[AlAhram] Egypt's Ministry of Petroleum says that the country achieved self sufficiency in natural gas consumption in September 2018 due to the gradual increase in local production and the plan to develop major gas fields in the Mediterranean.
The discovery of the large offshore fields has resulted in the halting of natural gas imports for the first time in three years.
The ministry said in a statement that 2018 witnessed remarkable achievements and improvements in the oil and gas sector.
"Natural gas has been extended to more than 1 million residential units in 72 highly-populated cities and villages across Egypt in 2018," the statement read.
"As many as 18,784 cars have been adjusted to operate with natural gas during the period between January and November 2018."
One-hundred new gas stations also became operational in 2018.
Steps have also been taken to implement a phosphoric acid production complex worth $750 million in the New Valley governorate. The facility is estimated to produce 1 million tonnes of phosphoric acid per year.
This year also witnessed the continued increase in oil and gas production, which achieved the unprecedented level of 6.6 billion cubic metres (BCM) per day.
The ministry expects Egypt's natural gas production to stand at 6.750 BCM by the end of 2018.
According to the statement, 2018 saw 61 different oil and gas explorations ‐43 for oil and 18 for gas ‐ which has contributed to increasing the country's energy reserves.
The ministry stated that Egypt has reached an average production of 660,000 oil and oil condensates daily in 2018.
Last October, Petroleum Minister Tarek El-Molla announced that Egypt was no longer importing liquefied natural gas, saving the government EGP 3 billion that had been earmarked annually to meet local demands.
The savings are in large measure due to the massive offshore gas field Zohr, which began operation in December 2017. Zohr, with reserves of more than 30 trillion cubic feet (tcf), is among the largest gas fields discovered so far in the Mediterranean.
The field's output is central to the government’s plans not only to become self-sufficient but to transform Egypt into a regional energy hub.
Zohr’s discovery in 2015 offered the Egyptian government more than a breathing space to save on imports. The field will bring in much needed hard currency when Egypt starts exporting gas, which it is slated to do by 2019 when output from other gas fields comes online.
#2
Keep an eye on the situation in Cyprus. Turkey has been advancing the idea that they do not have to recognize the offshore territory of (quote) islands (un-quote) so they *own* the mineral rights to most (Erdogan's definition is 'all') of the offshore gasfields in the Eastern Mediterranean. Expect fireworks if Turkey doesn't get slapped down.
[PULSE.NG] A South Korean delegation left for North Korea on Wednesday to attend a groundbreaking ceremony for reconnecting roads and railways across the divided peninsula despite stalled denuclearisation talks.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/26/2018 00:00 ||
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#1
Groundbreaking! Thanks to Trump, right? Media? [crickets]
Posted by: Bobby ||
12/26/2018 9:17 Comments ||
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[American Thinker] In its third round of tariff cuts this year, China announced that 700 more goods will have tariffs cut. Bloomberg reports:
China announced another round of tariff cuts, lowering import taxes on more than 700 goods from Jan. 1 as part of its efforts to open up the economy and lower costs for domestic consumers.
No doubt, that’s what they say. And it is true that domestic consumers will benefit from lower cost access to foreign goods. But, is President Trump’s pressure on China not a factor? I am sorry, but I can’t accept the notion that Trump is irrelevant to the decision.
Note that the rate cuts are temporary and can be changed at any time. To me, this is further evidence that they are a bargaining chip in the confrontation over trade that President Trump started.
The underlying reality – that President Trump recognized unlike his predecessors – is that because of its trade surplus, China has far more to lose than the US from a trade war. The comparatively simple reality should have fortified the US in taking a harder line toward China, and yet it never did until Trump. Instead, the US has allowed itself to de-industrialize on a massive scale.
There’s a new sheriff in town the last 2 years. A lot of people were doing very well under the old sheriffs, even though America as a whole did not.
[IOTW Report] She is getting slaughtered, like a bint, er, lamb, on Twitter. , and the comments at the link are somewhat entertaining as well! Pure Christmas-ish fun.
In full disclosure, I had mentally-misplaced the Nativity backstory myself (It's been awhile since I've seen the business side of a stained glass window.), but it didn't take much to recall it. Ms. O-C, OTOH, will never "get" the "real" reason people are pointing at her.
It is unvetted "insights" like that linked which convince me she has no "smart" filter, and the next 2 years (at least) are going to be fun indeed. After "The Notorious O-C" (I believe the adjective will soon be off patent.) gets "Inaugurated," Ms. Pelosi will, indeed, have her hands full.
You could travel between provinces with little harassment by the Roman guards (they did have checkpoints along major travel routes where the travelers were searched...and maybe harassed a bit), but if you were caught smuggling (i.e. avoiding taxation), the outcome was swift and not PC.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
12/26/2018 11:53 Comments ||
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Basra (IraqiNews.com) Iraqi police dispersed on Tuesday fresh protests in the southern Basra province as demonstrations seem to make a comeback decrying poor services.
