BLAME TRUMP

China's biggest offshore oil and gas producer is preparing to exit operations in the US, UK, and Canada due to concerns around sanctions, a report says


Grace Dean
Wed, April 13, 2022

Sources told Reuters that CNOOC had launched a review of its global portfolio as it prepares to list on the Shanghai stock exchange this month.

imaginima/Getty Images


CNOOC is preparing to exit the US, UK, and Canada because of sanctions concerns, sources told Reuters.

One senior industry source told Reuters that the assets were "marginal and hard to manage."

Following an executive order by Trump, CNOOC was delisted from the NYSE in October 2021.

CNOOC, a Chinese state-owned offshore oil and gas producer, is preparing to exit its operations in the US, UK, and Canada because of sanctions concerns, regulations, and costs, industry sources told Reuters.

A senior industry source told Reuters that CNOOC wanted to sell "marginal and hard to manage" assets in the three countries. They said that CNOOC's top management found it "uncomfortable" to manage the Western assets because of regulations and high operating costs.

CNOOC had entered the three countries through a $15 billion acquisition of Canadian oil and gas giant Nexen that closed in 2013.

The company had been listed on the New York Stock Exchange since 2001 but former President Donald Trump's administration added CNOOC to a list of countries it claimed were owned or controlled by the Chinese military in December 2020. Following an executive order by Trump, CNOOC was delisted from the NYSE in October 2021, the company said.

It was removed from the blacklist by President Joe Biden's administration in June 2021.

"Assets like Gulf of Mexico deepwater are technologically challenging and CNOOC really needed to work with partners to learn, but company executives were not even allowed to visit the US offices," the senior industry source told Reuters. "It had been a pain all along these years and the Trump administration's blacklisting of CNOOC made it worse."

The sources told Reuters that CNOOC wanted to exit the operations because of concerns in Beijing that the assets could face Western sanctions. US deputy secretary of state Wendy Sherman said last week that if China helped Russia "in any material fashion" amid sweeping sanctions from the West, China itself could also be sanctioned.

CNOOC did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment made outside of normal working hours.

The sources told Reuters that CNOOC had launched a review of its global portfolio as it prepares to list on the Shanghai stock exchange this month.

CNOOC is planning to buy assets in Latin America and Africa as it prepares to leave its Western operations, the sources said. In its 2021 annual report, the company said it was eyeing the Bohai and South China seas as well as parts of Guyana for production growth.

Reuters reported that CNOOC is China's biggest offshore oil and gas producer. It produced, on average, around 1.57 million barrels of oil equivalent per day in 2021, of which 62,000 were from sites in Canada and 80,000 were from sites elsewhere in North America, it said in its annual report. Reuters calculated that CNOOC's assets in the US, UK, and Canada collectively produce around 220,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day.

In the US, CNOOC owns onshore assets in the Eagle Ford and Niobrara shale basins and also has offshore stakes in the Stampede and Appomattox fields in the Gulf of Mexico. In the UK, it operates three sites in northeast Scotland, and has oil sands and shale gas assets in Canada.

The West has imposed huge sanctions on Russia after it invaded Ukraine in late February. This includes targeting its huge oil and gas industry. US President Joe Biden has pledged to ban Russian energy imports, Germany halted plans for the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, and Lithuania said it became the first EU country to completely cut off Russian gas imports.

Could Yellowstone wolves help combat chronic wasting disease? Here’s what one study says


Doug Smith/National Park Service

Brett French
Wed, April 13, 2022

With its diversity of predators, could Yellowstone National Park be a disease-free island in a surrounding sea of chronic wasting disease?

That’s speculation based on a recent study by Ellen Brandell who, with other scientists, built a model to analyze the role predators play in removing sick animals from the environment.

“The Yellowstone Ecosystem is an exciting area to study this because there is a rich predator community and CWD has just started to infect elk and deer,” Blandell wrote in a blog posted on the Animal Ecology in Focus website.

Dan MacNulty, from Utah State University’s Department of Wildland Resources and Ecology Center, has studied wolves in Yellowstone for years. He collaborated with Blandell on her study and said, “There is a growing body of scientific research, including our recent study, that predicts that Yellowstone National Park will become an island mostly free of CWD in a sea of CWD infection thanks to its diverse and abundant community of large carnivores.”

Predators could be slowing fatal disease

Doug Smith, lead wolf biologist in Yellowstone National Park, collaborated on the study as well. He said the modeling is missing one key piece of information: How effectively wolves and cougars will prey on CWD-infected elk and deer.

If the predators identify a sick animal early in its infection, the effect will be much greater, he said.

Another question is how many infected animals will predators kill? And will the kill rate of sick animals be higher than that for healthy ones?

Despite the weak points in some knowledge, Smith said the model shows that predators could help slow CWD’s spread by removing sick animals from the landscape.

“I would say this is one of the benefits of having an intact predator community,” he said.

By collecting brain stem material from elk and deer that predators have killed and analyzing it for CWD, Yellowstone researchers are attempting to find out infection and kill rates in the park. Smith and his colleagues also capture elk every winter and tests them for the disease.

Smith is hopeful that with time, evidence may be collected to support the CWD theory.

“The utility of models like this is a deeper understanding of complex ecological relationships, but models require simplifying certain processes as well and should be interpreted with some caution,” Brandell wrote.

Other collaborators on Brandell’s modeling included: Paul C. Cross, Will Rogers, Nathan L. Galloway, Daniel R. Stahler, John Treanor and Peter J. Hudson.
Wolf advocates have argued predators’ role

Scientists already know predators will often kill sick, old, young and weak prey that are easier to take down. So maybe mountain lions and wolves could play a role in removing elk, deer or moose that have chronic wasting disease, Brandell’s study hypothesizes.

A 2010 study in Colorado’s Front Range “showed mule deer killed by mountain lions were more likely to be infected with CWD than mule deer killed by hunters,” Colorado State University reported. A 2008 study, however, found that “such selective predation by mountain lions…did not limit CWD transmission in deer populations with high infection rates.”

The theory was that because lions ambush their prey, instead of chasing like wolves, cougars may be “less likely to detect sick animals compared to wolves.”

Reducing the number of animals, with or without CWD, is one tool state wildlife agencies employ to lessen the disease’s spread. This is based on the fact that CWD is more easily dispersed if animals are in close contact. It also recognizes that hunters can remove sick animals from the population, sometimes before they show symptoms of infection.

Seeing predators as another tool to keep disease prevalence low is an argument wolf advocates have long been making to the Montana Fish and Wildlife Commission. With that in mind, groups like Wolves of the Rockies have been seeking to lower wolf hunting and trapping quotas in the state, so far to no avail.
What do Yellowstone wolves eat?

In Yellowstone, wolves primarily dine on elk, accounting for around 96% of their diet in winter and 85% in summer, according to the National Park Service. Mountain lions rely on elk for about 55% of their diet, with about 45% coming from mule deer, the Yellowstone Cougar Project found.

Chronic wasting disease tends to infect adult male deer more often than females. Elk seem somewhat resistant to the disease, although Montana detected its first infected elk in 2019 and a Wyoming elk shot in Grand Teton National Park tested positive for CWD in 2020. An Idaho elk also tested positive for the illness in recent months.

