Business News

European countries have been scrambling to find alternative sources of oil and gas following Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine in February 2021.

Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Russia’s fossil fuel export revenues plummeted in December, significantly hampering President Vladimir Putin’s ability to fund the war in Ukraine, a new report said in December.

The findings, Ukrainian officials and activists say, illustrate the effectiveness of tackling Russia’s oil revenues and underscore the urgent need for Western politicians to increase financial pressure on Moscow to help Kyiv prevail.

The report, released Wednesday by the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air, an independent Finnish think tank, found that the first month of the European Union’s ban on sea imports of Russian crude and the G-7 price cap cost Moscow an estimated $160 million had euros ($171.8 million) per day.

The CREA report states that Western measures were largely responsible for a 17% drop in Russian fossil fuel export revenues in the final month of 2022. That means Russia — one of the world’s top oil producers and exporters — saw fossil fuel export revenues plummet to the lowest level since Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in late February.

“The EU oil ban and oil price cap have finally come into effect and the impact is as significant as expected,” said Lauri Myllyvirta, senior analyst at CREA, in a statement.

“This shows that we have the tools to help Ukraine prevail against Russian aggression. It is important to lower the price cap to a level that denies the Kremlin taxable oil profits and limit remaining oil and gas imports from Russia,” Myllyvirta said.

The G-7, Australia and the EU introduced a $60 per barrel price cap for Russian oil on December 5. This came with a move by the EU and the UK to impose a ban on seaborne imports of Russian crude oil.

Taken together, the measures reflect by far the most important step in curbing the fossil fuel export earnings that are funding the Kremlin’s attack in Ukraine.

Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting at the Kremlin in Moscow January 6, 2022.

Mikhail Klimentyev | AFP | Getty Images

Energy analysts were skeptical about the impact of a price cap on Russian oil given Moscow’s ability to divert much of its European sea shipments to countries including China, India and Turkey.

Russia retaliated against Western measures late last month by banning the sale of oil to countries that adhere to the price cap.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov earlier said a Western price cap on Russian oil would not affect its ability to sustain its “special military operation” in Ukraine. Peskov also warned that the measure would destabilize global energy markets, Portal reported.

“Financial Bloodline for Putin’s War”

Oleg Ustenko, economic adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said on Wednesday that while it is “very good news” that Russia is losing fossil fuel export revenues as a result of Western measures, it is “definitely not enough”.

Ustenko reiterated Zelenskyy’s calls for a price cap to be set at a much lower level, telling a briefing that any escalation of economic sanctions against the Kremlin should result in the oil price cap being lowered to a target range of $20-$30 a barrel .

There is “no reason to wait,” said Ustenko. “It’s already clear.”

“The EU and the G7 have the power and all the means to sever this bloodline. Only force and money speak to the Kremlin.”

Svitlana Romanko

Founder and Director of Razom We Stand

CREA’s report found that the measures have resulted in a drop in Russian oil supply volumes and prices, which has cut the country’s export earnings by €180 million a day.

By boosting exports of refined oil products to the EU and the rest of the world, the report said, Moscow has been able to reclaim €20 million a day, resulting in a net daily loss of €160 million since Western measures came into effect have .

Russia still earns an estimated 640 million euros a day from fossil fuel exports, the report says.

“The first month of the embargo proves what we’ve been saying since the invasion began: fossil fuel export revenues are the financial bloodline for Putin’s war,” said Svitlana Romanko, founder and director of the Ukrainian human rights group Razom We Stand (Together We Stand). .

“The EU and the G7 have the power and all the means to sever this bloodline,” she added. “Only violence and money speak to the Kremlin.”

Romanko called on the price cap coalition to lower the price cap, step up enforcement of the embargo and introduce additional sanctions to close loopholes.

The CREA report states that lowering the oil price cap with Russia to $25-$30 a barrel, a range still “well above” production and transportation costs, would cut Russia’s oil export earnings by at least €100 million a day .

It said that the Western price cap coalition had “strong leverage” to lower price caps, adding that “Russia has not found a viable alternative to ships owned and/or insured in the G7 to… to transport Russian crude oil and oil products to Baltic and Black Sea ports.”

