By Matthew Smith of OilPrice.com

Despite the dire predictions of peak oil demand, which will is expected to arrive during the next decade as the world transitions to a low-carbon economy, international energy companies are investing heavily in fossil fuel exploration and production. One region which has caught the world by surprise and is attracting significant attention is the Guyana-Suriname Basin. A swathe of world-class discoveries by ExxonMobil in offshore Guyana sparked considerable interest in the Guyana-Suriname Basin, which after poor drilling results during the 1960s and 1970s saw it largely ignored by energy companies. Recent discoveries with estimated recoverable oil resources of more than 11 billion barrels in the Stabroek Block offshore Guyana alone indicates the U.S. Geological Survey grossly underestimated the basin’s undiscovered oil resources. There are signs that the sedimentary basin could indeed be the world’s last great offshore oil boom.

In a May 2001 report, the USGS estimated that the Guyana-Suriname Basin held somewhere between 2.8 billion and 32.6 billion barrels of undiscovered oil resources with mean resources of 15.2 billion barrels. The latest oil discoveries, since 2020, point to that number being far lower than the actual petroleum potential that exists in the sedimentary basin. Exxon has found at least 11 billion barrels of technically recoverable oil resources in the Stabroek Block offshore Guyana while nearby Block 58 offshore Suriname is believed to contain as much as 6.5 billion barrels. Oil discoveries in those two blocks alone, out of more than 30 blocks across the Guyana-Suriname Basin, are estimated to total more than 18.5 billion barrels which is substantially higher than the USGS mean of 15.2 billion barrels. The latest discoveries made since the start of 2022 in the Stabroek and Corentyne Blocks offshore Guyana as well as Blocks 58 and 53 in offshore Suriname point to the volume of recoverable oil resources being considerably higher.

Drilling activity is continuing at a feverish pace in Guyana, where the national government in Georgetown implemented very favorable terms for the Exxon-led consortium operating in the offshore Stabroek Block. Exxon, which is the operator holding a 45% working interest with partners Hess owning 30% and CNOOC 25% respectively, has made over 30 world-class discoveries in the block and is fast-tracking its development. Aside from the Stabroek Block containing over an estimated 11 billion barrels of recoverable oil resources Exxon’s Liza oilfield, which analysts describe as the last major frontier oil play, is pumping 360,000 barrels per day, well above the nameplate capacity of 340,000 barrels.

Exxon is developing additional assets in the Stabroek Block, notably the Payara and Yellowtail discoveries which on commencing operations, during 2023 and 2025 respectively, will add 470,000 barrels of capacity to the Stabroek Block. That will see Exxon pumping at least 800,000 barrels per day from offshore Guyana by 2025. There is every likelihood that production from the Stabroek Block will keep growing past 2030. In October 2022, Exxon announced the Sailfin-1 and Yarrow-1 discoveries in the block and continues to advance its drilling campaign. Exxon continues to drill in offshore Guyana, with a focus on the prolific Stabroek Block, where the supermajor is targeting the completion of 25 wells by the close of June 2023 to be followed by a 35-well campaign that will be launched when the current plan is completed. There have been discoveries outside of the Stabroek Block. Among the most recent is at the Kawa-1 exploration well by CGX Energy and partner Frontera Energy in the northern section of the Corentyne Block located adjacent to Stabroek. That segment of Corentyne is believed to lie above the same petroleum fairway running through the Stabroek Block into Block 58 offshore Suriname.

For these reasons, analysts are forecasting Guyana’s production will reach 1.2 million barrels daily by 2027, seeing the impoverished former British colony overtake Colombia to become the third largest oil producer in Latin America and the Caribbean. Guyana’s oil output is forecast by industry consultancy Rystad Energy to reach 1.7 million barrels per day by 2035, seeing the tiny South American country surpass U.S. offshore production and become the world’s fourth-largest offshore oil producer. It will be an ongoing investment by energy supermajors in the South American country of around 800,000 people which will drive this rapid growth. Among the latest to enter the fray in Guyana is British global energy supermajor BP, which in November 2022 won the contract to market Guyana’s share of the petroleum produced from the Stabroek Block, which comes from the Liza Destiny and Unity platforms operating the Liza oilfield.

