Crude output: US may soon knock down Saud Arabia from second to third place

Agencies
January 20, 2018

London, Jan 20: The rapid growth of US shale producers will shortly knock Saudi Arabia from second to third place among the world’s oil-producing titans, with only Russia ahead, the International Energy Agency said on Friday.

With Venezuelan output plummeting amid political and economic turmoil, the IEA indicated the Kingdom could lose its number two position in 2018.

“Very soon US crude production may overtake that of Saudi Arabia and also rival Russia’s,” it said.

The backdrop is a tightening market amid a significant fall in Venezuelan production, geopolitical uncertainty, continuing falls in inventory levels and OPEC/Russia supply cuts.

But the upshot, said the agency, is likely to be a sizeable pick-up in non-OPEC production. After adding in barrels from Brazil, Canada and other growth countries, and allowing for falls in Mexico, China and elsewhere, total non-OPEC production will increase by 1.7 million barrels per day (bpd), IEA said in its latest world oil market report.

The agency said: “This represents, after the downturn in 2016 and the steady recovery in 2017, a return to the heady days of 2013-2015 when US-led growth averaged 1.9 million bpd.

The factors contributing to investor interest in oil include the possible unraveling of the Iran nuclear deal and recent demonstrations in the country, disruption to the industry in Libya, and the closure of the Forties pipeline system.

Although these factors might have faded somewhat, there are others at work, said the IEA. “The general perception that the market has been tightening is clearly the overriding factor and, within this overall picture, there is mounting concern about Venezuela’s production.

A plunge in Venezuelan supply cut OPEC crude output to 32.23 million bpd in December, boosting compliance to 129 percent. Declines are accelerating in Venezuela, which posted the world’s biggest unplanned output fall in 2017.”

Said the IEA: “Venezuelan production is now about half the level inherited by president Chavez in 1999 - and in December output was 490,000 bpd a day lower than a year ago, having fallen to 1.61 million bpd.

The agency said it was reasonable to assume that the decline will continue, but it was impossible to say at what rate. But if output and exports sank further, it was fair to assume other producers would probably step in with the flexibility to deliver oil similar in quality to Venezuela’s shipments to the US and elsewhere, including China.

Market tightening in the final months of 2017 was evident and continued into 2018. OECD commercial stocks declined for the fourth consecutive month in November, by 17.9 million barrels, with a large fall in middle distillates, said IEA. Preliminary data for December suggested a further fall of 42.7 million barrels.

“Additionally, global crude oil markets saw an exceptionally tight fourth quarter in 2017 as the large draw in OECD crude stocks coincided with a decline in Chinese implied crude balances.”

On the demand side, estimates for 2017 and 2018 were roughly unchanged at 97.8 million bpd and 99.1 million bpd respectively.

“The slowdown in 2018 demand growth is mainly due to the impact of higher oil prices, changing patterns of oil use in China, recent weakness in OECD demand and the switch to natural gas in several non-OECD countries. Production was steady on a year ago as non-OPEC gains of nearly 1 mb/d offset declines in OPEC.”

The price of Brent crude oil closed earlier this week above $70 for the first time since Dec. 2, 2014, and money managers have placed record bets on the recent upward momentum continuing. Whether or not the recent price rise has run out of steam and “seventy really is plenty” remained to be seen, said the agency.

“However, such are the geopolitical uncertainties and the ever-dynamic prospects for US shale that we should expect a volatile year,” it added.

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News Network
February 28,2020

Patna, Feb 28: Social and cultural activists from far and wide converged here on Thursday to lend their support to a massive rally that marked the conclusion of Kanhaiya Kumar's 'Jan Gan Man Yatra' across Bihar to galvanise public opinion against CAA-NPR-NRC.

Medha Patkar of the Narmada Bachao Andolan fame, Mahatma Gandhi's grandson Tushar Gandhi and former IAS officer Kannan Gopinathan, who gave up his career at a young age in protest against abrogation of Article 370, shared the stage with the former JNU students' leader.

Shabnam Hashmi -- founder of socio-cultural organisation ANHAD and sister of slain Marxist playwright and director Safdar Hashmi -- also joined them.

Congress MLA Shakil Ahmed Khan, a former president of JNU students' union himself who accompanied Kanhaiya during his tour that commenced at Champaran on January 30, Mahatma Gandhi's death anniversary, and leaders of state units of CPI and CPI(M) also addressed the rally held at Gandhi Maidan.

Kanhaiya began his speech with a one-minute silence held in the memory of those who lost their lives in Delhi violence.

