Member Info for big-blue

Prove it Lloyd! Some see correlations that are just not there.

SP for Monday? What's the consensus on Fed interest rates? No sudden rise before March? Then regain Friday dip. Ukraine hasn't been a factor for the last 3 months or since last July when the fake invasion force was assembled, the ramping up of western rhetoric will be laughed off by the markets for what it is, a bluster.

Ed, leaps and bounds in technology allows for extraction in ever deeper waters or using directional horizontal drilling for example. Furthermore, where national interest is concerned the tax take on home oil only needs to drop 10% for the viability to dramatically change. The treasury will create a tax regime encouraging extraction if it wants to. Look at the response to BP profits. No windfall tax to ensure reinvestment! Peak oil in the North Sea is always being declared, then a new field is discovered, bigger than the last. The machinery of the human race developed with fossil fuel over a century. Expecting to replace everything in a couple of decades with an infantile technology is just madness. A 50 year target from now would be incredibly ambitious. Consider how far and wide fossil fuel is used. In remote areas, in volume, in scope, on sea land and the air, in desserts, tropics, cities, in industry, water, agricultural, homes, factories, power generation. Even if the technology existed now, there are mountains of equipment to replace and bigger mountains of alternative generation capability to produce. And selling vehicles with fossil fuelled engines is to illegal in less than 8 years?? No chance! Oil and gas from the UK will be needed and can easily be made economical. There is no choice.

https://www.stripes.com/theaters/europe/2022-02-12/great-climate-backslide-governments-regressing-worldwide-4986160.html

First it is the reality of what net zero is really going to cost, from fantasy to reality.

Next, the very premise of the claim of climate change will inevitably come under scrutiny. A scrutiny that has been lacking for a couple of decades now. And that is one the broadcasters are going to increasingly have problems regulating. Social media that used to be able to sweep challenges to the so called science are showing their hands more and more as having agendas and political affiliations. Broadcasters who have declared policies to not raise questions against the CC narrative are increasingly sidelined as large sections of populations no longer believe anything that is being broadcast. Politicians that latched on to campaign bandwagons promoted by the media and social media sites are finding very quickly they are in the wrong place but the gravy train is moving so fast they can't so easily jump off. We need wide open free discussion and expose the real truths about the biggest fraud since the religion inquisitions. Otherwise the far and extreme right will take up the issue and even 'tele' won't be able to stop the most extreme regimes taking power.

Sadely, much of the local gas works infrastructure has gone including the old storage gasometers. Reverting back to making gas from the coal would need some serious rebuilding. Shale gas only needs to give us a ten year buffer or at least get the planning and drilling in place ready to tap it should we need to. We get out gas from Norway mainly but if a wider conflict arises, pipes are very easy to knock out so self-sufficiency from a basic military surge capacity point of view should have been implemented and this Ukraine situation should be a strategic wakeup call. Similarly onshore oil should have the planning and drilling in place ready to tap. There are some good onshore resources, some difficult to extract but good quality Brent. There are lots of stories of undiscovered fields in the north sea bigger than everything so far discovered so we should be opening up the exploration and licensing now. The fantasy of net zero is finally getting some challenges by a small group in the Tory party but it is a fantasy, will take many decades to achieve and there are huge issues about adding the generation capacity and transmission that are not going to be resolved before 2050. Hell the bloody environmentalists on one hand insist on wind turbines, that can't be seen with all power transmission buried and buried around nature sites in 50 or 100 miles radiuses. We need a clear firm unequivocal cross-party statement that fossil fuel is accepted for at least another 50 years whilst the transition takes place and these numpty artificial deadlines be removed. One minor conflict in the Ukraine and energy supplies are placed under serious stress. We import power from France. Imagine! Where are our own nuclear power plants? There will be no net zero ever without them!

I think the only notable market reaction is is Russian bombers attack Kiev. Only then will this become a full blown assault on the country with nato no other option than war with Russia. Otherwise it is going to be nothing more than incursions, or rather formalising Russian presence in the ethnic enclaves replacing the separatists. There will then be an end to the war that has been going on since 2014 which is what Putin wants as a minimum outcome. Anything else regarding nato expansion is a bonus.

Pre pandemic leverage over the air corridors would have been high. Post pandemic not so as the world coped without much long haul international travel. The main change would be one-stop flights would revert to two-stop on different routes. The polar routes would also be assessed.

As for oil, it is presumed buying Russian oil and gas is set in stone. The 'west' has far more allies in the middle east than does Russia and the main drag on using more home resources is environmentalist opposition. That can be swept to one-side with emergency legal powers and the UK for example could tap the shale and north sea reserves only relying on the middle east for a couple of years. North America has ample resources. It is the likes of latin America, SEA, Japan and Africa that could be starved of resources. And forget all the net zero clap trap. The world will be depending fundamentally on fossil fuels for a good 40-50 years yet.

