tyb and good morning
Kuwait Could Agree in Days With Saudis on Neutral-Zone Oil
Kuwait and Saudi Arabia could reach an agreement by the end of this year to renew oil output in the shared neutral zone along their border, Kuwaiti Oil Minister Khaled Al-Fadhel said.
The neutral zone, which has been shuttered for at least four years, can produce as much as 500,000 barrels a day. The zone’s Wafra and Khafji fields stopped pumping due to disputes between the two countries. “We hope that by the end of the year things will be cleared out and things will go back to normal,” Al-Fadhel told reporters on Sunday on the sidelines of a meeting of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries in Kuwait City.
An agreement to start pumping again could weigh on crude prices amid concerns about sluggish growth in world demand. However, even if production resumes, the area wouldn’t add oil to global markets because both nations adhere to output limits that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries has extended into early 2020, a person familiar with Saudi thinking said in October.
Oil inventories may grow by 700,000 barrels a day in the first quarter of 2020 even if OPEC and its allies implement the entire cutback of 2.1 million barrels a day they agreed to earlier in December, according to the International Energy Agency. Supplies outside the group known as OPEC+ group continue to grow much faster than world demand.
Benchmark Brent crude futures ended trading in London on Friday at $66.14 a barrel compared with an intraday high for the year of $75.60 in April. An actual resumption in production at Wafra and Khafji would depend on a political decision and a final agreement, Al-Fadhel said.
The disagreement between Saudi Arabia and Kuwait started over the Wafra field, which is operated by Chevron Corp. Saudi Arabia extended the original 60-year concession of the field, giving the U.S. company rights over Wafra until 2039. Kuwait was furious over the announcement and claims Riyadh never consulted it about the extension.
https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/kuwait-could-agree-in-days-with-saudis-on-neutral-zone-oil-1.1365991
'Bull's-eye' landing in New Mexico for Boeing's Starliner astronaut capsule
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Boeing Co (BA.N)’s Starliner astronaut spacecraft landed in the New Mexico desert on Sunday, the company said, after faulty software forced officials to cut short an unmanned mission aimed at taking it to the International Space Station. The landing at 7:58 a.m. ET (1258 GMT) in the White Sands desert capped a turbulent 48 hours for Boeing’s botched milestone test of an astronaut capsule that is designed to help NASA regain its human spaceflight capabilities.
“We hit the bull’s-eye,” a Boeing spokesman said on a livestream of the landing.
The landing will yield the mission’s most valuable test data after failing to meet its core objective of docking to the space station.
After Starliner’s touchdown, teams of engineers in trucks raced to inspect the vehicle, whose six airbags cushioned its impact on the desert surface as planned, a live video feed showed.
The spacecraft was in an apparently stable condition after landing, according to images posted by officials from the U.S. space agency NASA.
The CST-100 Starliner’s debut launch to orbit was a milestone test for Boeing. The company is vying with SpaceX, the privately held rocket company of billionaire high-tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, to revive NASA’s human spaceflight capabilities. SpaceX carried out a successful unmanned flight of its Crew Dragon capsule to the space station in March.
The Starliner capsule was successfully launched from Florida on Friday, but an automated timer error prevented it from attaining the right orbit to meet and dock with the space station.
That failure came as Boeing sought an engineering and public relations victory in a year that has seen corporate crisis over the grounding of its 737 MAX jetliner following two fatal crashes of the aircraft. The company’s shares dropped 1.6% on Friday. Ahead of Sunday’s landing, Starliner’s three main parachutes deployed just over one mile (1,600 meters) from the Earth’s surface after enduring intense heat from the violent reentry through the atmosphere, plummeting at 25 times the speed of sound.
The parachute deployment, one of the most challenging procedures under the program to develop a commercial manned space capsule, earned Boeing a fresh win after a previous mishap where one parachute failed to deploy during a November test of Starliner’s abort thrusters. That test tossed the capsule miles into the sky to demonstrate its ability to land a crew safely back on the ground in the event of a launch failure.
For the current mission, Boeing and NASA officials said they still do not understand why software caused the craft to miss the orbit required. Sunday’s landing marked the first time a U.S. orbital space capsule designed for humans landed on land.
All past U.S. capsules, including SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, splashed down in the ocean. Russia’s Soyuz capsules and China’s past crew capsules made land landings.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-space-exploration-boeing/bulls-eye-landing-in-new-mexico-for-boeings-starliner-astronaut-capsule-idUSKBN1YQ03X
was just thinking that too. Was a nice feature here. Miss those.
sez who?
LG is a former JAG
some poor life choices eh bobby?
Aramco Slips For Fourth Day After Losing $2 Trillion Dollar Valuation
Saudi Arabia's stock market stalled on Sunday as Saudi Aramco shares continued a four-day decline, reported Reuters.
Aramco shares have erased much of its gains post-IPO. The initial listing price was at 32 SAR, jumped to 38.738 SAR on Dec. 11, but has since slid 9.30% to 35 SAR in six sessions. Shares struggled to hold the $2 trillion valuation mark above 37.51 SAR last week, a level that Prince Mohammad Bin Salman (MbS) has justified as the fair value of the state-owned oil company.
The near 10% drop in six sessions comes as Aramco was added to MSCI, Saudi Tadawul index, and FTSE benchmark.
MbS, Aramco, and Saudi newspapers have been promoting Aramco's $1.7 to $2 trillion valuations as the world's largest IPO. Western banks have avoided the IPO on valuation concerns. Several months ago, Wall Street banks valued Aramco at $1.2 to $1.5 trillion, now trading around $1.7 trillion.
Earlier this month, analysts at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. warned that investors need to cash out of Aramco because of valuations concerns.
We noted that the kingdom incentivized domestic funds and citizens to buy the stock on the day of the IPO, a move that was in an attempt to create a massive stock pump.
Despite local media outlets stating, "Aramco at the top of the world" and "A dream come true," the reality is $2 trillion valuations were hard to maintain, and the pinning of the price at 37.51 SAR appears to be much harder than the kingdom previously thought.
Macroeconomic headwinds of a slowing global economy, falling Chinese demand and declining fuel consumption across the world could pressure oil prices in the new year after the reflation trade sputters out. This could result in lower Aramco valuations, and a break below 32 SAR IPO price would be embarrassing for the kingdom - considering they've already taken an early victory lap on the greatest IPO ever. Don't forget the last time a state-owned oil company had an overinflated valuation debuted on the public market – and what happened shortly after was nothing less than devastation.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/aramco-slips-fourth-day-after-losing-2-trillion-dollar-valuation
See Cap#3 for PetroChina- A top tick for sure but we have some different scenarios in play now as the mkts will not be allowed to crash so the lather, rinse, repeat of FRB boom/bust cycles kicks the can down the road. The longer interest rates stay low the moar pressure on the current system. They are overdue for a rate rise and are not getting it.
oh boy dicks for breakfast
I guess you win faggot. I don't have a collection like you do.