a great way to deal with the emissions right now."

Knowledge gained from carbon capture projects operating now could eventually help reduce emissions in tougher-to-tackle industries such as cement plants and steel production, he said.

Jan Gorski with the Pembina Institute sees developing carbon capture and storage technology as beneficial, especially to eventually help with hard-to-decarbonize industries such as cement and steel production. (Kyle Bakx/CBC)

Some environmental groups suggest the investment in carbon capture facilities would be better spent elsewhere, such as building renewable energy projects. For example, a company could slash emissions in producing the oil, but consumers would still pump out emissions when they use it as a fuel for transportation or heating.

'The devil is really in the details'

There is also the issue of double counting. Experts say it's important for any action toward reducing emissions to be properly assessed. For instance, if the emissions from a power plant are used by an oil company to increase the production of an oilfield, both companies can't take credit for the carbon-capture project.

"I think the key thing is to be clear-eyed about the end goal," said David Keith, a Harvard University professor of applied physics and public policy based in Canmore, Alta.

Keith also founded and sits on the board of Carbon Engineering, which aims to capture emissions directly from the atmosphere.

"For me anyway, the end goal has to be driving emissions down to zero to protect us from climate disaster and also doing it in a way that does the least damage to our economy and, in Alberta, trying to find a way forward to provide good jobs for people," he said.

"Enhanced oil recovery can play some role, but I doubt if it's going to be very big."

IHS report forecasts emissions intensity drop of 16-23% for oilsands 

ANALYSIS Why Kenney is having a rougher ride than Trudeau with his pipeline purchase

If oil can actually be entirely net neutral or net negative from its production all the way to its end use, such as powering a vehicle, that would truly be fantastic, said Keith, but "whether or not those companies are doing it, I don't know. The devil is really in the details."

Both companies see a strong future for carbon capture and EOR technologies, especially as demand for oil remains robust around the globe.

"The world should be looking for the cheapest, lowest-carbon source of energy, and we believe we compete very well with that," said Jabusch, with Enhance.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kyle Bakx  is a Calgary-based journalist with CBC's network business unit. He's covered stories across the country and internationally.

THE REALITY IS THAT CCS IS NOT GREEN NOR CLEAN IT IS GOING TO BE USED TO FRACK OLD DRY WELLS SUCH AS IN THE BAKAN SHIELD IN SASKATCHEWAN
https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-myth-of-carbon-capture-and-storage.html

ALSO SEE https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=CCS

Ottawa should focus on Trans Mountain with Keystone XL cancelled: Former TC exec

Arturo Chang, BNN Bloomberg Jan 21, 2021

The Canadian government should turn its attention toward completing the Trans Mountain pipeline now that Joe Biden has decided to scrap Keystone XL, a former TransCanada executive said.

Dennis McConaghy, a former executive vice-president of the company now named TC Energy Corp. which played a major role in Keystone’s development, said in an interview Thursday that Trans Mountain is the only “practical alternative” Canada has to the project.

“There's two things Canada should do,” he said. “One is to focus on the completion of TMX; that's really the only practical option left for increasing pipeline takeaway capacity and there should be a clear statement from the federal government that they're committed to its completion.

“Number two, if and when Biden wants to talk about collaboration on climate and energy policy, some kind of regime where we all operate under a common carbon pricing regime … [restoring Keystone XL’s permit] should be a condition to those kinds of discussions.”

Biden revoked Keystone XL’s approval on Wednesday in one of his first moves as U.S. president. The project was originally approved by Donald Trump in 2017.

TC Energy has halted advancement on the project and said on Thursday that it’s looking to cut over 1,000 construction jobs.

McConaghy said Canada’s attempts to convince Biden to restore Keystone XL’s construction permit should be “as constructive and temperate as possible” despite the frustration and anger caused by the decision, particularly in Alberta.

Nevertheless, he said the decision to cancel the project was unwarranted.

“Canada is entirely entitled to have this permit restored,” McConaghy said “It was an audacious revocation, really unjustified in the basis of how one country is supposed to treat another in terms of relying on their permitting processes to invest billions of dollars.”