All this requires the political will, and German has just signed a huge energy deal with Russia looking after it's own interests ahead of the happy clappy EU. Another nail in the great soviet EU coffin me thinks!

There are two queens still on the chess board. The west, nato, has a couple of pawns advantage. One of them, ethnic Russia within the borders of Ukraine will need to be sacrificed to check mate Russia. Next move, or 5 moves, is the question.

Exactly as I predicted. BBC news just now. Pictures of Russian rocket launches in Belarus maneuvers. "This is how an invasion might look". BBC the propaganda arm of Putin's fear factory in the west. And those BBC pictures and narratives will go worldwide with the extensive international broadcasts. It is time the BBC was terminated completely.

What update?

errr the drop on Friday was due to Thursday reaction to high interest rates which went right round the world and back to where it started. There was no event in the Ukraine qualifying such a market response.

I think the fed interest rates will have more of an impact on sp then Putin's war gaming! There has been a significant conflict going on there for years now with over 14,000 dead to date. Most of Ukraine possibilities have been priced in for a while.

The face saving for Putin was to get democratic consent from the enclaves recognised by all parties. The 90% Russian speaking enclave would obviously go in Putin's favour. After 8 years of gorilla warfare he is clearly looking to get the thing dealt with but the west simply wasn't bothered until he poked with an invasion force. So Russian troops may march into Donbas, without any resistance 'to arrange referendums' [stop laughing at the back] without any shots being fired. The Russian backed separatist groups immediately cease fire. The loss of face will be entirely with the west for having procrastinated to the point Putin took the initiative, albeit in a Jack boot sort of way. EU will have another failed diplomatic mission on their cards, this time the UK is not carrying any responsibility, Marcon will looked sidelined, the Germans seriously weak, and US will turn their attention to Taiwan.

It is not Ukraine you need to worry about. It is Taiwan. Meanwhile there is a well organised ambush of GB over the Falklands. We may see questions like, why is it required for the ethnic Russians to vote on their allegiances, but not the Falkland Islanders? Diplomatic point scoring but the Falklands may become an unwelcome distraction that goes all wonky due to being badly handled causing the government to fall. No party will withstand an election backlash if they lose the Falklands.

Rather like the trade unionists kicking off, world politics is also back. Missed it?

On R4 just now, minister says all UK troops to withdrawn this weekend. As I guessed, no nato force to oppose Russia, as long as Russian intrusion is limited to the Russian ethnic enclaves. I expect talk of UN peacekeepers/observers to be be raised next week.

If Russia wanted to invade Ukraine as a whole, it would have had more than enough opportunity for some months now. Russia wants to formalise the annexation of ethnic Russian zones. If the US has information of movement, it is most likely because the EU attempt at diplomacy has failed [no surprise] and the ethnic zones are to directly come under Russian 'protection' from Ukrainian forces fighting the separatists i the regions who are supplied, trained and largely Russians anyway. There will be no Russian goose stepping in Kiev. Movement of identifiable Russian forces over the border will just prove the EU/French/German stunt trying to be big important statesman has failed again, like with the Balkans. With this failure, it is critical the situation does not deteriorate. Russian propaganda will say Russian citizens in the Russian speaking enclaves are being attacked and they have moved into the territory to protect ethnic Russians. The rest of the world is simply going to have to accept that. Marcon has failed, he isn't getting a big enough backhander for the French on uel security. He always was because he is a noddy. We just have to hope it doesn't collapse into civil war. Needs referendum in the ethnic enclaves, that is hopefully what the UN peacekeeping/observer force will organise. If Russian forces oly go the the enclaves then I do not see nato getting involved in the enclaves, I expect a UN force.

Grow up jotom. It gets boring after awhile.

This could easily have been a -10% day!! Markets have balanced out and shifted money around ready for the fed rates now. There was already fed rate hikes priced in, a bit more has been priced in now and UK stocks didn't get hammered. I expect the loss today to be 'reset' Monday. Unless....

Given the bed wetting by the yanks, it was not bad at all.

https://airlineweekly.com/2022/02/norse-atlantic-increasingly-resembles-norwegian-air-with-uk-u-s-plans/

Norse means by the summer, all those expectations of taking Norwegians market share will not happen.

Next big news to come. US to remove fit to fly tests [ALL AGES!!!!!!!!!!!!]. We don't want the US to do a Spain.

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/hawkish-fed-cast-aside-as-large-u-s-stocks-get-record-weekly-inflow-1.1722028

The pull back is not as big as it could be. Here is an interesting take on why.