It hasn’t been all plain sailing in offshore Guyana despite the Exxon-led consortium’s tremendous success. CGX, which is 77% owned by Frontera and the operator of the Corentyne Block, was forced to delay the drilling of the Wei-1 well targeted for 2.5 miles northwest of Kawa-1. This occurred because a third party did not release the drilling unit. CGX and Frontera are committed to drilling the well which, according to the companies, is to be spudded before the end of January 2023. The partners have confirmed with Guyana’s government that the block’s license is unaffected and remains in force. In August Tullow Oil, which holds a non-operating 37.5% interest in the Kanuku Block, announced it was abandoning operations at the Beebei-Potaro well in the block after it hit water-bearing targets. Repsol, operator and owner of a 37.5% share in the Kanuku Block with the remaining 25% held by a joint venture between TotalEnergies and Qatar Petroleum, has plugged and abandoned the well.

A tremendously positive development for Guyana’s burgeoning offshore oil boom is Georgetown’s 9 December 2022 announcement it had launched the first licensing round for offshore oil exploration and production. The bid round has a mixture of 14 shallow and deep-water blocks for tender, with submissions closing on 14 April 2023 and contracts expected to be awarded on 31 May 2023. There is a minimum signature requirement of $10 million for shallow-water blocks and $20 million for deep-water blocks. While the terms of the contracts to be awarded to successful bidders will not be as favorable as the agreement secured by the Exxon-led consortium for the Stabroek Block, they will still be on advantageous terms.

Guyana is one of the lowest-cost jurisdictions in Latin America for energy companies to operate in, and even globally for that matter. The Exxon-led consortium claims that the 120,000 barrel per day capacity Liza Destiny Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) vessel is pumping petroleum with a breakeven price of $35 per barrel. That has fallen to $25 a barrel for the second FPSO, the 220,000 barrel-per-day Liza Unity, which came online in February 2022. Exxon recently announced that both FPSOs are operating above capacity, see the Liza oilfield pumping 360,000 barrels per day. The energy supermajor continues to develop the Stabroek Block at a rapid clip, expecting production to reach one million barrels per day by 2030. Overall, offshore Guyana is estimated to have an average breakeven price of $30 to $35 per barrel Brent, which will fall further as additional industry infrastructure comes online.

The sweet light and medium oil grades found in Guyana have a relatively low carbon cost to extract and refine, especially when compared to the heavier sourer grades typically found in South America, which magnifies the country’s competitiveness. Those characteristics further enhance the attractiveness of investing in offshore Guyana and is the reason the former British colony is attracting considerable investment from international oil companies. For these reasons, Georgetown’s inaugural oil auction will garner considerable attention, particularly with Guyana at the top of the leaderboard for yielding the most oil discovered globally since 2015. In fact, aside from the prolific Stabroek Block where Exxon’s swath of world-class finds has yielded 11 billion barrels of recoverable oil resources, it is believed that another 25 billion barrels is waiting to be discovered. With Rystad predicting Guyana will be pumping 1.7 million barrels daily by 2035 the deeply impoverished South American country will emerge as an elite top-five global producer.

Delta Air Lines Inc. was one of the latest carriers to warn about slumping travel demand. Several other carriers have also voiced similar concerns.

“The December month was the off-trend month,” Delta President Glen Hauenstein told analysts and investors on Wednesday at an event in New York. He explained that January travel demand could be significantly better than December and added February is usually a much better month. 

Hauenstein’s comments followed JetBlue Airways Corp.’s travel warning on Tuesday. Shares of the airline plunged the most in six months after fourth-quarter revenue per seat flown a mile, a metric used to measure fares and passenger traffic, trended toward the low end of guidance.  

“The expected very strong close-in demand for December reflected in its prior outlook has materialized below expectations,” JetBlue said.

Separately, Spirit Airlines Inc. reduced its capacity forecast for the quarter due to adverse weather conditions. Alaska Air Group Inc., meanwhile, warned about “softening in corporate travel bookings.”

Looking at the S&P500 Airline industry, shares are down 16% year-to-date and down 47% from five years ago. The index remains well below pre-Covid levels. 

