Wednesday, June 25, 2008

The unnoticed booming oil economy !




Can you guess which is the country with the worlds second largest reserve of Oil ?

If you had said a Gulf country or Russia or Venezuella you got it wrong!

It Is CANADA!

Saudi Arabia with 260 billion barrels as reserves produces about 8.8 million barrels a day having a total reserve life of about 81 years compared to Canada which has a reserve of 179 billion barrels a day and produces 2.7 million barrels of Oil a day with a reserve life of about 182 years.


Including the portion of oil sands reserves considered by government regulators to be producible at current prices using current technology, Canada's proven oil reserves were estimated at 179 billion barrels (28×109 m3) as of 2007, placing it second only to Saudi Arabia. Over 95% of these reserves are in the oil sands deposits in the province of Alberta. Although Alberta contains nearly all of Canada's oil sands and about 75% of its conventional oil reserves, several other provinces and territories, especially Saskatchewan and offshore Newfoundland, have substantial oil production and reserves. Total Canadian oil production was about 1.2 billion barrels (190×106 m3) in 2006, giving Canada about 182 years of reserves at current production rates.

Over 99% of Canadian oil exports are sent to the United States, making Canada, not Saudi Arabia, the United States' largest supplier of oil.The picture is complicated somewhat by the fact that Canada has a highly sophisticated energy industry and is both an importer and exporter of oil and refined products. In 2006, in addition to producing 1.2 billion barrels (190×106 m3), Canada imported 440 million barrels (70×106 m3), consumed 800 million barrels (130×106 m3) itself, and exported 840 million barrels (134×106 m3) to the U.S. The excess of exports over imports was 400 million barrels (64×106 m3).

The addition of 174 billion barrels (28×109 m3) of the vast Alberta oil sands deposits, mostly in the Athabasca Oil Sands, to proven reserves by the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board (AEUB), was controversial at the time because oil sands contain a semisolid form of oil referred to as bitumen by Canadian government authorities, rather than conventional crude oil.
The existence of the deposits (historically referred to as "tar sands") has been known for centuries since major rivers cut through the sands to reveal the bitumen in the river banks, but their development had to wait for high prices and the invention of new technology. In recent years technological breakthroughs have overcome the challenges of producing it and most Alberta oil is now non-conventional production from oil sands rather than conventional oil fields. The AEUB estimates that by 2016 Alberta oil sands production will triple to amount to 86% of the province's total oil production, and Alberta will by then be one of the largest oil producers in the world.

The difference between crude bitumen and crude oil is somewhat arbitrary since bitumen is really just an unusually thick and viscous grade of crude oil, and many U.S. oil refineries have been modified to handle it in recent years as domestic U.S. oil production declines. The main problem is that it must be heated or diluted with solvents before it will flow through pipelines.

A problem for companies trading on U.S. stock markets is that U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) rules do not allow them to report oil sands production as an oil and gas activity, so they cannot report their oil sands reserves as oil reserves. Companies such as Petro-Canada with large oil-sands operations claim this can seriously underestimate the value of their assets. As of 2008 the SEC was reported to be looking at putting oil sands reserves on the same footing as conventional crude oil.


The West(and our very own Finance Minister PC) has been pressurising OPEC to raise its production , Why is it that the US or other western countries not pressurize canada to increase its production? Is it because Canada has the worlds largest undefended border with the United States or is this typical western hypocrisy?

A market maker friend of mine who trades the fx markets , believes that there is a very high degree of correlation between Crude Oil Contract and the Canadian Dollar contract (CAD).And by tracking the crude oil contract one can do good intraday(especially on wednesdays/EIA data release days) as well as long term trades on the CAD, for the long term play on structural crude oil bull market,Buy the Canadian Dollar he says!

Due to the price boom in crude oil, the Canadian economy is a direct benefactor and would be witnessing a huge boom and an exponential expansion of its own economy, thus indirectly benefiting the U.S,experts go on to say that , the energy crisis induced soft landing in the US might end up being rescued by the Kind Act of Canada afterall!


