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Most people believe that low oil prices are good for the United States, since the discretionary income of consumers will rise. There is the added benefit that Peak Oil must be far off in the distance, since “Peak Oilers” talked about high oil prices. Thus, low oil prices are viewed as an all around benefit.

In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. The Peak Oil story we have been told is wrong. The collapse in oil production comes from oil prices that are too low, not too high. If oil prices or prices of other commodities are too low, production will slow and eventually stop. Growth in the world economy will slow, lowering inflation rates as well as economic growth rates. We encountered this kind of the problem in the 1930s. We seem to be headed in the same direction today. Figure 1, used by Janet Yellen in her September 24 speech, shows a slowing inflation rate for Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE), thanks to lower energy prices, lower relative import prices, and general “slack” in the economy.

What Janet Yellen is seeing in Figure 1, even though she does not recognize it, is evidence of a slowing world economy. The economy can no longer support energy prices as high as they have been, and they have gradually retreated. Currency relativities have also readjusted, leading to lower prices of imported goods for the United States. Both lower energy prices and lower prices of imported goods contribute to lower inflation rates.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

TSX falls 373 points as commodities sell off again

September 29, 2015

TSX falls 373 points as commodities sell off again

Canadian dollar loses almost half a cent to close at 74.66 cents US.

Canada’s benchmark stock index lost almost 2.8 per cent on another bleak Monday for commodities like oil, gold and copper.

The S&P/TSX Composite Index lost 373 points to close at 13,004. That’s the lowest level for Canada’s benchmark stock index since October 2013.

The TSX is now down by almost six per cent since the start of September. If that holds until Wednesday, the last day of the month, it will be the worst month for the index since 2012, and the June-to-September period would be the worst three-month period for Canada’s benchmark stock index since 2011.

Almost all of the sub-sectors were lower. Commodities were especially hard hit as the December gold contract fell $13.40 to $1,132.20 US an ounce and the November crude oil contract was down $1.23 at $44.47 US a barrel.

The gloom in commodities was largely tied to more news out of China about that country’s slowing economy. Profits at Chinese industrial firms dropped by the largest amount on record since Beijing started releasing the data in 2011.

“Whenever the market is down, the first place to look these days is China,” John Manley, chief equity strategist at Wells Fargo Fund Management, told The Associated Press.

“Right now, we need evidence that China is not slowing that much and that profits are still going to be OK.”

Alcoa splitting in two

In corporate news, one of the world’s largest mining companies, Alcoa, was a bright spot for mining stocks with the stock rising about six per cent on the NYSE. But that optimism was only because the company announced it was splitting itself into two, to insulate its growing and profitable aerospace and automotive business from its sagging base metals business, which primarily consists of aluminum assets.

Prior to Monday’s bounce, Alcoa shares had lost more than 40 per cent this year as the price of metals cratered.

The Canadian dollar lost almost half a cent amid the gloom, to close at 74.66 cents US.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Commodity Carnage Continues Amid Fears Of Glencore Liquidation

September 28, 2015

Commodity Carnage Continues Amid Fears Of Glencore Liquidation

Despite a relatively unchanged US Dollar, commodities across the board are under significant (and seemingly coordinated) pressure this morning. It appears that the key selling began as Europe opened and the carnage in massive commodity group Glencore began to materialize. Glencore CDS is now above 700bps (up 154bps today) and stocks down almost 30% today…

Commodities being sold systemically despite a lack of FX-driven impact…

And even more worrying, Bank counterparty risk is re-soaring…

Charts: Bloomberg

China’s Hard-Landing Has Arrived: Chinese Coal Company Fires 100,000

September 27, 2015

China’s Hard-Landing Has Arrived: Chinese Coal Company Fires 100,000

The global commodity collapse is finally starting to take its toll on what China truly cares about: the employment of the tens of millions of currently employed and soon to be unemployed workers.

On Friday, in a move that would make even Hewlett-Packard’s Meg Whitman blush, Harbin-based Heilongjiang Longmay Mining Holding Group, or Longmay Group, the biggest met coal miner in northeast China which has been struggling to reduce massive losses in recent months as a result of the commodity collapse, just confirmed China’s “hard-landing” has arrived when itannounced on its website it would cut 100,000 jobs or 40% of its entire 240,000-strong labor force.

Impacted by the slump in coal prices, the group saw its loss over January-August surged more than 1.1 billion yuan ($17.2 million) from the year before. In the first half of 2015, the group closed eight coking coal mines most of which had approached the end of their mining lives, due to poor production margins amid bleak sales.

