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Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TobagoJack who wrote (22791)	9/19/2007 9:17:32 AM
From: elmatador	Respond to of 217591

Those Chinese Farmers will become urbanites and the US will be exporting food for them.

To: TobagoJack who wrote (22791)	9/19/2007 10:06:14 AM
From: elmatador	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 217591

China price freeze to crimp oil mkt, refiners fret will sustain robust demand despite record-high crude, tightening supplies and inflame refining losses, industry ELMAT: Another rpotential market for ethanol! China price freeze to crimp oil mkt, refiners fret Wed Sep 19, 2007 11:14am BST BEIJING, Sept 19 (Reuters) - China's move to freeze prices of commodities under state control, including oil products, will sustain robust demand despite record-high crude, tightening supplies and inflame refining losses, industry officials said. Beijing's announcement on Wednesday not to raise prices that it controls for the rest of 2007 amid mounting fears over inflation also threatened to force the shutdown of independent small refineries that supply 15 percent of China's oil market. With U.S. crude (CLc1: Quote, Profile, Research) above $82 a barrel, China's domestic fuel price freeze will lead to greater losses at all its refineries. Beijing last raised pump prices for gasoline and diesel in May last year, before tweaking gasoline rates lower in January and has since kept prices unchanged, shielding consumers from a more than $10 spike in global oil markets. State refiners Sinopec Corp (0386.HK: Quote, Profile, Research) and PetroChina (0857.HK: Quote, Profile, Research), which would see refining margins plunging deeper into the red, may be enticed to cut output or raise fuel exports in coming months, or both, to salvage their bottom lines. Some state refiners were already trimming production by conducting maintenance out of their usual shutdown periods, forcing China to make rare and record-high imports of gasoline in the past two months, refiners and traders have said. But oil officials expected Beijing to resort to tougher administrative measures to boost supplies and curb exports to stave off a serious supply squeeze, as demand is expected to grow at 6-7 percent this year. "The government will certainly figure out other ways to tackle shortages. They can choke off export quotas for instance," said a trader with PetroChina. Sinopec, Asia's top refiner that supplies 55 percent of the world's second-largest oil market and imports over 70 percent of crude from international markets, will want the government to again hand out a fat check to compensate for losses. Sinopec received from Beijing a one-off $640 million rebate in 2006 and $1.2 billion in 2005 to cover part of its refining losses. "In the end it's about moving the money from the left pocket to the right," said a Sinopec official. Sinopec officials have repeatedly said that for the refiner to break even, its composite crude cost, including imported oil, should stay around $55-$60 a barrel. But the independent refiners, which operate strictly according to processing margins and do not enjoy any subsidies, will suffer the full brunt of high global oil prices and the freeze on prices, officials said. uk.reuters.com