Oil giants drill deep as profits trump climate concerns

Ron Bousso and Nerijus Adomaitis
Mon, July 3, 2023 


 Dead sunflowers stand in a field near dormant oil drilling rigs which have been stacked in Dickinson, North Dakota


By Ron Bousso and Nerijus Adomaitis

LONDON (Reuters) -Oil and gas companies have intensified the hunt for new deposits in a long-term bet on demand, as they reinvest some of the record profits from the fossil fuel price surge driven by the Ukraine war, according to data and industry executives.

The exploration revival - on the part of European majors in particular - reflects a renewed commitment to oil and gas after Shell and BP slowed down plans to shift away from their legacy business and invest in renewables as part of the energy transition.

It responds to pressure from a majority of investors to maximise their oil and gas profits rather than invest in lower margin renewable energy businesses.

It also defies protests from a minority of activist investors who want oil companies to be more closely aligned with global efforts to mitigate climate change.

The renewed appetite for oil and gas reserves and production is an especially big turnaround for BP, which got rid of most staff from its exploration unit three years ago.

Exploration is a long-term, high-risk business. Big-ticket offshore projects typically take five years to develop from discovery and at least another 10 years to return the initial investment.

But as a source of profit, it has proved more reliable for the energy majors than the very different business model of producing renewable energy.

Upstream oil and gas have historically had returns of around 15%-to-20%, while most renewables projects have delivered up to 8%.

An oil and gas price rally driven by energy producer Russia's invasion of Ukraine translated into record profits for the energy majors.

That has increased confidence in the most costly, high-risk offshore exploration that can also deliver the highest rewards.

"Offshore is experiencing a renaissance," oilfield services company SLB Chief Executive Olivier Le Peuch said on June 21.

Leading industry data providers and consultancies endorse the view.

The number of offshore drilling vessels used to explore and produce oil and gas recovered in May to pre-pandemic levels, rising by 45% from October 2020 lows, an analysis of data from oil services firm Baker Hughes showed.

Wood Mackenzie analysts predict a continued increase in activity, forecasting offshore exploration and drilling activity to grow by 20% by 2025.

Already, the rise in drilling has helped to drive daily rates for leasing drilling rigs to the highest levels since a 2014 downturn when commodity markets crashed.

"Higher oil prices, the focus on energy security and deep water's emissions advantages have supported deep water development and, to some extent, boosted exploration," Wood Mackenzie analyst Leslie Cook said.

The potential size of offshore deposits can ensure economies of scale, meaning less energy is used to extract each barrel, limiting emissions.

The International Energy Agency forecasts global upstream oil and gas investments are set to increase by around 11% to $528 billion in 2023, the highest level since 2015.

Barclays expects the number of offshore projects to get approval this year will reach a 10-year high.

Wood Mackenzie meanwhile predicts the commitment of up to $185 billion to develop 27 billion barrels of oil reserves, with international oil companies focused on the higher-cost, higher-return deepwater developments.

It also anticipated the so-called Golden Triangle – U.S. Gulf of Mexico, South America and West Africa – as well as part of the Mediterranean will account for 75% of global floating rig demand through 2027.

FROM NAMIBIA TO FAR OFF EASTERN CANADA

Activity extends beyond that core exploration territory.

Nambia, which has yet to produce any oil and gas, has attracted strong interest after Shell and TotalEnergies made discoveries off the coast of the southern African country.

Shell's head of upstream Zoë Yujnovich said on June 14 that results from drilling tests so far were encouraging.

Together with its partners QatarEnergy and Namibia's national oil company, Shell plans to drill two further wells in Namibia by the third quarter of this year, a document seen by Reuters shows.

Shell has also applied for a licence to drill another 10 exploration and appraisal wells there, the document shows.

TotalEnergies made an oil discovery in February 2022 in the Venus well in Nambia's Petroleum Exploration Licence (PEL) 56, which analysts at Barclays estimate holds 3 billion barrels of oil equivalent (boe).

Shell reported discoveries in the Graff, La Rona and Jonker wells in PEL 39, which together are estimated to hold 1.7 billion boe, according to Barclays.

As it tries to reverse a decline in oil and gas output after it shifted to renewables, BP has turned to the Gulf of Mexico and far off the eastern coast of Canada, where it is ramping up oil exploration activity in frontier prospects.

