2024-09-30 21:58
Sept 30 (Reuters) - The White House said on Monday dozens of Starlink satellite systems that provide high-speed internet access were in use in North Carolina, with over 100 more in transit to areas devastated by Hurricane Helene. The announcement came as former President Donald Trump said earlier on Monday he spoke to billionaire Elon Musk about setting up the internet access, falsely claiming that the systems had yet to be deployed. "I just spoke to Elon," Trump said in his remarks. "We want to get Starlink hooked up because they have no communication whatsoever and Elon will always come through." Trump added: "We are going to try and get the Starlink in there as soon as possible." Those arrangements had already been made before Trump's comments, President Joe Biden's administration pointed out afterward. "This is already happening," a White House spokesperson said on social media, linking to a press statement dated Monday from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The FEMA statement said that in North Carolina, 40 Starlink satellite systems are available to help with responder communications and an additional 140 are being shipped to assist with communications infrastructure restoration. Hurricane Helene has torn through the U.S. Southeast, killing more than 100 people across six states and cutting off some areas of western North Carolina entirely from communication and road access. Musk has endorsed Trump in the Nov. 5 elections, in which Trump faces Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris. Starlink, Musk's satellite broadband company, is a unit of SpaceX. Starlink controls nearly two thirds of the world's active satellites and is the only high-bandwidth internet system covering the entire planet. Trump traveled to Valdosta, Georgia, to visit a furniture store that was damaged in the storm. Helene slammed into Florida's Gulf Coast on Thursday night. Storm damage estimates ranged from $15 billion to over $100 billion, insurers and forecasters said over the weekend. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-says-he-spoke-musk-about-getting-internet-areas-hit-by-hurricane-2024-09-30/
2024-09-30 21:50
WASHINGTON, Sept 30 (Reuters) - The U.S. has bought 6 million barrels of oil for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve for delivery through May 2025, the Department of Energy said on Monday. The purchases are part of an effort to replenish stockpiles after President Joe Biden ordered the largest ever sale from the reserve in 2022 of 180 million barrels in an effort to control fuel prices following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The U.S. bought 3.5 million barrels from Exxon Mobil (XOM.N) , opens new tab, 2 million from Shell Trading Company, and 500,000 from Macquarie Commodities Trading US, for a total cost of more than $411 million, the department said. The sour crude, or oil that many U.S. refineries are engineered to process, will be delivered at a rate of 1.5 million barrels per month from February to May next year to the Bayou Choctaw site in Louisiana. After that, the department only has enough money in its fund for SPR purchases to buy about another 2 million barrels at about $75 per barrel. To continue to keep filling the SPR after that, the department must ask Congress for more money and/or persuade it to cancel upcoming congressionally-mandated sales. The department previously worked with Congress nearly two years ago to help replenish the SPR by cancelling sales of 140 million barrels that had been mandated through 2027 to raise money for government programs. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/us-buys-6-million-barrels-oil-strategic-petroleum-reserve-2024-09-30/
2024-09-30 21:47
CHICAGO, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Hurricane Helene shut at least two poultry plants in Georgia and North Carolina and twisted cotton crops in South Carolina in blows to U.S. food and fiber production, company and agriculture officials said on Monday. More than 100 deaths across a half-dozen states have been attributed to the powerful storm that slammed into Florida's Big Bend region late on Thursday before cutting a destructive path through Georgia and into the Carolinas. Wayne-Sanderson Farms, the nation's third largest poultry producer, closed a Moultrie, Georgia, processing plant due to a loss of electrical power from downed transmission lines, company spokesman Frank Singleton said. The complex processes 1.3 million chickens weekly and its timeline for resuming operations depends on Georgia Power (GPJA.N) , opens new tab crews restoring power, Singleton said. The company is providing fuel deliveries to local farms that also lost power, he said. In South Carolina, many poultry operations are running on backup generators, said Eva Moore, spokesperson for the South Carolina Department of Agriculture. The state's cotton crops took a big hit, she added. "Open bolls have been knocked around, and plants are twisted," Moore said. "This will make for a complicated harvest and may affect the grades of the cotton." Concerns over potential crop damage in key growing areas boosted ICE cotton futures. In North Carolina, Smithfield Foods, the world's largest pork processor, said transportation for its hog production operations was strained but the company did not suffer material disruptions. A chicken plant near Morganton, North Carolina, is down, said Bob Ford, executive director of the North Carolina Poultry Federation. Still, the poultry industry was generally lucky because feed mills are operating and floods largely did not affect farms, he said. For live chickens around Morganton, "they're just going to get fatter" until the processing plant reopens, possibly on Wednesday, Ford said. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/helene-shuts-poultry-plants-twists-cotton-crops-southeastern-us-2024-09-30/
2024-09-30 21:47