Multiple warnings about sliding travel demand come as consumers have endured 19 months of negative real wages. Persistent inflation has decimated the household finances of the bottom 90% of Americans. Many folks are draining personal savings and maxing out credit cards in high-rate environments just to buy staples and pay rent. So, their ability to spend money on experiences and travel is sliding.  

The increasing drumbeat of macroeconomic headwinds because of a Federal Reserve-induced economic downturn is making life for the consumer harder by the month.

There are signs at TSA checkpoints that travel numbers have been moving lower since the spike during the Thanksgiving holiday.

 A good question is whether the consumer will have enough dry powder to go on trips in the first half of next year. 

Authored by Lorenz Duchamps via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

An employee at a restaurant in Georgia fatally shot an armed intruder in self-defense after the masked assailant pistol-whipped the worker during an attempted robbery, authorities say.

Warner Robins Police Department Sgt. Justin Clark told Fox News in an interview on Tuesday that the intruder, identified as Joshua Hickey, entered an American Philly & Wings restaurant on Dec. 5 and demanded money.

“Hickey … had a stolen pistol,” Clark told the network, explaining that he entered the restaurant and demanded money from the manager, which led to a struggle with the employee.

The worker, who was not identified, suffered a head injury after being pistol-whipped and knocked to the ground, Clark said. After managing to get back on his feet, the employee pulled his own legally owned pistol and fired three shots at Hickey, striking him twice, according to police.

“Once Mr. Hickey was shot, he fled from the restaurant but only made it about 75 yards before collapsing on the street,” the official said. Authorities transported him to the hospital, but he died of his wounds.

When Clark was asked in the interview how the worker was doing mentally after experiencing the fatal encounter, he told the anchor the worker “took it pretty hard.”

“Of course, nobody wants to be in that situation and … he was doing his best to come out of it okay,” the police sergeant said.

In recent years, the United States has seen overall crime increase after enjoying decades of generally declining crime. In particular, robberies, carjacking, burglaries, and theft, have increased over the past year or so.

Clark told Fox News that Warner Robins, a city in Houston and Peach counties located in the central part of Georgia, has not necessarily seen an increase in crime, although the area did report “a fair share of crime,” including violent crime and theft.

When asked to react to major cities reporting an increase in robberies and homicides in recent years, Clark blamed it on staff shortages, adding that it is hard for law enforcement to do their jobs efficiently nowadays.

“It’s terrible, a lot of it has to do with, you know, officer shortages,” he told the network. “Everybody, including us, is dealing with this. Unfortunately, it is hard to get people to do the job nowadays.”

Although easing zero Covid restrictions in China will be met with reopening hardships as infections soar, earlier this week, one of the top medical advisers in the country said that the omicron variant of the virus is no worse than the flu. Now some Chinese cities are downgrading Covid even further, saying it’s the same as the seasonal cold, and there is no need to panic. 

We pointed out earlier this week that China’s renowned respiratory disease expert Zhong Nanshan downplayed the risks of the omicron subvariant of Covid-19. He said the death rate from omicron is .1%, equivalent to the common flu, and the infection doesn’t reach the lungs, adding most healthy people recover in less than ten days. 

Zhong’s comments come as Beijing pivots from zero Covid to reopen the economy and prevent further economic deceleration. Officials are now telling people they must learn to live with Covid — a similar move that worked in Western countries. 

According to Shanghai Morning Post, Guangzhou health authorities have assured the public that Covid is less severe than the flu and no more serious than a seasonal cold: 

“The virulence of the new coronavirus [Omicron] has now evolved to the level of the seasonal flu, and some are even less virulent than the flu, so you really don’t need to panic,” said Tang Xiaoping, director of the No 8 People’s Hospital in Guangzhou and head of the national key clinical department of infectious diseases.

China downplaying the severity of Covid from flu to cold is the latest sign Beijing is attempting to calm fears and quickly reopen the economy. And why would they be doing that? Well, check out overnight economic data: 

Overnight, a slew of economic data led to a decline in business activity in November. Retail sales fell 5.9% last month from a year earlier — the biggest decline in consumer spending since May — caused mainly by lockdowns. 

The unemployment situation also worsened to 5.7% last month, the highest level in six months. And industrial production only rose to 2.2%, about half of October’s figures. 

