None of this means it’s game over in the fight against price pressures — especially for the Fed, which is widely reckoned to be locked-in to another interest-rate increase later this month. Still, there’s now a better-than-even chance that a July 26 hike, which would take the benchmark US rate to 5.5%, could be the last in quite a while. 

That’s the way markets were betting after Wednesday’s data. Yields on short-term Treasury yields plunged, stocks rose, and the dollar was headed to the lowest in more than a year by one measure – all in anticipation that the Fed might ease up.

‘Coming to End’
“The new data could give the Fed reason to debate whether any further rate hikes after this month are needed,” wrote Ryan Sweet, chief US economist at Oxford Economics. “This tightening cycle by the Fed is likely coming to an end.”

CPI is back inside the pre-pandemic range but the core figure is still at elevated levels. That represents a partial win for the  Federal Reserve. The challenge is regular CPI is supposed to be more prone to volatility than the core figure.

Jerome Powell has stated he is focusing on the core services less housing figure. That has been steady around 4.5% since August 2022 and is the primary data point suggesting inflation is sticky. Nevertheless, traders are betting the July hike will be the last in this cycle. 

European Union (EU) lawmakers have agreed on the world’s first binding quotas for using renewable hydrogen (H2) and derived fuels. The March 30, 2023 rules will create significant demand for renewable H2, mandating existing industrial hydrogen users replace at least 42% of their demand with renewable H2. They also mandate at least 1% of transport Energy to be H2-based.

Member states should ensure 42% of existing industrial H2 demand is renewable by 2030, rising to 60% by 2035. The industry quota targets companies such as fertilizer and methanol producers, but excludes refineries, which are covered under the transport mandate. Member states will be legally required to adopt this agreement as national law and the European Court of Justice will determine penalties for states that fail to comply.

In transport, fuel suppliers need to replace 5.5% of final Energy demand with H2 or advanced biofuels, with a minimum target of 1% for H2-based fuels by 2030. BNEF expects the hydrogen share to be closer to the minimum goal as meeting the combined target using H2 alone would require extensive use of the molecule in road transport. Advanced biofuels had already reached a 2.1% share in transport by 2021.

The EU remains committed to the zero carbon emissions quest and is pioneering the development of markets in alternative Energy. High carbon emission prices are one half of the strategy and subsidies for wind, solar, biomass and hydrogen are the other half. 

4: Export Curbs
Other levers the Biden administration has at its disposal include limiting the export of gasoline and diesel. The White House considered that option last year as a potential means to tame pump prices, which reached an all-time high in June, but it never pulled the trigger. Analysts said moving ahead with the curbs could backfire and actually lead to higher prices in some parts of the US.

“If we go into the summer with gasoline at $4 a gallon, I would think they would also revive consideration of product export restrictions,” said Bob McNally, president of consultant Rapidan Energy Group and a former White House official. “If this leads to an overtightening of the oil markets — as they say in the Navy, stand by for heavy rolls.”

Requiring oil companies to store more fuel in inside the US — mandatory stockpile requirements that were considered last year in response to previously low fuel inventories — is an option that could return to the table as well if gasoline prices remain high, McNally said.

OPEC+ needs high Energy prices to come close to balancing their budgets. The last thing they want is the profound volatility of the last few years where oil prices have swung from lows near -$40 to highs near $130. The fact the USA is Energy independent and no longer a big buyer from OPEC+ means it is a competitor in supply and therefore unable to dictate terms to the group. 

The new legislation raises the credits for captured CO2 that is used and stored to $60/tCO2 and $85/tCO2 respectively. However, project owners must meet prevailing wage and apprenticeship requirements in order to qualify. If they do not, they will be paid a lower credit than the existing 45Q payment. Projects must be under construction by the end of 2032 to receive the credit

A new, much higher credit is available to direct air capture (DAC) projects. DAC currently costs around $600/tCO2. The credit pays $130/tCO2 for gas that is used, say, for enhanced oil recovery or to make synthetic fuels, and $180/tCO2 for CO2 that is stored permanently.

 

Regulatory arbitrage will ensure that some areas will continue to benefit from having less strict regulations than either North America or Europe. Meanwhile there is little to be gained from arguing about the sense behind carbon credit trading. We can only deal with the reality provided by the market. The regulatory regime continues to support taxes on emissions. 

Tension is spreading through Shanghai as residents watch the Covid-19 caseload tick higher, fueling fears they’re headed back into lockdown little more than five weeks after exiting a bruising two-month ordeal.

The city reported 59 new infections for Monday, the fourth day in a row case numbers have held above 50. The sharp rise from single digits about a week ago follows the detection of the more contagious BA.5 sub-strain of the omicron variant, which has triggered two additional rounds of mass testing between Tuesday and Thursday this week across nine of the financial hub’s 16 districts, as well as other areas where cases have been found. 

China’s strict Covid Zero approach is once again being tested as outbreaks flare across the country amid the arrival of a sub-variant that has fueled rising caseloads elsewhere. Already, close to 30 million people nationwide are under some form of movement restrictions to quell transmission, but authorities have so far steered clear of strict lockdowns in key economic regions.

Quarantines work in the initial stages of an outbreak because there is still some hope the rate of infection can be contained. The only reason to sustain a quarantine during a pandemic, where there is no hope of containing the global spread, is to slow the rate of infection. The time bonus gained from slowing the rate of infection can be used to prepare treatments, vaccines and recovery areas, but no one is under any illusion that quarantines can indefinitely turn back a pandemic. Eventually everyone is going be infected.

A signing ceremony was held at GS Energy Headquarters in Gangnam-gu, Seoul, on April 26 with the presence of representatives from the four companies. They included GS Energy president Huh Yong-soo, Doosan Enerbility vice president Na Gi-yong, Samsung C&T vice president Lee Byung-soo, GS Energy vice president Kim Seong-won, and NuScale Power president John Hopkins.

NuScale’s SMR is the only one of its kind to receive design certification from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). It is regarded as the most advanced SMR in the world. It can be used for hydrogen production, seawater desalination, and heat supply to industrial complexes in addition to electricity generation.

The MOU is expected to generate huge synergies by combining NuScale’s SMR technology, GS Group’s power plant operation capabilities, Doosan Enerbility’s expertise in nuclear power plant equipment production, and Samsung C&T’s power plant construction capabilities.

A power plant using NuScale SMRs will be built and put into commercial operation in Idaho of the United States in 2029.

Last month Samsung also signed a memorandum of understanding aimed at building Seaborg’s modular self-contained molten salt reactors for nearshore power production. In addition to taking a minority stake in NuScale last year, this represents a significant bet on small scale nuclear construction. It’s not an exaggeration to think South Korea is aiming to dominate the construction of small modular reactors.

While the U.S. consumer-price index climbed by the most since late 1981, excluding volatile food and Energy components, the gauge increased 0.3% from a month earlier and 6.5% from a year ago -- due in part to the biggest drop in used vehicle prices since 1969. The March CPI reading represents what many economists expect to be the peak of the current inflationary period, capturing the impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Comments:
“There were some green shoots in the data that suggest March could potentially be the peak for inflation,” said Lindsey Bell, chief markets and money strategist for Ally. “When you couple this with the recent retreat in oil prices, improving shipping costs, a potential reduction in demand from higher prices, and the cycling of higher inflation comparisons, it’s possible that inflation could be topping out.”