Montana’s first detected case of CWD in wild deer occurred in 2017 in south-central Montana’s Carbon County. In Wyoming the disease is working its way north and west since it was first identified in 1985.

The disease, which causes damage to the infected animal’s brain, is always fatal. The abnormal proteins that cause CWD, called prions, are spread from an infected animal’s bodily fluids or feces. Once in the environment, the prions can survive for years, making it difficult to eradicate.

So far, 27 states and two Canadian provinces have detected CWD infected animals. The sickness has also been found in South Korea and Norway.

Brandell’s study comes out in the wake of the October publication of a U.S. Geological Survey study documenting the benefit of scavengers — from ravens and crows to coyotes and golden eagles — as landscape sanitizers. The study placed disease-free cattle fetuses in different types of habitat. Cameras were set up to film what animals arrived to feed and how long it was before the fetuses were eaten.

The goal was to mimic when elk, which can carry brucellosis, abort their fetus. The birthing material is believed to be one of the main ways brucellosis is spread.

World’s Largest Oil Trader To Completely Phase Out Russian Crude


Editor OilPrice.com
Wed, April 13, 2022

Commodity major Vitol plans to wind down its activities involving Russian crude oil by the end of the year, Bloomberg has reported, citing a spokesman for the company.

Trade with Russian oil "will diminish significantly in the second quarter as current term contractual obligations decline," the spokesman said, adding, "we anticipate this will be completed by end of 2022".

The report notes the announcement was made following an urge from the Ukrainian government addressed to the four major commodity traders to stop dealing in Russian oil, the revenues from which, the Ukrainian government says, are used to finance the war in Ukraine.

Vitol had previously signaled that it was planning to cease trade in Russian oil at some point. Yet it also needs to decide what to do with its stake in the giant Vostok oil project led by Rosneft.

Vitol, together with Mercantile & Maritime, bought a 5-percent in the Siberian megaproject before the pandemic. With reserves estimated at 2.6 billion tons of crude, equal to some 19 billion barrels, the group of fields that the Vostok Project spans could produce up to 100 million tons of crude annually once it reaches full capacity. Rosneft itself estimates the fields' reserves at up to 44 billion barrels.

Now, with all the public pressure on businesses to exit Russia—and many already doing it—pressure may increase on private companies such as the commodity trading major, too.

Last month, unnamed sources told Reuters that Vitol has long-term contracts with Rosneft until at least October this year. Long-term contracts with private commodity traders are not normally made public.

Per that report, oil traders expected both Vitol and fellow commodity major Trafigura to continue trading Russian crude this month and next, although perhaps in lower volumes "given the potential difficulties in selling the cargoes to EU buyers."

The European Union has been discussing a potential oil embargo on Russia for weeks now, but the only thing that seems to have been established is that if one is ever agreed, it would be a gradual wind-down of imports rather than a sudden suspension.

Exxon Bets Another $10 Billion On Guyana’s Oil Boom

Editor OilPrice.com
Tue, April 12, 2022

The deeply impoverished South American microstate of Guyana, which was rocked by the COVID-19 pandemic, finds itself at the epicenter of the continent's latest mega-oil boom.

 Since 2015, ExxonMobil, which has a 45% stake and is the operator, along with its partners Hess and CNOOC which own 30% and 25% respectively, has made a swathe of high-quality oil discoveries in Guyana’s offshore 6.6-million-acre Stabroek Block. Exxon, which is the operator of the Stabroek Block, has made over 20 discoveries, 6 of those in 2021 alone, which the global energy supermajor estimates to hold at least 10 billion barrels of recoverable oil resources. The most recent crude oil discoveries, announced in January 2022, were at the Fangtooth-1 and Lau Lau-1 exploration wells. Those finds will boost the Stabroek Block’s oil potential adding to the 10 billion barrels of recoverable oil resources already estimated by Exxon.

The integrated energy supermajor is investing heavily in the Stabroek Block, which will be a game-changer for the company. Exxon’s first operational field in the Stabroek Block Liza Phase-1 achieved a nameplate capacity of 120,000 barrels per day during December 2020. The next notable development for the Exxon-led consortium and a deeply impoverished Guyana is that the Liza Phase-2 development pumped first oil in February 2022. That operation is expected to reach a nameplate capacity of 220,000 barrels daily before the end of 20220, lifting the Stabroek Block’s output to around 340,000 barrels per day. In September 2020 Exxon gave the green light for the Payara oilfield project. This $9 billion development is the supermajor’s third project in the Stabroek Block, and it is anticipated that Payara will start production during 2024, with the asset expected to reach a capacity of 220,000 barrels per day before the end of that year.

Earlier this month, Exxon made the final investment decision on the Yellow Tail offshore development choosing to proceed and invest $10 billion in the project. This was announced on the back of Guyana’s national government, in Georgetown, approving the project and signing a petroleum production license for Yellow Tail with the Exxon-led consortium. This will be the integrated energy supermajor’s largest project to be developed to date in offshore Guyana. It is anticipated that Yellow Tail will commence production in 2025 reaching a nameplate production capacity of 250,000 barrels per day before the end of that year. That will lift overall petroleum output from the Stabroek Block to at least 810,000 barrels per day. Exxon envisages that the Stabroek Block will be pumping over 1 million barrels per day by 2026 when the Uaru project, which has yet to be approved, comes online.

Exxon Guyana Oil Production


Source: Exxon 2022 Investor Day Presentation.


As a result of Exxon’s investment, Guyana will become a major player in global energy markets and a top 20 producer with the former British colony pumping an estimated 1.2 million barrels daily by 2026, two years earlier than originally predicted.

It isn’t only the Exxon-led consortium in the Stabroek Block which is enjoying drilling success in offshore Guyana. In late-January 2022 Canadian driller CGX Energy and its partner, the company’s majority shareholder, Frontera Energy discovered oil with the Kawa-1 exploration well in the 3-million-acre Corentyne Block in offshore Guyana. The block, where CGX is the operator and its parent company Frontera owns a 33.33% working interest, is contiguous to the prolific Stabroek Block lying to its south-southwest. The Kawa-1 well is in the northern tip of the Corentyne Block, close to the discoveries made by Exxon in the Stabroek Block.

Source: Frontera Energy Corporate Presentation March 2022.

CGX and Frontera intend to invest $130 million in exploring the Corentyne Block. That includes spudding the Wei-1 exploration well in the northwestern part of Corentyne during the second half of 2022. According to CGX, the geology of the Kawa-1 well is similar to discoveries made in the Stabroek Block as well as the 5 significant finds made by TotalEnergies and Apache in neighboring Block 58 offshore Suriname. It is believed that the northern segment of the Corentyne Block lies on the same petroleum fairway that runs through the Stabroek Block into Suriname’s Block 58.