China’s economic slowdown, and the acceleration to the downside, is a direct result of disastrous zero Covid policies, hence why Beijing is pivoting hard to reopen. 

Meanwhile, Feng Zijian, a former deputy chief at China’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, recently said the coming Covid wave could infect 80 to 90% of the Chinese population. 

China is battling its largest outbreak as infections soar. 

And Beijing’s mindset is apparent: reopen the economy, and let the virus spread because there isn’t much officials can do at this point unless they want to crash the economy. 

Beijing downplaying Covid as no more serious than a seasonal cold is a move to save its crumbling economy and calm public fears. 

After teasing a “major announcement” on Truth social, former President Donald Trump on Thursday unveiled a “limited edition collection” of NFT trading cards, available at collecttrumpcards.com.

They feature cartoon images of Trump depicted as a superhero, a Hollywood actor, a hunter and other characters.

The announcement was accompanied by a video with Trump pitching the digital assets.

“This is Donald Trump, hopefully, your favorite president of all time. Better than Lincoln or Washington,” Trump says, before detailing the project.

According to the website, 45,000 cards will be created in the series, of which 44,000 will be sold. Those who buy will also be entered into a sweepstakes where the will have the opportunity to dine with Trump, play golf with him, and join a Mar-a-Lago cocktail hour.

Trump’s entry into the NFT market via NFT INT LLC (not affiliated with Trump or the Trump organization), comes at a precarious time for the crypto-based digital art – with volume declining 97% between January and September of this year, and the collapse of FTX – which was a major host of NFTs.

If the collection sells out, the creators stand to make $4.5 million. It’s unclear what Trump will make off the sales, if anything.

Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Epoch Times,

The main defense of Anthony Fauci in his legal deposition this month was pretty simple: he forgot. He said that he couldn’t recall nearly 200 times and versions of that many more. He said that he was so busy running his huge agency plus shepherding vaccines that he couldn’t possibly remember this or that email implicating him in a censorship scheme. He gets thousands of emails a day and there is no reason to think any in particular would grab his attention.

It’s all a bit implausible because we saw him on TV several times a day for the better part of three years. He was the hard-working actor out there. I do TV and interviews several times per week but I try my best to throttle them back and turn many down simply because they truly drain away energy and focus from other work. In short, they are all-consuming. The notion that he neglected issues of message in favor of serious science is an incredibly obvious strain on credulity.

So what was the point of this line of answer? Yes, he wants to save his skin. No question about that. But it occurs to me that there is another point too. He wants to model for the nation and the world how to think about the whole of the last three years. His view is that everyone should forget about it.

You have surely noticed this happening ever since the opening following lockdowns and the rest. We are all just supposed to forget. We are supposed to move on. I’ve heard already a thousand times that we never had a lockdown. There seems to be little in the way of official memory of two years of school closures or the shutting of churches on holidays.

We are being told to forget about the medical mandates that displaced millions from their jobs. We had relatives die and we couldn’t attend their funerals but we are supposed to forget about all that. I see claims daily that the censorship never really took place or wasn’t that bad really, so we should shut up already.

What about all the politicians who violated stay-at-home orders, went on vacations or got hairstyles, or were photographed partying without a mask even as they imposed them on everyone else? Hey, mistakes were surely made but let’s not make too big a deal of it.

Indeed, it was amazing to me how the most egregious and global attacks on human liberty in the name of public health were very quickly memory-holed by the major media, which we now know was the answer to public health agencies themselves the entire time. We all stood by in shock and wondered if we were the crazy ones.

That, after all, is the whole point of Orwell’s Memory Hole, the invention of an alternative history of the recent past that contradicts our own memories and invites us to believe that we are crazy or obsessed or otherwise thinking about things that truly do not matter. This is why the Memory Hole was so important in Orwell’s book. It becomes a means by which the population is controlled in its thinking and therefore in its psychological capacity to resist the next round of impositions.

This is why cultivating a solid memory is so crucial to the preservation of the good and civilized life. The barbarians all around us are constantly inviting us to forget so that we do not learn lessons and do not apply the lessons we learn. Instead we become blank slates for the ruling class to write on daily and then we are more likely to believe them. Better to never learn lessons at all. If we must learn something, it should be along the lines that we need more control and more acquiescence in the future.