“While today’s inflation print hit a four-decade high, there was a sigh of relief as some components of core inflation weakened,” said Charlie Ripley, senior investment strategist for Allianz Investment Management. “Regarding peak inflation, we have been at this juncture before where subtle shifts within the data make it appear that the level of inflation has reached its peak for the cycle only to keep marching higher.”

“It’s a red-hot number, but the market’s reaction for now suggests it’s priced in, especially with the month-over-month core read coming in below expectations,” said Mike Loewengart, managing director of investment strategy at E*Trade from Morgan Stanley.

The above headline was a bit premature as early rises were later reversed.

Used car prices have an outsized effect on the USA’s official inflation measure because they don’t look at either food or Energy. The Index rallied 57.3% between June 2020 and January 2022. It is now declining. Used cars cost about the same as new vehicles with the only difference being you can get a used car today but wait for a new one. The wait is increasingly preferrable to consumers as monetary conditions tighten.

A link to the full report is posted in the Subscriber's Area. 

Ranging prices contribute to analysts hedging their bets of which direction prices are likely to breakout and how much they are likely to move. Nevertheless, by suggesting a strike on put options of $9750, which coincides with the trend mean, they are effectively saying give the benefit of the doubt to the upside provided it continues to hold that level.

Thanks for the great service pulling the noise out of market trends for us. We especially enjoy what my wife affectionately calls the “Big Picture Long-Winded” Friday recordings. Regarding the possible rotation into the renewable/green economy do you have any ideas on Industries/companies that could benefit from the build out? Or would the safer play be directly in the commodities needed for the grid, vehicles, batteries, and such? Hoping to get to another Chart Seminar before too long.

Thank you for your kind words. A former delegate at The Chart Seminar once described my sense of humour as “impish” and I can’t argue with that. Your better half’s turn of phrase certainly tickled me. The Friday broadcasts are often a delicate balance between trying to be pithy and attempting to cover the relevant arguments. I’m looking at a late May/early June date for a London seminar and I hope to see you there.

The question of the future of the zero carbon/green revolution/Energy transition is a big one. On one hand we have high minded projections of a utopian future where the air is pristine and no economy is dependent on carbon emissions for growth. Promises of hundreds of trillions being spent to achieve that goal were a major feature of international conferences in 2021.

Commodities giant Glencore Plc hit the highest in almost a decade, driven by rallies in everything from metals to coal and optimism for a years-long supercycle.

The world’s biggest commodity trader surpassed its 2018 intraday peak on Tuesday, valuing the Swiss company at about $74 billion. Like its mining rivals, Glencore has benefited from massive global stimulus measures that have stoked demand for raw materials, and has also been a big winner from an Energy crunch that sent coal prices to a record high. 

A Bloomberg gauge of spot commodities has doubled since early in the pandemic -- reaching an all-time high in October -- as government measures to bolster economies underpinned demand while supply curbs further tightened metals markets. At the same time, a green revolution is boosting long-term prospects for metals including cobalt and nickel for products like batteries.

Glencore is expected to deliver record profits and a bumper dividend when it reports earnings in February. And as the boom draws more investors into commodities, many analysts forecast prices to remain high. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said that a commodities supercycle has the potential to last for a decade.

The London Metals Index is testing the 2007 and 2011 highs. Those were bumper years for mining profits so this year is likely to be no different. The challenge for investors is those peaks also represented major climaxes ahead of a rapid tightening of monetary conditions and slowing global growth. The question is whether this time is different?

The result is likely to boost the Reserve Bank of Australia’s confidence in the economy’s prospects as the board prepares to review the A$4 billion weekly pace of its bond-buying program in February. Su-Lin Ong at Royal Bank of Canada put the odds of quantitative easing ending at that meeting at 30%.

The capex data is “likely to see markets continue to price in multiple hikes over the year ahead,” said Ong, head of Australian economic and fixed-income strategy at RBC. Money markets are wagering the RBA will start its policy tightening cycle with a 15 basis point hike to 0.25% by May 2022.

Today’s report showed the Covid lockdowns weighed on outlays, with total capital expenditure slipping 2.2% in the three months through September from the prior quarter. Spending on equipment, plant and machinery fell 4.1%, suggesting it will detract from economic growth in the period. 

Australian firms are looking around the world and see massive monetary and fiscal stimulus. Much of that spending will be focused on infrastructure and they are in line to benefit from outsized demand for resources. This is the time to invest in new supply before everyone else does.

While some factories have already resumed operation after the mandatory power rationing expired, for instance GCL-Poly revealed that their 36,000 tonnes polysilicon factory has already restarted production after making use of the 2-week suspension period to undergo repair and maintenance, most solar materials have also witnessed significant price increase under the adverse effect of supply reduction. One of the clear examples is the sharp price rally of silicon raw material, which is the major material for making polysilicon and on average account for 40% of polysilicon’s production cost. The silicon raw material price rose sharply from USD 2.4/kg in Aug-21 to the peak of USD 10.4/kg in late Sep-21, before gradually normalizing to USD 6/kg in Nov (See Exhibit 3), especially after the Yunnan government decided to restrict the utilization of most Energy-intensive production, including silicon raw material, by 90% starting from Sep in 2021. It is noteworthy that Yunnan accounts for 20% of total silicon raw material production in China, while Xinjiang and Sichuan’s market shares are 40% and 15% respectively. In our view, the cost pressure originated from silicon raw material price rally would gradually pass down the supply chain, implying subsequent solar material price hike would continue to emerge in other segments.

China has historically been willing to do whatever it takes to capture market share in emerging industries. That helped it dominate the entire supply chain for solar panels in the last decade. Deploying excess Energy from coal fired power stations into polysilicon production was a big part of that strategy.

Meanwhile, mines across China and India have been ramping up production in recent weeks to ease a supply crunch that’s caused widespread power shortages and curbs on industrial activity. China’s miners have beaten a government target to raise output to 12 million tons a day, while India’s daily production is close to 2 million tons.

“The power cuts since mid-to-late September show that we are still not prepared enough,” Yang Weimin, a member of the economic committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and a government advisor, told a conference in Beijing on Saturday. Additional funding is needed to ensure coal plants can be used to complement a rising share of renewables, he said.

Coal’s share in global electricity generation fell in 2020 to 34%, the smallest in more than two decades, though it remains the single largest power source, according to BloombergNEF.

In China, it accounted for about 62% of electricity generation last year. President Xi Jinping has set a target for the nation to peak its consumption of the fuel in 2025, and aims to have non-fossil fuel Energy sources exceed 80% of its total mix by 2060.

For India, coal is even more important, representing 72% of electricity generation. The fuel will still make up 21% of India’s electricity mix by 2050, BNEF analysts including Atin Jain said in a note last month.

The focus on attention right now is on the willingness and potential of both India and China to eventually limit their use of coal. Much less attention is focused on Africa where the bulk of population growth is occurring. The next couple of billion people will mostly be born in Africa. That means increasing demand for power and higher standards of living as the continent urbanises. 