Cartoon thanks to the Sheer Brilliance of John Trever,Albuquerque, E-mail John ©John Trever and the Albuquerque Journal. .

Monday, June 23, 2008

P.chidambaram at the OPEC




India has said it will follow up its suggestion on having a price band for crude oil once the producing nations reflect on the idea, even as it asked them to step up oil output.
"It (price band) is an idea that I have mooted in the earlier IMF meetings and it is the first time I am addressing an oil ministerial meeting. So let them reflect on that, we will follow it up," Finance Minister Chidambaram told news channel NDTV before leaving for India.

Explaining his proposal mooted at the Energy Ministers' meeting here, the finance minister said the suggestion is that producing countries will assure the world that prices will not rise above a level and consuming countries will assure the world that prices will not fall below a level, between which prices can be determined by the market forces.

Crude oil prices are not under India's control, the Finance Minister said, adding that the prices will cool down only if producing countries increase supply and the countries concerned regulate over-the-counter trade or futures trading in oil.

"In August, 2007, it (crude prices) was 70 dollars a barrel and a few days ago it has touched 140 dollars a barrel... Those are not under India's control... So we have urged producing countries to increase supply. We have urged countries where these financial transactions are taking place to step in and regulate these transactions," he said.

Friday, June 20, 2008

MCX Platinum,Kuselan Commodity Markets and Rajnikanth!





" You must be mad" manju said, "totally gone case, just because you had written one blog connecting commodity markets and kamal and just because your schoolday sweetheart called and said choo chweet to the blog, what are you trying to do ? , dont you realise what your institutional clients will think about you" , she continued and as usual with the left indicator on and hand showing right from the window continued to zip straight towards adyar signal.

"Wont they find out that invariably all friday afternoons that your phone is switched off not because you are sick as you claim but because you are just crazy about all this stupid bollywood kollywood molly wood pictures, you either need medical help or a detox", she continued.....

Kuselan the Rajnikanth starrer movie is complete, directed by P.Vasu, it is a remake of the Malayalam Film Katha Parayambol(produced by srinivasan and mukesh) is an adaption of the hindu mythology the story of Lord Krishna and his poor friend Kusela.

Kusela, a childhood friend of Lord Krishna went to see the Almighty with a pouch of puffed rice and he was in a dilemma whether to offer it or not.After all puffed rice was a food meant for the poor not a king or a king of kingss, But the Lord snatched the pouch from him and gulped some pieces and said `Akshayam'.This magic word transformed Kusela's simple house to a magnificent palace and the Lord's poor friend became as rich as Kubera. To this date this important event is signified by what people refer to as Akshay Trithi.

Akshaya Tritiya, variously spelt as Akshya Thiritiya,Akshaya Trutheeya, Akshaya Tritiiya and also called Akshaya Trithi, falling on the third day of the bright half of the lunar month of Vaisakha of the traditional Hindu calendar, is one of the four most auspicious days of the year for Hindus. The word Akshaya, a Sanskrit word, literally means one that never diminishes, and the day is believed to bring good luck and success. It is widely celebrated in all parts of India by different sections of the society irrespective of their religious faith and social grouping. The day is particularly considered auspicious for buying long term assets like gold,platinum and silver, including ornaments made of the same; diamond and other precious stones; and the real estate.

The legend states that any venture initiated on the auspicious day of Akshaya Tritiya shall continue to grow and bring prosperity. Hence, it is normal to see many of the new ventures, like starting a business, ground breaking for construction etc on the Akshaya Tritiya Day.

With the mass media and marketing, this day has been taken over by marketeers to promote sales and bookings for precious metal jewellery, houses, consumer electronics(btw consumer electronics is one of the largest users of precious metals, take any pcb or what is reffered to as printed circuit boards,turn it around, the yellow and white lines that you see there are alloys of gold,silver and platinum chosen for their high conductivity low resistance properties).