Related: Tight Oil Markets Are Sending Fuel Margins Through The Roof

These events point to offshore Guyana’s considerable hydrocarbon potential, supporting industry claims that the United States Geological Survey grossly miscalculated the undiscovered oil potential of the Guyana Suriname Basin. The USGS, which committed to revisiting its two-decade-old appraisal during 2020, only for that to be prevented by the COVID-19 pandemic, estimated 2 decades ago that the Guyana Suriname basin had to mean undiscovered oil resources of 15 billion barrels. To date, Exxon has disclosed that it estimates to have found at least 10 billion barrels of crude oil in the Stabroek Block. This number can increase because of the latest discoveries in the block and ongoing development activities. Then there are TotalEnergies and Apache’s crude oil discoveries in Block 58 offshore Suriname where the flow-tested Sapakara South appraisal well has tapped a reservoir estimated to hold oil resources of over 400 million barrels. In 2020 U.S. investment bank Morgan Stanley estimated that Block 58 could possess oil resources of up to 6.5 billion barrels.

The low costs associated with operating in Guyana, reflected by projected industry-low breakeven prices of $25 to $35 per barrel, and a favorable regulatory environment make it an extremely attractive jurisdiction for foreign energy companies. That appeal is enhanced by the crude oil discovered being relatively light and low in sulfur, making it particularly attractive in a global energy market where demand for low-carbon intensity and reduced emission fuels is rapidly growing. For those reasons investment from foreign energy companies and hence exploration as well as development activities in offshore Guyana are accelerating.

Aside from Frontera allocating up to $130 million to be invested in exploration activity in the Corentyne Block, Spanish energy major, Repsol, plans to ramp up activity in the nearby Kanuku Block in offshore Guyana. The company has contracted Noble to spud the Beebei-Potaro well in the block during May 2022. The Kanuku Block, where Repsol is the operator and holds a 37.5% interest with partners Tullow and TotalEnergies owning 37.5% and 25% respectively, is located south of, and contiguous to, the prolific Stabroek Block. That places it close to Exxon’s Stabroek discoveries, notably the Hammerhead, Pluma, Turbot, and Longtail wells, indicating that the northern part of the Kanuku Block potentially contains the petroleum fairway that runs through the Stabroek and northern part of the Corentyne Block into offshore Suriname Block 58.

Recent oil discoveries combined with rising interest as well as investment from foreign energy investment coupled with the speed with which Exxon is developing the Stabroek Block could see Guyana pumping well over 1 million barrels per day earlier than expected. Some industry analysts speculate that volume could be reached by 2025 which is supported by statements from the CEO of Hess, Exxon’s 30% partner in the Stabroek Block, John Hess. These latest developments in offshore Guyana couldn’t come at a more crucial time with the U.S. looking to bolster crude oil supplies in the wake of Washington banning Russian energy imports. If Guyana can rapidly grow low-carbon intensity offshore oil production as predicted, the deeply impoverished South American microstate will become an important supplier of crude oil, especially for the U.S. This will also deliver a significant economic windfall for Guyana, which has already seen its gross domestic product expanded by a stunning 20.4% during 2021 when crude oil production was only averaging 120,000 to 130,000 barrels per day.

Matthew Smith for Oilprice.com

I WAS INVOLVED WITH A GUYANESE LEFT WING STUDY GROUP IN EDMONTON WHICH ALSO STUDIED THE COLONIAL AND ANTI IMPERIALIST STRUGGLES IN THE CARIBBEAN THIS WAS DURING THE FALL OF GRENADA 

Oil Traders Selling Pricey Russian Crude Chafe Indian Refiners

Serene Cheong and Debjit Chakraborty
Tue, April 12, 2022, 

(Bloomberg) -- Indian refiners that are among the few remaining eager buyers of Russian oil are baffled as to why they’re paying nearly full cost for cargoes that are being offered at record discounts in Europe.

Processors in the South Asian nation recently bought millions of barrels of Urals crude via open tenders, with some supplies going at a premium of $1 a barrel to London’s Dated Brent benchmark on a delivered basis, said traders. That compares with discounts of more than $30 a barrel for the same grade in Europe.

Officials at the Indian refineries said they don’t understand why they’re not receiving offers of discounts anywhere near what they’re seeing in Europe when they’ve been vocally supportive of continuing to import Russian crude. The lack of price cuts is especially galling for them as the invasion sent prices to more than $100 a barrel, adding inflationary concerns to the poorest major oil importer.

India is under pressure from allies including the U.S. to stop importing Russian energy to deprive Vladimir Putin of income to keep the economy afloat and fund the invasion of Ukraine. Russia and India have been long-time trade partners in everything from energy to food to weapons.

India’s state refiners usually procure spot crude via open tenders, in which prospective sellers submit their interest along with details on the oil type, volume, price and other offer terms.

The process is aimed at transparency and accountability, but it can be gamed by sellers who have a good sense of what price they need to beat, said refinery officials. Offers for Urals have been just slightly cheaper than other medium-sour grades typically sold to India such as Oman and Upper Zakum, instead of the deep discounts seen offered in Europe, they said.

The seller of many of the spot cargoes was Vitol Group, said the officials, who can’t be named because of company policy. Vitol declined to comment on specific trading activities.

Traders said that anyone who’s able to load Urals at prices near the discounted European offers would be making a profit between $10 and $20 a barrel for sales into India, after taking into account freight, insurance and other costs. Those are staggering profits in an industry where competition usually shaves margins to a few cents a barrel.

In late March, Suezmax tankers with a capacity of 1 million barrels were chartered at the equivalent of near $5 a barrel to transport crude from the Black Sea to India. The backwardated market structure meant the loss of another $4 a barrel during the month-long journey, among other costs. That still adds up to profits of $10 million to $20 million for the shipment, traders estimated.

Little Competition

Just a handful of companies are lifting Urals and selling it in Asia, said Indian refinery officials. This means there’s not a lot of competition, which is needed to drive down offers, they said.

More sellers are entering the market as traders get clarity on the various restrictions and sanctions on Russia and as workarounds emerge. This is beginning to increase the discounts offered to Indian buyers.

Tanker fixtures and port agent reports show that companies such as Vitol, Trafigura Group, Petraco Oil, Glencore PLC, Litasco SA and Gunvor Group continue to load crude from Russian ports, likely via pre-existing contracts entered before Ukraine’s invasion. The cargoes may sail directly to buyers, or undergo what’s known as ship-to-ship transfers onto larger vessels to save on freight costs or for other strategic reasons.

Indian refiners have historically been passive buyers, taking the best price offered to them via tenders, as opposed to setting up separate trading arms. That leaves them without trading units that can scour the global market for the most affordable physical oil grades, and even buy, sell and swap cargoes for profits, like Chinese state-owned refiners do.

PSYCH OUT

Russian troops who seized Chernobyl will soon suffer the effects of radiation exposure after digging trenches in the nuclear zone, Ukraine official says


Sophia Ankel
Wed, April 13, 2022,

The fourth reactor of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant is seen behind the abandoned town of Pripyat, Ukraine.Gleb Garanich/File Photo via Reuters

Russian soldiers gave up control of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant earlier this month.

Troops stationed there will "feel the consequences" of radiation poisoning soon, a Ukrainian official said.

Yevhen Kramarenko said Russians dug trenches and drove into the most contaminated areas of the site.

Russian troops who seized Chernobyl will soon suffer the effects of radiation exposure after digging trenches in the nuclear zone, the head of the State Agency of Ukraine on Exclusion Zone Management said Wednesday.

