/commoditiesNews

Russia, Ukraine clinch final gas deal on gas transit to Europe - Agricultural Commodities - Reuters
▻https://af.reuters.com/article/commoditiesNews/idAFL8N2930EA

Russian and Ukrainian companies signed a final five-year agreement safeguarding Russian gas transit to Europe via Ukraine, Kremlin-controlled gas giant Gazprom and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday night.

The deal, which came just 24 hours before the current agreement expires on Tuesday, averted a potential Russian gas-flow interruption to Europe and helped Moscow avoid another blow to its reputation as a long-term energy supplier after Russian oil exports to Europe were contaminated earlier this year.

It was signed after five days of painstaking talks and followed a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Zelenskiy earlier this month in Paris.
[…]
The final deal on the Russian gas transit to Europe via Ukraine was finally sealed after the two countries initially agreed on the protocol on Dec. 20

Payment of $2.9 billion in legal damages by Russia to Ukraine on Friday was one of the key issues standing in the way of the gas deal. In response, Ukraine dropped more multibillion-dollar legal claims against Russia.

Russian gas exports to Europe outside of the former Soviet Union amount to about 200 billion cubic metres (bcm), while Kremlin-controlled Gazprom accounts for about 36 percent of the European gas market.

In 2018, Russian gas transit via Ukraine to Europe was 86.8 bcm. Under the terms of the new agreement, Russia has pledged to ship 65 bcm of gas via Ukraine in 2020 and 40 bcm annually from 2021 to 2024.

U.S. crude export demand surges after attack on Saudi facilities - Agricultural Commodities - Reuters
▻https://af.reuters.com/article/commoditiesNews/idAFL2N26716F

U.S. crude export demand at the Gulf Coast surged on Monday, traders said, as the window to export crude profitably to Asia and Europe was thrown open after attacks on Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities took out 5% of global oil supplies.

The attack knocked out about half of Saudi Arabia’s oil production and damaged the world’s biggest crude processing plant.

The attacks sparked the biggest jump in oil prices in 30 years, with Brent outpacing gains in U.S. crude futures. Brent’s premium over U.S. crude WTCLc1-LCOc1 widened to as much as $7.40 a barrel on Monday, making U.S. crude-linked grades more attractive to buyers in Asia and Europe.

U.S. could be outlier if UN clinches plastic waste pact - Agricultural Commodities - Reuters
▻https://af.reuters.com/article/commoditiesNews/idAFL5N22I4PC

• U.N. negotiations seek deal on trade in plastic waste
• Norway proposal would require importer’s prior consent
• U.S. is a leading major plastics exporter, but not in treaty

Countries are nearing agreement to tighten controls on trade in plastic waste, which would make it harder for leading exporter the United States to ship unsorted plastic to emerging Asian economies for disposal, campaigners said on Tuesday.

Global public outrage has grown at marine pollution, sparking demands for more recycling and better waste management. Only 9 percent of plastic is recycled, environmental groups say.

Germany, the United States and Japan each exported more than 1 billion kilos of plastic waste last year, U.N. figures show.

There is an estimated 100 million tonnes of plastic in the world’s seas, with 8 million tonnes added annually, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) says.

Officials from 187 countries taking part in UNEP negotiations are considering legally-binding amendments to the Basel Convention on waste that would regulate trade in discarded plastic.

The United States has not ratified the 30-year-old pact.
[…]
Any plastic that goes on this so-called Annex 2 could not be traded between parties and non-parties to the Basel treaty.

“That would prevent the U.S. from sending - it would only allow the U.S. to export plastic waste that is already sorted, cleaned and ready for recycling,” Azoulay said.

“Which is exactly the type of waste they don’t send around because it has value.”

Though outside of the pact, the United States could ship plastic waste under bilateral deals if the equivalent of environmental standards under Basel are guaranteed, experts say.

Norway awards #Equinor license to build #CO2_storage under seabed | Agricultural Commodities | Reuters
▻https://af.reuters.com/article/commoditiesNews/idAFL8N1ZB3BN

Equinor has won a license to develop carbon dioxide (CO2) storage under the North Sea, Norway’s oil ministry said on Friday, part of a push to combat climate change.

Equinor is expected to submit a development plan this year, with parliament making a final decision in 2020 or 2021.

Proponents of carbon capture and storage (CCS) say countries need the technology to help fulfil pledges made around the time of the breakthrough Paris climate change agreement in 2015.