IT’S TIME FOR PLAYERS TO TACKLE THE GREAT CANADIAN FOOTBALL RIP-OFF


BYDAN DARRAH ABDUL MALIK

01.23.2021

Team owners in Canadian football made record profits while many of their players had to work second jobs to make ends meet. Now they’re using the pandemic as an excuse to claw back wages even further — a player fightback is the only way to change the game.

Brandon Alexander of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers runs with his team's flag after winning the 107th Grey Cup championship game against the Hamilton Tiger-Cats on November 24, 2019 in Calgary, Alberta. (Derek Leung / Getty Images)


In mid-2020, the Canadian Football League (CFL) asked for $30 million in government aid. Citing football’s impact on Canadian culture, the CFL argued that these funds would be necessary to keep the season afloat — and canceled it when they weren’t forthcoming. That left many athletes in the lurch.

CFL commissioner Randy Ambrosie then told all teams to cut operational costs by 20 percent, leading to contract restructuring and extraordinary pay cuts for athletes. CFL bosses presented this as a way to salvage the 2021 season. But their professed concern for the jobs of players concealed a bid to claw back as much of their wage bill as they could, using the pandemic as an excuse.
Ripping Off Players

The nine-team CFL is older than the NFL, and it’s a major cultural institution for Canadian sports. There have been several episodes of federal government intervention to prevent the league from “Americanizing” and to make sure that its teams stay in Canadian hands.

After the experience of failed would-be expansions into US territory, the league’s identity is firmly rooted on Canadian soil. The CFL is enormously popular. It is, historically, the third-most-attended sporting league in North America. And it has become immensely profitable in recent years, buoyed by TV revenue.

However, these rising revenues have not filtered down to CFL players. Brian Ramsay, the Canadian Football League Players’ Association (CFLPA) executive director, has recently suggested that “player salaries amount to just 30 percent of team expenses” across the whole league.

A starting salary in the CFL for a Canadian or American player is $65,000. Because training and conditioning for professional athletes is so expensive, a significant number of CFL athletes have had to take on second jobs, moonlighting at pipeline work or truck driving.

Commissioner Ambrosie has even justified this trend, claiming that it helps prepare athletes for life after football. Ambrosie — whose reported salary is $750,000 a year, excluding bonuses — has promised better pay for workers once the league’s “CFL 2.0” expansion plans are complete.

The justification for modest player salaries used to be the league’s alleged unprofitability. Some journalists still dutifully repeat the argument that “restraint” in bargaining is essential if the CFL is going to survive. But the facts tell a different story.
Show Us the Books

The CFL rarely reports earnings, but observers have estimated that the league’s 2018 revenues were approximately $210 million. Unlike other major sports leagues, the CFL doesn’t issue transparent data on player salaries. Teams often roll compensation into the general category of “operations,” which includes salaries for coaches and management. The best way to get a realistic picture of what players are earning is to look at minimum and maximum salary caps, combined with the occasional leak.

Only three CFL teams — the Edmonton Football Team, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, and the Saskatchewan Roughriders — issue financial reports, because they are either publicly or community owned, although even their numbers are unclear. These three teams “spend heavily on their front office,” which means that there are substantial gaps between the salaries of staff and those of players. At any rate, their public financial statements show these teams to be wildly profitable, sucking up nearly half of the CFL’s entire revenue among them.


The finances of the six privately owned teams are harder to decipher. They occasionally post earnings, but usually only as evidence of losses when they want to plead for government cash. The owners of these supposed “have-not” teams are nonetheless some of the league’s wealthiest, including Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment, Calgary Sports and Entertainment, and billionaire Bob Young.

The CFL has historically resisted revenue-sharing agreements, which would equalize the profits generated by the league, despite calls from the CFLPA for it to do so. Without revenue sharing, the most successful teams end up getting much wealthier, while the union can’t bargain effectively for higher wages and better benefits. The CFLPA bargained away revenue sharing in the past for guaranteed increases to the salary cap. But that hasn’t worked out.