The Nissan Frontier pickup was completely renewed in 2022 and returns in 2023 without major changes.

“There are six versions of the Frontier available this year. We are slightly modifying the ranges compared to 2022,” explains Guide de l’auto columnist Antoine Joubert.

Under the extended cab (King Cab) configuration, the pickup is available in S, SV Convenience and PRO-4X. SV, SV Midnight Edition and PRO-4X variants are available if you opt for Double Cab.

Photo: Nissan

Robust mechanics

“We’re getting the 3.8-liter V6 engine in a completely renewed truck, although we’re using some technical elements from the old Frontier generation,” specifies the columnist. In fact, the chassis, several mechanical parts, as well as the windshield and rear window, are from the previous version.

Photo: Nissan

As for horsepower, the mill makes 310 hp and 281 lb-ft of torque — all mated to a nine-speed gearbox. Towing capacity remains lower than the competition at 6,490lb. On the other hand, Antoine emphasizes the robustness of the mechanics.

Upgraded cabin

“We’re built into a more comfortable pickup truck than the Toyota Tacoma because there’s more headroom and the seat is also higher,” notes the columnist. The modernized cabin sports materials of the right quality according to him.

Photo: Nissan

“In terms of handling, the PRO 4X version is the most uncomfortable,” he emphasizes. This is explained by the firmer suspension, but also by the shorter wheelbase. Antoine regrets the large turning circle and the non-telescopic steering.

During the video clip at the top of this article, Antoine Joubert gives his impressions of the 2023 Nissan Frontier… and reveals its price range!

Impact of bankrupt crypto exchange FTX is affecting Hollywood.

Not only have the tens of millions of dollars FTX spent on advertising gone up in smoke (don’t expect this year’s Super Bowl to have the crypto enthusiasm that swept last year’s broadcast), but a new bankruptcy filing shows that a Crowd of high profile people and companies likely to lose millions in bankruptcy proceedings.

Among those of interest to Hollywood is Endeavor, the owner of UFC and WME, who owned more than 38,000 shares in FTX through its IMG subsidiary, according to a list of FTX shareholders filed in the bankruptcy filing. The shares, which were Series B preferred stock, suggest that IMG invested in FTX during its 2021 funding round that valued the company at $18 billion.

It’s not immediately clear how much IMG invested in FTX (the company wasn’t mentioned in the Series B funding round’s press release, suggesting it was a small investor), but that investment is likely worthless now.

IMG may have been inspired by FTX’s aggressive sports sponsorship deals, which inked deals with a variety of athletes, arenas, and even leagues (Major League Baseball umpires wore FTX patches on their uniforms last season).

Without a doubt, FTX’s two most prominent celebrity endorsers were NFL star Tom Brady and his then-wife, supermodel Gisele Bundchen (the couple have since announced a split). According to the list of shareholders, Brady owned more than 1.1 million shares of FTX, while Bundchen owned nearly 700,000.

And New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, who chairs the NFL’s Broadcasting Committee (which negotiates the league’s lucrative TV rights deals), owned nearly 600,000 shares of FTX and another 45,000 shares of the company’s US subsidiary.

And then there’s Kevin O’Leary, the star of ABC’s Shark Tank, who owned more than 32,000 shares of FTX and more than 110,000 shares of FTX US. O’Leary told the US Senate Banking Committee last month that the shares he owned in FTX were worth about $1 million, but he told the committee, “I wrote them down to zero.”

Using that rating, Brady and Bundchen’s share was probably in the 8-figure range.

Perhaps more importantly, O’Leary said his total compensation from FTX was $18 million, including about $10 million in crypto he held on the platform that is now in limbo. If Brady, Bundchen and other endorsers land similar-sized deals, they could face nine-figure wipeouts.

Getty Images

More than a fifth of the passwords protecting network accounts at the US Department of the Interior – including Password1234, Password1234! and ChangeItN0w! – were weak enough to be cracked using standard methods, according to a recently released security audit by the agency.

The audit was conducted by the department’s inspector general, who obtained cryptographic hashes for 85,944 employee Active Directory (AD) accounts. The examiners then used a list of more than 1.5 billion words, including:

• Dictionaries from several languages
• US Government Terminology
• Pop culture references
• Publicly available password lists collected from past data breaches in the public and private sectors
• Common keyboard patterns (e.g. “qwerty”).