But environmentalists say is a costly technology that will perpetuate the status quo when rapid and deep cuts to energy use are needed to limit global warming.

#CSC #captage_de_CO2
ex-#Statoil

Arctic posts second warmest year on record in 2018 -U.S. NOAA | Agricultural Commodities | Reuters
▻https://af.reuters.com/article/commoditiesNews/idAFL8N1YG4NI

The Arctic had its second-hottest year on record in 2018, part of a warming trend that may be dramatically changing earth’s weather patterns, according to a report released on Tuesday by the U.S. National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.

“Arctic air temperatures for the past five years have exceeded all previous records since 1900,” according to the annual NOAA study, the 2018 Arctic Report Card, which said the year was second only to 2016 in overall warmth in the region.

It marks the latest in a series of warnings about climate change from U.S. government bodies, even as President Donald Trump has voiced skepticism about the phenomenon and has pushed a pro-fossil fuels agenda.

The study said the Arctic warming continues at about double the rate of the rest of the planet, and that the trend appears to be altering the shape and strength of the jet stream air current that influences weather in the Northern Hemisphere.

Italy accuses NGO migrant ship of dumping toxic waste | Agricultural Commodities | Reuters
▻https://af.reuters.com/article/commoditiesNews/idAFL8N1XV4S2

*• Italy orders seizure of migrant ship Aquarius
• Doctors without Borders accused of waste abuses
• Charity denies charges, says Italy wants to stop rescues

Italian magistrates on Tuesday accused the Doctors without Borders (MSF) charity of illegally dumping toxic waste at ports in southern Italy in what MSF said was an attempt to undermine migrant rescue efforts.

Magistrates ordered the MSF-operated ship Aquarius, which has saved thousands of migrants since 2016, to be impounded but the charity denied any wrongdoing and accused Italy of seeking to criminalise humanitarian search and rescue missions.

Rotten fish to help power #Hurtigruten cruise ships after refit | Agricultural Commodities | Reuters
▻https://af.reuters.com/article/commoditiesNews/idAFL8N1XQ6SH

The Nordic region’s most high-profile cruise fleet operator is refitting its ships to make them less polluting, and plans to use a byproduct of rotten fish to help power their new, leaner engines.

Norway’s Hurtigruten, best known for the ships that ferry tourists along the country’s fjords and coastline and up into the Arctic, is investing 7 billion crowns ($826 million) over three years to adapt its 17-strong fleet.

Six of its older vessels will be retrofitted to run on a combination of liquefied natural gas (LNG), electric batteries and liquefied bio gas (LBG).

“We are talking about an energy source (LBG) from organic waste, which would otherwise have gone up in the air. This is waste material from dead fish, from agriculture and forestry,” Hurtigruten CEO Daniel Skjeldam told Reuters in an interview.

“Our main aim is to improve and cut emissions,” he said.

Hurtigruten, also the world’s biggest expedition cruise operator to destinations including Antarctica, Svalbard and Greenland, is also ordering three new ships that will run on electricity, with a diesel engine only as back-up.

China plumbs ocean depths to extend its cobalt lead | Agricultural Commodities | Reuters
▻https://af.reuters.com/article/commoditiesNews/idAFL8N1XN6JD

• Unclear how big reserves are or when they can be mined
• Glencore holds small stake in ocean explorer DeepGreen
• Anglo American sold stake in Nautilus
• Environmentalists seek strict rules

China, the leading holder of international deep sea exploration licences, has increased its lead in the race for alternative sources of battery minerals by taking samples from cobalt-bearing mountains deep in the Pacific.

The cobalt-rich crusts could one day curb the world’s dependence on cobalt from Democratic Republic of Congo, but most companies say deep sea mining is a distant prospect.

Maersk Supply Service, part of shipping company Maersk , is working with Canada’s DeepGreen to harvest metallic rocks from the ocean floor.

“It is a promising business area with the potential for significant future growth,” Maersk Supply Service said in an email. “Production is a few years away.”

Miner-trader Glencore has a stake in DeepGreen which would eventually give Glencore 50 percent of any copper and nickel output.

Glencore declined to comment and DeepGreen had no immediate comment.

So far only Canadian-listed firm Nautilus Minerals has gone beyond the exploration stage to try and mine off the coast of Papua New Guinea, for copper, gold and silver, but it been slowed by funding issues and local opposition.

Anglo American sold its 4 percent stake in Nautilus in May, as part of efforts to retain only its most profitable assets.