Movements that truly seek to prevent horrors of the past must also seek to preserve memory. This is why there are Holocaust Museums, for example, to help us understand experiences that were not ours but from which we can still learn. Indeed, this is the whole point of learning in general, to extract wisdom from people and events that have come before in order that we can be better prepared to build a future.

People who invite us to forget are more than likely up to no good. It’s not just that they want to replace a real narrative with a false one. They want history to start over at any given moment so that we are more easy to manipulate in the future.

Perhaps this is why basic memory skills have been so de-emphasized in early childhood education for so long. It’s a true tragedy because young people do have a remarkable capacity for memorization. They might lack the ability to think abstractly or process difficult strings of logic but they do have the mental power to hear and repeat, which is why a classical education puts so much emphasis on this and probably why modern education regards memorization as a waste of time.

The urge to forget plays out in strange ways in our time. When accounts are banned on YouTube, Twitter, or Facebook, so too are the archives of those accounts blown away so that we can longer access information about the recent past. That is intentional, otherwise the banning would be a mere blocking of new content. No, the whole point is to wipe out what we know or think we know.

This is one of the tragedies of the Trump ban on Twitter, for example. We lost a narrative record over years of important data points, making even writing the history of our times more difficult. So when the account came back, so too did our memories and then we could scroll through and verify a version of events that is closer to reality rather than the fake history we were being told to accept from on high.

We’ve been through almost three years in which powerful elites have done their best to wipe out history. I recall the chills I got down my spine when major media organs began putting trigger warnings on links older than a few months. The clear message was: this is no longer valid or reliable because things have surely changed. This is also why Fauci kept saying that the science has changed. It was a call for us to forget all the statements that contradict his latest statements.

In this way, we have entered into an age of amnesia with a ruling class that wants everyone to forget the wisdom of the past and even the events of recent history, to forgive but mostly to forget and move on like good little pawns in their game. Just do what we are told and forget everything else.

We can all resist this little game. We can access Archive.org and, more importantly, we can consult the wisdom of the ages through books and poetry and religious teachings. If civilization is to survive the onslaught, it will be because we choose to remember and act on those memories in defiance of every demand that we forget.

Read more here…

A new report from the International Monetary Fund predicts a sharp drop in property prices across Asia.

The report points out that home prices are “flattening” across the continent coming out of the pandemic boom that the region experienced. With rates rising, risks of “significant corrections in a number of markets” are profound, according to Nikkei. 

The report set out “to highlight challenges in Asian housing markets linked to fast price rises especially in the advanced economies since COVID, and more broadly including many EMs in the period leading up to COVID,” per the IMF.

It also aimed “to draw policy lessons on how to manage stability aspects through macroprudential and other policies and how to support affordability through structural policies and targeted government support.”

The report notes concerns about affordability due to the spike in prices during the pandemic. South Korea, for example, saw a rise in inflation-adjusted prices of about 20% in 2021. Places like Japan and Singapore saw prices rise about 10% while Thailand saw price spikes of about 5%. 

Now the issue is cooling demand as a result of rising rates. The pandemic bubble combined with the quick whipsaw of spiking rates could create drops “on the order of 5% to 20% in some countries,” Nikkei wrote. 

Kenichiro Kashiwase, co-author of the IMF study, said: “Our study basically indicates that in order to alleviate, or address, housing affordability, governments can provide targeted, for example, mortgage insurance or mortgage guarantees.”

Krishna Srinivasan, director of the IMF’s Asia and Pacific department, commented this week: “The current phase looks like another turning point for many countries, with the post-pandemic house price surge now increasingly at risk of reversing in the context of slowing growth and rising interest rates.”

“As we look towards 2023, we see once more that the global environment is fragile, with storm clouds on the horizon. We expect 2023 to be worse than 2022. Inflation is still uncomfortably high and financial conditions are tight, so things are looking pretty not so good.”

You can read the entire IMF policy paper, called “Housing Market Stability and Affordability in Asia-Pacific”, here. 

Authored by Kenny Stancil via Common Dreams,

Peace advocates responded with disgust to the Navy’s decision to name its new warship after the two battles of Fallujah, during which U.S. troops massacred Iraqi civilians.

