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Strategies & Market Trends : Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TobagoJack who wrote (43290)	12/21/2005 10:52:22 PM
From: LLCF	Respond to of 116555

<make sure we mineralize paper cash and crystalize excess savings while we still can> Yes, continue to accumulate all the usual suspects. DAK

To: TobagoJack who wrote (43290)	12/22/2005 12:01:45 AM
From: mishedlo	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116555

Chinese, Indian Firms to Buy Oil Assets Wednesday December 21, 1:46 pm ET By Joe Mcdonald, Associated Press Writer Chinese, Indian Firms Agree to Jointly Acquire Oil Assets in Syria for $578 Million BEIJING (AP) -- The leading oil companies of China and India have agreed to jointly acquire a Canadian firm's petroleum interests in Syria in their first collaborative venture. China National Petroleum Corp. and India's Oil and Natural Gas Corp. -- both state-owned -- have agreed to pay 676 million Canadian dollars ($578 million) for the Syrian assets of Petro-Canada, the Canadian firm said Tuesday. The companies are buying Petro-Canada's interest in the Al Furat Petroleum Co., a joint venture with state-owned Syrian Petroleum Co. and Syria Shell Petroleum Development B.V. The announcement comes as China and India, longtime rivals, are aggressively expanding their efforts to secure foreign energy supplies for their booming economies, sometimes in direct competition with one another. The Syrian government still needs to approve the takeover of the assets, which represent forecast 2006 production of about 58,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day, Petro-Canada said. As of the end of 2004, the assets accounted for 66.3 million barrels of proved reserves before royalties, or 24.2 million barrels after royalties, according to Petro-Canada. The company had been looking to sell the Syrian assets since the summer and rumors had been circulating that the properties could fetch much more in the current high-price environment for energy properties. But energy analyst Amir Arif with Friedman Billings Ramsey in Arlington, Va., said the asset was a difficult one to sell since no U.S. companies would be interested due to the political risk. "In terms of price, it was a little lower than we were expecting, but it's a tough asset to market with a limited audience," he said. The Indian and Chinese firms were rivals earlier in bidding for another Canadian oil company's assets in the Central Asian nation of Kazakhstan. China won that contest, agreeing to acquire PetroKazakhstan for $4.2 billion. Beijing and New Delhi have been trying to build closer political and commercial relations after decades of hostility between the nuclear-armed Asia giants. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao visited New Delhi in April and signed a joint statement with his Indian counterpart, Manmohan Singh, promising to expand cooperation in promoting energy security. The declaration said the two governments would encourage their companies to cooperate in exploring and developing oil and gas resources in other countries. India's oil minister, Mani Shankar Aiyar, is due to visit China next month. U.S. shares of Petro-Canada rose 4 cents to $40.71 in afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange. Canadian Press contributed reporting to this article. biz.yahoo.com

To: TobagoJack who wrote (43290)	12/22/2005 12:09:09 AM
From: mishedlo	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116555

Japan´s population starts shrinking Thursday, December 22, 2005 4:26:38 AM afxpress.com Japan's population starts shrinking TOKYO (AFX) - Japan's population fell for the first time in 2005, the government said, calling it a "turning point" that will force the economy to adapt to a rapidly aging society Deaths are likely to outnumber births by about 10,000 this year, the first decline since 1899, when Japan began compiling the data, health ministry figures show "Our country is now standing at a major turning point in terms of population," Health, Labor and Welfare Minister Jiro Kawasaki told a news conference "We must take counter-measures against the falling birth rate, along with measures to support and foster our future generations," Kawasaki said Japan's population stood at 127,687,000 as of October 2004. The health ministry said births were set to fall by 44,000 to 1,067,000 this year, with deaths going up 48,000 to 1,077,000 year-on-year The declining population fuels fears for the pension system as a smaller work force supports a mass of pensioners Japan has so far rejected large-scale immigration, accepting only foreign workers with particular skills The latest study shows the population is dropping more rapidly than thought. Just last week the Cabinet Office forecast that the population would start shrinking in 2006 -- itself a revision to a previous estimate that the decline would begin in 2007 The Cabinet Office predicted that the population will halve to 60 mln people by 2100