Yevhen Kramarenko told reporters that Russian troops, who occupied the Chernobyl exclusion zone for five weeks, had dug trenches and shelters for their vehicles in an area known as Red Forest.

The Red Forest is a 1.5-square-mile pine forest that died as a result of radiation exposure shortly after the Chernobyl nuclear accident in 1986. It remains the most contaminated part of the exclusion zone, according to Reuters.

"We believe very soon [the Russians] will feel the consequences of radiation that they have received. Some of them will feel it in months, some of them in years," Kramarenko said at a press conference Wednesday. "But anyway, all of the servicemen who were there will feel it at some point,"

He also confirmed earlier reports of Russian soldiers driving around the Red Forest without any protective gear and inhaling clouds of radioactive dust.

Radiation poisoning can cause different effects depending on the strength and length of exposure, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

In more extreme cases, radiation poisoning can lead to internal bleeding and skin burns, as well as thyroid cancer and cardiovascular disease, per the CDC.

Russian troops left the exclusion zone at the beginning of the month after some of their soldiers "panicked" at the first sign of radiation illness, Ukraine's state power company, Energoatom, said, according to The Guardian.

It is unclear exactly what their supposed symptoms were, although they "showed up very quickly," Energoatom added.

The Russian troops have since gone to Belarus and Russia, Kramarenko said, adding that Ukrainian plant officials are now working on developing additional safety measures to "avoid in the future any events similar to what we had to happen."

The power plant was fully decommissioned after the 1986 nuclear accident and the remaining work at the site is mostly directed toward decontamination.

Kramarenko said it is unclear how high radiation levels are around the site at the moment because there is currently no electricity.

"Until then we won't understand the damage done," he said.

SEE LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for CHERNOBYL 

Texas Follows Through With Gross Stunt of Dumping Migrants in D.C.

Zachary Petrizzo, Rachel Olding
Wed, April 13, 2022

Twitter/John Roberts

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott followed through on his cruel promise to dump asylum seekers and migrants in the capital with the first busload conveniently arriving outside Fox News’ office on Wednesday morning.

Abbott vowed last week to bus them to the Capitol steps in response to the Biden administration’s decision to end Title 42, a pandemic-era emergency order implemented by Donald Trump that allowed migrants to be sent back to Mexico at the border, even if they were seeking asylum.

“To help local officials whose communities are being overwhelmed by hordes of illegal immigrants who are being dropped off by the Biden administration, Texas is providing charter buses to send these illegal immigrants who have been dropped off by the Biden administration to Washington D.C.,” he said.

“We are sending them to the United States Capitol where the Biden administration will be able to more immediately address the needs of the people that they are allowing to come across our border.”

Around 30 people got off the bus when it pulled up at about 9 a.m. in front of the Hall of the States building, which houses Fox News, MSNBC and C-SPAN, a few blocks away from the Capitol. Fox News reported that officials cut off their wristbands and told them they were free to go.

Zachary Petrizzo for The Daily Beast

Eleven migrants who spoke to The Daily Beast at Union Station said they wouldn’t be staying in the D.C. area. Instead, the group was planning to split up as Catholic Charities help them travel to New York City and Miami.

Father John Enzler of Catholic Charities told The Daily Beast that another two buses are expected to arrive from Texas—one later Wednesday and one on Thursday morning.

“Its not well organized,” he said. Enzler added that his organization’s facilities—totaling 34 sites in D.C.—are mostly full but will look to “transition” migrants.

Zachary Petrizzo for The Daily Beast

“Everybody [will] go somewhere else,” Ivan Calderon, an immigrant from Colombia, told The Daily Beast in comments translated by a Univision reporter.

Those that spoke with The Daily Beast said they had come from Colombia, Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Cuba.

Multiple advocacy groups had decried Abbott’s stunt as callous, pointless and possibly illegal as states can’t enforce federal immigration law.

“There is no one to help them,” a volunteer with the Catholic charity lamented to The Daily Beast, adding that the bus was sent by the Texas governor just to dump the migrants off at the Hall of the States building with no assistance.

Zachary Petrizzo for The Daily Beast

Greg Abbott’s D.C. Migrant Bus Is a Dehumanizing Political Stunt


Max Burns
Wed, April 13, 2022

Montinique Monroe/Getty

After years of Republican doomsaying, a bus of undocumented immigrants finally arrived in Washington, D.C. But these migrants didn’t end up in the nation’s capital by choice—they were shipped to the Beltway by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott in a craven publicity stunt that dehumanizes migrants and further humiliates the state of Texas.

Abbott’s bus stunt comes after the governor directed the Texas Division of Emergency Management to scoop up any migrants released from federal custody and ship them to other states. And so they readied the mission, securing 900 buses capable of transporting up to 40 migrants at a time until Texas has made its political dysfunction someone else’s problem. Abbott reportedly said a second bus is en route to D.C. right now. And if buses don’t get the job done fast enough, Abbott has plans to charter private flights to Washington on the taxpayer dime.

While the governor’s gambit may delight the talking heads at Fox News—one of Abbott’s migrant buses dropped three dozen immigrants off just a few feet away from the network’s Washington headquarters—it also marks a clear acceleration in Texas’ rightward shift toward dehumanizing women, minorities, and migrant communities.

Abbott launched his publicity stunt/human rights violation after the Biden administration lifted a pandemic-related immigration policy that allowed local authorities to turn away migrants on public health grounds. Infuriated that Texas would actually be required to treat asylum-seeking migrants as actual people, Abbott and his far-right cronies opted instead to make these migrants’ shattered lives even more painful with an unexpected bus trip across the country.

“If I were to go to Washington, D.C., and take you and put you on a bus and take you down to the Rio Grande Valley, that would be kidnapping,” Abbott told Fox News last week in a rare moment of sanity. But that acknowledgement hasn’t stopped Abbott from upending the lives of migrants already fleeing violence and persecution, all for a few minutes of television time.

And despite Abbott’s repeated claims his migrant caravans are completely “voluntary,” the stories of migrants dropped off in Washington on Wednesday morning paint a darker picture. Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior policy counsel at the American Immigration Council, noted in a Twitter thread that quite a few of Abbott’s caravan members are already buying bus and plane tickets to their actual destinations, a “sign that Abbott’s ‘voluntary’ bus trips were probably not.”

For a governor who never misses an opportunity to crow about strengthening “law and order” in the Lone Star State, Abbott’s publicity stunt is not only a shockingly callous act, it’s also a potential crime, as White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki argued last week.

“I think it’s pretty clear that this is a publicity stunt,” Psaki told reporters during a White House press briefing. “I know that the governor of Texas, or any state, does not have the legal authority to compel anyone to get on a bus.” The question remains, though: If Abbott lacks the authority, and it is increasingly clear many of the D.C. caravan’s passengers had no desire to arrive in Washington, what will the federal government do about it?

The answer? Probably not much. Unlike his strong stances on issues like voting rights and infrastructure improvements, immigration is one area where the Biden administration lacks broad public support. And Biden’s move to revoke those pandemic-era border policies is already unpopular: 56 percent of registered voters oppose it, including over half of independents.