“The future America-class amphibious ship will be named the USS Fallujah, LHA-9,” Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro announced Tuesday in a speech at Marine Barracks Washington, D.C. “The future USS Fallujah will commemorate the first and second battles of Fallujah, American-led offenses during the Iraq War.” Del Toro called it “an honor for me, and for our nation, to memorialize the Marines, the soldiers, and coalition forces that fought valiantly and those that sacrificed their lives during both battles of Fallujah.”

U.S. troops slaughtered approximately 600 Iraqi civilians—including more than 300 women and children—along with 200 insurgents during the First Battle of Fallujah. Code-named Operation Vigilant Resolve, the battle was launched in April 2004 to avenge the deaths of four Blackwater contractors. Twenty-seven U.S. soldiers were killed during the retaliatory siege.

The Second Battle of Fallujah, known as Operation Phantom Fury, was fought from November to December 2004 to recapture the city from insurgent forces. In the process, U.S.-led occupation forces killed between 581 and 670 civilians across nine neighborhoods, according to Iraq Body Count.

“With over 100 coalition forces killed and 600 wounded, Operation Phantom Fury is considered to be the bloodiest engagement to the Iraq War and the fiercest serving combat involving U.S. Marines since the Vietnam War’s battle of Hue City,” said Del Toro. “This namesake deserves to be in the pantheon of iconic Marine Corps battles, and the LHA’s unique capabilities will serve as a stark reminder to everyone around the world of the bravery, the courage, and commitment to freedom displayed by those who fought in those battles.”

Critics called the Navy’s commemoration of the battles of Fallujah “shameful.”

“Some of the most heinous U.S. war crimes committed during the Iraq War took place in the city of Fallujah,” The Intercept‘s Jeremy Scahill, who reported from Iraq during the U.S. invasion, wrote Wednesday on social media.

Jaw. Floor. https://t.co/JqG8XMdeuL

— Peter Maass (@maassp) December 14, 2022

In a 2007 appearance on the Bill Moyers show, Scahill described the siege of Fallujah as “one of the most brutal and sustained U.S. operations of the occupation,” telling Moyers that the Pentagon’s murderous response to the killing of Blackwater contractors set a dangerous precedent. In 2016, journalist Hope Hodge Seck wrote about what she called “the whisper campaign for a USS Fallujah.” She tweeted Tuesday: “At the time, it seemed unlikely to ever happen…But now it has.”

Construction on the 45,000 metric-ton vessel, the first U.S. warship named after a post-9/11 battle, is set to begin this month at the Mississippi-based Ingalls Shipbuilding, which secured a $2.4 billion contract in October.

Civilians in Fallujah, meanwhile, continue to suffer from a sharp rise in birth defects that has occurred in the wake of the 2003 invasion.

Texas appears to be in the crosshairs of a massive Arctic blast scheduled for next week. Meteorologists warn that temperatures could dive to extremes, while energy traders are concerned about a potential wave of freeze-offs across the state that could affect the flow of natural gas. 

Judah Cohen, head of seasonal forecasting at AER, a Verisk company, told Axios the cold blast slated for around the Christmas holiday could be one of the most extreme cold air masses to pour into the southern part of the country in years. Computer model data shows temperatures could dive 30 degrees below average by Dec. 23.

Cohen warned the upcoming cold blast could be on par with the February 2021 episode when an Arctic blast triggered a grid failure across Texas.

Another, more severe weather model was tweeted by meteorologist Ryan Maue who warned: 

“Next Thursday, dangerously cold air extends from Canada to Texas up to 58°F below normal.” 

AccuWeather forecasted the cold air could “challenge records that have stood since the 1980s from the northern Rockies to the Southeast, as well as stress energy grids, in the run-up to the Christmas holiday.” 

Houston-based NatGas research firm Criterion Research has been telling clients all week about the potential for upcoming freeze-offs. 

Criterion said, “Midland, Texas, will post average temperatures below freezing for multiple days, with nightly lows of 20 degrees and daily highs just above the freeze line.” They said in similar instances, freeze-offs have occurred, curtailing production. 