Oct 1 (Reuters) - A look at the day ahead in Asian markets. Investors in Asia kick off the new quarter on Tuesday catching their breath from an astonishing end to the third quarter that saw Chinese stocks clock their best day since 2008 and Japanese stocks , opens new tab register one of their biggest falls in years. On top of that, Fed Chair Jerome Powell on Monday dampened some of the more fervent hopes for future rate cuts, saying his base case is for a further 50 basis points easing this year and that the central bank will reach its neutral rate "over time." This pushed Treasury bond yields higher - most notably at the short end of the curve where the two-year yield leaped 10 basis points - and traders shifted expectations for November's Fed meeting closer to a 25 bps cut from 50. Tuesday's economic calendar is packed with top-tier releases including Japanese unemployment, Indonesian inflation, South Korean trade, and a raft of purchasing managers index reports from across the Asia and Pacific region. Of course, Powell's remarks weren't hawkish. But they were a reminder that perhaps some of the rate expectations built into market pricing had gotten a little extreme. Wall Street closed in the green on Monday, rounding off a solid quarter that saw the S&P 500 reach multiple new peaks and increased rotation out of Big Tech into beaten down sectors and small cap stocks. Investors in Asia on Tuesday will digest this and the remarkable market moves in the continent's two biggest economies the day before. Chinese markets are now closed until Tuesday next week as the country celebrates Golden Week. The market break could not have been better timed. Monday's 8% surge means Chinese stocks have risen by around a quarter since Sept. 23, when Beijing unveiled the first of a series of stimulus measures to support the economy and markets. A 25% increase, in a week, is nothing less than extraordinary. Blackrock (BLK.N) , opens new tab, the world's largest asset manager, has raised its tactical asset allocation for China to "modestly overweight" from "neutral." Unsurprisingly, the equity market's historic rebound is pouring fuel on the burning question of whether China's stimulus will revive the economy. On that score, far more uncertainty abounds. A fundamental issue is that lower borrowing costs and more ample market liquidity won't increase consumer demand in an economy dealing with a monumental property sector bust, the deleveraging that goes with that, and deflation. Japanese stocks, meanwhile, will be looking to bounce back from a near-5% slump on Monday, as investors gear up for an Oct. 27 election. That was the biggest fall since the Aug. 5 volatility shock, and the third biggest since the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020. The yen's slide back towards 144.00 per dollar should help. Here are key developments that could provide more direction to Asian markets on Tuesday: - Japan unemployment (August) - Indonesia inflation (August) - PMIs - Australia, India and others (September) Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/markets/global-markets-view-asia-graphic-pix-2024-09-30/
2024-09-30 21:34
NEW YORK, Sept 30 (Reuters) - U.S. renewable diesel production capacity declined in July by the most since the industry began its rapid expansion three years ago, data from the Energy Information Administration showed on Monday. Capacity to produce biomass-based renewable diesel and other biofuels, excluding biodiesel and ethanol, fell by about 299 million gallons per year from June to about 4.60 billion gallons a year in July, the second time it has declined since the EIA began keeping records in 2021. The EIA did not immediately respond to a request seeking more inputs on what the decline is based on. Well-established oil refiners and startups have made large bets on renewable diesel in recent years as government mandated consumption targets and subsidies lowering costs of production have encouraged investments in supply growth. However, output from new plants is starting to outpace demand, leading to a glut in the market. Vertex Energy (VTNR.O) , opens new tab , one of the newest entrants in the U.S. renewable diesel industry, filed for Chapter 11 , opens new tab bankruptcy protection last week, just months after it paused output of the biofuel, citing macroeconomic weakness. Demand for vegetable oils as feedstock for renewable diesel production, which include canola oil, corn oil and soybean oil, fell more than 5.6% from June to 1.168 billion pounds in July, the EIA data showed. Demand for the same feedstocks from facilities producing biodiesel, which is blended into petroleum-based fuel to lower emissions, rose 5.6% from June to 866 million pounds in July, according to the data. Demand for waste oils, fats and greases, such as tallow and used cooking oil, rose to 1.43 billion pounds in July from 1.38 billion pounds in June, the data showed. Those consumption levels indicate biofuel producers are running their plants below capacity, said Zander Capozzola, vice president of renewable fuels at AEGIS Hedging. At current capacity, renewable diesel plants could burn through at least 3.162 billion pounds of feedstocks per month, while biodiesel producers would consume another 1.288 billion, if they were running at full capacity, Capozzola said. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-renewable-diesel-production-capacity-posts-largest-monthly-decline-record-2024-09-30/
2024-09-30 21:33
NEW YORK, Sept 30 (Reuters) - U.S. state utility regulators and environmental groups are contesting the process grid operator PJM Interconnection used to determine the record high capacity payments it plans to make to power generators, according to separate filings made this month. PJM Interconnection, which is the largest U.S. grid operator and covers 13 states and the District of Columbia, in July released the results of its annual capacity auction with prices that were 833% higher than the previous year. The PJM market makes capacity payments to power plants to run during times of high demand, and determining the payout depends largely on PJM's estimate of available power supply and demand. The Sierra Club, Earthjustice, National Resources Defense Counsel and other environmental groups filed a complaint with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Friday, accusing PJM of driving up capacity prices partly by excluding certain power plants from its most recent auction. "PJM is misrepresenting the current level of energy supply and costing consumers billions of dollars in energy bills," Justin Vickers, Senior Attorney with the Sierra Club, said in a statement. PJM representatives said they were reviewing the complaint and plan to file an answer. The plants that were not included in the auction have contracts, known as Reliability Must-Run agreements, to run past planned retirement dates. Including such plants would have lowered capacity costs by roughly $5 billion annually over the next three years, the complaint said, citing a study by the Maryland Office of People's Counsel. The Organization of PJM States, Inc., which is made up of state utility regulators representing more than 65 million power customers, expressed similar concerns in a letter to PJM, also filed on Friday. The complaint and the letter called for Reliability Must-Run agreements to be accounted for in PJM's capacity market process. The grid operator plans to hold another auction in December. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/pjms-record-high-power-capacity-auction-draws-fresh-scrutiny-2024-09-30/