Today is coincidentally the day when the Platinum contract is being launched on MCX(along with the tamil movies Kuselans publicity stills),

"We will be launching the July and October contracts in platinum for trading," my good friend,mentor,south india mcx's all in all azhgu raja and asst vice president MCX,T.G.SenthilVelan confirmed.

"The contract will have market lot size of 500 gm and the price quote will be in rupees per 10 gm ex-Mumbai," he added.

Although there is no developed platinum spot market in India, consumption in industrial purposes as well as the jewellery industry is rising.

Platinum is also used by pharmaceutical industries for making anti-cancer drugs(Nano Medicane) and by auto industry to create catalysts.

At these high prices of crude oil and the world betting on alternative energy such as fuel cells, platinum finds great application in the form of electro catalysis as well as in emission control catalysis.

Well coming back to my topic, Guess Rajni says for Kuselan I dont need Chaos and any time 1=10 (or should we say 1 =100, Na oru dirva sonna nooru dirva sonna madhiri meaning ,if I tell once it is the same as telling a hundred times)??

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Ok so US regulators CFTC shocked me ! Limits on overseas trading






Fundamentally any exchange or market place or ecn' business model is designed to be such that it is a monopoly or atleast never loses a dime doing its business, since all the cost (impact cost) is passed on to the end participants.
And thanks to the network effect at economy of scales it is a win win to all.
Good business to be in , cause by default you become quasi regulatory since you have the power to make rules.

So when I read this bbc report which Said that US Regulators believe that Speculators(whom they call as manipulators) are the reason for the high price of Oil my eyes popped out and prayed that prakash karat never ever reads this, This contract accounts for almost a quarter to a third of my firms volumes and even by mistake if any of these cpi/cpi m read this then as far as the Crude Oil Contracts are concerned in India it is curtains or QED or worse still differential margining for hedgers and speculators (like Bursa Malayasia).

This is the news for sake of some

US regulators have announced plans to impose limits on oil trades overseas.

The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission said the London-based electronic exchange would have to comply with US rules.

The move comes as oil prices notch up record highs, amid fears that speculators are distorting the market.

As a result, fuel costs have shot up hitting the global economy. Airlines have been hit badly, with near record losses expected for 2008 in the US.

US airlines were forecast to report $10bn (£5bn) of losses this financial year as sky-high fuel costs erode profits, according to the industry group Air Transport Association (ATA).

Oil prices slipped from their record highs near $140 a barrel reached during Monday trade as investors were cautious ahead of plans by Saudi Arabia to increase production in July.

US sweet, light crude finished down 60 cents at $134.01, while London Brent settled 99 cents lower at $133.72.

Speculators to blame?

But, oil prices are still almost 40% higher than they were at the beginning of the year and, increasingly, this surge is being blamed on speculation by large investors, including hedge funds and banking giants.

They are being accused of pushing commodity prices way above the level they would trade at to satisfy supply and demand trends.

Representing US airlines, the ATA is one group pressing for tighter regulation and increased transparency in the energy markets.

Its head James May told a joint US Senate hearing on speculative oil trading that up to 200 US communities could lose airline service as a result of capacity cuts to save money.

"This nation's economy is inextricably linked to the viability of its air transportation system. If the airlines continue to spiral downward, so will the economy," he said.

Earlier, Air Canada announced that it would have to shed 2,000 jobs - a 7% reduction in its workforce - and ground 7% of its services to survive the rising fuel charges.

More disclosure

Under the plan announced by the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), trading of the West Texas Intermediate oil contract on the ICE Futures Europe - which hosts up to 30% of total trades - will by October be subject to stricter limits on individual positions.

It is hoped this will prevent the ability of a single entity to move oil prices.

Under the measures, European authorities will also share trading data with their US counterparts to improve transparency and crack down on market manipulation.

The ICE exchange said it would comply with US regulatory requirements subject to approval by the Financial Services Authority.