The research firm said ERCOT’s guidance for next week “is shaping up to be a big showing, with the ISO showing total load rising to 53 GW on Thursday (12/22). However, the demand shot is not quite as high as peak days during last winter and well off of summer highs for the ISO.” 

ERCOT’s guidance for next week is shaping up to be a big showing, with the ISO forecasting total load rising to 53 GW on Thursday (12/22). #natgas #ongt #power #enelyst pic.twitter.com/E7GOTlyUJ0

— Criterion Research (@PipelineFlows) December 15, 2022

They noted ERCOT’s fossil fuel power generation sources would rise next week to 30 GW. Any production freeze-off could affect energy flows to power plants. 

“One concern that could lead to tightness for natural gas supply & demand is the rising risk of freeze-offs in the Southern US,” Criterion said. 

Next week’s forecast for Central US and Texas sent natural gas futures soaring more than 7.5% today. 

And as a reminder, Texas largely relies on NatGas for power generation. What could possibly go wrong? 

Former Trump administration intelligence official and best-selling author, Cliff Sims, has offered a rare glimpse into the 5th column’s propaganda machine – namely, how former Politico reporter Natasha Bertrand concocted the report that ’50 former intelligence officials’ said the Hunter Biden laptop story was Russian disinformation.

“Want to know what it’s like to deal with some journalists who “cover” the Intel and NatSec communities at the highest level, but actually serve more like mouthpieces of the permanent security state?” Sims asked, kicking off a Wednesday Twitter thread.

I was serving as Deputy DNI for Strategy & Communications in 2020, so during the height of election season. I was part of then-DNI @JohnRatcliffe‘s small circle of advisors and part of my job was handling reporter inquiries, particularly if they dealt directly with the DNI.

— Cliff Sims (@Cliff_Sims) December 15, 2022

Continued (emphasis ours):

[ZH: for more on Bertrand, (actual) journalist Glenn Greenwald has pulled back the curtain on this particular operative on many occasions…]

There is no US reporter who has spread more disinformation, more casually and recklessly, over the last 6 years than @NatashaBertrand, most of it directly from CIA. As she’s done it, she was promoted with dizzying speed.

Why does nobody trust media?https://t.co/9ZbKlTRKsm

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) July 5, 2022

Back to Cliff Sims:

Oct. 27: @JohnRatcliffe warns the country in a primetime press conference that several foreign countries were seeking to influence the 2020 election.

Among those countries was Iran, whom Ratcliffe accurately noted was seeking to “damage President Trump.”

— Cliff Sims (@Cliff_Sims) December 15, 2022

Oct. 28: @NatashBertrand calls claiming @JohnRatcliffe “went off script” with his comments about Iran, the implication being that they actually weren’t trying to hurt Trump.

She had two anonymous “senior officials” as sources.

I push back hard with two main points…

1. The intelligence was clear about Iran’s intention to hurt Trump. The country’s top counter-intel official had even called them out publicly months before. Here’s his statement from Aug. 7, 2020, relaying the Intelligence Community’s assessment of what Iran was up to.

2. How could Ratcliffe go “off script” when it’s his script? We were still writing his remarks in the motorcade on the way to the press conference, right up until moments before he went on stage. The whole angle of the story made no sense. @NatashaBertrand said didn’t care.

 

At this point I took the rare step of asking to speak to her editor, who was @blakehounshell, before the story published.

I explained to Blake what I outlined above, and reminded him that @NatashaBertrand had also been wrong about the Biden laptop.

It got a little heated…

At some point, exasperated that the truth didn’t seem to matter when @NatashaBertrand was fixated on building a narrative, I snapped and said it was “garbage reporting.”

@blakehounshell replied that I was a “garbage person.”

And @politico published another misleading story.

March 2021, Biden’s own Office of the DNI released the Intelligence Community’s Assessment of foreign threats to the 2020 election.

As I’d told @NatashaBertrand and @blakehounshell back in 2020, they assessed that Iran sought to hurt Trump.

Proven right, again.

But @CNN hired @NatashaBertrand and the @nytimes hired @blakehounshell.

None of them — Schiff, the former Intel officials who lied about the laptop…the journalists involved — have ever admitted they were wrong.

And these headlines remains on @politico to this day.

/end