Biden was right to end the discriminatory Trump-era policies that led to COVID outbreaks on the border and dehumanized migrants in need of American protection. But his administration is unlikely to take the fight to Abbott if that means being anchored to an immigration debate during the heat of the midterm election cycle. And so, as usual, migrants will be left on their own.

At some point, though, polling must stop preventing the President of the United States from fully protecting the human rights and human dignity of migrants on our southern border. Americans aren’t opposed to offering asylum to those in need—most Americans support Biden’s decision to offer asylum to roughly 100,000 Ukrainian refugees fleeing Russian persecution. That American voters don’t feel the same compassion for Hispanic refugees fleeing violence in nations like Guatemala, Venezuela, and El Salvador shows how deep and unconscious right-wing otherization of migrants based on skin color has become.

Unwilling to craft state policies that actually address the surge in asylum-seeking on the southern border and addicted to the easy media coverage of publicity stunts, Abbott and Texas Republicans are unlikely to stop their abuses.

But there are signs that Abbott’s cruelty is too much even for the few Texas GOP officials still interested in actually repairing our broken immigration system. “It’s a gimmick,” Texas GOP Rep. Matt Schaefer tweeted dismissively.

Unfortunately for the migrants whose lives have once again been upended by a cruel and abusive state regime, Texas’ latest “gimmick” only succeeds in perpetuating the pain these migrants fled to the United States to escape.

Backed-up pipes, stinky yards: Climate change is wrecking septic tanks


This trench was dug to help alleviate rainwater issues in the yard of Roosevelt Jones, whose septic system has increasingly failed at his Suffolk, Va., home. 

(Kristen Zeis for The Washington Post)

Jim Morrison
Tue, April 12, 2022

Lewis Lawrence likes to refer to the coastal middle peninsula of Virginia as suffering from a "soggy socks" problem. Flooding is so persistent that people often can't walk around without getting their feet wet.

Over two decades, Lawrence, the executive director of the Middle Peninsula Planning District, has watched the effects of that problem grow, as rising waters and intensifying rains that flood the backyard render underground septic systems ineffective. When that happens smelly, unhealthy wastewater backs up into homes.

Local companies, he said, call the Middle Peninsula the "septic repair capital of the East Coast." "That's all you need to know," he added. "And it's only going to get worse."

As climate change intensifies, septic failures are emerging as a vexing issue for local governments. For decades, flushing a toilet and making wastewater disappear was a convenience that didn't warrant a second thought. No longer. From Miami to Minnesota, septic systems are failing, posing threats to clean water, ecosystems and public health.

About 20% of U.S. households rely on septic, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Many systems are clustered in coastal areas that are experiencing relative sea-level rise, including around Boston and New York. Nearly half of New England homes depend on them. Florida hosts 2.6 million systems. Of the 120,000 in Miami-Dade County, more than half of them fail to work properly at some point during the year, helping to fuel deadly algae blooms in Biscayne Bay, home to the nation's only underwater national park. The cost to convert those systems into a central sewer plant would be more than $4 billion.

The issue is complex, merging common climate themes. Solutions are expensive, beyond the ability of localities to fund them. Permitting standards that were created when rainfall and sea-level rise were relatively constant have become inadequate. Low-income and disadvantaged people who settled in areas with poor soils likely to compromise systems are disproportionately affected. Maintenance requirements are piecemeal nationwide. And while it's clear that septic failures are increasing, the full scope of the problem remains elusive because data, particularly for the most vulnerable aging systems, are difficult to compile.

"The challenges are going to be immense," said Scott Pippin, a lawyer and researcher at the University of Georgia's Institute for Resilient Infrastructure Systems who has studied the problem along the state's coast. "Conditions are changing. They're becoming more challenging for the functionality of the systems. In terms of large-scale, complex analysis of the problem, we don't really have a good picture of that now. But going forward, you can expect that it's going to become more significant."

Pippin's work in Georgia is one of several studies as states from New Hampshire to Alabama confront the effects of septic system failures. Michigan's Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy estimates that 24% of the state's 1.37 million septic systems are failing and contaminating groundwater. A project funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is examining the potential longer-term impacts of climate change on septic systems in the Carolinas. Virginia has created a Wastewater Infrastructure Policy Working Group to address the issue.

An EPA spokesman said the agency didn't have a report on the septic problem but noted that sea level rise, changing water tables, precipitation changes and increased temperature can cause systems to fail. The infrastructure bill passed last year provides $150 million to replace or repair systems nationwide.

For a century, conventional septic systems have been an inexpensive solution for wastewater. They work by burying a tank that collects wastewater from sinks, toilets, showers and washing machines, holding the solids while the liquid percolates through a few feet of filtering soil, where microbes and other biological processes remove harmful bacteria.

When that doesn't happen, bacteria and parasites from human waste flow into drinking water supplies or recreational waters, creating a public health problem. Nitrogen and phosphorous, also a byproduct of the waste, pollute waters, creating oxygen-depleted zones in rivers and along the coast, closing shellfish harvests and killing fish.

For decades, septic systems have been designed with the assumption that groundwater levels would remain static. That's no longer true. "Systems that were permitted 40, 50 years ago and met the criteria at that time now wouldn't," said Charles Humphrey, an East Carolina University researcher who studies groundwater dynamics. In North Carolina's Dare County, which includes Outer Banks destinations such as Nags Head and Rodanthe, groundwater levels are a foot higher than in the 1980s.

That means there's not enough separation between the septic tank and groundwater to filter pollutants. The threat isn't only along the coasts. More intense storms dumping inches of rain in a few hours soak the ground inland, compromising systems for weeks. Too little precipitation is a problem as well. The lack of early, insulating snow in the Midwest, attributed to climate change, drives down the frost line, freezing drain fields and causing failures.

Georgia spent years creating a comprehensive database of septic systems, the only state to complete one. "Everybody wants to skip to a solution - how do we build a new infrastructure for the future? But I think the story is really the value of investing in the data and in that preliminary research to make smart investments and wise decisions," Pippin said.

While Virginia's Middle Peninsula has a soggy socks problem, Miami-Dade County has a porous limestone bedrock problem. The soil under its 2.7 million South Florida residents allows septic tank effluent to reach groundwater, a problem intensified by climate change.

About half of the area's 120,000 septic tanks were compromised during storms or wet years, according to a study. Roughly 9,000 are vulnerable to compromise or failure under current conditions. That number is expected to rise to 13,500 by 2040. The solution is to connect properties to a central sewer system, beginning with the most-threatened areas. So far, the county is using $100 million from the American Rescue Plan to begin converting homes to sewer and another $126 million to convert 1,000 commercial septic tanks. The plan is to expand sewer to the 9,000 most vulnerable properties within five to 10 years, if funding can be secured.

Connecting will cost between $5,000 and $20,000. Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said the county is looking for funds to help low- and moderate-income property owners.

"What's at stake?" she asked. "I'm sitting on my 29th-floor office looking out the window at the beautiful bay. This is our lifeblood. Without a clean bay, we don't have tourism. We don't have health. We don't have a marine industry. It is the lifeline, the economic driver."