China's MingYang Smart Energy has announced an offshore wind turbine even bigger than GE's monstrous Haliade-X. The MySE 16.0-242 is a 16-megawatt, 242-meter-tall (794-ft) behemoth capable of powering 20,000 homes per unit over a 25-year service life.

The stats on these renewable-Energy colossi are getting pretty crazy. When MingYang's new turbine first spins up in prototype form next year, its three 118-m (387-ft) blades will sweep a 46,000-sq-m (495,140-sq-ft) area bigger than six soccer fields.

Every year, each one expected to generate 80 GWh of electricity. That's 45 percent more than the company's MySE 11.0-203, from just a 19 percent increase in diameter. No wonder these things keep getting bigger; the bigger they get, the better they seem to work, and the fewer expensive installation projects need to be undertaken to develop the same capacity.

The overall result should be a drop in offshore wind Energy production prices – a sorely needed drop, too. Current levelized costs of Energy, as estimated by the US Energy Information Administration for new Energy generation assets going live in 2026, place offshore wind as the most expensive way of generating a megawatt-hour right now, at US$120.52, where ultra-supercritical coal is more like $72.78 and standalone solar is around $32.78 before subsidies.

Obviously, wind fills in gaps that solar can't, and it'll be a crucial part of the Energy mix going forward. Scaling the industry up with these mammoth turbines is the key reason why industry experts are predicting that the cost of offshore wind will drop by between 37 and 49 percent by 2050, as reported by Renew Economy.

MingYang says the MySE 16.0-242 is just the start of its "new 15MW+ offshore product platform," and that it's capable of operating installed to the sea floor or on a floating base. The full prototype will be built in 2022, installed and into operation by 2023. Commercial production is slated to begin in the first half of 2024.

The challenge for the wind sector is that many of the best locations have been taken up by turbines that are not nearly as powerful as the models currently being marketed. In many respects the wind sector is suffering from the same dilemma as the oil sector. How do you introduce new technology to an area where you have already sunk significant resources?

Canada-based vanadium mining company Largo Resources has announced that its U.S.-based unit Largo Clean Energy has signed its first supply agreement for its VCHARGE ± vanadium redox flow battery system, with Enel Green Power Spain, a unit of Italian renewable Energy company Enel Green Power, which is itself part of the Enel group. Under the terms of the deal, Largo Clean Energy will provide a five-hour, 6.1 MWh system for a project in Spain whose start-up is scheduled for the third quarter of 2022.

The company's VPURE and VPURE + vanadium products come from one of the three largest vanadium mines in the world, the company's Maracás Menchen mine, located in Brazil. These compounds are used to develop's Largo's  VCHARGE ± vanadium redox flow battery technology.

Largo Clean Energy began, last year, the development of its vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB) technology based on 12 patent families previously owned by U.S. storage specialist VionX Energy, whose assets it acquired for $3.8 million.

Vanadium surged in 2018 on expectations that the world would adopt redox flow batteries for utility-scale Energy storage. The uptake was less enthusiastic than many expected and the price of the metal collapsed.

A link to the full report is posted in the Subscriber's Area 

When numbers in excess of $100 trillion are bandied about most people’s eyes glaze over. The global annual GDP in 2020 was $93 trillion. That suggests to achieve the stated aim of containing temperature rises to 1.5% by 2050, we need to made big assumptions. The most important is that if we go ahead and make the sacrifices and spend the money, that it will work.

Drought in key Brazilian growing regions is crippling crops from corn to coffee, and vegetable oil production growth has slowed in Southeast Asia. That’s boosting costs for livestock producers and risks further straining global grain stockpiles that have been depleted by soaring Chinese demand. The surge has stirred memories of 2008 and 2011, when price spikes led to food riots in more than 30 nations.

“We have very little room for any production shock. We have very little room for any unexpected surge in demand in any country,” Abdolreza Abbassian, senior economist at the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, said by phone. “Any of those things could push prices up further than they are now, and then we could start getting worried.”

The prolonged gains across the staple commodities are trickling through to store shelves, with countries from Kenya to Mexico reporting higher food costs. The pain could be particularly pronounced in some of the poorest import-dependent nations, which have limited purchasing power and social safety nets as they grapple with the pandemic.

The UN’s index is treading at its highest since September 2011, with last month’s gain of 4.8% being the biggest in more than 10 years. All five components of the index rose during the month, with the advance led by pricier vegetable oils, grain and sugar.

Farmers that survive the pandemic disruptions will want to plant as much acreage as possible for their next growing season in every agricultural zone in the world. High prices are all the incentive they need. That’s particularly true for the grains and beans where production is possible in multiple different geographically diverse regions.

Australia’s rapid rebound has been underpinned by its ability to limit Covid-19 outbreaks, boosting consumer and business confidence. A massive fiscal-monetary injection strengthened the financial position of households and firms during the lockdown, and consumers are spending and companies hiring.

“Australia is in rare company here -- only five other countries can boast an economy that’s larger now than before the pandemic,” said Kristian Kolding, a partner at Deloitte Access Economics. “Maintaining this trajectory is now the task at hand -- the lockdowns in Victoria are a stark reminder that the pandemic is far from over.”

Deloitte noted that on average, economies in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development are 2.7% smaller than they were before the pandemic. The U.K. is almost 9% smaller, the European Union is 5% smaller and the U.S. has shrunk 1%, it said.

Yet a potential risk to the outlook is the sluggish rollout of a Covid vaccine. This has been magnified by a renewed outbreak of the virus in Melbourne that prompted a lockdown in the nation’s second-largest city, and has now been extended for another week.

Victoria is back in lockdown but the number of cases is comparatively low and the rest of the country is reasonably unaffected. Investors are taking the news in their stride. After more than a decade of liquidity infusions the reality remains liquidity beats most other factors most of the time. Central bankers also understand that logic and must feel vindicated in their actions. Every time there is a problem, they boost money supply and act to depress yields and the economy rebounds. They are unlikely to do anything different until that policy stops working.

The Canadian dollar may fare better than other commodity currencies in the remainder of the year as resurgent growth spurs the nation’s central bank to wean the economy off stimulus.

While already perched near multi-year highs, the loonie still has potential to add to its gains given the surge in commodity prices and an economy that is forecast to grow at the fastest pace in several decades. And with the Bank of Canada having unveiled a scale-back of government debt purchases while accelerating the timetable for a possible interest-rate increase, money markets have lost no time in pricing an aggressive rate trajectory.

Other G-10 commodities, too, have fared well this year. While Norway’s central bank is likely to raise rates sooner than its Canadian counterpart, the differential between 10-year yields in the two nations is a considerable hurdle for the krone to overcome. The Australian and New Zealand dollars, meanwhile, face considerable headwinds to climb from current levels given that they are both overvalued from a fundamental perspective, especially against a backdrop where their central banks are likely to stay accommodative for a long time yet.

The Canadian dollar also stands out in relation to its peer group by its muted volatility, which reduces the overall risk in a portfolio setting. All told, it’s been plain sailing for the loonie so far this year. If the current macroeconomic backdrop prevails, 2021 may well turn out to be annus mirabilis for the currency, not only against its commodities peer group but also the wider G-10 complex.