The latest collective bargain agreement (CBA) is a bad deal that reflects the CFLPA’s capitulation to dubious management claims of near insolvency. Along with the pitiful base salary, it allows contract items like housing to be counted toward the salary cap. Teams can pay international players less ($54,000), and life insurance is inadequate.
Who Pays for the Pandemic?

During the COVID-19 crisis, the CFL secured the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS) for businesses, but it only applied to players under contract, leaving the rest without league support. In November 2020, league owners collectively refused to cover their 25 percent CEWS obligation for players who switched teams, denying them access to the benefit. In the same month, the CFL directed its teams to limit salaries for the 2021 season.

Sports media rarely addresses these issues, preferring to wheel out the usual hand-wringing articles about the difficulty of convincing players to take pay cuts. Journalists have had little to say about the economic status of CFL players, aside from puff pieces about how excited they are to get back to the game — although one article did provide an overview of what football players are doing off the field, casually mentioning that some are driving for Uber Eats and starting podcasts, without properly exploring what this tells us.

Players are now in the firing line of Ambrosie’s austerity directive. If his reports of his salary are accurate, the symbolic 20 percent pay cut he recently took would only reduce it, excluding bonuses, to $600,000 a year. Ambrosie, anticipating a successful program of mass vaccination, remains optimistic about the prospects for a 2021 season.

The vast discrepancies in team revenue, combined with the lost earnings of the past year, have finally put revenue sharing on the table — for the time being, at least. There’s now an opportunity to transform the whole industry, not only by redistributing the CFL’s wealth horizontally, from successful teams to their poorer rivals, but also by redistributing it vertically, from management to players.

However, that will require mobilization by players to shift the burden of cutbacks off their shoulders, breathing new life into the CFLPA and steering it toward a more combative model of unionism. The CFL presents itself as a folksy, humble venture that simply cannot afford to pay its workers fairly, while team owners walk away flush with loot. Like many “culturally vital” Canadian private enterprises, it trades on a nationalist image and reserves of public goodwill to shield itself from criticism.

The CFL is extraordinarily popular in Canada, attracting enormous crowds and acres of media coverage. Its players could use this leverage to their advantage, enlisting fans and journalists to support their cause. They’ve got everything to play for.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dan Darrah is a writer living in Toronto.

Abdul Malik is a screenwriter and journalist based in Edmonton, Alberta. He is cohost of The Off Court Podcast.

What is Alexey Navalny’s endgame?

But can his political project succeed while the West continues to be openly hostile to Russia?


Leonid Ragozin
Leonid Ragozin is a freelance journalist based in Riga.
23 Jan 2021

Law enforcement officers stand in front of participants during a rally in support of jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in Saint Petersburg on January 23, 2021 [Reuters/Anton Vaganov]

Thousands of people across Russia’s 11 time zones took to the streets on January 23 to protest against the arrest of Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny, braving the winter cold, the pandemic, and the very real threat of police brutality and incarceration. The event opens a long protest season in the run-up to parliamentary elections in September which are turning into a plebiscite on the legitimacy of President Vladimir Putin’s two-decade rule, whether he rigs them or not.

The protests took place just a week after Navalny’s daring return to Russia. In August, he was rushed to a hospital in Germany after being poisoned with a nerve agent and stayed there several months to recover. Before departing from Germany, Navalny took part in an investigation into his poisoning (mainly led by British-based investigative group Bellingcat) and even had a long telephone conversation with one of the alleged assassins.

Navalny is now under arrest, charged with violating his suspended sentence by leaving for Germany and staying there a few months. The conviction for which he received the suspended sentence was pronounced unlawful by the European Court of Human Rights.

It increasingly seems that the Russian opposition leader has become Putin’s main rival, if not yet for the nation’s leadership, then at least for the status of the world’s best-known Russian. His newly acquired international fame made a joke out of the pro-Kremlin media’s policy to refer to him as just a “blogger” and Putin’s own refusal to call him by name.

Having indeed started as an anti-corruption blogger over a decade ago, Navalny was Russia’s first opposition figure who managed to create an extremely efficient nationwide network of supporters, many in their twenties or even teens.