Alsumaria News said police shot some tear gas bombs to disperse demonstrators who lit fire in car tyres at al-Jebeila street at the center of the province after staging a protest outside the governor’s office demanding jobs and enhanced services.
Basra had witnessed violent protests since early September over multiple social grievances, most notably water shortages and contamination. Some Iraqis officials had said Iran pumped contaminated water left over from its farmlands towards Iraqi territories, which prompted some Iraqi protesters to set the Iranian consulate in Basra on fire.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
12/26/2018 00:00 ||
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Anbar (IraqiNews.com) – An Iraqi civilian was killed and two others were wounded Tuesday in a tribal dispute in Anbar province, a security source said.
The source told Arabic-language Almaalomah news website that a number of civilians “got into a dispute using machine guns in al-Sabhani area in central Haditha, west of Anbar.”
“The clashes left one person dead and two others wounded,” the source said, adding that the injured were moved to a nearby hospital for treatment.
The Iraqi government and non-governmental organizations launched many initiatives over the past period to persuade rival tribesmen to sign petitions to stop their fighting, which claims the lives of several people daily.
Chieftains across Iraq were also urged to intervene to put an end to tribal disputes in the governorate through forcing tribesmen to hand over their weapons to the Iraqi army.
Tribal struggles are weakening efforts to reconstruct the country following the defeat of Islamic State, which occupied large parts of the country since June 2014.
[IOTWREPORT] The last few years have seen growing concern over what happens to solar panels at the end of their life. Consider the following statements:
‐ The problem of solar panel disposal will explode with full force in two or three decades and wreck the environment because it is a huge amount of waste which is not easy to recycle.
‐ Solar panels create 300 times more toxic waste per unit of energy than do nuclear power plants. If solar and nuclear produce the same amount of electricity over the next 25 years that nuclear produced in 2016, and the wastes are stacked on football fields, the nuclear waste would reach the height of the Leaning Tower of Pisa (53 meters), while the solar waste would reach the height of two Mt. Everests (16 km).
‐ Contrary to previous assumptions, pollutants such as lead or carcinogenic cadmium can be almost completely washed out of the fragments of solar modules over a period of several months by rain water.
‐ In countries like China, India, and Ghana, people living near e-waste dumps often burn the waste in order to salvage the valuable copper wires for resale. Since this process requires burning off plastic, the resulting smoke contains toxic fumes that are carcinogenic and teratogenic (birth-defect causing) when inhaled.
Solar photovoltaic panels, whose operating life is 20 to 30 years, lose productivity over time. The International Renewable Energy Agency estimated that there were about 250,000 metric tons of solar panel waste in the world at the end of 2016 and that this figure would definitely increase. Solar panels contain lead, cadmium, and other toxic chemicals that cannot be removed without breaking apart the entire panel.
In November 2016, Japan’s Environment Ministry issued a warning that the amount of solar panel waste Japan produces each year is likely to increase from 10,000 to 800,000 tons by 2040, and the country has no plan for safely disposing of it.
A recent report found that it would take 19 years for Toshiba Environmental Solutions to finish recycling all of the solar waste Japan produced by 2020. By 2034, the annual waste production will be 70 to 80 time larger than that of 2020.
#1
Passive solar heating/cooling shows promise if designed into the original structure (for example install a solar water heater or a Solar Chimney). Solar electric has its niche usages but always seems to be the Technology of the Future™.
#3
I forgot to mention this little beauty. "...The 30 percent tax credit on solar panels that were supposed to expire in 2016 has been extended all the way to 2019."
And this is only at the Federal level. States and Munis may be handing out additional Blue Pills
Call your local Building Department and get the stix on Photovoltatic permits issued Y/Y. This will give y-o-u some indication as to where your tax $ are going.
#4
To understand this properly, we need to compare the disposal problems inherent in solar panels to similar problems involved with disposal of wornout computers, TV sets, smartphones & all modern electronic claptrap. Also include what happens during the manufacturing processes of this stuff.
#5
This is why I laugh at environmentalists. I also point out their fancy cell phones and tablets are chock full of oil products and considered hazardous waste due to batteries and rare earth metals.
#6
All forms of energy production have pros and cons. Solar in use is nice and clean. The manufacturing and disposal not as much. Nuclear has the issue of fuel rods and the general low level waste. Hydro has its own issues. About the cleanest over all is probably some sort of solar termal. Using mirrors to heat a working fluid to run a steam turbine. Maybe one day we will finally have workable fusion
#8
Solar power doesn't "Scale" very well. A solar cell on a pocket calculator is well and good, on a single family dwelling it is iffy, and on a commercial scale energy supplier that needs to run 24/7/365 it is a joke. Maybe the develop of orbiting Solar Power Satellites will be a solution, but on Earth... Dream on.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Anbar (IraqiNews.com) – An Iraqi civilian was killed and two others were wounded Tuesday in a tribal dispute in Anbar province, a security source said.