Canada has a long history of fostering upstart companies that come to dominate their respective niches during the prevailing bull market of the time. Nortel Networks, Blackberry, Canopy Growth Corp, Brookfield Asset Management and Shopify all come to mind. Amid the significant media attention these companies receive, it is worth remembering that the oft-maligned extractive sector forms the basis for the country’s wealth and stability.

The Australian federal government scrapped both the memorandum of understanding and framework agreement signed between Victoria and China’s National Development and Reform Commission, Beijing’s top economic planning body, Foreign Minister Marise Payne said in an emailed statement Wednesday. She described the deals as “inconsistent with Australia’s foreign policy or adverse to our foreign relations.”

The step “is another unreasonable and provocative move taken by the Australian side against China,” the Chinese embassy in Canberra said in an emailed statement. “It further shows that the Australian government has no sincerity in improving China-Australia relations -- it is bound to bring further damage to bilateral relations, and will only end up hurting itself.”

Australia “basically fired the first major shot against China in trade and investment” conflicts, Chen Hong, director of the Australian Studies Center at East China Normal University in Shanghai, told the Communist Party-backed Global Times. “China will surely respond accordingly.”

China has lodged stern representations with Australia over the issue and reserved the right to take more action, Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said at a regular press briefing Thursday in Beijing.

China may successfully be able to cow smaller countries into submission by following a carrot and stick approach to infrastructure and trade development. Australia is a different story.

Trafigura expects the metal to breach $10,000 a ton this year, before entering a range of $12,000 to $15,000 a ton over the coming decade. Other ardent copper bulls including Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Bank of America Corp. and Citigroup Inc. have similarly strong near-term forecasts, but Trafigura has set itself apart with its lofty long-term target.

Goldman expects copper to hit $10,500 a ton within 12 months, while Citi sees it reaching $12,000 next year in its bull-case forecast. In the years to come, that’s likely to become the floor for prices as the industry revalues the metal, according to Trafigura.

“You can’t move to a green economic environment and not have the copper price moving significantly higher,” Bintas said. “How can you have one without the other?”

Every country wants its economy to recover from the ravages of the pandemic. They are all looking at the same playbook. They need to increase growth without raising taxes and need a quick way to get as many people back to work as possible which will hopefully kick start the velocity of money. Infrastructure development has been the preferred strategy to achieve those goals after every other recession and this one is now different. The only question was what kind of infrastructure would be approved.

Here we look at the 2019 share of global production and at the share of global reserves for countries around the world. We use data from the United States Geological Survey’s Mineral Resources Program, and the World Nuclear Association. While production data are considered relatively accurate, reserves data is imperfect, given lack of exploration is some areas. However, we take a view that if countries have reserves, but have zero production currently, then there are likely to be technical, financial and/or institutional factors to overcome to allow production in the near future. (Note that we were unable to access reserves data for the commodities Indium and Gallium, and only included production numbers). We create a blended metric for production and reserves values for these commodities (weighting them all equally), in order to score and rank countries in this area. South Africa is ranked first here, followed by China and Chile. Australia comes in fourth, making it the highest ranking DM country on this indicator.

Government policy, everywhere, is increasingly skewing towards the assumption that sea level rise, water insecurity, global warming and climate change are inevitable. Renewable Energy assets are increasingly also being priced on the assumption that a migration to carbon-free economies is also inevitable.

Trillions of Dollars are being committed to building out carbon-free infrastructure, whether than is solar, wind, geothermal, nuclear or hydrogen. As that buildout gets under way it will require massive fiscal support, regulatory bypasses for permitting and taxation supports in the form of carbon credits. It will also result in a significant near-term boost in demand for all manner of resources from copper to lithium and from coal to oil.

Each turbine is expected to deliver around 80 GWh of Energy per year, depending on site-specific conditions, which is said to work out as being enough to power 20,000 European homes.

The V236-15.0 MW also offers the potential to reduce the number of turbines deployed at offshore windfarm level – with Vestas calculating that the "offshore turbine offers 65 percent higher annual Energy production than the V173-9.5 MW, and for a 900-MW wind park it boosts production by five percent with 34 fewer turbines."

The company expects the first V236-15.0 MW prototype to be built in 2022, with serial production following two years later. It has a design lifetime of 25 years.

“With the V236-15.0 MW, we raise the bar in terms of technological innovation and industrialization in the wind Energy industry, in favor of building scale," says Anders Nielsen, Vestas CTO. "By leveraging Vestas’ extensive proven technology, the new platform combines innovation with certainty to offer industry-leading performance while reaping the benefits of building on the supply chain of our entire product portfolio. The new offshore platform forms a solid foundation for future products and upgrades.”

Boosting production and needing to build fewer towers suggests there should be cost savings in construction. The big change in renewable Energy occurred in late 2019 when economies of scale improved enough that the wind and solar sectors could survive without subsidies. That has led to a complete reappraisal of the rationale for investing in the sector. More recently it has allowed the renewable Energy sector focus on the subsidies provided to fossil fuel companies across the Energy supply chain.

A link to the full report is posted in the  Subscriber's Area. 

The uranium sector has had a number of false dawns over the last decades. The reason for an inability to reach escape trajectory from the lengthy base formations was KazAtom’s policy of flooding the market and driving high-cost producers out of business.

I hope you are enjoying the holidays and looking forward to a better year next year.

Here’s another one of Charles Gave's excellent articles-the oil price is on the move thus starting to bear out his fear of a 1970s-type repeat.

Secondly, regarding Ethereum, have you been able to quantify any price target and if so, what technical data/events have you chosen to use?

Thank you for this interesting report which repeats Gave’s earlier call for an inflationary boom with which I agree. However, I’m not sure we are in the same kind of bull market in oil that we had in the first decade of this century. The history of secular bull markets in oil points to rising prices lasting as long as it takes new sources of supply to reach market. That is followed by decades of ranging.

On November 24th I posted a review of candidates I believe likely to prosper in the emerging post-pandemic market. It was well received by subscribers so I will post an update on my views on the first Friday of the month going forward. That way subscribers can have an expectation that long-term themes will be covered in a systematic manner and will have a point of reference to look back on.

Media hysteria about the 2nd or 3rd waves has not led to new highs in the number of deaths. The success of biotech companies in deploying vaccines means there is going to be a substantial recovery in the economic activity in 2021 and going forward.

The stay-at-home champions saw their sales growth surge in 2020. It will be impossible to sustain that growth rate in 2021. That’s particularly true for mega-caps. One-way bets on the sector are likely to work less well in the FAANGs going forward.

Based on normal accepted industry operation procedures, the company at this time and prior to further engineering and flow testing, would entertain a possible daily flow rate of between 4,100 and 5,600 MCFGPD based on aggregated production from both wells. The Company has compared these wells to the closest established and documented helium production located approximately 35 miles NE in the Pinta Dome Field.  Note: Desert Mountain Energy’s wells have been completed in members of the Pennsylvanian-aged Formations which are lower in depth than the helium productive Permian-aged Coconino Formation found at Pinta Dome (AZOGCC archives).  Production comparisons with a number of wells from the prolific Pinta Dome Field, specifically the Kerr-McGee Barfoot State#1, clearly shows that large artificial formation stimulation was not required to exceed the original projected calculated reserves by over 500%, over a 13-year production life (Olukoga 2016, AZOGCC Barfoot #1 well files).

