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

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (66028)	9/13/2010 8:09:33 AM
From: carranza2	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 217739

Greece doesn't need to sell islands or the Acropolis.

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (66028)	9/14/2010 3:23:37 AM
From: elmatador	Respond to of 217739

Saudi reveals large unconventional gas reserves By Ed Crooks in Montreal Published: September 13 2010 22:32 \| Last updated: September 13 2010 22:32 Saudi Arabia has large reserves of unconventional gas that could help the kingdom to meet soaring domestic energy needs and leave more crude oil available for export, the head of its national oil company has said. Khalid al-Falih, chief executive of Saudi Aramco, the world’s biggest oil company, told the Financial Times that the kingdom could hold hundreds of trillions of cubic feet of unconventional resources such as shale gas, more than doubling its proved reserves of 280,000bn cubic feet. The announcement signals a potential opportunity for Saudi Arabia, but also confirms that Riyadh has not found as much conventional gas as it had hoped. International companies, which have been shut out of Saudi Arabia’s oil production for decades, have been looking over the past five years for natural gas in the kingdom’s Empty Quarter desert, with largely disappointing results. However, Mr Falih said that exploration there and in other parts of the country was revealing the potential for unconventional gas to make a “very significant” contribution to supply. Unconventional gas reserves, which have been made accessible by improvements in technology, have transformed the energy outlook for North America, sending prices to their lowest level in seven years. However, the methods used in the US, including the injection of large volumes of water to crack the rock and allow the gas to flow out, may not be suitable for the deserts of Saudi Arabia. “We’re talking to our IOC [international oil company] partners about bringing their knowledge to bear,” Mr Falih said. Having reached the kingdom’s target of oil production capacity of 12.5m barrels a day, well above current production of about 8.3m b/d, Saudi Aramco is now investing more in natural gas than in oil production. The kingdom faces growing energy demand, particularly for electricity during the summer, which it is meeting by burning crude oil in power plants. The International Energy Agency believes Riyadh’s direct crude oil burn for power generation and cooling set a record this summer of more than 750,000 b/d – equal to the oil consumption of countries such as Belgium or the Netherlands. “Our goal is to reduce to the maximum extent possible the utilisation of more valuable liquids, and make those available for export,” Mr Falih said. Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010. You may share using our article tools. Please don't cut articles from FT.com and redistribute by email or post to the web.

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (66028)	9/14/2010 1:02:59 PM
From: elmatador	1 Recommendation Respond to of 217739

Only VOLUME counts. China is VOLUME nation. Thus unbeatable. If one moves VOLUME, it can charge microprices and still make money. Consider wireless. How can we make money selling service in Africa? ASNWER: Because the volume is big and the price is tiny. Thus negro can talk mobile. If you make gadgets to your home markets, and your home market is planet-size, like China is, your unit price is very low. You produce a lot of units more flood the market with it and kill the competition. As competition starts dying, they realize that the only way to keep making something is inside planet-size country China. China, to produce volumes, kick in importing volume of inputs: oil, gas, iron, ore copper, wood, cotton, shipping containers... The world moves to another scale. Scale goes up. Makes a mock of the previous industrial revolution. Tell the economists to take a plane and fly here I will teach them.

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (66028)	9/16/2010 5:35:05 AM
From: elmatador	Respond to of 217739

2/3 more money flow out of rich countries and is remitted to emerging markets from their workers abroad as they do from foreign direct investors. Rich countries hemoraging money that has not been counted before. Don’t underestimate remittances - according to the World Bank, developing countries receive two-thirds as much money from their workers abroad as they do from foreign direct investors. Deal of the day: money-transfer companies evolve, as remittances rebound August 25, 2010 4:35pmby beyondbrics \| Share By Giovanni Amodeo of mergermarket Don’t underestimate remittances - according to the World Bank, developing countries receive two-thirds as much money from their workers abroad as they do from foreign direct investors. But the money-transfer industry is fragmented, and needs to adapt to new competition, regulations and technologies. So like other sectors, it’s using the aftermath of the Great Recession to consolidate. Sigue, a US money-transfer company strong in Latin America, is buying the money-transfer business of Coinstar for $41.5m. Coinstar’s network allows users to transfer cash to 23,000 points worldwide - and Sigue’s CEO, Guillermo de la Viña, says the acquisition will make his company “one of the largest global money transfer companies with pay out locations in over 130 countries.” More deals may follow this year. Unistream, a Russian money transfer company with 30 per cent market share in former Soviet countries, is looking towards the Gulf, the second-largest source of private financial transfers after the US. Reuters recently reported that Western Union and MoneyGram were looking at ways to expand into Asia. The moves testify to remittances’ resilience. Flows to developing countries shrunk in 2009, down 6 per cent to $307bn, as immigrants in the US and elsewhere lost jobs (particularly in construction) and, in many cases, returned home. However, a new World Bank report forecasts that remittances will rise by over 6 per cent in 2010 and over 7 per cent in 2011. Money-transfer companies have remained central to the trade. Many analysts had expected transfers between bank accounts to squeeze the market share of Western Union and co. But money-transfer companies have offered competitive rates - and less paperwork. Moreover, they have sought to collaborate with banks to expand their reach. Sigue recently announced a new alliance with Banco de Oro in the Philippines, a top remittance destination, while MoneyGram has teamed up with First Bank of Nigeria and the National Bank of Abu Dhabi. Such partnerships have assuaged criticism from those interested in maximising the development impact of remittances. “Earlier this decade, we focused exclusively on the benefits of account-to-account transfers,” says Natalia Bajuk of Multilateral Investment Fund, a member of the Inter-American Development Bank. But she says that, when people visit money-transfer companies’ partner banks, they also look into other financial services, such as savings accounts. There are new challenges. A significant portion of remittances are still made informally, to avoid fees. Money-transfer companies hope to expand into mobile payments, which could reduce costs and increase consumers. Yet they face competition from phone companies: Safaricom, Kenya’s biggest mobile phone company, said in June that nearly ten million people were using its money-transfer service. Meanwhile, regulators are concerned about crime and terrorism: in February, Western Union paid a $94m fine in the US over money-laundering into Mexico. But money-transfer companies are now an established and dynamic part of the remittances industry.