Nautilus this week agreed a $600,000 loan to shore up its balance sheet. It was not immediately available for further comment.

While Nautilus wants to mine Papua New Guinea’s territorial waters, international waters are regulated by the International Seabed Authority (ISA), an agency set up by the United Nations to manage the seabed and protect the marine environment.

China, is in pole position in international waters as the holder of four of the 29 deep sea ISA exploration contracts granted so far, more than any other nation.

Along with Glencore, the country already dominates world cobalt supplies, mostly from the politically volatile Democratic Republic of Congo.

U.S. Interior Dept. relaxes rules on offshore oil, gas production | Agricultural Commodities | Reuters
▻https://af.reuters.com/article/commoditiesNews/idAFL2N1WD1ZH

The Trump administration on Thursday eased safety rules on offshore oil and gas production put in place after the deadly 2010 BP Plc #Deepwater_Horizon disaster, as part of its effort to slash regulations and boost the energy industry.

The Interior Department revised the 2016 oil and gas production safety systems rule, part of a series of regulations the Obama administration enacted on offshore drilling and production after the drilling well disaster that killed 11 oil rig workers, led to the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history and cost BP about $65 billion.

The final rule will appear in the federal register as soon as Friday, according to a document seen by Reuters.

It eliminates or changes some safety standards for when a well is producing oil or gas, such as requiring that independent third parties certify devices. Other changes involve when operators have to notify the government about beginning oil and gas production and what they have to report about equipment failures.

Big Oil eyes U.S. minority groups to build offshore drilling support | Agricultural Commodities | Reuters
▻https://af.reuters.com/article/commoditiesNews/idAFL1N1TN29Y

The largest U.S. oil and gas lobby group is seeking to convince Hispanic and black communities to support the Trump administration’s proposed expansion of offshore drilling, arguing it would create high paying jobs, including for storm-displaced Puerto Ricans.

The American Petroleum Institute (API) launched its #Explore_Offshore campaign earlier this month to counter offshore drilling foes in coastal southeast states from Virginia to Florida, where lawmakers and governors on both sides of the aisle have expressed fear an oil spill could ruin tourism.

“We want to build support in minority communities because the message that increasing the supply of affordable energy and good paying jobs will resonate,” said Erik Milito, API’s director of Upstream and Industry Operations.

As part of the campaign, API has partnered with a number of black and Hispanic business groups, including the Virginia, Florida and North Carolina Hispanic Chambers of Commerce and the Florida Black Chamber of Commerce and South Carolina African American Chamber of Commerce.

A Pew Research poll published in January showed that 56 percent of Hispanics and 54 percent of blacks opposed offshore drilling, compared to 48 percent of white people.

Saudi-led coalition assault on Yemen port would be disaster - aid agencies | Agricultural Commodities | Reuters
▻https://af.reuters.com/article/commoditiesNews/idAFL5N1T31C3

• Senior aid officials fear bloodbath that closes down lifeline
• Coalition forces about 20 kms from main port city of Hodeidah
• “We cannot have war in Hodeidah”, Jan Egeland says

By Stephanie Nebehay
GENEVA, June 1 (Reuters) - As forces of the Saudi-led military coalition close in on the main Yemeni port city of #Hodeidah, aid agencies fear a major battle that will also shut down a vital lifeline for millions of hungry civilians.

Senior aid officials urged Western powers providing arms and intelligence to the coalition to push the mostly Sunni Muslim Gulf Arab allies to reconvene U.N. talks with the Iran-allied Houthi movement to avoid a bloodbath and end the three-year war.

A coalition spokesman said on Tuesday that forces backed by the coalition were 20 kms (12 miles) from the Houthi-held city of Hodeidah, but did not specify whether there were plans for an assault to seize the Red Sea port, long a key target.

“The coalition ground forces are now at the doorstep of this heavily-fortified, heavily-mined port city,” Jan Egeland, secretary-general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, told Reuters. “Thousands of civilians are fleeing from the outskirts of Hodeidah which is now a battle zone.”

“We cannot have war in Hodeidah, it would be like war in Rotterdam or Antwerp, these are comparable cities in Europe.”

Troops from the United Arab Emirates and Yemeni government are believed to lead coalition forces massing south of the city of 400,000, another aid official said, declining to be named.