Chaiman of the group Wang Zhikui said the job losses were a way of helping the company “stop bleeding.” The heavily-indebted company also plans to sell its non-coal related businesses to help pay off its debts, said Wang. The State-owned mining group has subsidiaries in Jixi, Hegang, Shuangyashan and Qitaihe in Heilongjiang province, which account for about half the region’s coal production.

According to China Daily, last year, Longmay launched a management restructuring and cut thousands of jobs to stay profitable, amid the overall industry decline. However, the company still reported around 5 billion yuan ($815 million) in losses.

It has been a dramatic fall from grace for the company, which in 2011 reported 800 million yuan in profit with annual production exceeding 50 million metric tons.

Experts said staff costs remain a major reason for the company’s continued heavy losses. That, and the ongoing collapse in met coal prices of course.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Australia’s Mega LNG Projects are in Serious Trouble

September 22, 2015

Australia’s Mega LNG Projects are in Serious Trouble

In the US, natural gas is dirt cheap. The price peaked in 2008 and has since collapsed. It remains below the cost of production, even today. Two natural gas drillers have recently buckled and declared bankruptcy.

In the international markets, natural gas is traded as Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG). There was a time, after Japan shut down its nuclear power plants in the wake of Fukushima, when prices, particularly for delivery in Japan and Korea, soared. And during this environment, a number of countries invested heavily into building LNG export terminals that convert natural gas into LNG.

In the US, this has been the story of Cheniere Energy, a company that has barely any sales. It’s mostly famous for always losing a lot of money and then raising even more money. It’s stock has soared from less than $2 a share in 2009 to over $80 a share late last year and earlier this year, giving it a ludicrous market capitalization of nearly $20 billion. And it has a breath-taking $18 billion in debt. But the dream is deflating, and it closed at $52.40 today.

It’s deflating because it’s a dream, and dreams always deflate sooner or later. And because prices in the rest of the world have collapsed as well.

And because in the US, current low prices are sending producers into bankruptcy. This works for a while, until it doesn’t. At some point – when the money runs out – they stop drilling. And they can’t restart until prices rise significantly. Rising gas prices in the US and dropping LNG prices in the international market crimps any possibilities for Cheniere’s math to work out.

Australia is in the same boat, but to an extent that dwarves US efforts. Here’s Mark Hansen in Australia to shed light on just how ugly the LNG debacle is getting down under.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Peak Oil Has More To Do With Oil Prices Than You May Think

September 20, 2015

Peak Oil Has More To Do With Oil Prices Than You May Think

The Origins of Peak Oil Awareness

The scientific study of peak oil began in the 1950′s, when Shell geophysicist M. King Hubbert reported on the evolution of production rates in oil and gas fields. In a 1956 paper Hubbert suggested that oil production in a particular region would approximate a bell curve, increasing exponentially during the early stages of production before eventually slowing, reaching a peak when approximately half of a field had been extracted, and then going into terminal production decline.

Hubbert applied his methodology to oil production for the Lower 48 US states and offshore areas. He estimated that the ultimate potential reserve of the Lower 48 US states and offshore areas was 150 billion barrels of oil. Based on that reserve estimate, the 6.6 million barrels per day (bpd) extraction rate in 1955, and the 52.5 billion barrels of oil that had been previously produced in the US, Hubbert’s base case estimate was that oil production in the US would reach maximum production in 1965. He also estimated that global oil production would peak around the year 2000 at a maximum production rate of 34 million bpd.

Hubbert calculated a secondary case that if the US oil reserve increased to 200 billion barrels (about which he expressed doubts), peak production would occur in 1970, a delay of five years from his base case. Oil production in the US did in fact peak in 1970, so Hubbert is widely credited with precisely calling the US peak, but few know that he was actually skeptical that the peak would take place as late as 1970.

The US has now surpassed Hubbert’s most optimistic estimate for US oil production. Through 2014, cumulative US production stands at approx. 215 billion barrels, with a remaining estimated proved reserve of 48.5 billion barrels (but with the caveat that this reserves estimate is based on crude prices near $100/bbl).

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

From Miracle to Cataclysm – why the commodity bust will last for years

September 12, 2015

From Miracle to Cataclysm – why the commodity bust will last for years

The Chinese Jīngjì qíjī, wirtschaftswunder, keizai no kiseki, milagro económico or whatever you want to call is neither a miracle nor distinctly Chinese. A basket case like Argentine managed to pull off a similar feat, albeit with more volatility, over a 42 year timespan beginning in 1870. Germany did even better between 1945 and 1970. And Japan had its own miracle from 1950 to 1990.