In a country mired by political apathy and pervasive cynicism, he managed to inspire millions by conducting groundbreaking investigations into the astonishing corruption of Putin’s entourage and presenting them in easy-to-grasp YouTube videos filled with his trademark irony. By getting arrested upon arrival from Germany, Navalny made the Kremlin look both weak and vengeful.


One may interpret the decision to detain him as a sign of convulsive fear, but there is a pragmatic side to it, too. The most hardcore part of Putin’s constituency might be in fact enjoying scenes of Navalny’s mistreatment.

Talk shows on Kremlin-linked TV channels anchored by people like Vladimir Solovyov and Dmitry Kiselev, who take an almost sadistic pleasure in observing Navalny’s ordeal, have a sizeable audience. Kiselev even went as far as spending a night in the hotel room in Tomsk where Navalny’s poisoning likely took place – just to mock those outraged by the attempted murder.

But Navalny has his hardcore supporters and a growing audience, too. His latest investigation focusing on a lavish palace Putin allegedly built for himself on the Black Sea coast had 25 million views on YouTube within 24 hours of its release on January 19 and by January 23, had reached a staggering 70 million.

Today, it seems the Russian society is divided into three unequal parts. Two minorities represent the staunch supporters of Navalny and Putin and a majority in the middle which is comprised of people whose support of the Russian president is tentative and pragmatic. These are people who stick with the crowd and who are always very attentive to the general mood in the country.

That means they may change their political preferences in a one-off event when opposition to the current leadership reaches a critical mass. This is what happened in 1991, when a democratic revolution in Moscow led to the collapse of the entire Soviet state. An attempt by communist hardliners to stage a military coup led to a massive backlash, which resulted in the downfall of the entire regime.

\More recently, in 2020 a very similar abrupt shift happened in Belarus, where people suddenly rose up against their dictatorial president, Alexander Lukashenko, with the majority joining opposition-led protests and resistance. Lukashenko is still holding tight, although he has clearly lost legitimacy.

It is this kind of shift Navalny is hoping to precipitate when he calls for people to stage protests. He is probably not expecting immediate success. Rather he is building momentum for the hot phase of the Duma election campaign in the spring and summer, when COVID-19 fears and the cold weather will abate, bringing even more people to the streets.

Although many are inspired by Navalny’s fearlessness, it is going to be an uphill battle. Millions of Putin’s conditional supporters have good reasons to believe that they might lose more than they would gain in the event of his fall. This is dictated by their experiences in the 1990s and their understanding of regional politics today.

Putin’s regime provides for modestly good standards of living – on par with poorer EU countries and much higher than in Ukraine or Georgia, the two supposed models of pro-West reforms in the post-Soviet space.

Ukraine, which lived through turbulent times after a revolution and a Russian military attack in 2014, remains a potent scarecrow for Russians. On the one hand, its Maidan revolution has failed to bring down the oligarchic system or, as many call, it – the mafia state. On the other, Putin’s intervention in Ukraine clearly showed to what lengths the regime is prepared to go when it comes to suppressing a freedom movement.

The prospect of political strife in Russia raises fears of the country’s disintegration accompanied by armed conflicts with neighbours or domestic insurgencies. Many Russians also suspected that the unsympathetic or outright hostile West would be cheering centrifugal forces that would rip the country apart, just like in Ukraine.

The West is completely oblivious to the enormity of the challenge the world will face, when Russia, with its arsenal of nuclear and other deadly weapons, its millions of security personnel trained to fight and kill, inevitably enters a period of unrest due to its broken system of democratic transfer of power. Worst of all, it has no positive agenda for the Russian population, as it had for people in other Eastern European countries, when they were welcomed into the European Union and NATO.

The hawkish rhetoric, emanating particularly out of Washington, makes it seem like the West would rather see Russia turn into an alienated Eurasian wasteland surrounded by a cordon sanitaire of hostile nationalist regimes than into a flourishing democracy. Such a prospect would discourage even the most liberal-minded Russians from challenging Putin’s rule.