(Reporting by Ron Bousso; editing by Barbara Lewis)

UN chief urges maritime nations to chart course for net zero shipping emissions by 2050

Mon, July 3, 2023 

LONDON (AP) — The head of the United Nations called Monday for maritime nations to agree on a course for the shipping industry to reduce its climate-harming emissions to net zero by the middle of the century at the latest.

The appeal by U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres came at the start of a meeting of the International Maritime Organization in London that's seen as key for helping achieve the international goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit).

“Shipping, which accounts for almost 3% of global emissions, will be vital,” Guterres said.

He urged delegates to agree a new greenhouse gas strategy for shipping that includes “ambitious science-based targets starting in 2030 – both on absolute emissions reductions and the use of clean fuels.”

The IMO's current target is for the shipping industry to cut its emissions by at least half from 2008 to 2050.

Guterres said the new targets should include all greenhouse gas emissions caused by the industry and backed the idea of introducing a carbon price for shipping. Campaigners have suggested that funds generated from a levy on emissions could be used to help poor nations tackle climate change, though the industry wants the money to go toward the development of clean technologies.

CANADA
From telecoms to grocers, competition concerns keep bubbling up in federal politics

The Canadian Press
Mon, July 3, 2023



OTTAWA — As Canadians grow more concerned about rising inflation, competition across different sectors of the economy has become a "kitchen-table issue" at a time when the federal government is reviewing its competition law.

The country's two largest newspaper chains, Postmedia and the owners of the Toronto Star, recently confirmed talks about a potential merger, signalling more consolidation in an industry that already has a limited number of players.

In a highly anticipated report about food inflation last week, the Competition Bureau called for more competition in the grocery sector, tying the higher prices to the limited options for consumers.

All of that builds on the mounting scrutiny of several sectors, with the telecommunications industry being the prime example.

The head of the competition watchdog recently said that scrutiny is creating a window of opportunity for action, as the federal government undertakes a review of the Competition Act.

"Competition issues are grabbing headlines across the country," competition commissioner Matthew Boswell said during a speech last month in Ottawa.

And as Canadians struggle with high inflation, Boswell said it's easy to see how competition policy "has gone from being a podium topic to a kitchen table issue across the country."

Keldon Bester, co-founder of the Canadian Anti-Monopoly Project, said inflation and a global conversation about corporate power have made people more aware of the role competition plays in their day-to-day lives.

"When Canadians are pushed and their budgets are stressed, they work harder to find alternatives to make ends meet. I think that brings forward a lack of options that we have in a lot of areas of our lives that we can kind of afford to ignore in the good times," Bester said.

"(And) internationally, we're seeing a real change in how governments and citizens interact with the corporations that make up our daily lives."

The rapid rise of grocery prices alongside growing profits in the industry have some to argue that firms were profiteering off of inflation.

The Competition Bureau's report last week found grocery margins have grown modestly yet meaningfully over the last five years, though the trend predates the current bout of high inflation.

"The fact that Canada's largest grocers have generally been able to increase these margins — however modestly — is a sign that there is room for more competition in Canada’s grocery industry," the report said.

The bureau laid out the history of consolidation in the industry, arguing that has hurt consumers.

When the Competition Act came into place in 1986, there were at least eight major grocers in Canada. Fast-forward to 2023, and that number has dwindled to just five.

The bureau made a set of recommendations in its report, urging governments to make it easier for more players to enter the market.

A spokesperson for Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne called the report a good first step, and said the federal government would be reviewing the recommendations to see how it can make Canadians' lives more affordable.

The dangers of poor competition go beyond prices, experts warn. A study published in the fall by researchers at the HEC Montreal Centre for Productivity and Prosperity found a lack of competition is hurting productivity, too.

The Competition Bureau acknowledged in its report that it hasn't done enough to protect and promote competition, noting the Competition Act needs to be reformed.

The federal government launched a review of the act last fall and finished public consultations on the changes earlier this year, with the findings set to be released in the near future.

Bester is a loud critic of the law, and wants to see reforms that make it harder for mergers that would hurt consumers to be approved.

The Competition Bureau also needs to be better quipped to handle collusion and cartel conduct, he said, noting it has taken it years to investigate the bread price-fixing scandal.