There have been a number of articles over the last couple of years about the lack of new supply for helium, against a background of continued strong demand growth. Here is a link to an article from Forbes, dated April 2019, making a number of points about supply inelasticity meets rising demand. 

Automotive demand down only 17% (-132 koz) YoY despite a 24% fall in Q1 light global vehicle sales

Tightening global emissions standards, driving higher pgm loadings, partially counters lower auto sales/production

W. Europe diesel share decline slowed on increased diesel sales

Diesel vehicles still key for automakers to avoid or reduce heavy CO2 fines

German diesel car market share continued to recover (Q1’20 average 35%, up 1.3% over 2019 average)

A link to the full report is posted in the Subscriber's Area.

It’s easy to think that diesel is a dead fuel but sales still continue. The damage to consumer confidence may, however, be impossible to overcome. That is creating a new market for transportation alternatives. 

The deformation occurred last Saturday when the flood from western provinces including Sichuan and Chongqing along the upper reaches of the Yangtze River peaked at a record-setting 61,000 cubic meters per second, according to China Three Gorges Corporation, a state-owned enterprise that manages the dam and the sprawling power plant underneath it.

The company noted that parts of the dam had “deformed slightly,” displacing some external structures, and seepage into the main outlet walls had also been reported throughout the 18 hours on Saturday and Sunday when water was discharged though its outlets.

But the problem of water seeping out did not last long, as the dam reportedly deployed floodgates to hold as much water as possible in its 39.3 billion-cubic-meter reservoir to shield the cities downstream from the biggest Yangtze deluge so far this year.

And

Meanwhile, Wang Hao, a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and an authority on hydraulics who sits on the Ministry of Water Resources’ Yangtze River Administration Commission, has also assured that the dam is sound enough to withstand the impact from floods twice the mass flow rate recorded on Saturday.

It is still raining in southwest China and that means the dam will be letting out more water to control the level behind the wall. Therefore, it is unlikely to be able to curtail the risk of flooding downriver.

Recently there has been discussion about yield curve control (YCC), and whether the FED will introduce a new policy on managing interest rates. Do not be fooled - this is a rather large red herring, as the debt is now too large in the US (as it is in most major economies) to raise rates without the increased interest cost having a debilitating effect on annual government budget figures.

There is no longer $ 1trn of outstanding US federal Bills - in June the outstanding amount surpassed $ 5trn. If rates rise from 0.2% to 2%, the ANNUAL interest cost just on that segment of the outstanding $19trn debt would rise from ~$ 8.5bn to ~$ 102bn. Naturally you would also need to also factor in the impact of higher interest rate costs on leveraged households and corporates.

This is the red herring - the size of the debt will force monetary policy. To think that the central bank can raise rates means ignoring the consequence from the debt stock. And this is the root of my lower for longer view, which is obviously influenced from years of studying Japan, and which is now almost completely priced in to rates markets. Remember that the YCC in Japan led to a severe reduction of the BOJ buying of JGBs - it just did not have to.

The Japanification of the developed world represents a massive challenge for investors in search of yield. 90% of all sovereign bonds have yields below 1% and the total of bonds with negative yields is back at $14 trillion and climbing.

After a week characterised by selling across the board, a great deal of profit taking has taken place and many overextensions relative to the trend mean have been unwound. The question I believe many people will be concerned with is whether the coronavirus is going to be the catalyst for an economic contraction? I thought it would therefore be worth monitoring the kinds of instruments that offer a lead indicator for that kind of concern.

Almost two-thirds of U.S. natural gas production is at risk of being cut as prices tumble, according to Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co.

About 55 billion cubic feet a day of gas in basins from Texas to Appalachia could be curtailed, analysts at Tudor Pickering wrote Monday in a note to clients. That’s roughly 60% of current dry gas output, based on BloombergNEF estimates.

Mounting debt, a lack of access to capital markets and a drop in hedging will lead to a decline in drilling starting in the second half of this year, Tudor Pickering said. The Energy-focused investment bank says only two or three companies, including Cabot Oil & Gas Corp., can afford to keep output flat with prices below $2.25 per thousand cubic feet, or about $2.17 per million Btu.

“We do expect to see a significant number of bankruptcies if gas prices stay this low,” Matthew Portillo, managing director of upstream research at Tudor Pickering, said by phone. Producers have no gas hedges in place beyond 2021, he said.

Gas has lost about a third of its value since early November, sinking below $2 per million British thermal units for the first time in almost four years as production from shale basins overwhelms demand amid a mild winter.

“What you’re starting to see is the forward curve not only in 2020 but in 2021-plus has moved to such a low price that companies are not able to drill within cash flow to hold drilling steady,” Portillo said.

Drilling in the Haynesville shale in Louisiana is set for a “significant collapse” if prices remain low, he said.

Unconventional supply is prolific but expensive. The vast majority of companies rely on continued high prices to support their drilling activities. That ensures the cyclicality of prices. The higher prices are the more oil and gas can be produced but declines in prices mean drillers can no long source funding and some will inevitably go bankrupt. That will temporarily withdraw supply from the market which will support prices and open the way for new drilling to take place.

Quick thought, following your comment on America's oil glut, and Morgan Stanley's report you highlighted.

I have been watching the difference in price between the WTI and Brent Crude for a long time now. The difference seems to vary between 10 and almost 20% depending on the day, with WTI obviously being the cheaper. Is it too SIMPLISTIC to say?

1) that US factories, offices, homes etc enjoy an enormous advantage over their global competitors with Energy costs being so much cheaper, not forgetting it already enjoys a significant tax advantage over many as well.

2) when the US does become a significant oil exporter, it can make a lot of profit, even by offering only minor discounts to the Brent price to attract business. Possibly more profit than from its LNG exports.

Thank you for highlighting these points. I’ve always been a fan of Ockham’s Razor. There is no need to get over complicated. The USA has a massive advantage in terms of its oil and gas production capacity. That is reshaping global geopolitics, it will have a meaningful effect on the balance of payments and it has already had a meaningful effect on the chemical industry because of reduced input costs.  one.

Struggling French nuclear giant Areva (rebranded as Orano this year) slashed production more than a year ago. In August Paladin put its Langer Heinrich mine in Namibia on care and maintenance, although this week the Sydney-based miner said it's working on a possible restart of operations with vanadium as a byproduct (vanadium is trading at record highs and the only metal outperforming uranium).

In a research note on Kazatomprom, BMO Capital Markets says the production discipline from top miners will break the trend of rising global uranium inventories following the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan in 2011 and prompt the first production deficit in more than a decade.

And

China has 42 operating nuclear reactors, 16 reactors under construction and a further 43 planned. At the end of November, the country's national uranium corporation bought control of the Rossing uranium mine in Namibia. China is also behind the only sizeable uranium mine to come into production in the past few years, the Husab mine in Namibia, although ramp there has been slow.