Pirates off Nigeria's coast kidnap 15 sailors in attack on Turkish container ship Mozart

Pirates off Nigeria's coast kidnapped 15 sailors from a Turkish container ship on Saturday, in a brazen and violent attack that was farther from shore than usual.

© Google

One sailor, an Azerbaijani citizen, was killed in the raid, while those kidnapped are from Turkey, according to the respective governments and a crew list seen by Reuters.

Accounts from crew, family members and security sources described a sophisticated and well-orchestrated attack, in which armed pirates boarded the ship and breached its protective citadel, possibly with explosives.

Three sailors remain on the Mozart ship, which by Sunday evening was receiving assistance in Gabonese waters off central Africa.

"The ship is in our waters and our sailors are assisting a few nautical miles from Port Gentil," said Gabon's presidency spokesman Jessye Ella Ekogha, without providing further detail.

The Liberian-flagged vessel was headed to Cape Town from Lagos when it was attacked in the Gulf of Guinea, 160 kilometers (100 miles) off Sao Tome island on Saturday, maritime reports showed.

The ship's fourth captain, Furkan Yaren, had been "cruising blindly" toward Gabon with damage to the ship's controls and only the radar working, according to state-run news agency Anadolu. The pirates beat crew members, and left him with an injured leg while another still aboard the ship had shrapnel wounds, Yaren said.

Turkish media cited Istanbul-based ship owner Boden company as saying the owners and operators of the vessel were abducted at gunpoint. Boden was not immediately available.

Ambrey, a security company, said four armed men boarded the Mozart and entered the citadel -- where crew are advised to hide in any attack -- from a deck atop the cabin.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan's office said on Sunday he was orchestrating officials in the "rescue of kidnapped ship personnel." Erdogan spoke twice by phone with Yaren, who remained aboard after the attack, his office said.

Edward Yeibo, a Nigerian Navy commander, said he was not aware of the attack and was seeking details. The Lagos naval command office and a spokesman for Nigeria's maritime regulator were not immediately available.

Game changer

Pirates in the Gulf, which borders more than a dozen countries, kidnapped 130 sailors in 22 incidents last year, accounting for all but five of those seized worldwide, according to an International Maritime Bureau report.

The attack on the Mozart could raise international pressure on Nigeria to do more to protect shippers, which have called for tougher action in recent weeks, analysts said.

"The fact that someone died, the number of people taken and the apparent use of explosives to breach the ship's citadel means it is a potential game-changer," said David Johnson, CEO of the UK-based EOS Risk Group.

"It's clearly quite sophisticated and if pirates have decided to use munitions it's a big move," he said. There is "no doubt" those kidnapped will be taken back to Nigeria's Delta and Turkey will have little hope stopping it, he added.

Turkey's foreign ministry said the pirates had not made any contact with Ankara.

Seyit Kaya, brother of the ship's kidnapped 42-year-old captain Mustafa Kaya, a father of two, said in an interview he awaited details from the ship's owner on any possible ransom.

"Since that area is where many attacks take place, they take cautions against pirates," said Kaya, who is also a sailor.

 18-Year-Old Talent Defeats World Chess Champion In 1st Game! - YouTube

For most players, simply not getting blown off the board is a big achievement in a first game against Magnus Carlsen! 18-year-old Andrey Esipenko did far better in his first game against the champ, playing a brilliancy with great tactics and great technique!

MILLENIAL CAPITALI$M

Zerodha's Nikhil Kamath is India's youngest new billionaire (cnbc.com)

How this 34-year-old chess champion became India’s youngest new billionaire

LONG READ 

Published Tue, Jan 12 2021
Karen Gilchrist

This 34-year-old chess champion is India’s youngest new billionaire


Netflix’s “The Queen’s Gambit” may have popularized chess for modern audiences, but Nikhil Kamath liked the game way before it was cool.

So much so, that he dropped out of high school at 14 to play full time.

“Chess teaches you how to work under a structure, in a system, but yet try and be creative within that system,” Kamath told CNBC Make It.