The cost Levine Cava outlined can be a barrier to low-income communities. In the Chuckatuck borough of Suffolk, a sprawling city in Southeast Virginia, the mostly Black, elderly residents of the Oakland neighborhood have suffered repeated septic failures in recent years. They blame the combination of new development increasing storm-water runoff and a failure by the city to maintain ditches carrying away the water.

When Roosevelt Jones, 81, moved into the neighborhood in 1961, he used an outhouse. Soon after, he installed septic. But in recent years, his system and others in the neighborhood have increasingly failed, backing up in sinks and toilets. During the 2020 winter, Jones, who has lived in his 1,300-square-foot cottage since 1961, had to pump his tank out four times at $350 each. "Normal is every five years," he said. "When we get a bad rain, it's going to flood my septic tank."

When his toilet fills with sewage, Jones, who retired from a quality control position for a warehouse but still works custodial jobs, slips into a church he cleans up the road.

After the city ran a pipeline through their neighborhood to provide sewer service to a development of more than 100 homes uphill with prices starting at $300,000, residents were given the option to tie into the system. But it came at a cost - roughly $7,000 or more per house. Many in the village are on a fixed income. The price was too high. Only 33 of 75 property owners voted, with 18 of them favoring a sewer connection. "A lot of people got them [the petitions] and ended up throwing them away," Jones said.

On Virginia's low-lying Middle Peninsula, surrounded on three sides by the Chesapeake Bay, the Rappahannock River and the York River, Lawrence has had a preview of the effects of climate change and the challenges to septic systems. Failing to address the problem, he said, could eliminate decades of environmental progress.

"You're sitting on all of the work for the last 30 years to clean up the Chesapeake Bay," he said. One or two good hurricanes will destroy that because every residential home will become a brownfield because their septic tank is just sitting there full of bad stuff."

Shortly after Lawrence started at the planning district in 1997, the General Assembly approved alternative septic systems in addition to the conventional gravity-fed systems. They're engineered to have a secondary treatment that purifies the wastewater before discharging it into the soil.

Now, even those alternative systems are failing. Why? They don't handle flooding well and flooding happens often on the Middle Peninsula.

Wastewater regulations for septic systems haven't been overhauled in decades in states. Virginia updated requirements 20 years ago, said Lance Gregory, director of the Department of Health's Water and Wastewater Services division. A bill passed last year directs the State Board of Health to create regulations making Virginia the first state to include the impacts of climate change on septic. The goal, Gregory said, is to not issue a permit for a system that 10 or 15 years from now will be an environmental and public health problem - and a costly repair for an owner.

Lawrence is looking for solutions, partnering with Rise, a Norfolk-based technology innovations accelerator, in a challenge to design septic systems that can be elevated much like HVAC systems. "Why are we building our communities the same way we built them 100 years ago when we know Mother Nature isn't operating the same way she did 100 years ago? It makes no sense," he said. "We've got to be reimagining and designing our communities differently. If you can elevate a heat pump, why can't you elevate a $40,000 septic system?"

The problem percolating underground so concerned William "Skip" Stiles of the nonprofit Virginia advocacy group Wetlands Watch that he created an ad hoc group of policymakers and researchers from Georgia to Maine to share knowledge and discuss solutions.

He hopes the group's "noodling" on the issues, as he calls it, will inform new regulations. In the end, the answer to the septic problem may not be to improve the regulations and the technology, but to leave threatened areas.

"The septic system is the canary in the coal mine," Stiles said. "If you've got a house and the septic is starting to flood, it won't be long before the house goes. We ought to be using septic failures as an early warning system for those areas we're going to have to take people out of."

Unprecedented Helium Shortage Could Send Prices Sky-High

Editor OilPrice.com
Tue, April 12, 2022, 

Worth 100x more than natural gas, the shale boom has taken on a new angle for exploration and production, with the critical level of helium supplies igniting a land rush that could determine the future of innovation itself.

The bulk of the world’s helium reserves are found in natural gas fields, which means that these fields now have double the potential–and double the interest from a national security perspective.

Non-renewable and irreplaceable, helium is a critical element in hard drives, supercomputing, scientific research, space travel, and even medical MRIs.

Supply is now at a critical level, and the Russian war on Ukraine is compounding the supply crunch, stripping us of more global helium resources as the natural gas it is extracted with is hurriedly shipped off to Europe to stave off a crisis without stripping and liquifying the helium.

For North America, which until recently enjoyed a stable supply of helium through the Federal Helium Reserve in Amarillo, Texas, there is an opportunity for anyone who can bring helium back home.

In our view, the advantage here goes to Total Helium (TSX.V:TOH; OTC: TTLHF) the owner of a large helium play in the Kansas-Oklahoma panhandle that has already started producing and enjoys a lucrative offtake agreement with one of the biggest members of the helium oligopoly”–the $160-billion behemoth, Linde Plc (NYSE:LIN).

Total Helium’s wildcatter team jumped on the helium prospects in the largest U.S. gas field before others saw the potential supply squeeze looming.

Now, it’s not only started producing, but it’s also ready to sell, and it’s expanding its helium holdings, fast, with an eye to grabbing as much market share as it can against the backdrop of a major helium shortage that has seen prices upwards of $500 Mcf–again, more than 100x the price of natural gas.

First to market may be the biggest beneficiary of a helium boom. Right now, our pick is Total Helium.

Here are 5 reasons to keep a close eye on Total Helium right now:

#1 Hugoton: Why This Massive Gas Field Is Back on Everyone’s Radar

So far, Total Helium (TSX.V:TOH; OTC: TTLHF) has amassed approximately 115,000 acres of leases on hand at Hugoton, the largest gas field in the United States. Half of that acreage is in the form of farmout agreements with Scout Energy, one of the largest producers in the basin.


This land has proven helium concentrations …


And Total Helium is targeting 70 billion cubic feet of helium here, along with 8.5 trillion cubic feet of produced gas.

#2 The Wildcatters Surprising Everyone from Africa to North America

Total Helium brought new technology into Hugoton while everyone else appeared to be distracted by the non-conventional opportunities; in other words, the shale boom.

After getting at the easy natural gas in Hugoton historically, not to mention some 300 BCF of helium, the shale boom drew attention away from this massive field. Even though conventional, its huge remaining resources were too expensive to extract due to the high water content. That water has to go somewhere–and it has to do so economically.

Total Helium, backed by Craig Steinke of Reconnaissance Energy Africa (Recon Africa), was up for the challenge. This wildcatter has a reputation for going where no one else is paying attention and drumming up big discoveries and even bigger opportunities. It was small-cap Recon Africa, after all, that went on a super-sized expedition to Namibia and came back with the discovery of a working petroleum system in the giant Kavango Basin. That may end up being the last big onshore oil discovery in the world, and now, with Total Helium, Steinke is once again backing a tiny company that’s aiming big.

Putting the right technology in the right place and right before a supply squeeze–that’s Steinke’s modus operandi.

The right technology is always a matter of keeping costs down. Total Helium’s answer to Hugoton’s water problem is a de-watering tech that works best on huge zones. For every ten producing wells, the company intends to drill only a single salt-water disposal well. Those are some economics that investors can handle when they consider the Linde downstream partnership deal, the soaring price of helium, and the additional upside potential here.