The results were not encouraging. Overall, the examiners cracked 18,174 — or 21 percent — of the 85,944 cryptographic hashes they tested; Of the affected accounts, 288 had elevated privileges and 362 of them belonged to senior government officials. In the first 90 minutes of the test, auditors cracked the hashes for 16 percent of the department’s user accounts.

The audit uncovered another security flaw – the failure to consistently implement multi-factor authentication (MFA). The default extended to 25 — or 89 percent — of 28 high-value assets (HVAs), which, if breached, have the potential to seriously affect the agency’s operations.

“It is likely that if a well-equipped attacker were to capture department AD password hashes, the attacker would have had a similar success rate as ours in cracking the hashes,” the final inspection report reads. “The significance of our findings regarding the Department’s poor password management is underscored given our high success rate in cracking password hashes, the large number of elevated passwords and high-level government officials we cracked, and the fact that most of the Department’s HVAs have not used MFA, even more so.”

The most commonly used passwords, followed by the number of users, were:

• Password-1234 | 478
• Br0nc0$2012 | 389
• Password123$ | 318
• Password1234 | 274
• Somm3rSo2020! | 191
• 0rlando_0000 | 160
• Password1234! | 150
• ChangeIt123 | 140
• 1234Password$ | 138
• ChangeItN0w! | 130

TechCrunch earlier reported the results of the audit. According to the publication, reviewers spent less than $15,000 building a password-cracking rig. Citing a department representative, it said:

advertising

The setup we used consists of two rigs, each with 8 GPUs (16 total) and a management console. The rigs themselves run several open source containers where we can invoke 2, 4 or 8 GPUs and assign them tasks from the open source work distribution console. Using 2nd and 3rd generation GPUs behind currently available products, we achieved pre-fieldwork combined NTLM benchmarks of 240 GHs testing NTLM over 12 character masks and 25.6 GHs over 10 GB dictionary and a 3 MB rules file. Actual speeds varied across multiple test configurations during engagement.

The vast majority — 99.99 percent — of the passwords cracked by the examiners met the department’s password complexity requirements, which mandates at least 12 characters and contain at least three of four character types consisting of uppercase letters, lowercase letters, digits, and special characters. The audit uncovered what Ars has been saying for nearly a decade — such policies are usually meaningless.

That’s because the guides assume attackers will use brute force methods, methodically trying every possible combination in alphanumeric order. Far more commonly, attackers use lists of previously cracked passwords available on the internet. Attackers then plug the lists into rigs containing dozens of super-fast GPUs that try each word in order of each string’s popularity.

“Although a password [such as Password-1234] meets the requirements, because it contains upper and lower case letters, digits and a special character, it is extremely easy to crack,” says the final report. “The second most used password was Br0nc0$2012. Although this may seem like a “stronger” password, in practice it is very weak as it is based on a single dictionary word with common character substitutions.”

The report found that the NIST SP 800-63 Digital Identity Guidelines recommend long passphrases, made up of multiple non-contiguous words, because they are more difficult for a computer to crack. Ars has long recommended using a password manager to create and store random passphrases.

Unfortunately, you can’t even count on the department’s inspector general for rock-solid password advice. The auditors criticized the department for not changing passwords every 60 days as required. Many government and corporate policies continue to mandate such changes, although most password security experts have concluded that they only encourage weak password choices. The better advice is to use a strong, randomly generated password that is unique to each account and only change it if there is reason to believe it has been compromised.

We thought we’d seen it all with the chaos at the airports this summer. The holidays told us it was small beer.

Days and nights are waiting for a flight that no longer exists. Radio silence from customer service. Too many travelers’ nightmare has been extended. And yet the transport minister had said the problems had been solved.

Omar Alghabra now admits we need to do better. That’s an understatement.

Because in Canada, travelers are held hostage to a system at the service of corporations.

What rights?

The year 2019 should mark a big hit. Eventually, Canada entered modern times and adopted a charter of air passenger rights.

What has changed? Not much.