That was the starting move in a sequence of events that would eventually earn him billionaire status as part of India’s answer to trading platform Robinhood.
The opening move

Thirty-four-year-old Kamath is the co-founder and chief investment officer of Zerodha, India’s largest trading brokerage.

Today, more than 15% of India’s retail trades are done through its platform, as ordinary investors flocked to stocks during the pandemic.

No one was going to hire me without a college degree, which meant I had to do something which didn’t require one.
Nikhil Kamath
CO-FOUNDER AND CHIEF INVESTMENT OFFICER, ZERODHA

But when the school dropout began trading at 17 years old, that wasn’t the strategy: Having played chess internationally but fallen short of a professional career, he simply needed a backup plan. Inspired by his elder brother, Nithin, he took to stock trading, and taught himself on the go.

“No one was going to hire me without a college degree, which meant I had to do something which didn’t require one,” said Kamath.

Nikhil Kamath, co-founder and chief investment officer at

 Indian brokerage Zerodha, trades at home.
Zerodha


It went well — and soon, the pair was investing for family and friends. But along the way, they found that the system was too complex.

“The problem back in the day, I’m talking about 11 or 12 years ago, is cost was very high. Brokerage fees were incredibly high in India,” Kamath said. “And for a full-time trader, there were many barricades or barriers one had to cross before he could actually be profitable in any consistent kind of manner.”

So the Bangalore-born brothers set to work, using their savings to build a simple and affordable brokerage platform for everyday investors.

Playing the markets


In 2010, Zerodha — a combination of “zero” and “rodha,” the Sanskrit word for barriers — was born.

Today, unlike most start-ups, the company hasn’t taken on any external investment.

“We’ve been different in a way from other companies as in, we’ve never taken on investors or debt or never really raised any capital. Our ethos from the very beginning was build a better product and word of mouth will bring the clientele to you,” he said.

The pandemic has been good to us, which is a strange thing to say.

Nikhil Kamath

CO-FOUNDER AND CHIEF INVESTMENT OFFICER, ZERODHA

In the decade since, Zerodha has grown through word of mouth as the appetite for investments beyond gold and property has grown in India. But in 2020, all that changed during the pandemic. At the height of lockdowns, the company doubled its registered users to more than 4 million.

“The pandemic has been good to us, which is a strange thing to say. People had a lot more time, people were at home and, unfortunately, in many cases, they were in a position where an alternate income could have been very useful,” he said.

Phone displaying the app interface of Indian trading platform Zerodha.
Zerodha

Shailesh Lakhani, managing director at venture capital firm Sequoia India, said that demonstrates how the pandemic has accelerated the already growing demand for investing in the country.

“It’s driven by a few different factors. One, that it’s just become a lot easier with the financial services infrastructure to open a brokerage account,” Lakhani told CNBC Make It.

“Second, mutual funds in the past several years have tended to underperform the equity indices or their benchmarks. And as we’ve had rising markets aside from the coronavirus — that fear in March, April, May — the markets have been pretty easy to make money in for a lot of folks.”

Beating the competition

In 2020, the average age of an investor using the Zerodha platform fell from 32 to 30 years old. That has drawn parallels with U.S. trading platform Robinhood, which experienced a similar surge in millennials during the pandemic.

“We started, actually, maybe five years before they did,” Kamath pointed out.

However, that growing market could pave the way for a future expansion into the U.S., he added.

We would look at approaching their market at some point.

Nikhil Kamath

CO-FOUNDER AND CHIEF INVESTMENT OFFICER, ZERODHA

“We would look at approaching their market at some point and seeing if there are ways in which our products can integrate with what is available in America,” he said.

Even as the financial technology space gets increasingly competitive, Kamath says Zerodha has no plans to raise more capital, unlike its competitor Robinhood. That hasn’t prevented talk of the entrepreneur’s growing fortune, though.

In October 2020, the Kamath brothers joined Forbes India Rich List with a combined wealth of $1.55 billion, as 34-year-old Nikhil was named India’s youngest new billionaire.

“For a while now, I don’t think financial motives have been the focus. I don’t think it’s the most important thing and that’s set to continue,” said Kamath. “But I think more access to capital gives you the room and the courage to. 