The acting head of the CFTC Walter Lukken said in testimony at a Senate hearing committee: "During these turbulent market conditions for crude oil, the environment is ripe for those wanting to illegally manipulate the markets," he said.

about ICE
IntercontinentalExchange (NYSE: ICE) is an American financial company that operates Internet-based marketplaces which trade futures and over-the-counter (OTC) energy and commodity contracts as well as derivative financial products. While the company's original focus was energy products (crude and refined oil, natural gas, power, and emissions), recent acquisitions have expanded its activity into the "soft" commodities (e.g. sugar, cotton and coffee), foreign exchange and equity index futures.

Currently ICE is organized into three business lines:
ICE Markets - futures, options, and OTC markets. Energy futures are traded via ICE Futures Europe; soft commodity futures/options are handled by ICE Futures U.S.
ICE Services - electronic trade confirmations and education.
ICE Data - electronic delivery of market data, including real-time trades, historical prices and daily indices.
Contracts sold through ICE Futures U.S.
are processed through a subsidiary, ICE Clear U.S. Energy futures and OTC contracts are currently cleared externally, through LCH.Clearnet, Ltd., but ICE has announced plans to transition these operations to a new subsidiary, ICE Clear Europe, by mid-2008.

Headquartered in Atlanta, ICE also has offices in Calgary, Chicago, Houston, London, New York and Singapore, with regional telecommunications hubs in Chicago, New York, London and Singapore.

In the late 1990s, Jeffrey Sprecher, ICE’s founder, chairman, and Chief Executive Officer, acquired Continental Power Exchange, Inc. with the objective of developing an Internet-based platform to provide a more transparent and efficient market structure for OTC energy commodity trading. In May 2000, IntercontinentalExchange (ICE) was established, with its founding shareholders representing some of the world’s largest energy traders. The company’s stated mission was to transform OTC trading by providing an open, accessible, multi-dealer, around-the-clock electronic energy exchange. The new exchange offered the trading community better price transparency, more efficiency, greater liquidity and lower costs than manual trading.

In June of 2001, ICE expanded its business into futures trading by acquiring the International Petroleum Exchange (IPE), now ICE Futures Europe, which operated Europe’s leading open-outcry energy futures exchange. Since 2003, ICE has partnered with the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) to host its electronic marketplace. In April of 2005, the entire ICE portfolio of energy futures became fully electronic.

ICE became a publicly traded company on November 16, 2005, and was added to the Russell 1000 Index on June 30, 2006. The company expanded rapidly in 2007, acquiring the New York Board of Trade (NYBOT), ChemConnect (a chemical commodity market), and the Winnipeg Commodity Exchange. In March of 2007 ICE made an unsuccessful $9.9 billion bid for the Chicago Board of Trade, which was instead acquired by the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.
In January 2008 ICE partnered with TSX Group's Natural Gas Exchange, expanding their offering to clearing and settlement services for physical OTC natural gas contracts

Thursday, June 12, 2008

Dasavataram,Chaos Theory and Commodity markets





God does not play with the dice ,Dasavataram this movie is due for release tommorow June 13th and the basic concept behind the movie is Chaos Theory and application of chaos theory (I had to hold this information which i knew quite long time back till the release :) )

In mathematics, chaos theory describes the behavior of certain dynamical systems – that is, systems whose state evolves with time – that may exhibit dynamics that are highly sensitive to initial conditions (popularly referred to as the butterfly effect). As a result of this sensitivity, which manifests itself as an exponential growth of perturbations in the initial conditions, the behavior of chaotic systems appears to be random. This happens even though these systems are deterministic, meaning that their future dynamics are fully defined by their initial conditions, with no random elements involved. This behavior is known as deterministic chaos, or simply chaos.

Chaotic behaviour is also observed in natural systems, such as the weather. This may be explained by a chaos-theoretical analysis of a mathematical model of such a system, embodying the laws of physics that are relevant for the natural system.