#3 Already Producing and Ready to Hit the Market

We think this could be one of the fastest production plays investors have seen in a long time.

The estimate is that Total Helium (TSX.V:TOH; OTC: TTLHF) could produce over 27,000 Mcf from each well.

After drilling and completing its first two wells by January this year, Total Helium has already started producing. On March 15th it geared up to hit the market with its first helium and one of its upside offerings–methane.

This helium is in the pipeline and will likely hit Linde’s processing plant any day now, pending final processing agreements.

The agreement with Linde is a huge vote of confidence for investors. Linde has made pre-payment for Total Helium’s future helium production and advanced $950,000 prior to the first drill, and another $950,000 upon its completion.

And it was all done at costs that we think make Total Helium’s margins quite attractive. Drilling completion costs come in at about $600,000, and the company’s net from 300 Mcf could result in a payout in as little as 18 months. A payout over this short of a time period is unheard of in the shale industry.


*RPS Confident Person’s Report P50 Case

With Total Helium’s de-watering process, the company can take advantage of low drilling and completion costs because Hugoton is a shallow gas play. Costs can also be kept down because Total Helium doesn’t have to build its own processing facilities or transport infrastructure. It’s all there, and the agreement with giant Linde may be the perfect critical infrastructure setup.

#4 Plans to Lock Up Loads of Helium Land

So what comes next?

Since Hugoton is considered as one of the most important sources of helium in North America, Total Helium is looking to lock up as much land as possible in a planned expansion of up to 1.65-million-acres.

That could give this tiny company up to 19X its current helium land position.

This quarter, they’re planning to expand their developmental drilling and completion program, add more to the leasing campaign, and work out subsurface storage rights with giant Linde.

This isn’t just about producing helium and getting it to market …

There’s an innovative storage opportunity here, as well, and it offers potential upside that could add multiple layers to this play.

They plan to turn Hugoton into the next major American reserve.
Total Helium (TSX.V:TOH; OTC: TTLHF) is collaborating with a multinational industrial gas company to establish underground Helium storage rivaling the successor of the U.S. Federal Helium Reserve. Total Helium will operate the facility with 50-50% ownership.
Helium storage is critical because this lightest of elements in the universe is non-renewable and once it is released into the air, it is lost in the atmosphere, forever.

And it doesn’t plan to just store helium, either …

It intends to store hydrogen, another of the universe’s lightest elements. The hydrogen market is set to hit $300 billion by 2027, and storage here, too, will be critical in maintaining supply.

#5 Qatar, Algeria, Australia … and Kansas

For a tiny company like Total Helium to lock up a deal with a member of the helium oligopoly is the kind of offtake deal that usually takes years for junior companies to achieve.

Linde isn’t just a helium supplier. It’s much more than that. It enjoys a 40% global market share for helium, and it has operations on three continents, in Qatar, Algeria, Australia, and the United States. Its helium plant in Kansas is one of the biggest in the world.

Beyond what is to come for Total Helium in the form of what could be the most advantageous downstream agreement a junior helium company may ever seek, it’s already locked in for over $2.2 million as a result, in both current and upcoming cash flow.

It also looks to have done wonders for Total Helium’s capex: This junior has the advantage of not having to spend tens of millions of dollars building up infrastructure such as pipelines and processing plants.

What Total Helium has done so far is forward-thinking about the helium demand and supply equation.

This team could have a competitive advantage and is ahead of the competition because it didn’t wait for the helium supply squeeze to get critical after the Federal Helium Reserve announced it was winding down and auctioning off all the remaining helium, turning the rare gas into a free market game that other natural gas producers may not have been following.

It didn’t wait, either, until Russia launched a war on Ukraine and we saw our first global helium supplies suspended, in Algeria.

Instead, this junior company started scooping up prospective helium land and looked to resolve Hugoton’s water challenges with new technology. That got Linde’s attention, and now that the first helium is already in the pipeline, with a proposed expansion underway, it could get everyone else’s attention, too.

In this play for a natural resource now critical to American national interest, the future of big data, supercomputing, fiber optic communications, and scientific research at large, Total Helium may be years ahead of the competition, and as soon as that first helium hits the market, it may no longer be pushing ahead off the radar.

America is desperate for home-grown helium, and Total Helium will deliver new supply, first.

Tech: The Industry Desperate For New Helium Supply

From semiconductors to the internet as we know it, helium plays a vital role in the tech world.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (NYSE:TSM) has a lengthy history and has helped shape many technologies we rely on today. It’s focus on high standards and its strive for excellence has led them into becoming one of Apple Inc.'s primary suppliers, helping assist Apple during a global semiconductor shortage.

The semiconductor industry is a particularly competitive industry and only five companies in the world own chip-making facilities, making Taiwan Semiconductor a standout in the industry.. Indeed, many leading top semiconductor companies are "fabless," meaning they only design the chips but rely on other companies, known as foundries, to actually make the chips. The shift to outsourcing has been having a big effect on structural changes and related capacity because companies that cut orders in the early days of the pandemic have been forced to go to the back of the line.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. is a key player to watch in both the helium shortage and the semiconductor shortage. As the world’s largest chipmaker, it needs helium to survive. And with a semiconductor supply squeeze looming, it could stand to benefit big when Big Tech comes knocking.

Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC) is one of the world’s most renowned chipmakers. It has been around since the late 1950's, when it was founded by Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore who first coined their portmanteau name- Integrated Electronics. Intel supplies processors for computer systems such as desktops laptop servers tablets mobile phones (including smartphones)and more; they also make motherboard chipsets that connect these devices together so you can use your processor effectively while having access to fast memory too.

At its core, Intel is a chipmaker. And a big one at that. It’s also a leader in the global semiconductor game thanks to its investments in 65nm process, an advanced node used in volume CMOS semiconductor fabrication. Intel has manufactured semiconductors in Ireland since 1990, and has invested around $6 billion there in this time, but is beginning to branch out with new investments in the United States, as well.

Considering that helium is a critical part of the semiconductor and computer chip manufacturing process, any outages or new discoveries could have an impact on chipmakers like Intel.

Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD) is at the cutting edge of the world of computing and graphics. It founded over forty years ago with a single mission: to advance technology as fast it could be invented. Since then, they've become one of the most relied upon brands for processing power – both at home on your own PC or game console; but also when you need high performance computer systems that can process data quickly enough maybe even live video streaming where every millisecond counts.

Advanced Media Devices isn’t just building home computers, either. AMD also is building CPUs to be used in massive data centers, the kind supporting the likes of Microsoft’s Azure cloud-based workstations and desktops and much more. And its GPUs are providing the speed, security, and scalability to keep these data centers performing at the level needed to push modern tech into the future.

The semiconductor and microprocessor industries are massive, representing hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue, but despite its spot in the Big Tech elite, Advanced Micro Devices is still particularly vulnerable to helium supply chain concerns.

As AMD’s biggest competitor, Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) is another company that develops graphics processing units, or GPUs. Nvidia are continually releasing new technologies to stay ahead of the competition and have an excellent reputation for quality. The company also manufactures processors that power many other devices such as automobiles, robots, and smartphones. These processors are often used for artificial intelligence systems like driverless cars or voice commands on mobile phones so we can expect Nvidia's technology to keep getting more advanced over time.