Giving the Beijing consensus, whatever that may be, credit for creating an unprecedented economic miracle is naïve and have led pundits all over the world to make disastrously optimistic forecasts for what the future will bring. Commodity producers as far away as Latin America, Africa and Australia have poured money into capacity expansions with a very simple strategy; can’t sell it? Dump it in China, they’ll take it. We have seen this, admittedly expressed more eloquently, first hand.

Source: Angus Maddison, International Monetary Fund, Bawerk.net

China is several countries centrally governed by a ruthless power elite with vested interest in maintaining the status quo. To expand their own power, wealth and status all they had to do was open up their borders to foreign capital and supplying it with slave labour. It is not very difficult, even a communist can figure it out. However, as the economy evolved it needed investments in infrastructure which was easily funded by stealing workers savings (financial repression on a scale the Yellen’s and Draghi’s of the world can only dream off) and funnelling it into state owned enterprises with lucrative government contracts. They didn’t even have to pay lip service to property rights as all property was and still is held by the state. In short, this stage of economic development involves resource allocation from the centre. As Michael Pettis argues in The Four Stages of Chinese Growth centralised capital allocation gets a tremendous support from the rent-seeking elite and are thus easy to implement.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Default Next Move For Oil Is Down, And Here’s Why

September 6, 2015

The Default Next Move For Oil Is Down, And Here’s Why

Panic seems like a strong word, but….

As traders, investors and pundits, we all like to think that what we do is akin to a science. We believe that by working harder and being smarter we can give ourselves an edge, that enough research will reveal to us the next move, either a long term trend or an intraday blip on a chart, and that we can profit from that knowledge. Usually, especially over longer time spans, we are correct in that assumption. Sometimes, however, no amount of fundamental or technical analysis will help.

Over the last week or so we have seen some violent swings in the price of oil, swings that in many ways defy logic. At times like these we have to rely on the art, rather than science, of trading and reading markets. That is not to say that traders and investors at home should be simply making wild guesses. It is just that right now, the oil markets are trading on factors other than the fundamental influences that we are used to. It is hard to chart fear and panic.

Panic may seem like a strong word to many, but having been a denizen of a dealing room for most of my working life I can assure you that that is what many have been feeling. The level of overreaction that we have been seeing to every scrap of news over the last couple of weeks is hard to justify in any other way. It is at times like this that some degree of basic technical analysis, a simple identification of support and resistance, becomes all we have to fall back on. To that extent the science of reading these markets is still intact, but once the significant levels have been identified, assessing in what way they are significant is more of an art.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

What’s Coming Unglued Now in Canada?

September 5, 2015

What’s Coming Unglued Now in Canada?

Canada lumbered through the first half of 2015 in a “technical recession,” Statistics Canada confirmed this week, as GDP shrank in both quarters. Among the culprits: the swooning energy sector and an investment slump.

Now everybody is lining up behind the hope that a sudden acceleration will put the economy back on track in the third quarter, despite oil that has re-crashed and despite the ongoing collapse – and that’s what it is – of the all-important energy sector.

To get to this acceleration, the once booming residential and commercial construction sectors have to hold up, or else Canada’s economy is in real trouble. Alas….

“Canada is also in the midst of an ill-timed supply surge that caused vacancy rates to rise even in markets with positive absorption” in the second quarter, warns a new report by commercial real estate firm Colliers International cited by the Financial Post. It paints a picture of an epic office boom turned into an even more epic office glut, particularly in Calgary and Edmonton, Alberta, the epicenter of Canada’s oil patch.

This office glut comes on top of Calgary’s housing meltdown. For the first eight months, total home sales in Calgary plunged 25%, according to the Calgary Real Estate Board. Condo sales collapsed 39% in August and 30% year-to-date. Inventory sits a lot longer on the market before it sells, if it sells. And pressures are building on prices: the average condo price was down over 10% in August from a year ago.

Commercial real estate is heading in a similar direction. Only worse. Calgary was a boom town. Office towers have been sprouting like mushrooms. In recent years, commercial real estate costs downtown were “going through the roof” and “accelerating at a pace far beyond the Canadian average,” Calgary Chamber of Commerce director of policy and research Justin Smith told the Financial Post. But it takes years to plan and build office towers, and now no one can just turn off the flow.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Three Worrying Economic Trends Beyond Canada’s GDP Drop

September 3, 2015

Three Worrying Economic Trends Beyond Canada’s GDP Drop

New data confirms what 79 per cent of Canadians already felt.