Japan is steadily firing up its shuttered nuclear plants and considering China’s demand for clean Energy it is unlikely to be deterred from continuing its construction program. Meanwhile when the world’s major producers find it more cost effective to buy in the spot market than produce the metal themselves then we know prices are depressed.

Vanadium pentoxide (V2O5) which makes its way into so-called vanadium redox flow batteries used in Energy storage systems breached $20 a pound for the first time since 2005 this month. That’s a four-fold increase from the start of 2017.

Simon Moores of Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, a battery materials research and price discovery provider based out of London, says the recent success of lithium ion batteries being deployed in increasing larger systems that are exceeding 1GWh has brought to light the huge potential of the market for all types of battery technologies.

Vanadium flow batteries have lifespans of over 20 years without capacity loss, are non-flammable and can operate at any temperature. Another advantage over lithium ion is that this type of battery can be charged and discharged simultaneously making it highly suitable for large-scale storage from renewable sources such as solar and wind when connected to an electricity grid. Main downside is low Energy density which means comparatively large installations needed.

“If a vanadium battery producer steps forward with bold plans to produce vanadium flow at mass scale, giving the industry its Elon Musk or lithium ion moment, the potential for the technology to be the second most deployed ESS battery in the world is there,” says Moores.

“Raw material self-sufficiency is a critical component to this. At least a third of the cost of a vanadium flow battery is vanadium pentoxide which makes up the liquid electrolyte.

“If companies are thinking of creating the Gigafactory of vanadium flow batteries, they will either need to own a mine or implement a new pricing system where the fully recyclable vanadium in the battery is leased."

Battery technology is improving all the time and a race is on to develop models which will be the foundation of an electric vehicle. Concurrently, efforts are underway to develop batteries that can perform at scale for utilities which are increasingly reliant on renewables are inherently intermittent sources of Energy. Those are two completely different growth trajectories and given the different priorities it is quite likely there will be a number of potential solutions that eventually make it to market. 

The announcement made by uranium giant Cameco in November that it’s suspending operations at its flagship McArthur River mine in northern Saskatchewan and surprisingly deep three-year cuts by Kazakhstan’s state-owned Kazatomprom provide a "step change" for uranium prices says a new report on the sector from Cantor Fitzgerald equity research.

On Monday, the world largest producer of uranium, surprised the beleaguered market with a larger than expected cut to production of its own.

Two weeks ago, Kazakhstan’s state-owned Kazatomprom announced intentions to reduce its output of U3O8 by 20% or 11,000 tonnes (around 28.5m pounds) over the next three years beginning in January 2018. According to the company roughly 4,000 tonnes will be cut in 2018 alone "representing approximately 7.5% of global uranium production for 2018 as forecast by UxC."

Cameco's shuttering of McArthur River for ten months is expected to reduce production by 13.7m pounds in 2018 translating to a combined 42.3m pounds of expected production that has been removed from the market. In 2018 alone, the reduction will be about 24.1m pounds of U3O8 or about 15% of Cantor Fitzgerald's prior forecast of 158.4m pounds of output.

The price of commodities is set by the marginal cost of production and when two of the largest producers’ shutter facilities, it means prices have fallen to uneconomic levels. Uranium isn’t exactly fashionable but it is still required to fuel reactors all over the world. If supply is being curtailed prices will have to rise to attract producers back into the market. 

A clear signal that something is afoot would be the abolition of the Saudi riyal's peg to the US dollar. As recently as April of this year economist Nasser Saeedi advised Middle Eastern countries to prepare for a “new normal” — and specifically to review the dollar pegs of their currencies: “By 2025 it is clear that the center of global economic geography is very much in Asia. What we’ve been living in over the past two decades is a very big shift in the political, economic, and financial geography.”

While the role of oil-producing countries (and particularly Saudi Arabia) shouldn't be underestimated, at present the driving forces with regard to de-dollarization are primarily Moscow and Beijing. We want to take a closer look at this process.

There exist numerous political statements in this context which leave no room for doubt. The Russians and Chinese are quite open about their views regarding the role of gold in the current phase of the transition. Thus, Russian prime minister Dimitri Medvedev, at the time president of Russia, held a gold coin up to a camera on occasion of the 2008 G8 meeting in Aquila in Italy. Medvedev said that debates over the reserve currency question had become a permanent fixture of the meetings of government leaders.

Almost ten years later, the topic of currencies and gold is on the Sino-Russian agenda again. In March, Russia's central bank opened its first office in Beijing. Russia is preparing to place its first renminbi-denominated government bond. Both sides have intensified efforts in recent years to settle bilateral trade not in US dollars, but in rubles and yuan. Gold is considered important by both countries.

 

Oil and its derivative products are used in every country in the world so it is logical that the acquiescence of major suppliers to a Dollar standard is a necessary condition of the USA’s international currency hegemony. However, it is not the only consideration. 

Hedge funds and other speculators increased their short positions in the Canadian dollar to the highest level on record, according to data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The loonie, which is the worst-performing major currency this year, has been under pressure in recent weeks amid concerns over a potential trade war with the U.S., a plunge in crude oil and financial woes of alternative mortgage lender Home Capital Group Inc.

The Canadian Dollar skirted the worst effects of the credit crisis by virtue of having a strongly regulated banking sector when just about everywhere else in the G7 had given into the worst excesses to deregulation. The rebound in oil allowed the Loonie to retest its 2008 peak in 2011 but the subsequent decline in commodity prices has taken its toll.

Kazatomprom that it plans to cut its annual uranium production by 10%, or by 5.2M lbs U3O8. This amount translates into roughly 3% of 2015 global production and marks an inflection point in the space. Since at least 2001, Kazatomprom has relentlessly increased production into an oversupplied market and is arguably the single biggest cause for the weakness in the commodity aside from the Fukushima disaster. In fact, we had long since given up on expecting Kazatomprom to exercise production restraint as its mines were the lowest cost operators in the world and constant production increases appeared to be a cultural focus in Kazakhstan.

While some skepticism exists on whether Kazatomprom will actually follow through with this cut (as opposed to OPEC style “cuts”), we suspect that at least some of the production reduction will occur among joint venture operations managed by western producers such as Cameco. Moreover, we believe the impact will be more than the announced cut amount because the market was likely factoring in a typical Kazatomprom increase as opposed to a cut. So instead of a 3-5% increase we are expecting a reduction of 10%, or a 13-15 percentage point swing.

Cameco’s announcement of Tokyo Electric Power Holdings’ (“TEPCO”) termination of its supply contract has cast some concern over what will happen with the U3O8 pounds that were earmarked for the Japanese utility. In total, the contract was for 9.3M lbs U3O8 to be delivered from 2017-2028, this works out to 775,000 lbs annually. TEPCO was selling some if not all of the material it was contractually obligated to purchase already. As such, we believe the worst case scenario arising from the cancellation is that Cameco does the exact same thing and sells the material into the spot market. However, we think there is room for potential positivity from this announcement, as Cameco could instead elect to not produce the pounds at all (and further cut costs by doing so) or it could elect to store them in inventory to await higher prices. Either of those two actions would effectively be removing some of the excess supply in the market. 

