Member Info for getafgrip

Carrington,

I couldn't agree more with your comments. There is no doubt that at this price BP is in play. ADNOC would have a lot of political hurdles to overcome, and without doubt high-level discussions will have been initiated with the twerp-fest we call a government. A bid from ADNOC would not be the only one though.

Strategically, the deal with Equinor is a masterstroke, neatly bundling up Shell's North Sea assets into a 50% stake in the new company, making it much more readily saleable or tradeable, say in the event of a Shell bid for BP & forced sell-offs. If Equinor will buy 50%, is there an agreement under the surface that in the event of a Shell bid for BP, Equinor would take on the remaining 50% of the new company from Shell.

A bit like Shell "out of the blue" selling of its highly profitable Permian interests. For me it was so that it removed another overlap in a possible merger between Shell and BP! They are all moves in a complex game of chess that is taking place.

NEVERLearney,

It is an attempt to rid the board of a persistent disruptor! The comments I made are quite mild & do not constitute ranting!

Https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4glpe4rkr0o

Interesting development:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4glpe4rkr0o

MoY,

The following are good consistent views on the Chinese economy over the last year or so:

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/09/16/chinas-economy-is-going-through-a-slow-painful-grinding-adjustment-analyst-says.html?msockid=2508a5687ad66d6c179eb0237b5a6c75

https://www.reuters.com/markets/asia/why-is-chinas-economy-slowing-down-could-it-get-worse-2023-09-01/#:~:text=Unlike%20consumers%20in%20the%20West,%20Chinese%20people

For me, behind many of the current structural imbalances in the Chinese economy. is the incredibly rapid rise of the middle classes in China, leaving other parts of the command economy to try to catch up (India is in a similar position):

https://academic.oup.com/book/40560/chapter-abstract/347932657?redirectedFrom=fulltext

A quote from the ABC News World Politics on the 10th April 2019 indicates the dizzying speed of development of China's economy. "China is still considered a developing country based on the criteria of the World Bank and the United Nations, despite being the world's second-largest economy. The country's per capita GDP remains below any accepted minimum threshold for developed-country status. China is the largest developing country in the world1. Despite being home to the most billionaires, China enjoys the same "special and differential treatment" afforded to nations like Papua New Guinea and Zimbabwe."

D85 - So Einstein what do you think a trade of 84p is about? Is it a 7-year old kid that has just received their pocket money & they are building an investment portfolio for the future? You seem the ideal candidate to answer this, because in a few years you will possibly attain the same mental age!!!!

Moy,

Whatever countries say, companies do what they do, making money, building for the future etc etc. A good example of this is the Qatar/Shell/China deal announced yesterday:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/qatarenergy-signs-long-term-lng-deal-with-shell-for-delivery-to-china/ar-AA1v8ixD?ocid=BingNewsSerp

MoY,

Posted previously & highly relevant in my view:

For a long time there has been a virtuous circle of the US Fed issuing Treasury bonds, the Chinese being the main buyer, and then the US public buying cheap Chinese manufactured goods with their borrowings. With the overall threats hanging over this situation like the Sword of Damocles: if the US tries to change this "arrangement" the Chinese might partially or wholly dump their Bond holdings, in so doing lose a lot of money, but wreck the Bond markets. Also if the Chines stopped buying as many US Bonds (this has been happening) the coupon on new US Bonds would go down, the US treasury would receive less, and purchases of Chinese manufactured goods would go down. And the "threat" of the US defaulting on Bond payments, which would implode world markets.

Trump coming in with a continuation of his isolationist policies, 25% tariffs on Mexican and Canadian imports, together with an additional 10% on Chinese imports. Impacting the three major trading partners of the US & effectively making goods more expensive for the US consumer. Threatening BRICs with 100% tariffs if they try to move away from the $ as a trading currency. Then dragging back technology & chip manufacture & industry to the US. And no longer being relied on as the main funding engine for NATO or policing Europe.

Trump conducting a cyber-security war with the Chinese, North Koreans and Russians. A rare metals war with principally the Chinese, who are buying up rare metal supply wherever they can, believe it or not the Chinese are a key supplier of super-magnets for the US F35 warplane! This is after the Chinese destroyed super-magnet production in the US. The Chinese developing the first of several super-ports in Paraguay, a strategic move to supply South America with manufactured goods etc.

In the meantime China making the most of sanctioned oil, which effectively subsidises their manufacturing, whilst the West pays full-price! Crazy! China wants Taiwan, the centre of world Chip manufacture.Will the Us let this happen - NO! Make no mistake Trump is a tough negotiator and he is fighting to keep the US as the number one world economy, but we have been here before and he has no intention of derailing world trade, just ensuring that the world economy remains $-centric.

Https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Iraq-Suspends-Operations-at-Basra-Refinery-Due-to-Stock-Overflow.html

Https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Iraq-Suspends-Operations-at-Basra-Refinery-Due-to-Stock-Overflow.html

Iran earns $1 billion from fuel oil smuggling:

https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Iran-Earns-1-Billion-From-Fuel-Oil-Smuggling.html

And what does this manifest itself as? Essentially part of the subdued demand from Asia, AND one of the distortions of the reality in the official statistics collated on oil demand!!!!

Iran earns $1 billion from fuel oilm smuggling:

https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Iran-Earns-1-Billion-From-Fuel-Oil-Smuggling.html

And what does this manifest itself as? Essentially part of the subdued demand from Asia, AND one of the distortions of the reality in the official statistics collated on oil demand!!!!

It looks like Israel has got a 20-mile buffer-zone with Hezbollah, (which desperately needed to regroup), on its northern border with Lebanon, policed by Lebanese troops.

Israel faced being confronted by too many enemies at once so reducing their number even temporarily by one is good news for them strategically, with a major confrontation with Iran looming. The war premium in the Shell SP is still largely in place with neither Shell nor BP moving much on today's news, but this will change dramatically if/when there is a major confrontation with Iran, and Israel looks like it is making sure that it can concentrate its forces strategically in readiness for the inevitable.

Good to share some thoughts Larry.

We are trading in a commodity after all, so that it can be impacted by completely unforeseen geopolitical/economic events. For several months I have been completely put off trading & I like to be an intermittent trader. The US Election lead-up has, for me, made the market incredibly volatile and difficult to predict. China demand concerns, world recessionary worries, inflation concerns & smoothness of repressing them, & interest rate concerns etc etc. Added to this the US seems to have been "manipulating" the markets, hedge funds and investment banks shorting oil using vast amounts of capital, encouraging maxing Permian output supported by key allies like Canada with its oil shale, driving down refinery costs, marginalising the war premium on oil shares unless it threatens supply, behind the scenes massively involved in the middle-east and engineering the coming assault on Iran's nuclear facilities & possibly energy infrastructure etc.

Also the US very successfully inspiring the cloaking of facts, and indicating that the demand for oil is slack. Whilst commodity analysts at Standard Chartered have reported that global oil demand hit an all-time high of 103.79 million barrels per day (mb/d) in August, marking the third successive month in which a new all-time demand high has been set. According to StanChart, global oil demand growth clocked in at a healthy 1.32 mb/d in August.

Then superimposed on the US attempts to keep the oil price low for the Election period and it seems beyond. Trump coming in with a continuation of his isolationist policies, 25% tariffs on Mexican and Canadian imports, together with an additional 10% on Chinese imports. Impacting the three major trading partners of the US & effectively making goods more expensive for the US consumer. Then dragging back technology & chip manufacture & industry to the US. And no longer being relied on as the main funding engine for NATO or policing Europe.

For a long time there has been a virtuous circle of the US Fed issuing Treasury bonds, the Chinese being the main buyer, and then the US public buying cheap Chinese manufactured goods with their borrowings. With the overall threats hanging over this situation like the Sword of Damocles: if the US tries to change this "arrangement" the Chinese might partially or wholly dump their Bond holdings, in so doing lose a lot of money, but wreck the Bond markets. Also if the Chines stopped buying as many US Bonds (this has been happening) the coupon on new US Bonds would go down, the US treasury would receive less, and purchases of Chinese manufactured goods would go down. And the "threat" of the US defaulting on Bond payments, which would implode world markets.

We need to let the dust settle on Trump's Election victory & then the markets and everyone else will have a sense of direction again.