The reason is simple. Unlike in the United States, Europe or Australia, the burden of proving the success of a complaint rests on the passenger’s shoulders! It is up to the traveler to obtain all evidence that it is the fault of the carrier, who often hides under the umbrella of “air security”.

But real life isn’t the Bible: it’s rare for David to win against these Goliaths.

Unsurprisingly, the level of sanctions imposed in recent years is ridiculous. It is cheaper for carriers to pay than to upgrade their services.

And the pre-Christmas weather bomb?

It was planned for a week! A company that cares about its customers would have made sure there was scope, support teams, plans B.

And these aren’t the flights we cancel year-round because they’re not busy enough to maximize profit.

Ultimately, the leeway is knowing that we can still treat travelers because they have no other alternative solution.

We will not row all the way to France or the Caribbean to avoid the plane!

And the train? Tell the passengers who spent 18 hours aboard a VIA Rail train without food due to a CP derailment!

Geography

Yes, the government promises us that one day we will have “world-class rail transport”. Should rather be “temporary trains”, because that’s the only perspective offered by the high-frequency train project that we’ve been putting off for moons.

Saving 17 minutes on the Ottawa-Montreal trip or 45 minutes on the Montreal-Toronto trip is far from a revolution!

What do you want, a TGV is too expensive, our aviation cartel reminded us.

Basically, travel is like telecommunications, like shopping. The apology of our large country and small population has such a broad spine that we have become accustomed to paying and enduring in silence.

As for the holidays, we are promised that this summer will be better. Don’t hold your breath.

TOKYO, Jan 11 (Portal) – Uniqlo’s parent company, Fast Retailing Co Ltd (9983.T), said on Wednesday it would raise wages by up to 40%, a clear sign that Japan’s wage bottom is beginning after decades could move to deflation and cost cutting.

The casualwear giant’s move is likely to sharpen focus on workers’ wages ahead of the spring’s annual labor negotiations, although the rest of Japan Inc seems unlikely to deliver increases of the same magnitude.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has repeatedly urged companies to raise wages, a plea that has gained urgency as prices have risen, leading to a once unthinkable rise in the cost of everything from food to fuel.

Poor pay has arguably become the biggest problem for the world’s third largest economy. In dollar terms, the median annual wage in Japan was US$39,711 in 2021, well below the OECD average of US$51,607 and is little changed since the early 1990s.

“Aside from Fast Retailing, there have been a number of companies that have increased their pay rises significantly over the past year. This is a positive factor for the Japanese economy,” said Taro Saito, executive research fellow at the NLI Research Institute.

Still, he warned that Fast Retailing was a company that had the cash to afford big raises, which was not the case for many other Japanese companies.

Fast Retailing’s move marks the first time in at least 20 years that the company, which operates more than 3,500 clothing stores worldwide, is revising compensation across its entire group, spokesman Pei Chi Tung said.

The change aims to make the company’s work style and pay more competitive globally, she said, adding that there is an “urgent need” to raise wages in Japan, where wages have remained low compared to foreign operations .

Beginning in March, new college graduates would be paid 300,000 yen ($2,300) a month, compared with 255,000 yen now, an annual increase of about 18%, the company said. New store managers will see a roughly 36% increase to 390,000 yen per month, it said.

PRICE INCREASE

The wage announcement comes a year after the company said it would increase prices on some products due to higher material and shipping costs. This year, it increased the prices of fleece goods and down jackets in its fall-winter product lines, which was seen as a kind of turning point for consumers.

Uniqlo’s ability to meet Japanese consumers’ eager demand for relatively high quality and low prices has made the company known for its “cosupa” – value for money – which makes the maker of 2,990 yen fleece jackets and 3,990 yen -Jeans with selvedge became a global retailer and founder Tadashi Yanai made Japan’s richest man.

But like other Japanese companies, it’s also grappling with a shrinking domestic labor pool.

“We believe this is likely due to inflation and Japan’s tight labor market,” said Oshadhi Kumarsasiri, an analyst at Lightstream Research, publishing on the Smartkarma platform.

“Additionally, the company’s aggressive expansion plans in markets like the US and Europe would mean that they would have to relocate some of their trained executives from Japan to those markets.”