Bester warned that reform will require politicians to stand up to major companies that aren't interested in such changes.

"It's going to take a lot of courage to make the right decision for Canadians," Bester said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 3, 2023.

Nojoud Al Mallees, The Canadian Press

CUTTING THOUSANDS OF JOBS

UBS goes on hiring spree for wealth managers catering to rich Americans

Tatiana Bautzer
Mon, July 3, 2023 



By Tatiana Bautzer

NEW YORK (Reuters) -UBS has gone on a U.S. recruiting drive for wealth managers catering to rich Americans even as it considers culling 30% of its combined global workforce after the takeover of Credit Suisse.

UBS recruited 50 financial advisers, including from Bank of America's Merrill Lynch unit, JPMorgan Chase's recently acquired First Republic Bank, Citigroup and Wells Fargo, in the first half of the year. Of those, 30 came after the Credit Suisse deal was announced in March. The largest was BG Group, a 13-person team that managed $2.5 billion at Merrill.

With the Credit Suisse deal, UBS became the world's second-largest wealth manager. While it has a leading position in Europe and Asia, it is only the fourth-biggest wealth manager in the U.S., where the business of managing the finances of the ultra-rich is dominated by American banks.

"The U.S. is the largest wealth market globally, and in recent years there has been unprecedented growth," Iqbal Khan, UBS' president of global wealth management, told Reuters. "Investing in and building our business here is a top priority," said Khan, who serves on the bank's executive board.

Underscoring the importance of the business, Khan met with high-net-worth clients in southern California on June 12, the day UBS closed its historic deal with Credit Suisse. He also led an internal event with its best-performing financial advisers.

In the U.S., the acquisition did not change UBS' wealth business because Credit Suisse had exited U.S. private banking in 2015 and transferred about 275 financial advisers to Wells Fargo.

UBS' ranks of private wealth advisers in the U.S. catering to ultra-high-net-worth clients have swelled by more than 25% in the last three years. The bank had 6,147 advisers in the Americas region in late March, but it declined to specify how many of those were based in the U.S.

Global banks are investing more in wealth businesses that bring in stable fees, providing a counterweight to volatile operations like investment banking and trading. Most are focusing on ultra-high-net-worth clients, the fastest-growing group.

That cohort of people with more than $30 million in investable assets is expected to grow 10% over the next five years as they amass more wealth, said John Mathews, UBS head of private wealth management in the Americas.

"We've been focused on attracting and retaining advisers who are skilled in serving this population," he said.

The number of millionaires worldwide with net worths above $50 million grew more than 50% between 2019 and 2021, reaching 264,200, according to a Credit Suisse report published last year. More than half of them live in the U.S.

Wealth is central to UBS' bottom line. The bank is expected to earn 63% of its profits from wealth management within four years, according to Morningstar analyst Johann Scholtz. UBS shares have gained 6.5% this year and 17.5% over the past 12 months.

To strengthen its U.S. position, UBS is focused on the transfer of wealth between baby boomers to their heirs in the coming years. The bank is diversifying its adviser workforce, in terms of age and race, and organizing events for multiple generations of wealthy families.

About $18 trillion will be passed to younger generations in the U.S. over the next seven years, and as much as $84 trillion over the next two decades, UBS estimates.

"Over the next 20 years, we'll see the greatest transfer of wealth in history," said Khan, who joined UBS from Credit Suisse in 2019. "That presents a huge opportunity for us to serve a whole new generation of clients."

(Reporting by Tatiana Bautzer in New York, additional reporting by Paritosh Bansal; Editing by Lananh Nguyen)

CRIMINAL (STATE) CAPITALI$M

ING Sues Legendary Chinese Copper Trader Over $147 Million Debt

Dorothy Ma and Alfred Cang
Mon, July 3, 2023 



(Bloomberg) -- ING Groep NV is suing He Jinbi, a legendary Chinese copper trader and founder of troubled merchant Maike Metals International Co., over $147 million in unpaid debt.

The money involves overdue payments owed by Triway International Ltd., a trading arm of Maike, according to a Hong Kong High Court document dated June 26. He, Maike’s chairman, was sued by the Dutch bank as he failed to honor the guarantee obligation by repaying the debt of Hong Kong-based Triway, the filing showed.