The much anticipated quarterly GDP numbers are out, and StatsCan confirmed what 79 per cent of Canadians already felt to be the case — Canada’s economy is in decline. A drop in economic activity of 0.1 per cent in the second quarter of 2015 officially tipped Canada in recession territory (after a drop of 0.2 per cent in the first quarter).

The dip in GDP is what’s making the headlines this week, but there are three other trends in the new data released by StatsCan that suggest the economic slowdown is here to stay. Indeed, as my colleague David Macdonald noted here, “recession is just the tip of Canada’s economic iceberg.”

1. Business investment is down for the third consecutive quarter

This decline comes on the heels of a long post-recession period of weak business investment since early 2012. You may remember the former governor of the Bank of Canada, Mark Carney, famously accusing companies of sitting on piles of“dead money” in the summer of 2012. A quick look at the statistics shows little has changed since.

Business investment in non-residential structures and machinery and equipment from 2010 to 2015, via StatsCan.

The problem is that without business investment, we can expect weaker job growth and a slower economy to continue.

The Bank of Canada cut its interest rate in January 2015 in an attempt to to encourage investment and boost the economy. Unfortunately, all this seems to have done is further distort real estate markets, particularly in places like Vancouver where housing affordability is reaching record lows.

2. A number of key economic sectors are in decline, not just oil and gas

Over the last decade, Canada’s economy has become overly reliant on mining and oil exports. It’s not surprising that when the price of oil and minerals drops sharply, as it has over the last year, our resource sector would be hit hard. But the economic decline extends beyond mining, oil and gas.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The “Great Accumulation” Is Over: The Biggest Risk Facing The World’s Central Banks Has Arrived

September 1, 2015

The “Great Accumulation” Is Over: The Biggest Risk Facing The World’s Central Banks Has Arrived

To be sure, there’s been no shortage of media coverage regarding the collapse in crude prices that’s unfolded over the course of the past year. Similarly, it’s no secret that commodity prices in general are sitting near their lowest levels of the 21st century.

When Saudi Arabia, in an effort to bankrupt the US shale space and tighten the screws on a recalcitrant Moscow, endeavored late last year to keep oil prices suppressed, the kingdom killed the petrodollar, a move we argued would put pressure on USD assets and suck hundreds of billions in liquidity from global markets.

Thanks to the fanfare surrounding China’s stepped up UST liquidation in support of the yuan, the world is beginning to understand what we meant. The accumulation of USD assets held as FX reserves across the emerging world served as a source of liquidity and kept a bid under things like US Treasurys. Now that commodity prices have fallen off a cliff thanks to lackluster global demand and trade, the accumulation of those assets slowed, and as a looming Fed hike along with fears about the stability of commodity currencies conspired to put pressure on EM FX, the great EM reserve accumulation reversed itself. This is the environment into which China is now dumping its own reserves and indeed, the PBoC’s rapid liquidation of USTs over the past two weeks has added fuel to the fire and effectively boxed the Fed in.

On Tuesday, Deutsche Bank is out extending their “quantitative tightening” (QT) analysis with a look at what’s ahead now that the so-called “Great Accumulation” is over.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

GDP figures from Statistics Canada expected to show second-quarter contraction

September 1, 2015

GDP figures from Statistics Canada expected to show second-quarter contraction

Lower loonie expected to boost economy in third quarter

Economists say data out this week is likely to show that Canada slipped into a technical recession in the second quarter, but the contraction should be short-lived.

“A number of positive elements are coming through,” said TD Bank chief economist Beata Caranci. “Even if, like we’re expecting, we get a contraction in the second quarter, the consumption numbers are likely to be fairly healthy.”

According to Thomson Reuters, economists expect Statistics Canada to report that the economy contracted at an annualized rate of 1.0 per cent in the second quarter.

Among other data expected from Statistics Canada this week are July trade figures on Thursday and the jobs report for August on Friday.

The Bank of Canada cut its key interest rate by a quarter of a percentage point to 0.5 per cent in July amid concerns about the impact falling oil prices and weak exports on the economy.

In its July monetary policy report, the central bank estimated the Canadian economy contracted at an annual pace of 0.5 per cent in the second quarter, but predicted things would pick up in the second half of the year.

Caranci says the benefit of the lower loonie to Canada’s export sector should boost growth in the third quarter.

Although exports were supposed to see a boost sooner, Caranci says the sector’s sensitivity to the loonie has diminished over the past decade as the U.S. — Canada’s biggest trading partner — has been importing more from China and Mexico.