Last week U.N. aid chief Mark Lowcock urged the Saudi-led coalition that controls Yemen’s ports to expedite food and fuel imports. He warned that a further 10 million Yemenis could face starvation by year-end in addition to 8.4 million already severely short of food in the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

« Titanic nucléaire » : la première centrale flottante a quitté la Russie
▻https://www.ouest-france.fr/environnement/nucleaire/titanic-nucleaire-la-premiere-centrale-flottante-quitte-la-russie-57313

https://media.ouest-france.fr/v1/pictures/1d68737802866e565bd70d8330da8853-titanic-nucleaire-la-premiere-centrale-flottante-quitte-la-russie.jpg

La première centrale nucléaire flottante du monde, exploitée par le géant russe Rosatom, a quitté le port de Saint-Pétersbourg, samedi. Sous l’œil des écologistes inquiets pour l’Arctique.

Elle s’appelle L’Akademik Lomonosov et c’est la première centrale nucléaire flottante du monde. Cette innovation exploitée par le géant Rosatom, contrôlé par l’État russe, a quitté le port de Saint-Péterbourg, samedi.

Direction Mourmansk, où elle sera chargée en combustible et testée. En 2019, elle devrait être remorquée jusqu’à Pevek son emplacement définitif, situé à 5 000 km de là, pas très loin de l’Alaska.

Les riverains de la mer Baltique ont vu partir cette usine avec soulagement. Greenpeace l’a baptisée « Titanic nucléaire » ; la Norvège s’y oppose depuis 2013. En juillet, elle a obtenu que les deux réacteurs nucléaires KLT-40 ne soient alimentés en uranium qu’après avoir franchi ses 83 000 km de côtes.

À Saint-Péterbourg, ce fut aussi le soulagement pour les cinq millions d’habitants, dont beaucoup ont signé la pétition relayée par l’écologiste Alexander Nikitin, de la fondation Bellona. Cet ancien officier russe est aussi inquiet pour l’environnement fragile de l’Arctique.

Il rappelle que les fonds marins de la baie de Chazhma, près de Vladivostok, dans le Pacifique, sont toujours contaminés après le ravitaillement d’un sous-marin nucléaire qui a mal tourné, en 1985 : « L’explosion a aussi tué dix personnes et n’a été révélée qu’en 1993 ».
 
Alexei Likhachev, le patron de Rosatom, se veut rassurant. On n’est plus à l’époque soviétique. Il ne faut pas faire fuir la quinzaine de pays déjà intéressés, tels la Chine, l’Algérie, l’Indonésie…
« Ces centrales flottantes sont dangereuses, insiste Jan Haverkamp, expert nucléaire de Greenpeace pour l’Europe centrale et orientale. Elles ont une coque à fond plat, pas de propulsion et seront basées dans des eaux peu profondes, ce qui les rend particulièrement vulnérables aux tsunamis et aux cyclones. »

#Chazhma lire #Tchajma …

#Turkmenistan seeks to tap into East-West cargo flows with new seaport | Agricultural Commodities | Reuters
▻https://af.reuters.com/article/commoditiesNews/idAFL8N1S92X2

Turkmenistan on Wednesday opened a new $1.5 billion cargo and passenger seaport on the Caspian Sea aiming to boost its export revenues by handling shipping traffic between Asia and Europe.

The Central Asian country’s main source of hard currency is its gas exports, which took a hit when Russia, once its main customer, stopped all purchases in 2016 after a pricing dispute.

The port, in the city of #Turkmenbashi, will more than triple Turkmenistan’s cargo handling capacity to 25-26 million tonnes a year, the government has said.

Speaking before the official opening ceremony, Turkmen President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov said Ashgabat was ready to discuss the use of the seaport with its landlocked neighbours, a reference to Uzbekistan and Afghanistan.

Turkmenistan already has a railway link with China through neighbouring Kazakhstan and the new port could help Ashgabat win a slice of cargo flows moving between China, the Middle East and Europe. Russia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Iran also have Caspian ports.

The new port also has container handling facilities and a polypropylene terminal which will handle products from a nearby plant which is set to be launched later this year.

Turkmenistan does not report how much cargo its existing Caspian port currently handles.

#Caspienne

UK, U.S. study Antarctic glacier, hoping to crack sea level risks | Agricultural Commodities | Reuters
▻https://af.reuters.com/article/commoditiesNews/idAFL8N1S72CG

https://3c1703fe8d.site.internapcdn.net/newman/csz/news/800/2017/7-studyshowsth.jpg

Britain and the United States launched a $25 million project on Monday to study the risks of a collapse of a giant glacier in Antarctica that is already shrinking and nudging up global sea levels.