The lawsuit may further complicate a restructuring at Maike, following a liquidity crisis at the trader that once handled a quarter of China’s copper imports. Maike said in February that it sought a fair debt payment plan to preserve its creditors’ interests, while introducing new investors and “quickly” resuming its main business of commodity trading.

It’s also the latest ING lawsuit in the Maike saga. The Dutch lender in April sued Industrial and Commercial Bank of China for allegedly breaching contract terms because it released export documents for copper transactions without collecting payment. The alleged contract breach led to ING booking losses on metals sold to Maike by Triway. Maike had banked with ICBC, China’s largest bank, while Triway was with ING.

ING declined to comment, while Maike didn’t respond to an email seeking comments on the lawsuit.

Maike, based in Xi’an in Shaanxi province, was hurt by repeated lockdowns in the city, alongside a slumping copper price last year. Banks have also grown increasingly cautious toward the commodity sector in China more broadly, adding to the pressure on private traders such as Maike.

Triway, a fully owned unit of Maike, trades physical metals and derivatives from Hong Kong. The Dutch bank issued a demand to He to pay the debt for Triway in October 2022, but the latter failed to honor the obligation, the case document said.

--With assistance from Winnie Zhu and Nicholas Comfort.

Israel Tensions Escalate Amid Protests and West Bank Assault

Ethan Bronner
Mon, July 3, 2023



(Bloomberg) -- Israel’s anti-government protest movement launched a series of major disruptions on Monday, including an attempt to sow chaos at the international airport, over a renewed official attempt to weaken the judiciary.

The standoff coincides with an unusually fierce Israeli military operation in the northern West Bank that killed nine Palestinians and injured several dozen, some critically. Such operations depend partly on military reservists, some of whom are stepping up their role in the protests.

The police arrested four people at Ben Gurion Airport after a “violent disturbance” that saw officers attacked, according to a statement around 6 p.m. local time.

Israeli stocks fell and the shekel initially weakened for a ninth straight day against the dollar, before reversing its losses.

Since January, when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing religious coalition announced a comprehensive plan to overhaul the courts, protests have occurred at least weekly, accusing the government of seeking authoritarian powers. But demonstrations slowed after Netanyahu put the plan on hold to allow for negotiations.

The talks recently broke down and the government introduced one key element into the legislative process — removing from judges the power to void appointments or decisions as “unreasonable.” The combination of the failed talks and the revived legislation has lit up the protest movement once again.

The last “day of disruption” by demonstrators was on May 4. Now such actions are under way again. On Monday, hundreds of protesters briefly blocked a gate to the port of Haifa.

More disruptions could be ahead.

Hundreds of military reservists — medics, intelligence officers, combat soldiers and pilots — have signed letters asserting that they won’t feel obliged to show up for service if the judicial changes become law.

“In light of the fact that the government has become ‘illegitimate’ — it is not worthy of our volunteering and obedience,” read one such letter from volunteers in the vital 8200 intelligence unit.

An organization of veterans, which has taken the name “Brothers in Arms,” says it has tens of thousands of members and is planning a series of more disruptive actions in the coming weeks. It also warns that if the new law passes, they will not show up for training — although there has been a gap in the past between threat and action on such refusal.

‘Irreparable Rift’

It was the prospect of widespread dissent within the ranks of the military, combined with a growing sense of threat from Iranian-backed militias like Hamas and Hezbollah, that caused Netanyahu to pause the judicial overhaul three months ago. At the time, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said national security was at risk.

On Monday, a group of veterans from Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic security agency that’s a key player in West Bank operations, also warned that the government’s plans to move ahead with the judicial overhaul legislation “will create an irreparable rift in Israeli society, fatally damage national strength and Israeli defense.”

All of this has occurred while Iranian-backed challenges to Israel on its borders have been growing, and the Israeli military has killed scores of Palestinian militants in the bloodiest half-year in two decades.

Those factors remain, as Monday’s assault on the Jenin refugee camp showed. But so does intense pressure from within Israel’s ruling coalition to reduce the power of the judiciary. The right considers it a bastion of secular leftists whose decisions on human and minority rights contradict the will of the majority.

Gloves Off

The presence in Netanyahu’s government of political forces long considered illegitimate because of their anti-Arab extremism has also awakened political activism among secular liberals who say they are going to take off their gloves now to fight for Israeli democracy.