“For every percentage point of deprecation you get to the Canadian dollar you’re getting less of a lift to exporters,” Caranci said. “You’re getting not only less sensitivity but also a more delayed response, so it’s coming in much later than we had been forecasting.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Global Demand Picture For Natural Gas Looks Increasingly Sour

August 31, 2015

Global Demand Picture For Natural Gas Looks Increasingly Sour

Bearish moods seemed to have permanently settled in energy markets. The first and most obvious victim of the nosediving oil prices has been natural gas.

Once seen invincible, liquefied natural gas (LNG) growth could now be racing to the edge of a cliff. Falling natural gas prices and fears about slowing demand in European and Asia all point to the return of a buyers’ market. Meanwhile, as crude prices fall, the oil-indexed European and Asian LNG contracts are plummeting in value, making upcoming LNG projects unsustainable. The pessimistic scenario seems to be reinforced by slumping demand in Asia, where the majority of new and existing LNG volumes were heading.

Last week Japan’s Kyushu Electric Power Company hooked its Sendai-1 nuclear power plant to the grid and expects to ramp up its generation to 95 percent in the following months. Other plants are soon to follow. Analysts predict that Japan could bring back to life 11.5 GW of nuclear generation capacity by 2017, cutting the natural gas demand by around 11 million tonnes of LNG, or 12 percent of the country’s gas imports.

Up until recently, Japan’s incredible demand for imported energy kept a floor beneath LNG prices. Japan imported a record 120 bcm of gas in 2014 or close to 36 percent of world’s total LNG exports. Not surprisingly JCC (Japanese Crude Cocktail) LNG oil-indexed prices remained above the $15/MMBtu mark for most of 2014.

However, the situation has changed dramatically since the winter of 2015. With Brent losing more than half of its value, gas prices in Asia have plummeted to around $8/MMBtu, or less than half of peak prices seen just a few years ago. The situation could get worse as Japan is expected to scale back imports, and China is seeing a fall in consumption signaled by this month’s decision by PetroChina to skip a planned LNG delivery and shift it for later during the winter season.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Nicole Foss Talks Energy Industry Issues and Oil Price Collapse

August 30, 2015

Nicole Foss Talks Energy Industry Issues and Oil Price Collapse

Part I- Energy Industry Issues

The Doomstead Diner site blurb:

Coal Industry Collapse-Carbon Sequestration
One of the biggest effects we see lately is a collapse in commodity prices, through all sectors. Most intriguing to me is the collapse in coal prices, since coal is used in so many places for the production of electricity. Several large coal mining companies have gone into bankruptcy. How will this affect electricity production as we move along here? Q2: Will the efforts for Carbon Sequestration, Carbon Credits and Taxation have any meaningful effect on this dynamic?

Oil Price Collapse
Many people thought the price collapse in Oil that came at the end of 2014 was unforseen and unknowable. In fact many people in the peak oil community believed for a long time the price of oil would spiral inexorably upward. Some of us here have argued otherwise, that credit constraints would drive the price downward. Steve did the best job of this, and actually pegged the price crash for oil to the month more than two years in advance with his infamous Triangle of Doom charts. Steve, can you tell us how you were able to pull off that stunt? Q: John Mauldin and other shills for the Oil industry assure us that better and cheaper drilling technology will bring up all the oil we need and keep the industry solvent. How realistic is this?

Did The Fed Intentionally Spark A Commodity Sell-off?

August 28, 2015

Did The Fed Intentionally Spark A Commodity Sell-off?

The intention here is the bring facts to light so the public can decide.

I’m not quite sure what to believe on how and why oil prices remain more than 50 percent below free cash flow break even for most independent E&P companies. I know for sure it’s not just one reason and is more likely a confluence of events.

Part of the reason oil prices broke new six-year lows is tied to hedge funds shorting equities and pressuring equity pricing through shorting oil. Another reason is the desire of private equity firms to buy assets on cheap and some banks seeking M&A fees. Obviously OPEC policy has a part to play. There is also no doubt that EIA statistics mistakenly leave the impression that production has remained resilient throughout the summer. But the spark that set the ball in motion was the dollar strength as every major money center bank in the U.S. recommended going long EU equities and long the dollar because of further monetary easing in Europe.

The inverse correlation between the U.S. dollar and oil prices in June was virtually 100 percent, but that has changed more recently, as I have noted previously. At that time, investors here in the U.S. plowed into biotechnology and technology and went short oil as if they knew what assets central banks were going to buy and not buy based on all the free money from Europe and Japan.

Since the financial crisis began the cozy relationship between money center banks and the Federal Reserve, since the bail outs, is well known. For example, Goldman Sachs’ deep ties to the U.S. government are notorious and, not surprisingly, they led the charge in calls for a downturn in oil. So has the media, as I have extensively documented all year here.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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