Chaotic behavior has been observed in the laboratory in a variety of systems including electrical circuits, lasers, oscillating chemical reactions, fluid dynamics, and mechanical and magneto-mechanical devices. Observations of chaotic behaviour in nature include the dynamics of satellites in the solar system, the time evolution of the magnetic field of celestial bodies, population growth in ecology, the dynamics of the action potentials in neurons, and molecular vibrations. Everyday examples of chaotic systems include weather and climate. There is some controversy over the existence of chaotic dynamics in the plate tectonics and in economics.

Systems that exhibit mathematical chaos are deterministic and thus orderly in some sense; this technical use of the word chaos is at odds with common parlance, which suggests complete disorder. A related field of physics called quantum chaos theory studies systems that follow the laws of quantum mechanics. Recently, another field, called relativistic chaos,has emerged to describe systems that follow the laws of general relativity.

As well as being orderly in the sense of being deterministic, chaotic systems usually have well defined statistics.For example, the Lorenz system pictured is chaotic, but has a clearly defined structure. Bounded chaos is a useful term for describing models of disorder

Applications
Chaos theory is applied in many scientific disciplines: mathematics, biology, computer science, economics, engineering, finance, philosophy, physics, politics, population dynamics, psychology, and robotics.

One of the most successful applications of chaos theory has been in ecology, where dynamical systems such as the Ricker model have been used to show how population growth under density dependence can lead to chaotic dynamics.

Chaos theory is also currently being applied to medical studies of epilepsy, specifically to the prediction of seemingly random seizures by observing initial conditions.


Coming to Derivatives markets and more specifically our commodity futures markets,


Network effect Network Externalities and the two sided Network : The macro economic purpose and existence of derivatives markets.

Network effect is a term used narrowly to describe business phenomena, or more broadly to describe non-business phenomena.

In the narrow usage, a network effect is a characteristic that causes a good or service to have a value to a potential customer which depends on the number of other customers who own the good or are users of the service. In other words, the number of prior adopters is a term in the value available to the next adopter.

One consequence of a network effect is that the purchase of a good by one individual indirectly benefits others who own the good — for example by purchasing a telephone a person makes other telephones more useful. This type of side-effect in a transaction is known as an externality in economics, and externalities arising from network effects are known as network externalities. The resulting bandwagon effect is an example of a positive feedback loop.

Stock exchanges and derivatives exchanges feature a network effect. Market liquidity is a major determinant of transaction cost in the sale or purchase of a security, as a bid-ask spread exists between the price at which a purchase can be done versus the price at which the sale of the same security can be done. As the number of buyers and sellers on an exchange increases, liquidity increases, and transaction costs decrease. This then attracts a larger number of buyers and sellers to the exchange.

The network advantage of financial exchanges is apparent in the difficulty that startup exchanges have in dislodging a dominant exchange. For example, the Chicago Board of Trade has retained overwhelming dominance of trading in US Treasury Bond futures despite the startup of Eurex US trading of identical futures contracts. Similarly, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange has maintained a dominance in trading of Eurobond interest rate futures despite a challenge from Euronext.Liffe.

Types of network effects
There are two kinds of economic value to be concerned about when thinking of network effects:

Inherent — my value from me using the product
Network — my value from you using the product


Network value itself can be direct or indirect.

Direct network value is an immediate result of other users adopting the same system. Some examples of this are fax machines and email.

Indirect is a secondary result of many people using the same system. For example, complementary goods are cheaper or more available when many people adopt a standard. Toner may be cheaper for widely used printers.

Negative and positive network effectsPositive network effects are obvious. More people means more interaction.Negative network effects beyond lock-in also exist.

Negative network effects result from resource limits. Consider the connection that overloads the freeway or trading portals — or the competition for bandwidth. In fact, the automobile and ethernet congestion examples illustrate that there can be threshold limits. In this case, the n+1 person begins to decrease the value of a network if additional resources are not provided.

The result is that in some networks there is an exclusion value. This is clear to anyone who has considered problems of authentication or trust on the modern internet.