“Netanyahu and his extremist partners aim to impose a dictatorship in Israel and are using tools identical to those recently wielded by the leaders of Poland and Hungary,” Shikma Bressler, a physicist and protest leader, wrote in Monday’s Haaretz newspaper. “History shows that only an uncompromising civil struggle can prevent such leaders from achieving their goal. Our efforts in the coming weeks are likely to be less pleasant.”

As markets have suffered from the uncertainty and the internal tensions, Israel’s robust technology sector has played a key role in protests against the judicial overhaul.

The movement is heavily financed by Israelis in the industry, and cabinet ministers have met with high-tech entrepreneurs to try to persuade them to stop funding the protests, telling them the judicial overhaul isn’t viable anymore.

But with the introduction of the law on reasonableness, those appeals are falling on deaf ears.

“We are all in,” said Erez Shachar of Qumra Capital, which invests in Israeli tech companies, when asked about the renewed protests. “Letters, press announcements, supporting the demonstrations, special ops - both tech and general, very similar to the activities of two months ago.”

--With assistance from Gwen Ackerman, Galit Altstein and Alisa Odenheimer.

Israelis protest at international airport against judicial overhaul plan

Mon, July 3, 2023



JERUSALEM (AP) — Thousands of Israelis blocked traffic and snarled movement at the country's main international airport on Monday, the latest mass demonstration over Benjamin Netanyahu's contentious planned judicial overhaul that has divided the nation.

The Netanyahu government’s push to pass several overlapping reforms to the country’s judiciary have plunged Israel into an unprecedented crisis and divided an already highly polarized country.

Protesters waving Israel's blue-and-white national flag and blowing horns blocked the main thoroughfare outside Ben Gurion Airport's main terminal and demonstrated inside the arrivals hall. Police said officers arrested at least four people for public disturbance.

Netanyahu and his ultranationalist and ultra-Orthodox political allies are pressing ahead with plans to pass several contentious changes to Israel’s judicial system after attempts to reach a compromise with opposition lawmakers disintegrated. The planned overhaul has drawn rebuke from the Biden administration and consternation from American Jews.

Netanyahu ally Simcha Rotman, who chairs parliament's Constitution, Law and Justice Committee and has spearheaded the overhaul, said Monday that he would bring a bill to strip the Supreme Court of its authority to strike down government decisions it deems “unreasonable” this week.

That “reasonability standard" was used by the Supreme Court earlier this year to upend the appointment of a Netanyahu ally as interior minister because of a conviction for bribery when he served in the role in the 1990s and a 2021 plea deal for tax evasion.

Critics say removing that standard would allow the government to pass arbitrary decisions and grant it too much power.

Last week, over 100 Israeli air force reservists signed a letter saying they would refuse to show up for duty if the government moves forward with the plan.

Netanyahu and his allies came to power after November's election, Israel's fifth in under four years, all of which were largely referendums on the longtime leader's fitness to serve while on trial for corruption.

Netanyahu, whose corruption trial has dragged on for nearly three years, and his allies in his nationalist religious government say the overhaul is needed to rein in an overly interventionist judiciary and restore power to elected officials.

Critics say the plan would upend Israel’s delicate system of checks and balances and push the country toward dictatorship.

The Associated Press

Argentina's currency crisis is so dire that it's allowing people to open bank accounts using the Chinese yuan


Huileng Tan
Mon, July 3, 2023 

Dollar vs. YuanYagi Studio/Getty Images

Argentina is allowing commercial banks to open deposit accounts in the Chinese yuan.


The country is facing a drastic shortage in the US dollar, a major currency used in global trade.


The Argentine peso has fallen nearly 80% against the greenback since the start of 2020.

Argentina is facing such a dire shortage of US dollars that it is now allowing commercial banks to open deposit accounts in the Chinese yuan.

The Central Bank of Argentina said in a Thursday statement on its website that it is allowing the Chinese yuan as a form of currency in savings and checking accounts.

The move complements the country's securities regulator announcing that Argentina can issue securities in the Chinese currency, the central bank added.

Argentina — which already allows bank accounts to be opened using US dollar deposits — has been boosting its use of the yuan following a drastic shortage of the greenback.