Fast Retailing’s total labor costs in Japan would rise about 15% year-on-year, accounting for a previous increase in hourly wages for part-time workers, with the costs being offset by productivity gains, spokesman Tung said.

Meanwhile, beverage maker Suntory Holdings has announced it will increase wages by more than 6%, while Honda Motor Co Ltd (7267.T) has said it will be “aggressive” about wage increases.

The question is whether the overall increases will be enough to erase recent spikes in food and other consumer staples.

“We welcome reports from companies that have announced aggressive wage hike policies,” Hirokazu Matsuno, the government’s top spokesman, said at a news conference.

“We believe that the best way to counteract the current price increase is to implement continuous wage increases.”

Fast Retailing will report first-quarter results on Thursday. The company reported record profits for the year to August as growth in North America and Europe offset a slump in its largest overseas market, China, which had been slowed by measures to contain the pandemic. Continue reading

The company’s share price rose 1.4% in Tokyo trading, versus a 1% rise in the benchmark Nikkei index (.N225).

($1 = 132.4400 yen)

Reporting by Rocky Swift; Additional reporting by Maki Shiraki, Daniel Leussink and Miyoung Kim; Adaptation by David Dolan and Bradley Perrett

Our standards: The Trust Principles.

Once again, oil price watchers are eyeing Federal Reserve decisions rather than supply-demand balances, with the community eagerly awaiting Thursday’s inflation data to gauge the magnitude of upcoming rate hikes. The main bullish factor in recent weeks, China’s widely anticipated return to oil markets, has yet to boost oil prices as confidence in Chinese consumption growth remains weak.

chart of the week

When will China really come back?

– After three years of lockdown, China has opened its borders and officially pulled the plug on its zero-COVID policy to overcome sluggish growth and rising domestic discontent.

– At the same time, there is no guarantee that China will return to oil markets any time soon. Massive product export quotas issued for 2023 suggest Beijing expects domestic demand to be weaker for an extended period.

– With around 2 billion trips expected in the run-up to the Lunar New Year, when families reunite after three years apart, the current level of disruption from the coronavirus could be exacerbated.

– Meanwhile, China’s manufacturing activity declined to 47.0 in December, the lowest since February 2020, while service activity contracted for the fourth straight month to come in at 48.0 in December.

market mover

– Major in Energy in UK Shell (LON:SHEL) is said to have been in talks to sell its Norwegian oil and gas fields last year Port Energy (LON:HBR)however, the negotiations failed due to the volatility of gas prices.

– US oil company Phillips 66 (NYSE:PSX) announced that it has bought all of the publicly traded units of oil pipeline operator DCX Midstream for $3.8 billion, bringing its total ownership to 86.8%.

– Norway’s oil major Equinor (NYSE: EQNR) Reportedly intends to buy UK offshore production assets owned by Suncor (NYSE:SU) for a sum of $1.5 billion after eschewing CNOOC’s assets for sale.

Tuesday, January 10, 2023

Chinese import quotas ensure an upward trend. Chinese authorities issued their second batch of oil import quotas for 2023, increasing their volume by 20% year-on-year to 111.82 million tonnes in a thinly veiled attempt to boost refining operations and product exports amid slowing economic growth.

US gasoline prices rise again in 2023. US gasoline prices have risen for the second straight week, with the national average at $3.25 a gallon, due to ongoing disruptions at refineries caused by December’s bomb cyclone.

Protests in Brazil endanger refining. At least seven Petrobras-operated (NYSE: PBR) Refineries in Brazil have been disrupted by protests by supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro, prompting incoming energy minister Alexandre Silveira to step up security measures.

Russian refinery sold in Italy. Russia’s largest private oil company Lukoil (MCX:LKOH) sold its Italian refinery in Sicily for an undisclosed fee to a group of investors backed by trading house Trafigura, with the Swiss trader handling crude oil supply and product issuance.

Who poisoned South Africa’s power mogul? South African law enforcement officials are investigating an attempt to cyanide poison the outgoing CEO of energy company Eskom Andre de Ruyter in what may be linked to his crackdown on corruption at the company.

US-Qatar Petchem relations are growing. After agreeing to build an $8.5 billion integrated polymers plant in Texas, Qatar’s energy company QatarEnergy and US-Petchem joint venture Chevron Phillips Chemical agreed to build a $6 billion petrochemical complex Dollar in Ras Laffan, Qatar, which is expected to start production in 2026.

