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Panama Canal Expansion: Standoff Worries Locals

ABOARD THE MAERSK BATAM, On the Panama Canal—Everything about this Danish-flagged ship is big. It is longer than two football fields, as high as a seven-story building and carries 3,000 cargo containers weighing 30,000 tons. But as shipyards from India to Korea continue to build vessels that are longer, wider and taller, the Maersk Batam actually is a midsize ship. Some people even call it small. "Not that there’s anything wrong with smaller ships," says Capt. Mike Hands, a Briton who has spent 40 of his 57 years working on ships. "Smaller ships go to smaller ports, which are always more interesting," he says, as the Batam begins its 10-hour passage through the Panama Canal. Interesting isn’t what the Panama Canal is about. Panama’s government has kicked off a multibillion-dollar project to widen the canal’s navigation channels and build larger locks—the pools of water that lift boats from sea […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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China’s Refiners Processed Most Crude in 11 Months in December

China ’s refineries processed the most crude in 11 months in December as they prepared to meet increased fuel demand over the Lunar New Year holiday. Processing rose 0.2 percent from a year earlier to about 42 million metric tons, the National Bureau of Statistics said in Beijing today. That’s equivalent to an average of 9.93 million barrels a day, exceeding November’s rate of 9.81 million. Chinese refineries typically boost crude runs before the week-long new year to build inventories and supply gasoline as holiday travel increases. For 2013, processing volumes climbed 3.3 percent to 478.58 million tons, or 9.61 million barrels a day, the statistics bureau’s data show. China’s Lunar New Year begins on Jan. 31 and ends Feb. 6 this year. “While existing major refineries reduced runs in January after a strong December, the addition of new capacity and lower stocks will help offset some holiday-related weakness,” […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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China's Economic Growth Slows to 7.7%

China’s growth slowed slightly in the fourth quarter as Beijing eased back on efforts to rev up the economy, signaling a potential slow start for the new year as the country’s leaders seek to reshape the world’s second-largest economy. Many economists already expect the Chinese economy to slow further in the coming year as the country’s leaders prepare to introduce reform measures. These would be aimed at reducing the economy’s dependence on investment and trade and boosting its reliance on domestic spending and the expansion in the service industries. The nation’s economy grew 7.7% in the fourth quarter from a year ago, slower than the 7.8% it posted in the third quarter, according to data released Monday by China’s National Bureau of Statistics. For the year it also posted 7.7% growth, matching the revised pace it recorded in 2012. "There was steady economic progress [last year] and this was […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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China’s Economic Growth Slows to 7.7%

China’s growth slowed slightly in the fourth quarter as Beijing eased back on efforts to rev up the economy, signaling a potential slow start for the new year as the country’s leaders seek to reshape the world’s second-largest economy. Many economists already expect the Chinese economy to slow further in the coming year as the country’s leaders prepare to introduce reform measures. These would be aimed at reducing the economy’s dependence on investment and trade and boosting its reliance on domestic spending and the expansion in the service industries. The nation’s economy grew 7.7% in the fourth quarter from a year ago, slower than the 7.8% it posted in the third quarter, according to data released Monday by China’s National Bureau of Statistics. For the year it also posted 7.7% growth, matching the revised pace it recorded in 2012. "There was steady economic progress [last year] and this was […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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China economic growth continues to cool

China’s economy slowed in the fourth quarter of last year, highlighting the challenge facing Beijing as it attempts to implement painful reforms while maintaining the economic momentum needed to avoid defaults on its growing debt pile. Gross domestic product in the world’s second-largest economy expanded 7.7 per cent in the fourth quarter compared with the same period a year earlier – a slowing from 7.8 per cent growth in the third quarter, according to figures released by the government on Monday. Growth of 7.7 per cent for the whole of 2013 matched full-year growth in 2012, thanks in large part to an investment-heavy “mini-stimulus” in the third quarter last year that offered a temporary boost. Economists expect China’s full-year GDP growth in 2014 to come in at about 7.4 per cent, the slowest pace since 1990, when Beijing faced international sanctions as a result of the 1989 Tiananmen Square […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Japanese rivers unleash ‘perennial supply’ of radiation into Pacific Ocean