The five-year research, involving 100 scientists, would be the two nations’ biggest joint scientific project in Antarctica since the 1940s. Ice is thawing from Greenland to Antarctica and man-made global warming is accelerating the trend.

The scientists would study the Thwaites Glacier, which is roughly the size of Florida or Britain, in West Antarctica, the UK Natural Environment Research Council and U.S. National Science Foundation said in a joint statement.

(image issue de
Study shows Thwaites Glacier’s ice loss may not progress as quickly as thought
▻https://phys.org/news/2017-06-thwaites-glacier-ice-loss-quickly.html

https://3c1703fe8d.site.internapcdn.net/newman/gfx/news/hires/2017/6-studyshowsth.jpg

Icebergs could float to the rescue of Cape Town water crisis | Agricultural Commodities | Reuters
▻https://af.reuters.com/article/commoditiesNews/idAFL8N1S750F

Marine salvage experts are floating a plan to tug icebergs from Antarctica to South Africa’s drought-hit Cape Town to help solve the region’s worst water shortage in a century.

Salvage master Nick Sloane told Reuters he was looking for government and private investors for a scheme to guide huge chunks of ice across the ocean, chop them into a slury and melt them down into millions of litres of drinking water.

“We want to show that if there is no other source to solve the water crisis, we have another idea no one else has thought of yet,” said Sloane, who led the refloating of the capsized Italian passenger liner Costa Concordia in 2014.

Exclusive: U.S. sorghum armada U-turns at sea after China tariffs
▻https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trade-china-sorghum-exclusive/exclusive-u-s-sorghum-armada-u-turns-at-sea-after-china-tariffs-idUSKBN1HR0

Sorghum is a niche animal feed and a tiny slice of the billions of dollars in exports at stake in the trade dispute between the world’s two largest economies, which threatens to disrupt the flow of everything from steel to electronics.

The supply-chain pain felt by sorghum suppliers on the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans underscores how quickly the mounting trade tensions between the U.S. and China can impact the global agricultural sector, which has been reeling from low commodity prices amid a global grains glut.

Twenty ships carrying over 1.2 million tonnes of U.S. sorghum are on the water, according to export inspections data from the USDA’s Federal Grain Inspection Service. Of the armada, valued at more than $216 million, at least five changed course within hours of China’s announcing tariffs on U.S. sorghum imports on Tuesday, Reuters shipping data showed.

http://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/rngs/USA-TRADE-CHINA/010061V93NG/SHIPS.jpg

#sorgo #guerre_commerciale

Japan’s Sumitomo eyes ship-to-ship LNG bunkering in Tokyo
▻https://af.reuters.com/article/commoditiesNews/idAFL3N1RB19L

Japanese trading house Sumitomo Corp says it signed a memorandum with Uyeno Transtech Ltd and Yokohama-Kawasaki International Port Corp for a joint study on ship-to-ship liquefied natural gas (LNG) bunkering in Tokyo Bay

The three firms will jointly study the commercial feasibility of services using LNG bunkering vessels, Sumitomo said in a statement

#Diamond_Pipeline disrupts oil flows around U.S.
▻https://af.reuters.com/article/commoditiesNews/idAFL4N1PL4SZ

The Diamond Pipeline has
scrambled crude oil flows around the U.S. Gulf Coast and Midwest
since it opened in December, cutting supply at the Cushing hub
and hammering Louisiana oil prices.
The line from Cushing, Oklahoma to Memphis, Tennessee, a
joint venture between Plains All American Pipeline LP
and Valero Energy Corp , has dented volumes on the
Capline system - the nation’s largest crude pipeline that runs
from the Gulf to key refineries in the Midwest.
Prices for Gulf Coast crude grades traded in the Louisiana
region have been hit hard.
[…]
The 440-mile long Diamond line feeds Valero’s Memphis,
Tennessee refinery, which has a capacity of about 190,000 bpd.
Valero has historically moved large volumes from North Dakota’s
Bakken shale region by rail to Louisiana and then shipped it up
Capline, a long and expensive route, traders said.
In December, Marathon Pipe Line LLC said it would reverse
Capline, pending agreement among owners, to initially send about
300,000 bpd of crude south beginning in the second half of 2022.
However, if supply is getting stuck in Louisiana as a result of
Diamond, the additional crude from Capline could worsen that
effect.

▻http://www.diamondpipelinellc.com/project-overview/maps

http://www.diamondpipelinellc.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Planned_DiamondPipeline_Route_103114-1.jpg