Rosneft asks for space in China pipeline Russia’s oil giant Rosneft (MCX:ROSN) called on the government to be a potential gas supplier for the $50 billion annual capacity Power of Siberia-2 gas pipeline.

China Tests Australian Metals Resolution ON Consortium led by the Chinese lithium producer Tianqi Lithium (SHE:002466) made a $95 million bid for Australia Essential Metal (AUX:ESS)which represents the first major test of Canberra’s willingness to allow Chinese lithium investment into the country.

PEMEX does not add reserves. Mexico’s national oil company PEMEX failed to discover a single oil field in 2022, forcing the company’s management to downgrade future reserve replacement plans from 1.3 billion boe to 0.95 billion boe by 2027.

Shipwreck has little effect on Suez. Glory, a Marshall Islands-flagged tanker carrying Ukrainian corn to China, collapsed in the Suez Canal just a year after Ever Given blocked the passage for 6 days, but this time the breakdown stopped the transit for only several hours.

Belgium extends reactors by 10 years. Faced with high natural gas prices, Belgium has decided to extend the life of its two nuclear reactors by 10 years and reached an agreement with a French utility Engie (EPA:ENGI)so that after 40 years of operation they will not be decommissioned in 2025, but will be discontinued in 2036.

China wants more Turkmen gas. Ten years after signing a memorandum to build the fourth pipeline linking Turkmenistan’s vast Galkynysh field with Chinese buyers, the two countries are moving closer to a deal that would nearly double annual gas exports to 65 billion cubic meters per year.

Norway issues 47 new exploration permits. Norwegian authorities have awarded 47 exploration permits to 25 oil companies in their latest licensing round focused on mature areas with the country’s state oil champion Equinor (NYSE: EQNR) with a total of 26 licenses at the top.

By Tom Kool for Oilprice.com

Other top reads from Oilprice.com:

I discovered the Montreal (Bordeaux) Penitentiary in the 90’s and volunteered there. We were two young students organizing talks with prisoners.

This experience allowed me to develop a bond of trust with several inmates and thus learn all about the workings of this prison, including drug entry methods and payment strategies, informal rules between inmates and correctional officers, the fighting at this location out of sight of the guards, commonly referred to as… be referred to as a submarine.

All of this to tell you that prisons have never been airtight. However, this phenomenon has accelerated in the last thirty years. Two elements are worth emphasizing: technique and letting go.

Delivery by drone

According to the president of the Syndicat des agents de la paix, Mathieu Lavoie, drones delivering products of all kinds (cellphones, drugs, bladed weapons) have become part of the prison landscape in the last five years. Visits are almost daily in several facilities. Even home delivery is possible as these machines can drive in through the windows of the cells.

Several members of criminal organizations, both street gangs and the Hells Angels, who are the main instigators, continue to make it rain or shine. In contrast to the ease that technology offers.

A pilot project to detect drones has been carried out at some facilities, but it would be ineffective, according to the syndicate president. Very often the drones sneak in or the agents are late in intercepting. This response time is one of the consequences of the lack of staff.

A letting go

You should know that prison is an ecosystem that is part of the relationship dynamic of negotiation, coercion and participation. In other words, knowing when to tighten the screw or release the pressure is essential to maintain balance and thus avoid rioting or occupant control of the facility.

This balance is quite precarious in several Quebec facilities. According to Mr. Lavoie, correctional officers are becoming disheartened and increasingly questioning the relevance of disciplinary violations as several disciplinary committees are not doing their jobs. Cases are not processed within the allotted time and are consequently withdrawn, or if they are, the detainees are not necessarily sanctioned or given a scornful verdict.

This negligence then empowers inmates and endangers officials.

One to midnight

For two years, the Ministry of Public Security has been discussing installing more effective drone detectors. It can be said that if the staff is not there, the parcels will continue to be delivered.

Why not protect yourself with anti-drone systems instead? Some Quebec companies specialize in this type of service. Their system detects, identifies, tracks and neutralizes the drone before it enters prison airspace.

What are we waiting for ?