Catching Up On Links -- October 27, 2015

It looks like President Obama is edging ever closer to a direct confrontation with the Russian tsar. The Washington Post is reporting that the president is weighing options to move  US troops closer to the front lines in Syria, Iraq. 

The president’s most senior national security advisers have recommended measures that would move U.S. troops closer to the front lines in Iraq and Syria, officials said, a sign of mounting White House dissatisfaction with progress against the Islamic State and a renewed Pentagon push to expand military involvement in long-running conflicts overseas.

The debate over the proposed steps, which would for the first time position a limited number of Special Operations forces on the ground in Syria and put U.S. advisers closer to the firefights in Iraq, comes as Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter presses the military to deliver new options for greater military involvement in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan. 

The changes would represent a significant escalation of the American role in Iraq and Syria. They still require formal approval from President Obama, who could make a decision as soon as this week and could decide not to alter the current course, said U.S. officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the discussions are still ongoing. It’s unclear how many additional troops would be required to implement the changes being considered by the president, but the number for now is likely to be relatively small.

It looks like that JV team is a bit tougher than originally thought. Whatever.

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October 31, 2015: from The Bismarck Tribune, US Marine Sergeant (Ret.) Krause knows why President Obama is sending troops back into Iraq or Syria or wherever:

"They should have let the generals run the war instead of the politicians ... They lost the war and 50,000 men," Krause said.

Sgt Krause was one of the first 200 US Marines to be sent to Vietnam. He knows how that war was lost, also. 

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Faulty Reasoning

Just the other day we talked about Europe burning wood chips, calling the "move" carbon neutral. Business Insider caught the story and has even more to say about this. The headline: Europe's most popular source of 'renewable energy" is worse for the planet than coal.

Burning wood — technically labeled a "renewable" resource since more trees can be replanted and they'll absorb carbon from the air — is the European Union's largest source of "renewable" energy, and will continue to be through the year 2020, according to the European Parliament.

Yet using wood biomass in power plants is heating the atmosphere faster than using coal does, a deeply reported Climate Central investigation found.

In 2013 alone, Europe burned 40 billion pounds of wood pellets for bioenergy, making up 79% of the world's consumption, according to the European Biomass Association.
Companies are converting their power plants from coal to wood across Europe to meet renewable energy goals, Climate Central reported, and the biggest driver is government subsidies.

This is because the European Union classifies wood-generated electricity as "carbon neutral," so companies end up reporting far fewer emissions than their factories are actually generating.

Terrorists On Verge Of Taking Baghdad Refinery (Again); Iraqis Rushing In Troops -- Radio -- May 5, 2015

Subject line says it all -- that was on radio a few minutes ago.

Breitbart's report four days ago, ISIS storms Iraq's largest refinery:

A spokesman for U.S. Central Command, which oversees American-led airstrikes against the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL), told reporters that that the jihadist group was on the defensive and losing territory in Iraq.

Air Force Col. Patrick Ryder, a Centcom spokesman, briefed reporters last Friday on U.S. operations against ISIS, discounting the terrorist group’s ability to mount major attacks.

“When you look across the entire battle space and look at where ISIL was last summer and look at where ISIL is today, [they] continue to be on the defensive in Iraq and they’re losing territory,” according to Ryder (just last Friday -- four days ago).

“While initial reports may sometimes give the impression [ISIL is on the offensive], we see no evidence that they’re able to do so,” he added.

Fast forward to a week later: some news reports are painting a different picture.

Various news outlets are reporting that ISIS has seized most of the Baiji oil refinery, the largest in Iraq, located north of Baghdad in Salahuddin province.

Oil is trading a little bit over $60; a 2.6% increase for the day.

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Canadian CBR

Bakken.com is reporting:

A growing share of Canadian oil-by-rail traffic is made up of tough-to-ignite undiluted heavy crude and raw bitumen, say industry executives, as companies scramble to cut expenditures with the price of crude down more than 40 percent since June.

By eliminating the cost of diluting with ultra-light condensate, heavy oil offers rail shippers an opportunity to claw back a few dollars per barrel in transportation costs.

Official data does not break down the different Canadian crudes shipped by rail but interviews with industry executives suggest undiluted heavy and raw bitumen shipments now make up roughly a quarter of the estimated 200,000 barrel per day (bpd) oil-by-rail market.

An added bonus is that heavy crude and bitumen are far less combustible than the Bakken and Canadian synthetic crudes involved in fiery crashes that spurred the Canadian and U.S. governments on Friday to tighten safety rules for trains carrying oil.

With very high boiling and flashpoints they fall outside Packing Groups 1 and 2, used to classify the more volatile types of crude oil for transport, and are already shipped in double-hulled cars, meaning they should be unaffected by last week’s tank car phase-out rules.

Apple Page -- April 28, 2015

AP is reporting:

Samsung Electronics Co. said its first-quarter net income has plunged 39 percent as the smartphone business saw its profit shrink to less than half from a year earlier.

The company reported Wednesday that its January-March income was 4.63 trillion won ($4.35 billion), compared with 7.49 trillion won one year earlier.

That was lower than analysts' consensus of 4.97 trillion won.

Sales fell 12 percent from a year earlier to 47.12 trillion won while operating income dropped 30 percent to 5.98 trillion won, in line with Samsung's earnings preview earlier this month.

The wider-than-expected drop in net profit was due to a big profit plunge in Samsung's mobile business. The maker of Galaxy smartphones said its mobile division generated 2.74 trillion won in quarterly profit, compared with 6.43 trillion won a year earlier.

Analysts estimate Samsung sold more smartphones than Apple during the quarter but the Korean firm lost its share in the high-end market to Apple after the maker of the iPhone began offering models with bigger screens last fall.

Compare to Apple which had a blowout quarter and stunning results. 

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment or financial decisions based on anything you read here or think you may have read here.

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Random Update Of Iraqi Production

For the archives. Bloomberg Business is reporting:

Iraq, OPEC’s second-biggest producer, will start exporting Basrah Heavy crude next month after offering discounts for the new grade in Europe, Asia and the Americas.

Iraq is offering Basrah Heavy after facing pressure from customers to split its main Basrah Light crude into two grades to preserve quality. The country, home to the world’s fifth-largest proven reserves, is rebuilding its energy industry after decades of conflict and sanctions. Iraq pumped 3.34 million barrels a day in March, state-run Oil Marketing Co. known as SOMO said April 16.

Crude exports from northern Iraq via SOMO will rise to 550,000 barrels a day in early May, 600,000 barrels a day in June and 625,000 barrels a day by August. Iraq pumped about 2.4 million barrels daily at the end of 2010 and plans to boost capacity to 6 million barrels by 2019. 

I'm probably misreading this but the delta between 3.34 million bopd production and 600,000 bopd in exports suggests most of Iraq's oil is necessary for internal consumption. I don't know.

China: Stimulus -- April 20, 2015; Market Responds

This is kind of cool. I've talked about it before. AFP is reporting:

Oil prices rose Monday, extending recent strong gains, as the market assessed fresh stimulus action by China against a background of a US crude supply glut.

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment or financial decision based on what you read here or think you may have read here.

Meanwhile, in the Mideast, speaking quietly but wielding a huge stick, the AP is reporting:

The U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt is steaming toward the waters off Yemen to beef up security and join other American ships that are prepared to intercept any Iranian vessels carrying weapons to the Houthi rebels fighting in Yemen.

Gulf of Tonkin redux?