A study published in the Elsevier journal Anthropocene late last year has revealed that many of the rivers, streams and other waterways located throughout coastal Japan have inadvertently become delivery systems for transporting radioactive waste directly from the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power facility into the Pacific Ocean. Researchers from both France and Japan discovered this after conducting a thorough sediment and soil erosion analysis, which revealed the presence of cesium-137, cesium-134 and even radioactive silver in the runoff from coastal rivers. A total of 2,200 soil samples were collected as part of the study, which was originally designed to look at the normal biogeochemical cycles and dispersion of contaminants via rivers and waterways. Since it is already known that rivers play a functional role in cleansing the natural environment of toxins, a team of scientists from the Laboratory for Climate Sciences and […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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California Water Crisis May Head off Potential Oil Boom

Drilling for oil in California dates back to the late 19th Century, allowing it to become the country’s top producer by the beginning of the 20th. One hundred years later, California still ranks third, but its aging fields have been in decline for decades. Yet the state is sitting atop the largest tight oil formation in the United States. The Bakken in North Dakota and the Eagle Ford in Texas may be leading the resurgence in U.S. oil production, but the reserves sitting in California’s Monterey Shale dwarf those of its more notable counterparts. The interest in the Monterey Shale is heating up, with the legislature passing a controversial law last year to put in place the state’s first regulations over hydraulic fracturing. The Director of the California Department of Conservation claims the “regulations include the strongest and most comprehensive public protections of any oil- and gas- producing state,” […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Water Restored for Nearly All 300,000 Affected by West Virginia Ban

Water was restored here Friday for nearly all 300,000 people affected by a chemical spill that contaminated the supply for more than a week, officials said as new details emerged about the company at the center of the incident. The lifting of the wide water ban marked a turning point in a crisis that began Jan. 9 after authorities said a substance called Crude MCHM had leaked from a storage tank, breached a faulty containment wall and infiltrated a water-treatment plant. Residents were told not to drink, bathe in or clean with tap water. Also on Friday, the owner of the storage facility, Freedom Industries Inc., filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection amid mounting civil lawsuits. A Freedom representative declined to comment, but the court papers revealed new details about the company, whose representatives have declined to comment since a brief Jan. 10 news conference. A supplier of […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Bullish Gasoline Bets Slump as Cold Blast Chills Demand: Energy

Hedge funds reduced bullish bets on gasoline by the most since June as stockpiles surged to an 11-month high before a cold blast that probably will curb demand in the U.S. Midwest and Northeast. Money managers cut net-long positions, or wagers on rising prices by 22 percent in the week ended Jan. 14 to the lowest level since Nov. 19, U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission data show. Short positions more than doubled. Gasoline tumbled to a two-month low last week after a government report showed supplies climbed to 233.1 million barrels, the highest since Feb. 8. Demand fell to the least in a year, pushing pump prices to a three-week low. Temperatures from the Midwest to New England are forecast to average below normal from Jan. 22 to Jan. 26, diminishing fuel use as drivers avoid icy and wet road conditions. “Everything out there right now is bearish for […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Boston Beats New York With Record Power Price Premiums: Energy

Electricity prices in Boston , which reached record premiums to New York costs last month, are poised to remain at all-time highs through March because of bottlenecks on natural-gas pipelines. New England’s reliance on the fuel for power generation has grown to 52 percent from about 30 percent in 2001, though there have been no new pipelines transporting gas to the six-state region in 40 years. In New York, lines from wells in the Marcellus shale deposits of Pennsylvania and West Virginia boosted deliveries by more than 1 billion cubic feet a day this winter, enough to heat about 3 million homes. Wholesale power in Boston is trading at the highest January premium to New York since at least 2005, according to grid data compiled by Bloomberg. Prices in New York recovered faster from a blast of arctic cold last week because of the increased gas supplies. The power […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple