Quote:

Accident Took Place At Ukraine Nuclear Power Plant, Prime Minister Reveals

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 12/03/2014 07:49 -0500

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Several days ago we heard rumors, unsubstantiated, of an accident at Ukraine's Zaporozhye nuclear power plant, Europe's largest and the 5th biggest in the world. Considering Ukraine's history with nuclear accidents, and resultant panics, we decided it would be prudent to wait for an official confirmation before proceeding with a report. We got the confirmation about an hour ago, when Ukraine's new/old Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk, or "Yats" as his puppetmaster Victoria Nuland likes to call him, said "on Wednesday an accident had occurred at the Zaporizhye nuclear power plant (NPP) in south-east Ukraine and called on the energy minister to hold a news conference."
A "minor" accident that is, which remains a rather nebulous term on the continuum of nuclear power plant "malfunctions." So minor, in fact, the PM waited almost a week before revealing it to the world.

From Reuters:

"I know that an accident has occurred at the Zaporizhye NPP," Yatseniuk said, asking new energy minister Volodymyr Demchyshyn to make clear when the problem would be resolved and what steps would be taken to restore normal power supply across Ukraine.

News agency Interfax Ukraine said the problem had occurred at bloc No 3 - a 1,000-megawatt reactor - and the resulting lack of output had worsened the power crisis in the country. Interfax added that the bloc was expected to come back on stream on Dec. 5.

Just like Fukushima is expected to come back on line in a few years ago.

So is this just another Chernobyl? According to Ukraine, "the radioactive meltdown is contained." RT has more:

"There is no threat ... there are no problems with the reactors," Ukraine's Energy Minister Volodymyr Demchyshyn said at briefing, adding the accident affected the power output system and "in no way" was linked to power production itself.

The incident was not made public until Wednesday, when PM Yatsenyuk asked the energy minister to report on what happened and how the ministry is handling the situation.

The accident left several dozen towns and villages without electricity, Russian media reported, citing local officials.

Of course, there is no way to actually know what is happening on the ground as the NPP is located close enough to the "fog of war", that its status, and updates thereof, could merely be part of the fog of war. That said, if there is an unspoken message here by Ukraine, which recently handed over its gold to unknown "Western" interests, and suddenly feels neglected by its western allies (as its central bank head is about to find out personally), it is targeted directly at the IMF: "hand over more loans, or the nuclear power plant gets it."

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Quote:

TOTAL CEO killed in Moscow airport accident

The French oil giant confirmed that Christophe de Margerie died when his private jet collided with snow-clearing machine
October 21, 2014 12:21AM ET


The CEO of French oil giant Total SA was killed when his corporate jet collided with a snow removal machine Monday night at Moscow's Vnukovo Airport, the company said.
Total confirmed that Chairman and CEO Christophe de Margerie died in a private plane crash at the Moscow airport, in a press release dated Tuesday and posted on its website.
Airport officials told Russia's Tass news agency that the collision occurred at 11:57 p.m. Monday, killing de Margerie and three crew members, all of them French citizens.
A representative of the transport investigative department told Tass that the French-made Dassault Falcon 50 business jet, headed for France, collided with the snow removal machine during takeoff. Airport officials said the driver of the snow removal machine was not hurt.
Visibility at the time of the crash was 1,150 feet, airport officials told Tass.
De Margerie, 63, joined Total after graduating from the Ecole Superieure de Commerce in 1974, according to the company's website. He rose through the ranks became a member of Total's policy-making executive committee in 1999. He became CEO in 2007, and added the post of chairman in 2010.
Paris-based Total is the fifth-largest publicly-traded integrated international oil and gas company in the world, with exploration and production operations in more than 50 countries, according to a profile on the company's website.
De Margerie was on a list of attendees at a Russian government meeting on foreign investment in Gorki, near Moscow, on Monday. With his distinctive bushy mustache and outspoken manner, he was one of the most recognizable figures among the world's top oil executives.
A staunch defender of Russia and its energy policies amid the conflict in Ukraine, de Margerie told Reuters in a July interview that Europe should stop thinking about cutting its dependence on Russian gas and focus instead on making those deliveries safer.
He said tensions between the West and Russia were pushing Moscow closer to China, as illustrated by a $400 billion deal to supply Beijing with gas that was clinched in May.
Total is one of the top foreign investors in Russia.
Despite the July 17 downing of a Malaysian passenger airliner over Ukrainian territory held by pro-Russian rebels, an event which worsened Russia's relations with the West, Total said last month that sanctions would not stop it working on the Yamal project.

A $27 billion joint venture investment, it was set up to tap vast natural gas reserves in northwest Siberia with the goal of doubling Russia's stake in the fast-growing market for liquefied natural gas.
De Margerie said then that Europe could not live without Russian gas, adding there was no reason to do so.

Quote:EUROPE

Fall in Oil Prices Poses a Problem for Russia, Iraq and Others

By DAVID M. HERSZENHORNOCT. 15, 2014

MOSCOW A steep decline in oil prices is straining the budgets of major petroleum-exporting countries around the globe, raising a specter of spending cuts in Russia, where the economy is under pressure from Western sanctions, and posing a potentially grave security challenge for Iraq, which is already struggling to finance its fight against the Islamic State.
From Moscow to Caracas, Riyadh to Baghdad, in Tehran, Algiers, Kuwait City and Lagos, political leaders, finance ministers and central bankers have been scrambling to confront the plunge in prices roughly 25 percent since a peak in June driven by increased production in the United States and by projections of sustained cuts in demand in many developed countries, as well as decelerating growth in China.

• [URL="http://www.nytimes.com/video/multimedia/100000003177075/winners-and-losers-of-low-oil-prices.html"]
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The price drop is mostly welcome news in the developed world, and particularly in Washington. Countries like Russia, Iran and Venezuela that in recent years have sought to thwart America's influence could begin to moderate their behavior, as they come under growing financial pressure.

The falling price of oil creates varying degrees of financial difficulties for countries that rely heavily on its export. According to research by Deutsche Bank, the point at which their national budgets break even varies from about $125 a barrel for Iran to less than $75 for Kuwait.

Break-even point for national budgets

A country above the price of oil predicts
a budget deficit, below it, a surplus.

While Russia maintains reserves of hundreds of billions of dollars as a cushion for precisely this sort of price drop, there are already signs of tensions here.
At a meeting in Moscow this week with a government human rights council, President Vladimir V. Putin pointedly rebuffed a request for increased financing, citing the pinch from declining oil revenues.
"You know that energy prices have fallen as well as for some of our other traditional products," Mr. Putin said. "Due to that, would we not, on the contrary, reconsider the budget toward reducing some spending?"
It was a notable departure from the bravado that Mr. Putin has shown in responding to Western economic sanctions over Ukraine, dismissing them as little more than an annoyance.
In another sign of mounting pressure, a spokesman for the Russian state-controlled oil company, Rosneft, accused Saudi Arabia of secretly manipulating prices an echo of conspiracy theories about American and Saudi collusion against the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
Last week, Venezuela, which depends on oil for 95 percent of its export revenues, called for an emergency meeting of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to address the steep slide in prices, a move that other members rebuffed in favor of a regular meeting next month.
The price of a barrel of Brent crude, a global benchmark, was $83.78 on Wednesday, down from about $115 per barrel since its high in June.
Experts on energy policy say that prices are nearly certain to rebound in response to normal market forces and continued strong demand, particularly in the developing world.
And some of the surplus that is dragging down oil markets is a result of production increases in Iraq and Libya, both struggling with instability that could shut down their oil fields at any time and send prices soaring.
But in the near term, the big producers will probably face budget problems in varying degrees of severity, with an array of economic, strategic and political ramifications.

"It depends how long and how sharp the decline, but if oil prices stay around 20 percent lower, that is going to be very challenging for countries that depend heavily on oil to meet their budget requirements," said Jason Bordoff, the director of the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University in New York. "Many of these countries have implicitly high break-even numbers."
Professor Bordoff said that Russia and Iraq faced particularly difficult circumstances, partly because of broader geopolitical tensions in each region. Russia, already squeezed by inflation and a drastic decline in the ruble, has found its ability to borrow money severely constrained by the sanctions. Iraq is facing a costly, and potentially open-ended, military conflict against the Islamic State.
"If oil prices were to stay in the range they are in now, we'll see the Russian budget fall into deficit next year; that's on top of the economic challenges they are already facing from sanctions and the decline in the value of their currency," Professor Bordoff said. "Iraq has its own set of challenges with skyrocketing public expenditure requirements, large public payroll, food and energy subsidies. They need to rebuild a dilapidated armed forces."
Some major oil producers are already experiencing substantially more budgetary pain from the decline in prices, particularly Venezuela, because of underlying economic problems, and Iran, which has faced years of Western economic sanctions over its nuclear energy program. Nigeria faces particular political uncertainty because it has a presidential election coming up early next year.
Venezuela has limited options in responding to the price decline, which leaves less money for social spending, government payrolls and subsidized imports of vital goods. The government could scale back on subsidized oil that it supplies to allies in South America and the Caribbean, including Nicaragua, Bolivia and Cuba. There is also some talk of raising the domestic price of gasoline, which is the cheapest in the world.
In demanding urgent action by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, Venezuela's foreign minister, Rafael Ramírez, has also thrown around conspiracy allegations. According to a government news release, Mr. Ramírez demanded "some kind of action to stop the fall in the price of oil, especially since we are convinced that it does not result from fundamental market conditions but that there is price manipulation to create economic problems for the large oil-producing countries."

The major question now looming is if OPEC, led by Saudi Arabia, will cut production and stabilize prices at a meeting next month.

Some analysts say that is a logical step, while others suggest that Saudi Arabia may allow lower prices to persist, in part to squeeze its main rivals Iran and Russia and in part to put pressure on shale oil producers in the United States, whose higher production costs make it harder for them to compete when prices are lower abroad.

Saudi Arabia's relatively low production costs and its domestic spending program allow for a balanced budget at a price of roughly $95 a barrel, compared with $100 or more for Russia and even more for Iran. Saudi Arabia also has huge cash reserves to prop up its budget while prices remain low.
"The question is how much are you willing to eat into your cash reserves and for how long until you adjust your production down," said Gal Luft, co-director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, a Washington research organization focused on energy issues. "In the November meeting of OPEC you are going to see some of their members saying, We cannot live with those kind of prices; we are going bankrupt; we want to cut down production.'
"Then you will have others, mainly Saudi Arabia, who might say, Well, we don't want to overreact.' In the short run, I think most of the players can survive," Mr. Luft said. "In the long run, beyond a year, I don't think they have the means."
For the United States and most of the developed world, a decline in oil prices is generally regarded as a macroeconomic plus, reducing costs for consumers and businesses and often lifting stock markets.
That classical view has begun to change, however, as the United States has increased its own oil production, particularly in states like Texas and North Dakota.
In Russia, the Kremlin and the Central Bank have insisted that there is no cause for panic. Official projections show oil prices rebounding to about $100 a barrel over the next three years, and government officials are adamant that the country's cash reserves are sufficient to weather temporarily low prices.
In testimony before the lower house of Parliament on Monday, the head of Russia's Central Bank, Elvira S. Nabiullina, said that despite the government's confidence, the bank was assessing the risks of a severe and prolonged decline in oil prices, to $60 per barrel.
"The central bank is currently working on a so-called stress scenario, emergency scenario so to say, which includes an abrupt, more noticeable oil price fall in a forecasted time span," Ms. Nabiullina said. "Nevertheless, I think there are low chances of this."
Mr. Luft, the Washington-based analyst, said it was hard to say whether the Saudis would eventually tighten the spigots in an effort to prop up prices, as they have in the past, or pursue a strategy of preserving market share, which means keeping prices relatively low.
"From them, what matters is how much money goes through the door," he said. "They don't care how many barrels they sold or pumped, but how much money in billions goes through the door. In the end, that's what it is all about. It's about staying alive, staying in power, making sure you don't end up like Mubarak."

Quote: 23 September 2014 Last updated at 02:21 Rockefellers to switch investments to 'clean energy'

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Valerie Rockefeller Wayne, chair of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, spoke to the BBC about the decision



Heirs to the Rockefeller family, which made its vast fortune from oil, are to sell investments in fossil fuels and reinvest in clean energy, reports say.
The Rockefeller Brothers Fund is joining a coalition of philanthropists pledging to rid themselves of more than $50bn (£31bn) in fossil fuel assets.
The announcement was made on Monday, a day before the UN climate change summit opens on Tuesday.
Some 650 individuals and 180 institutions have joined the coalition.
It is part of a growing global initiative called Global Divest-Invest, which began on university campuses several years ago, the New York Times reports.
Pledges from pension funds, religious groups and big universities have reportedly doubled since the start of 2014.
UN summit Rockefeller Brothers Fund director Stephen Heintz said the move to divest from fossil fuels would be in line with oil tycoon John D Rockefeller's wishes,
"We are quite convinced that if he were alive today, as an astute businessman looking out to the future, he would be moving out of fossil fuels and investing in clean, renewable energy," Mr Heintz said in a statement.
The last major conference on climate change, in Copenhagen in 2009, ended without results
The philanthropic organisation was founded in 1940 by the sons of John D Rockefeller. As of 31 July 2014, the fund's investment assets were worth $860m.
"There is a moral imperative to preserve a healthy planet," Valerie Rockefeller Wayne, a great-great-granddaughter of Mr Rockefeller and a trustee of the fund, is quoted by the Washington Post as saying.
A climate change summit is due to start on Tuesday at the UN headquarters in New York, with 125 heads of state and government members expected to attend.
It is the first such gathering since the unsuccessful climate conference in Copenhagen in 2009.

At the scene: Matt McGrath, Environment Correspondent, BBC News
The event held to launch the Rockefellers' news was more revivalist meeting than press conference. There was whooping, cheering, hollering and stamping of feet.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu appeared by video and told the assembly that the move was "a tipping point of transition to a new energy economy that was just and equitable".
Rockefeller Brothers Fund director Stephen Heintz said dryly that "everyone noted the irony" that a foundation built on oil wealth would now be leading the charge out of fossil fuel.
Actor Mark Ruffalo, who also signed the pledge, told the conference: "These are not silly people, these are people who know how to deal with money."
They recognised that clean energy was "the future", he said - prompting more whooping, cheering and stamping of feet.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon hopes leaders can make progress on a universal climate agreement to be signed by all nations at the end of 2015.
On Sunday, hundreds of thousands of marchers took to the streets in more than 2,000 locations worldwide, demanding urgent action on climate change and calling for curbs on carbon emissions.
Business leaders, environmentalists and celebrities also joined the demonstrations, which were organised by The People's Climate March.
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Huge crowds attended climate marches in New York and other cities around the world on Sunday

Source: ITAR TASS