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azakhstan stamped its dominance on uranium market by engineering a multi-year decline and succeeded in driving a significant number of small explorers out of business.  Last week’s news Tokyo Electric cancelled a major Cameco contract highlights just how successful their policy of flooding the market with supply has been. Having achieve their goal, the decision to limit supply is an important catalyst for the uranium market. 

“It’s the world’s best asset in the world’s worst market,” said Leigh Curyer, chief executive officer of NexGen Energy Ltd., a Vancouver-based uranium producer. “I don’t think there’s a mine profitable at current spot prices. This short-term spot price isn’t reflective of the cost of producing a pound globally.”

The outlook isn’t entirely bleak. Losses are forcing uranium mines to cut production or close, which may eventually create a supply crunch, while accelerated building of nuclear plants in China and India could help revive demand. But it may take a while for those developments to take hold, according to a report last month from Morgan Stanley, which said it can’t identify any medium- or long-term driver for prices.

Uranium extended its fade last year even as most other raw materials recovered. The Bloomberg Commodity Index of 22 items posted its first annual gain since 2010, advancing 11 percent.

 

When Tata Motors bought Land Rover it held onto the name for obvious reasons. It knew it didn’t stand a chance of selling a luxury vehicle under the moniker Tata Motors. If nuclear Energy could do the same it would be in a much better position. Reactors being built today bear little resemblance to those which have garnered such a bad reputation over the last number of decades. However that is not the point. Public opinion is not yet in favour of uranium fuelled Energy and there is little evidence that is about to change not least because it simply does not have a high profile credible spokesperson to champion it. 

Historically, LNG has been sold on long-term contracts that guaranteed buyers supply and helped producers finance liquefaction plants at a time when less of the product was shipped. Now, a gas glut is causing LNG importing countries to support renegotiating existing deals that can run 20 years or more while suppliers offer more flexible terms to lock up customers spoiled for choice.

India already is encouraging importers to rework long-term accords to better align costs with spot market prices. Japan, the world’s largest LNG importer, may soon join them. That country’s Fair Trade Commission is in the process of probing resale restrictions in longer deals in an effort that could mean the renegotiation of more than $600 billion in contracts and boost the number of shorter-term agreements.

“There will be 40 million to 50 million tons of homeless LNG by 2020, which can go anywhere or doesn’t have any fixed customers,” said Hiroki Sato, a senior executive vice president with Jera Co., a fuel buyer that plans to increase spot and short-term LNG deals. “Homeless LNG will provide a great opportunity to improve liquidity in Asian and global markets.”

 

The evolution of a global transportation network for natural gas is creating the impetus to divorce pricing from long-term oil contracts. While Russia floated the idea of creating a natural gas equivalent of OPEC a few years back, as a way of preserving it pricing power, it was unable to reach critical mass. 

The reality today is that a substantial number of new entrants to the market, not least Australia, the USA and developing east Africa, all have a vested interest in capturing market share. Meanwhile major consumers like Japan, India and China would understandably like to avail of lower prices. The expansion of the Panama Canal also boosts the viability of US exports to Asia. 

That’s why Goldman Sachs calls lithium the “new gasoline”. It’s also why The Economist calls it “the world’s hottest commodity”, and talks about a “global scramble to secure supplies of lithium by the world’s largest battery producers, and by end-users such as carmakers.”

In fact, as the Economist notes, the price of 99%-pure lithium carbonate imported to China more than doubled in the two months to the end of December—putting it at a whopping $13,000 per ton.

But what you might not know is that this playing field is fast becoming a battlefield that has huge names such as Apple, Google and start-up Faraday Future throwing down for electric car market share and even reportedly gaming to see who can steal the best engineers.

Apple has now come out of the closet with plans for its own electric car by 2019, putting it on a direct collision course with Tesla. And Google, too, is pushing fast into this arena with its self-driving car project through its Alphabet holding company.

Then we have the Faraday Future start-up—backed by Chinese billionaire Jia Yueting–which has charged onto this scene with plans for a new $1-billion factory in Las Vegas, and is hoping to produce its first car next year already.

Ensuring the best engineers for all these rival projects opens up a second front line in the war. They’ve all been at each other’s recruitment throats for months, stealing each other’s prized staff.

And when the wave of megafactories starts pumping out batteries—with the first slated to come online as soon as next year–we could need up to 100,000 tons of new lithium carbonate by 2021. It’s an amount of lithium we just don’t have right now.

 

Describing lithium as the “new gasoline” is an interesting take on the projected demand for electric cars. Last week’s Bloomberg article proclaiming batteries would cause the next oil crisis would appear to be in the same vein. These estimates are based on the fact that large battery factories are going to come on line in the next 18 months and not just Tesla’s giga-factory in Nevada. With additional supply, prices can be expected to decline and demand should rise. Home batteries and home charging stations are likely to become much more visible and utilities are already installing industrial scale batteries to tackle intermittency of renewables and to become more efficient with fossil fuel use. 

7. Better Batteries
Solar and wind power have seemingly limitless potential, but since they're intermittent sources of Energy, they need to be stored. That’s why there’s a race to build a better battery. The lithium-ion standard bearer, introduced by Sony two-plus decades ago for personal electronics, can be pricey—especially for large uses—and flammable. So every few weeks comes an announcement of a new idea.

Harvard researchers unveiled a flow battery made with cheap, non-toxic, high-performance materials that they say won’t catch fire. “It is a huge step forward. It opens this up for anyone to use,” says Michael Aziz, Harvard University engineering professor and co-author of a study in the journal Science. (Find out how this flow battery works.) Also this year, MIT and DOE announced promising advances that could make batteries better and cheaper.

The battery push has gone beyond the lab. In May, Tesla’s Musk unveiled battery products that he plans to mass-produce in his $5 billion Gigafactory in Nevada. The products include the sleek, mountable Powerwall unit that SolarCity, a company he chairs, is putting in homes. This month, in the first such offering from a U.S. utility, Vermont’s Green Mountain Power began selling or leasing the Powerwall to customers. (Here are five reasons this battery is a big deal.)

Other companies are challenging Musk. Pittsburgh-based Aquion Energy, a spinoff from Carnegie Mellon University, began selling its saltwater battery stacks last year. German storage developer Sonnen said this month that it’s ramping up production of its lithium-ion battery at its facility in San Jose, California, for use in U.S. homes.

 

Symbiosis is popular in nature but it is becoming increasingly clear that it also has a role to play in sustaining the pace of technological innovation. Renewable Energy technologies such as wind and solar are progressing rapidly but they will always suffer from intermittency without corresponding innovation in storage for both consumer and industrial uses. This has been painfully slow to follow because it takes time for capital invested in research to deliver results and yet the signs are promising that the next really big enabler with occur among chemical companies. 

Stepping back for a moment, on September 3rd, Tesla’s Founder Elon Musk reiterated his commitment to source materials from Nevada. However, that pledge did not necessarily mean another sourcing deal, announced so soon, or that it would be for lithium. Other materials besides lithium will be required. Cobalt and graphite, (among others), will also be needed to feed Tesla’s massive giga-factory in Nevada. I find this agreement to be highly noteworthy in the sense that Tesla’s growing need for lithium, perhaps more so than that for cobalt and graphite, represents the single most important raw material need. I imagine that other lithium agreements will be signed in coming months. Without question, Nevada wants further lithium deals to come from Nevada.