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Zerodha's Nikhil Kamath is India's youngest new billionaire (cnbc.com)

Indian billionaires increased their wealth by 35% during the lockdown, says Oxfam report

Jagriti Chandra
NEW DELHI, JANUARY 25, 2021 

Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani. File photo | Photo Credit: PTI

Mukesh Ambani, who emerged as the richest man in India and Asia, earned ₹90 crore per hour during the pandemic when around 24% of the people in the country were earning under ₹3,000 per month.

Indian billionaires increased their wealth by 35% during the lockdown to $422.9 billion, ranking India sixth in the world after U.S., China, Germany, Russia and France. Out of these, the rise in fortunes for the top 100 billionaires since the lockdown in March is enough to give every one of the 138 million poorest Indian people a cheque for ₹94,045 each, according to Oxfam’s Inequality Virus Report released on the opening day of the World Economic Forum in Davos.

The wealth of just the top 11 billionaires during the pandemic can easily sustain the MGNREGS or the Health Ministry for the next 10 years, says the report which underscores the deepening inequalities due to COVID-19 where the wealthiest escaped the worst impact of the pandemic while the poor faced joblessness, starvation and death.

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Oxfam urges radical economic rejig for post-COVID world

Mukesh Ambani, who emerged as the richest man in India and Asia, earned ₹90 crore per hour during the pandemic when around 24% of the people in the country were earning under ₹ 3,000 per month during the lockdown. The increase in the wealth of Mr. Ambani alone could keep 40 crore informal workers out of poverty for at least five months, says the report.

It recommends re-introducing wealth tax and effecting a one-time COVID-19 cess of 4% on taxable income of over ₹10 lakh to help the economy recover from the lockdown. According to its estimate, wealth tax on the nation’s 954 richest families could raise the equivalent of 1% of India’s GDP.

PTI adds:

Calling the coronavirus pandemic the world’s worst public health crisis in a hundred years, the report said it triggered an economic crisis comparable in scale only with the Great Depression of the 1930s.

The new global survey of 295 economists from 79 countries, commissioned by Oxfam, reveals that 87% of respondents, including Jeffrey Sachs, Jayati Ghosh and Gabriel Zucman, expect an “increase” or a “major increase” in income inequality in their country as a result of the pandemic.

India introduced one of the earliest and most stringent lockdowns in the face of the pandemic and its enforcement brought the economy to a standstill, triggering unemployment, hunger, distress migration and untold hardship in its wake, the report said.

“The rich were able to escape the pandemic’s worst impact; and while the white-collar workers isolated themselves and worked from home, a majority of the not-so-fortunate Indians lost their livelihood,” it said.

The report noted that billionaires such as Gautam Adani, Shiv Nadar, Cyrus Poonawalla, Uday Kotak, Azim Premji, Sunil Mittal, Radhakrishan Damani, Kumar Manglam Birla and Laxmi Mittal working in sectors such as coal, oil, telecom, medicines, pharmaceutical, education and retail increased their wealth exponentially since March 2020 when India announced world’s biggest COVID-19 lockdown and economy came to standstill.

On the other hand, data has shown that 170,000 people lost their jobs every hour in the month of April 2020, the report said.

Noting that the informal sector had been the worst hit, the report said out of a total 12.2 crore people who lost their jobs, 75 per cent, which accounts for 9.2 crore jobs, were lost in the informal sector.

“The mass exodus on foot triggered by the sudden lockdown and the inhuman beating, disinfection and quarantine conditions the informal workers were subjected to turned a health emergency into a humanitarian crisis,” it said.

“Over 300 informal workers died due to the lockdown, with reasons ranging from starvation, suicides, exhaustion, road and rail accidents, police brutality and denial of timely medical care. The National Human Rights Commission recorded over 2,582 cases of human rights violation as early as in the month of April 2020,” the report added.

It noted that the long disruption of schooling risked doubling the rate of out of school, especially among the poor.

“Only 4% of rural households had a computer and less than 15% rural households had an internet connection,” it said.