In April, the country started to pay for imports from China in the yuan. More recently, Argentina partly made a $2.7 billion payment to the International Monetary Fund using the yuan, the Buenos Aires Times reported, citing sources from the country's economy ministry on Thursday.

Argentina turned to the yuan as an alternative currency because its central bank dollar reserves are at their lowest level since 2016 — due in part to an ongoing drought that hit the country's agriculture exports, according to a June 23 Bloomberg report.

The drought meant that Argentina sold fewer crops, sales of which are denominated globally in the US dollar. This, in turn, led to a dollar crunch. It also means it's harder for the country to trade internationally because commodities are generally denominated in the dollar.

On top of that, the Argentine peso has crashed against the dollar, falling 30% this year — making it far more expensive for the country to buy any greenback. The peso has lost nearly 80% of its value against the greenback since the beginning of 2020.

All these developments have opened a window of opportunity for the yuan, which Beijing has been trying to internationalize.

China has been trying to increase the global circulation of the yuan, using the currency for almost all of the Russian oil it bought over the past year, Reuters reported in May, citing multiple trading executives with direct knowledge of the matter.

In Argentina, yuan transactions in the country's currency market came up to about $285 million in the first 10 days of June alone — double the volume in the entire month of May as over 500 companies look into paying for imports in the Chinese currency, Bloomberg reported on June 23.

Despite the surge in yuan usage, one key Argentinian politician is refusing to move away from the dollar. Javier Milei, a leading presidential candidate, has proposed replacing the peso with the greenback as Argentina's local currency to tame inflation.

"The peso melts like ice in the Sahara Desert," Milei is known to say, according to Bloomberg.

The Argentine central bank did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider sent outside regular business hours. 

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M; TAX CHEAT

Branson, Virgin Group reputations at centre of $250 million London court clash

Sam Tobin
Mon, July 3, 2023   

 Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Group, poses for a photograph on board of his new cruise liner, the Scarlet Lady at Dover Port in Dover

LONDON (Reuters) - British billionaire Richard Branson severely damaged Virgin Group's reputation by residing in a tax haven while UK-based airline Virgin Atlantic sought a government bailout during the pandemic, according to internal Virgin emails cited in a $250 million London lawsuit on Monday.

The emails were cited by lawyers for U.S. train operator Brightline, which is being sued by the Virgin Group after cancelling a deal to use the Virgin brand in 2020, just over 18 months after it was signed.

Under the deal Brightline operated a rail line in Florida using the name Virgin Trains USA.

Brightline says it cancelled the deal because the Virgin brand had been hit by negative press coverage of Branson's 2020 claim that Virgin Atlantic would need a bailout from the British government to survive the pandemic.

Brightline's lawyers cited internal Virgin Group emails describing group founder Branson being based in the British Virgin Islands for tax purposes as "a reputation killer", while one email from an external public relations adviser said: "Richard needs to show he's not a ruthless, tax-evading billionaire."

In an April 2020 email, Virgin Group CEO Josh Bayliss referred to Branson's tax residency in relation to the request for a bailout, saying: "Richard cannot escape the criticism. The truth is he has paid as little tax as possible".

Virgin argues its brand was not materially damaged by the group's handling of COVID-19, meaning Brightline was not entitled to cancel the licensing deal without paying an exit fee of up to $200 million. The company is also seeking unpaid royalties.

Virgin's lawyer Daniel Toledano said in court filings that the brand suffered some negative press in Britain in 2020 following Virgin Atlantic's request for government support, but its reputation quickly recovered and was unaffected in the United States.

Brightline's lawyer Nigel Tozzi, however, said the deal had entitled his client to a brand with a high international reputation, like Coca-Cola or leading European soccer teams Real Madrid and Barcelona.

"It is the Beatles, not the Bay City Rollers," he said in court filings.

(Reporting by Sam Tobin; Editing by Susan Fenton)

Take a look at the $300,000 electric flying car with a 110-mile range in the air that just got FAA approval for test 


The real reasons we don't have flying cars

Grace Dean
Mon, July 3, 2023 

Alef Aeronautics' Model A in flight.Alef Aeronautics

Alef Aeronautics' electric flying car, its Model A, got FAA approval for test flights.


Alef claims the EV has a driving range of 200 miles and a flight range of 110 miles.