Nvidia's ambitious innovations are clear in all areas of tech, from computer graphics and artificial intelligence research that are core to robots or future cities. It’s also pushing new technologies into the world with its enterprise server GPUs—even setting records. Thanks for being there when we needed you most, Nvidia--and don't worry: your hardware will not go unsupported now that it has been so instrumental before this point too.

With more and more demand coming for semiconductors and new chip technology hitting the market, companies like Nvidia, AMD, Taiwan, Samsung and Intel are going to be some of the biggest benefactors. They’re already well-known in the industry, and this could just be their time to really shine. But a looming helium shortage could present a number of complications for the booming tech giants.

IBM Corporation (NYSE:IBM), or International Business Machines Corporations, is a United States-based technology company. IBM specializes in developing and providing computer related products worldwide like the automated teller machine (ATM), magnetic stripe card and much, much more.

IBM is often considered one of the leading companies in its tech realm, with a long list of inventions to date. And while this history certainly makes them an excellent candidate when it comes time to explore new trends such as blockchain technology.

IBM’s blockchain platform, built on the open-source Hyperledger Fabric platform from the Linux Foundation is helping companies with a wide variety of blockchain solutions including tools for the finance sector, supply chain transparency, and letters of guarantee. IBM’s blockchain platform even helps interested parties develop their own blockchain solutions through educational tools and personalized assistance.

IBM isn’t new to the semiconductor industry, either. In fact, it is pushing the boundaries of what semiconductors can achieve. And it wouldn’t be possible without helium. The vast majority of chips are made with silicon which needs to go through an extensive process to create specific circuitry. Helium has several roles in this process.

The Descartes Systems Group Inc. (TSX:DSG) is a Canadian multinational technology company specializing in logistics software, supply chain management software, and cloud-based services for logistics businesses. Recently, Descartes announced that it has successfully deployed its advanced capacity matching solution, Descartes MacroPoint Capacity Matching. The solution provides greater visibility and transparency within their network of carriers and brokers. This move could solidify the company as a key player in transportation logistics which is essential-and-often-overlooked in the mitigation of rising carbon emissions.

Mogo Finance Technology Inc. (TSX:GO) is a new spin on unsecured credit, which is a burgeoning sub-segment of FinTech. Providing loan management, the ability to track spending, stress-free mortgages, and even credit score tracking, Mogo is at the forefront of an online movement to assist users with their financial needs.

Mogo’s software analyzes borrowers instantly and greatly reduces the traditionally cumbersome underwriting process for loans. It’s online only, so there’s very low overhead and a ton of cash to spend on marketing. Labeled as “the Uber of finance” by CNBC, Mogo is definitely turning heads. With increasing membership growth and revenue lines continuing to improve, and a platform which many banks have failed to offer, Mogo could well become an acquisition target in the near future.

Other Resource Companies To Keep An Eye On

Lithium Americas Corp. (TSX:LAC) is one of America’s most critical and promising pure-play lithium companies. With two world-class lithium projects in Argentina and Nevada, Lithium Americas is well-positioned to ride the wave of growing lithium demand in the years to come. It’s already raised nearly a billion dollars in equity and debt, showing that investors have a ton of interest in the company’s ambitious plans.

Lithium America is not looking over the growing pressure from investors for responsible and sustainable mining, either. In fact, one of its primary goals is to create a positive impact on society and the environment through its projects. This includes cleaner mining tech, strong workplace safety practices, a range of opportunities for employees, and strong relationships with local governments to ensure that not only are its employees being taken care of but local communities, as well.

Celestica (TSX:CLS) is a key company in the resource boom due to is role as one of the top manufacturers of electronics in North America. Celestica’s wide range of products includes but is not limited to communications solutions, enterprise and cloud services, aerospace and defense products, renewable energy, and even healthcare tech.

Due to its exposure to the renewable energy market, Celestica’s future is tied hand-in-hand with the green energy boom that’s sweeping the world at the moment. It helps build smart and efficient products that integrate the latest in power generation, conversion and management technology to deliver smarter, more efficient grid and off-grid applications for the world’s leading energy equipment manufacturers and producers.

Maxar Technologies (TSX:MAXR) is one of the leading space companies on the planet, founded nearly 20 years ago. Maxar has a variety of services, including satellite development, space robotics, and earth observations. One of their most well-known products is the Canadarm2 robotic arm for the International Space Station (ISS). The ISS has been operational since 1998 with more than 100 missions to date. Maxar Technologies has had a history of partnering with NASA to maintain the ISS's systems as well as providing them with new technologies such as the Canadarm2 robotic arm. is a moon-bound tech stock to keep an eye on. While space firm specializes in satellite and communication technologies, it is also a manufacturer of infrastructure required for in-orbit satellite services, Earth observation and more.

More importantly, however, Maxar’s subsidiary, SSL, a designer and manufacturer of satellites used by government and commercial enterprises, has pioneered research in electric propulsion systems, lithium-ion power systems and the use of advanced composites on commercial satellites. These innovations are key because they allow satellites to spend more time in orbit, reducing costs and increasing efficiency.

By. Michael Kern

Yellen Plans Global Food-Crisis Summit as IMF, UN Urge Action

Christopher Condon
Wed, April 13, 2022



(Bloomberg) -- U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will convene a meeting of top international financial officials next week to address a global food-security crisis, with the heads of institutions including the IMF urging action to address dire consequences of record price surges caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“With over 275 million people facing acute food insecurity, I am deeply concerned about the impact of Russia’s war on food prices and supply, particularly on poor populations,” Yellen said in a speech to the Atlantic Council think tank in Washington Wednesday.

Next week’s food summit will take place in Washington alongside the spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. Participants will include ministers representing the G-7 and G-20, International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva and World Bank President David Malpass, according to Treasury spokesperson Alexandra LaManna.

Georgieva, Malpass, United Nations World Food Program Executive Director David Beasley and World Trade Organization Director General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala issued a joint statement asking the international community to support vulnerable countries through grants to cover urgent financing needs.

‘Increasing Pressure’

High food prices and supply shortages are “increasing pressure on households worldwide and pushing millions more into poverty,” the leaders said, adding that their institutions stand ready to address the crisis. “The threat is highest for the poorest countries with a large share of consumption from food imports, but vulnerability is increasing rapidly in middle-income countries, which host the majority of the world’s poor.”

Speaking in a question-and-answer session after her Atlantic Council speech, Yellen said “this will be an urgent concern for us next week to try and think about how we can stave off starvation around the world.”

Soaring food prices will contribute to sending more than a quarter-billion more people around the world into poverty this year, charity group Oxfam International warned earlier this week.

Ukraine and Russia are among the top five grain exporters, and the war poses a massive blow to both production and shipments, causing food prices to rise at their fastest pace yet. Several countries, including Egypt, Turkey Bangladesh and Iran buy more than 60% of their wheat from Russia and Ukraine, a United Nations report shows.

The Washington confab will discuss “the urgent response to the ongoing food security crisis that has been severely exacerbated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine,” LaManna said.