The fall in oil prices has had a knock-on effect on most Energy related sectors as the relative economics of various alternatives have changed. Lithium miners have been no exception and this has been despite the fact lithium prices have not fallen. Demand for lithium-ion batteries in everything from consumer goods to cars and planes has helped fuel major investment and a large number of explorers are now listed. However securing an agreement to supply Tesla’s factory is a major coup for Pure Energy.

U.S. coal shares jumped after the Supreme Court struck down the Obama administration’s mercury and acid gases power plant rule, saying it hadn’t considered the billions of dollars in costs before issuing the rule.

Arch Coal Inc. jumped as much as 19 percent, Peabody Energy Corp. climbed 15 percent and Alpha Natural Resources Inc. was up 14 percent in intraday trading after the ruling was announced Monday.

The court’s decision calls into question an Environmental Protection Agency rule that targets mercury and acid gases. The rule has led to the closing of dozens of coal-fired power plants over the last two years.

 

It’s been a long time since coal caught a break and a great deal of bad news is already in the price. Coal is dirty, antiquarian, low tech and contributes to pollution but is cheap and abundant.  Over the last few years investors and regulators have concentrated on the former points and forgot the latter ones. Coal is the feed stock for a substantial portion of electricity production and today’s decision will mean that fewer power stations in the USA will need to be closed as a result of stringent regulations. 

Tony Abbott is expected to sign a deal to sell uranium to India during a visit to the country next month.

The Australian prime minister’s scheduled visit follows the completion of negotiations surrounding arrangements for the export of uranium, according to multiple news reports.

Indian officials convinced their Australian counterparts that the uranium would not be used for nuclear weapons, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported on Monday.

The Times of India reported earlier this month that negotiations between the two countries had concluded and the deal was likely to be signed during Abbott’s visit to India in early September.

The Australian government would not confirm the reports on Monday, but the assistant minister for infrastructure, Jamie Briggs, told the ABC it would be a welcome development if true.

 

Despite the fact Australia has the world’s largest deposits of uranium, it has no nuclear power stations and has often had a difficult relationship with its uranium mining sector; with the result that some states and territories permit mining while others don’t. Signing a deal with India for exports is a welcome development for the sector which has been languishing in the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster.

Uranium prices collapsed from their 2007 peak near $140 and, following a relatively brief rally in 2010, extended the downtrend to fresh lows. The recent three-week rally has closed the overextension relative to the 200-day MA but a sustained move above it will be required to begin to suggest a return to demand dominance beyond the short term. 

BREE's forecast iron ore price for 2015 is just above the current price of 93.30 .IO62-CNI=SI, following a 30 percent price drop this year. However, exports in fiscal 2014/15 were forecast to rise 13 percent to 720.7 million tonnes, BREE said, just below its previous estimate.

Jefferies has cut its earnings estimates for iron ore miners by 5-9 percent below consensus between 2014 and 2016, owing to expectations ore prices will continue to weaken as supply swells.

"This tsunami of supply is still rolling in, and supply growth is likely to be substantial until 2016," it said in a client note.

BREE also forecast a sharp dip in metallurgical coal prices to $118.90 a tonne in 2015, well down on its March forecast of $134.60. It slightly increased its forecast for exports to 180.5 million tonnes in 2014/15, just up on a year earlier.

Commissioning of new coal mines has more than offset lost production from ones that have closed, BREE said, but many producers were unprofitable at prevailing prices.

"This demonstrates the business of mining bulk commodities like coal and iron ore is almost exclusively the domain of big producers, which can benefit from their large economies of scale," said Minelife analyst Gavin Wendt in Sydney.

Over the last week iron-ore prices have stabilised near the 2012 low at $90. A short-term oversold condition is evident so even in a bearish scenario there is scope for a bounce from these levels. However investors are probably going to require some evidence of steadying before concluding a meaningful floor has been reached.

Coking Coal prices have fallen even further and are currently trading below their 2008 lows. A sustained move back above the 200-day MA would be required to begin to suggest more than a short-term low has been reached.

About half the trust's income comes from ordinary dividends, which Mr Hambro says are on the rise, but it has also boosted its income by investing in royalties. This is where in exchange for putting money into a company the trust, for example, receives a percentage of the revenue from the company's mine over its life. The trust holds three royalties, though can invest up to 20 per cent of its portfolio in these and is looking to increase exposure.

It entered into its first royalty agreement in 2012 with London Mining (LOND). For a consideration of $110m, the trust gets a 2 per cent revenue related royalty calculated from iron ore sales over the life of the mine from London Mining's Marampa licence in Sierra Leone. This is paid quarterly.

 

Over the last month we have highlighted a number of Energy and resources companies which have returned to positions of relative outperformance. As part of my search for suitable vehicles likely to benefit from this theme, I took a look at the Blackrock World Mining Trust’s constituents. 

While Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton remain its largest weighting, London Mining is its four largest at 6.7% of the portfolio. The trust may hold a royalty in the company’s production but the share remains in a medium-term downtrend and its market cap has declined to a mere £80 million. This underperformance may be contributing to the trusts inability to sustain a rally. 

EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy called the ruling “a resounding victory for public health and a key component” of the agency’s effort to “make sure all Americans have clean air to breathe.” She said the court’s decision underscored the importance of basing clean air rules “on strong legal foundations and sound science,” declaring it a big win and “a proud day for the agency.”

Richard Lazarus, an environmental law professor at Harvard, called the cross-state pollution rule “one of the most significant rules ever” promulgated by the EPA, and supporters said the cost of carrying it out would be more than offset by health benefits.

 

The last few years have represented a perfect storm for coal companies. Low natural gas prices took over market share among utilities. Stricter environmental standards have also increased the cost of using coal for the same utilities which has further bolstered the allure of natural gas. As a result a number of coal miners have run into financial difficulties. For example, James River Coal defaulted on its debt two weeks ago. 

“The Coalition’s plan to reduce regulation and abolish taxes will help smooth the transition in the economy away from resource investment and toward growth in the non-mining sectors,” Treasurer Joe Hockey said in a statement today.

“That will be key to boosting annual growth to more than 3 percent, which is what’s needed to bring unemployment down.”

The nation’s unemployment rate climbed to a 10-year high of 6 percent in January. February jobs data is due on March 13.

“Some indicators of business conditions and confidence have shown improvement and exports are rising,” central bank Governor Glenn Stevens said in a statement accompanying yesterday’s decision to leave rates unchanged. “At the same time, resources sector investment spending is set to decline significantly and, at this stage, signs of improvement in investment intentions in other sectors are only tentative.”

The RBA has made its intentions clear by reducing short-term rates to historic lows and repeatedly earmarking the currency for additional declines. This has had the twin effects of boosting the allure of Australia’s high yielding shares and enhancing the export sector’s competitiveness.

While a great deal of commentary has focused on the slowing pace of investment in the resources sector, the equity markets have already priced in the fact that massive write-downs have already been announced and that miners are now running much more cost-efficient operations.