The car will cost $300,000. Mock-up images show what it could be like.

Alef Aeronautics' electric flying car just won federal approval for test flights

Alef Aeronautics' Model A.Alef Aeronautics

The Californian automaker said last week that it had received a Special Airworthiness Certification from the Federal Aviation Administration for its Model A flying car, which it said marked the first time such a vehicle has received legal approval to fly from the US Government.

Because the FAA is currently developing policies for electrical vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) vehicles, the certificate limits the locations and purpose for which the car is permitted to fly.

Alef said in a press release in October that it had been test-driving and -flying a full-size prototype since 2019.

Mock-up images released by Alef show what the vehicle could be like.

The car could fly up to 110 miles

The Model A, which is fully electric, has a driving range of 200 miles and a flight range of 110 miles, Alef says. The company claims that the vehicle fits within the existing urban driving and parking infrastructure.

"Designed to drive on the street, take off vertically when needed and fly overhead above traffic, we're building the solution to the issues of modern congestion," Alef says on its website. "We enable faster and easier commutes, driven by proprietary technology that elevates the vehicle without the need for runways."

Alef says that the Model A is a low-speed vehicle. "The assumption is that, if a driver needs a faster route, a driver will use Alef's flight capabilities," the company says.

Occupants are kept 'stable' while in flight

Alef Aeronautics' Model A.Alef Aeronautics

Alef says that the two-seater vehicle's design means that it provides a "smooth, stable ride and flight" and occupants are kept "stable." It comes complete with a full-vehicle ballistic parachute.

Alef hopes to start shipping the car in 2025

Alef Aeronautics' Model A.Alef Aeronautics

The Model A will cost $300,000. It went on pre-sale in October, and buyers can put down a $150 deposit, or a $1,500 deposit to join the priority queue. Alef says that it's received "strong pre-orders" from both individuals and companies.

When pre-sales launched, Alef said it planned to deliver its first vehicles in the last three months of 2025.

It's working on a bigger vehicle, too

Alef Aeronautics' Model A.Alef Aeronautics

Alef says that it's also working on a four-person sedan, the "Model Z," which it said in October was scheduled for introduction in 2035 at $35,000.

The startup's backers include Elon Musk's space exploration company SpaceX.

 

WAGE THEFT

Musk, Zuckerberg Lead a $852 Billion Surge Among World’s Richest People

Annie Massa and Jack Witzig
Mon, July 3, 2023 


Musk, Zuckerberg Lead a $852 Billion Surge Among World’s Richest People
In this article:

(Bloomberg) -- The world’s 500 richest people added $852 billion to their fortunes in the first half of 2023.

Each member of the Bloomberg Billionaires Index made an average of $14 million per day over the past six months, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. It was the best half-year for billionaires since the back half of 2020, when the economy rebounded from a Covid-induced slump.

The gains coincided with a broad stock market rally, as investors brushed off the effects of central bank interest rate hikes, the ongoing war in Ukraine and a crisis in regional banks. The S&P 500 rose 16% and the Nasdaq 100 surged 39% for its best-ever first half as investor mania over artificial intelligence boosted tech stocks.

While Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg flirt with scheduling a cage match, Tesla Inc.’s chief executive officer came out on top in dollar terms. Musk, the world’s richest person, added $96.6 billion to his net worth this year through June 30, while Meta Platforms Inc. CEO Zuckerberg gained $58.9 billion.

Gautam Adani’s net worth sank the most in the six-month period, losing $60.2 billion. Adani, chairman of Adani Group, also posted the biggest one-day loss of any billionaire, shedding about $20.8 billion on Jan. 27, after short seller Hindenburg Research accused his conglomerate of accounting fraud and stock manipulation — a claim Adani denies.

Hindenburg, founded by Nate Anderson, also knocked down the net worth of another billionaire: Carl Icahn. His Icahn Enterprises LP had its steepest one-day drop after Hindenburg disclosed it was shorting the shares, saying the stock was significantly overvalued relative to its holdings. Icahn’s net worth fell $13.4 billion, or 57% — the largest percentage drop of any member of the Bloomberg Billionaires Index in the period.

For Musk, the wealth gains spilled over into July as Tesla shares climbed 6.9% on Monday in New York, tacking on an additional $13 billion to his fortune.