The Bayesian not raised, a lawsuit by Perini Navi against the Lynch family unauthorised so subsequently withdrawn, a further lawsuit against the New York Times by them, the unsinkable yacht clearly sunk, inquests into Stephen Chamberlain and Mike Lynch's death postponed to pending further investigation, both co-defendants dead, the US assembling a world-class cyber security team with key-players from around the world, Hewlett Packard vindicated by the British Supreme Court, but thrown out by the US justice system!

"P-u-s-s-y the bore" grows a brain and decides that it was not a tragic accident and it is her that is irrational, along with "Win-nothing" who does not even have a tenuous grip of the use of the English language, but presumes to lecture others on it!

Watch this space!

Larry great to hear your views. I think you may have to be careful what you wish for in the energy markets.

I'm fine thanks had a great week. Started off on a sad note with our very old dog. But then took my partner down for 3-nights in York tying in a significant birthday, with a couple of visits to what is now our favourite French restaurant! By the time we got to Barnsley on Saturday we had experienced just about every type of weather available, that has not been taxed by Rachel Reeves. Then took in the Barnsley game, which they invariably lose, but were only beaten 1-0 at home by the mighty Wigan! Then out for a meal in the evening with 25 close friends, quite a number of whom I was at school with 60-years ago.

If the winter is reasonably mild and a relative oversupply/surplus of gas builds say in Europe, with replenishment of Europe's winter gas storage levels considered non-urgent, demand lowers & the price of gas declines and you might be happy. But the alternative is reductions in supply of gas by Ras Putin, a harsh winter, prices go up and your Shell shares , with their massive LPG division, benefit! I'm on board with the latter & buying a hot water bottle.

Essentially most professional roofers are moving on to EPDM roofing, rubberised glued sheets for flat roofing, rather than traditional felting, which is bizarrely not even 100% waterproof as poss

Anything goes in terms of keeping things as watertight as possible when a storm hits & you spot leaks. But try to future proof temporary flat roof repairs, make sure you overlap any felt sheets or patches you use, and pay attention and keep any cambers that were hopefully originally built into the roof to drain water away as efficiently as possible.

Also if possible secure the roof horizontally with nails, screws, from the side/edges. Each nail or screw that you insert vertically drives a hole through the roof felt, enabling incremental ingress of water that builds up over the years. Say you secure a flat roof with 50-60 vertical screws or nails, securing battens, you are effectively wrecking the integrity of the felt - because you have made 50-60 holes in it.

Should read 95% bought on the 18th October 2024.

I have not really seen anything that indicates my view is wrong: "pompous, patronising opinionated, unsubstantiated, drivel." I am not your mate, and incidentally experience no moral dilemma with buying BP shares. Around 95% of my BP holding, I have held for a whole month now, having bought them as I mentioned to Claire in the last minute of trading on Friday the 18th November 2024.

I am not sure how hypocrisy etc would come into it, but then I am not delusional or deranged, so that I am simply not on the same wavelength as you, along with just about everyone else on this thread other than a sycophantic cabal afraid of inviting you to spew out your irrational & incoherent responses in their direction.

Acute paranoia, anger management problems, together with hang-ups about your poor level of education, and excessive weight, are I presume, difficult to deal with. You certainly appear to be struggling with a number of mental health issues on a daily basis, but don't despair professional help is available.

We are not all one trick circus ponies, with one dimensional non-objective views of BP's performance, some of us are well aware that the shares don't know that we own them. A four figure Xmas dividend is a reasonable cushion until something gives in the moribund management of BP, if it does not there will be much more lucrative investments manifesting themselves at the turn of the year.

Hi! Larry,

Hope all is good with you. Yes, Putin has got a lot of form with cutting off gas supplies over a number of years. The following link is quite good on the situation in 2022:

https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2022/07/07/which-eu-countries-have-been-totally-or-partially-cut-off-from-russian-gas#:~:text=In%20late%20May,%20mere%20days%20after%20Finland%20saw

Cutting off gas supplies to Eastern European/ Baltic countries was extensive including Bulgaria, Poland etc, together with mysterious explosions on the Nordstream pipeline distribution network:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60131520

I think Putin put his subversive and disruptive plans for cutting off gas to countries too early, when he could have waited and compromised major industrialised countries like Germany.

Now time has passed and the west is geared up much better to counter Putin. Milder winter weather has helped, but also massively increased LPG supplies from the middle-east & US. So Putin and his puppet company Gazprom have been largely hobbled for now. Although gas prices are likely to remain elevated.