On health inequalities, the report said only 6% of the poorest 20% has access to non-shared sources of improved sanitation, compared to 93.4% of the top 20%. It added that 59.6% of India’s population lives in a room or less.

The report said 1.7 crore women lost their job in April 2020 and unemployment for women rose by 15% from a pre-lockdown level.

Oxfam India CEO Amitabh Behar said if not addressed immediately, the crisis could worsen.

“Extreme inequality is not inevitable, but a policy choice. The fight against inequality must be at the heart of economic rescue and recovery efforts now,” Mr. Behar said.

“Newer and creative ways of catering to the needs of the masses is possible if governments are committed to the needs of its people. It is time for the government of India to take specific and concrete actions that will build a better future, more equal and just a future for everyone,” he said.

Mukesh Ambani Is Making 90 Crores Per Hour, What Do Other Big Business People Make?

Chirali Sharma
30 September 2020·


The coronavirus pandemic has not really been beneficial to many people. With the entire country going into lockdown for a good amount of time, and even still many places choosing to keep shut due to safety reasons, the economy of several businesses has taken a big hit.

However, it seems that this has not exactly stopped some people from earning their crores regardless of whatever is happening in the country, or maybe even because of it.

As per the IIFL Wealth Hurun India Rich List 2020, Mukesh Ambani has kept his position at the top of the list because during the lockdown he has reportedly been making as much as Rs. 90 crore per hour.

Since March, Ambani has added a whopping Rs. 2,77,700 crore through the various fund-raising and strategic investments from Facebook, Google and Silver Lake.

This has allowed his personal wealth to increase to Rs. 6,58,400 crore and allowed him to be the richest person in India for the ninth consecutive year in a row.

Anas Rahman Junaid, MD and Chief Researcher, Hurun India, stated that “28 per cent of the upswing in wealth on the list has been bestowed by Mukesh Ambani, bespeaking Ambani’s meteoric success post diversifying from oil to telecom and retail. A further 21 per cent of the additional wealth has been generated by pharma, mainly on the back of the rise in healthcare spends and a realigned priority towards personal healthcare stimulated by the Covid-19.”

Read More: The Billionaire Who Fought Both Ambani And Tata And Is Still Around To Tell The Story

But one has to wonder, how much do other big business people around the world make whether in a day or an hour.

Here are some of them and how much these business people who are millionaires and billionaires on their own make:
Jeff Bezos

Jeff Bezos, one of the richest man on the planet, as per reports from 2019, is said to be making more than $4.4 million in an hour.
Tim Cook

Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO makes ₹ 3,54,90,623.05 in a day.
Satya Nadella

Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft, makes ₹ 2,19,44,320.42 in a day.
Mark Zuckerberg

As per a 2019 Business Insider report, Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, makes around $1,712,328 in a single hour.

Alice Walton Walmart

Alice Walton, the American heiress to the Walmart fortune, is said to own over more than US$11 billion in Walmart shares.

In September of this year, she was ranked as the 12th richest person and the richest woman in the world, having a net worth of $68.8 billion.

As per sources, Walton makes ₹ 2,32,81,84,872.16 in one single day.

Image Credits: Google Images

Sources: Business Insider, The Indian Express, Zee Business

Find the blogger: @chirali_08

This post is tagged under: mukesh ambani 90 crore, mukesh ambani 90 crore lockdown, mukesh ambani per hour, mukesh ambani money per hour, how much millionaires make in a day, how much money billionaires make per hour

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Oxfam produces report on M&S supply chain

Written by Simon Glover

18, January2021

LONDON - Oxfam has published a report on Marks and Spencer (M&S) after being asked by the brand to act as a 'critical friend' and conduct a gap analysis of its supply chain.

The charity's research identified a number of issues including in-work poverty, long term damage to health, inadequate sick pay, discrimination and poor worker representation, as well as examples of good practice.

A key conclusion was that there was a disconnect between the information that M&S managers received about conditions in workplaces, based largely on third party ethical audits, and workers' experiences.

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Oxfam produces report on M&S supply chain | Fashion & Retail News | News (ecotextile.com)