Defending his frequent use of the term "azadi" (freedom) which supporters of the Sangh Parivar hold to be tantamount to supporting secession, Kanhaiya said, "We must talk about the virtues of azadi here since today happens to be the day when legendary revolutionary Chandrashekhar Azad had given up his life fighting the British."

Charging the ruling BJP with pitting Hindus against Muslims, he said, "Let us resolve to defeat their agenda by emulating the fabled friendship of Ram Prasad Bismil and Ashfaqullah Khan."

The young CPI leader, who made an unsuccessful debut from his native Begusarai Lok Sabha constituency last year, seemed unimpressed with the resolution passed by the Bihar Assembly earlier this week against NRC and inclusion of contentious clauses in NPR forms.

"Both the government and the opposition are busy congratulating themselves. I extend my congratulations as well. But to all those who are present here, I would say it is a half-victory. We must not allow our movement to fizzle out and draw inspiration from Gandhi's model of civil disobedience when the NPR exercise gets underway," he said.

"Villagers should ask their respective panchayat heads to ensure that no NPR official is allowed to come knocking in their areas of jurisdiction when NPR is scheduled to be undertaken in May," the CPI leader said.

"We have to brace for a long and tough fight. We are living under a regime which sends conscientious professionals like Dr Kafeel Ahmed behind the bars and declares anybody questioning its actions as an anti-national," said Kanhaiya, who has himself been slapped with a sedition case.

Earlier, in his address, Tushar Gandhi likened CAA, NPR and NRC to the "three bullets that killed the Mahatma" and asserted that these measures would "harm the poor, belonging to all religious communities and not just the Muslims".

"If the government does not care about the poor, we must tell those in power -- 'chale jaao' (go away) just as we had done to the British colonisers... it is going to be a long fight. Independence was achieved five years after the call for Quit India Movement," he said.

"We need to keep repeating the importance of non-violence over and over again while those with other value systems simply have to utter inciting statements," he said, in an oblique reference to the controversial poll campaign of Union minister and BJP leader Anurag Thakur during the recently-held Delhi Assembly elections, which the party lost.

Kannan Gopinathan said, "The claim that CAA is all about granting citizenship and not taking it away is bunkum. Any law which seeks to favour one section of the society on the basis of religion can be tweaked to harm another social segment... people say this government is Fascist. I am not sure of that but it is certainly stupid."

"This government brought in demonetisation and wrecked the economy but failed to achieve its promise of eradicating black money. It abrogated Article 370 and now it is clueless as to what to do with the situation in Kashmir," he said.

"Union minister Amit Shah had declared in Parliament that NRC will be implemented. Faced with public resistance, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had to say he does not know what NRC is. Keep up the stir for a little longer, he will start saying he does not know Amit Shah," said Kannan, evoking peals of laughter.

In the course of his speech, Kanhaiya also made the crowds sing after him the National Anthem but skipped a few words towards the end. Participants at the rally were viciously trolled on social media for the slip-up.

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Agencies
January 24,2020

New Delhi, Jan 24: The Election Commission of India on Friday told the Supreme Court that its 2018 direction asking poll candidates to declare their criminal antecedents in electronic and print media has not helped curb criminalisation of politics. The poll panel suggested that instead of asking candidates to declare criminal antecedents in the media, political parties should be asked not to give tickets to candidates with criminal background.

A bench of Justices R F Nariman and S Ravindra Bhat asked the ECI to come up with a framework within one week which can help curb criminalisation of politics in nation's interest.

The top court asked the petitioner BJP leader and advocate Ashiwini Upadhyay and the poll panel to sit together and come up with suggestions which would help him in curbing criminalisation of politics.

In September 2018, a five-judge Constitution bench had unanimously held that all candidates will have to declare their criminal antecedents to the Election Commission before contesting polls and had called for a wider publicity, through print and electronic media about antecedents of candidates.

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Satya Vishwasi
 - 
Saturday, 25 Jan 2020

What about those criminals who were already in parliament and vidahan sabhas? shall the ECI cancel their positions?

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News Network
May 28,2020

Geneva, May 28: The global death toll from the novel coronavirus has risen over the past 24 hours by 5,581 to 349,095, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in its daily situation report.

The number of confirmed cases has increased by 84,314 to 5,488,825, the WHO said.

Most cases of infection are recorded in the Americas (North and South America) - 2,495,924, with 145,810 deaths. While Europe has reported 2,061,828 cases and 1,76,226 deaths so far.

As per WHO tally, the US has the highest number of cases in the world with 1,63,4010 infections.

The global health body declared the outbreak of the new coronavirus a pandemic on March 11.

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