Another negative network effect is provider complacency. The absence of viable competitors in a successful network can cause a provider to restrict resources, consider fee increases, monopolistic tantrums or otherwise create an environment contrary to the end as well as intermediary users' benefit.

These situations are typically accompanied by vocal complaints from the users. (In a competitive environment the users would simply change vendors rather than complain.)
Classic examples are the United States Postal Service or telephone companies during the 1960s and 1970s. More recent examples include the National Stock Exchange of India, Microsoft's operating system and Ebay's auction site.


Two-sided markets, also called two-sided networks, are economic networks having two distinct user groups that provide each other with network benefits.

Example markets include our commodity Derivatives markets comprised of commercials(hedgers,producers,supply lines or people who have an inherent commercial implication of the markets) and non commercials(investors,speculators,traders and arbitrageurs , who are there only for a profit motive),credit cards, comprised of cardholders and merchants; HMOs (patients and doctors); operating systems (end-users and developers), travel reservation services (travelers and airlines); video games (gamers and game developers); and communication networks, such as the Internet. Benefits to each group exhibit demand economies of scale. Consumers, for example, prefer credit cards honored by more merchants, while merchants prefer cards carried by more consumers.

Structural characteristics

In some networks, users are homogeneous, that is, they all perform similar functions. For example, although participants in a telephone network originate and receive calls, these roles are transient. Almost all phone users play both roles at different times. Likewise, almost all instant messaging, FAX, and email users both. Networks with homogenous users are called one-sided to distinguish them from two-sided networks, which have two distinct user groups whose respective members consistently play the same role in transactions.

In a two-sided network, members of each group exhibit a preference regarding the number of users in the other group; these are called cross-side network effects. Each group’s members may also have preferences regarding the number of users in their own group; these are called same-side network effects. Cross-side network effects are usually positive, but can be negative (as with consumer reactions to advertising or with non commercial in derivatives markets losing money on zero sum transactions).

Same-side network effects may be either positive (e.g., the benefit from swapping video games with more peers) or negative (e.g., the desire to exclude direct rivals from an online business-to-business marketplace). Figure 1 depicts these relationships.

In two-sided networks, users on each side typically require very different functionality from their common platform. In derivatives markets for example the commercial user are participating in order to reduce is inherent risk in his actual business whereas the non commercial has only the motive to profit out of the same. Other Examples include credit card networks, for example, consumers require a unique account, a plastic card, access to phone-based customer service, a monthly bill, etc.
Merchants require terminals for authorizing transactions, procedures for submitting charges and receiving payment, “signage” (decals that show the card is accepted), etc. Given these different requirements, platform providers may specialize in serving users on just one side of a two-sided network.


uyarvaRa uyarnNalam udaiyavan evan? avan
mayarvaRa madhinNalam aruLinan evan? avan
ayarvaRum amarargaL athipathi evan? avan
thuyaraRu sudaradi thozhuthezhen mananE!

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

happy birthday dindi



ranagarajan chittpas (aka)Writer Sujatha write up on his 71st birthday and his definition of progressive compromise has redefined birthdays as a matter of fact i think one must read it on ones birthday every year! I did it the first thing today , and then told myself Dindi Happy birthday to you,

One of the biggest influences of my life was my patti Soundaravalli aka manni patti aka pattu.She was my moms uncle's wife,but was for all practical purpose my patti! she was really a great lady.

I shared a very personal rapport with her,also got to do with the fact that she was the first one to see me and carry me as a new born 34 years back same day, I sure was lucky.

She had never been to a school! (Thank god for that!, if she was formally educated she would have become the prime minister).But she could quote as much with ease the hamlet and discuss nano technology.

There were just three important things that i now remember she taught me ( Progressive Compromise you see)

1. Planning (or what we in our jargon refer to as strategic planning)
Ensuring thatha book tickets to pune 90 day in advance the lower berth/window seat in the same direction as that of the journey.
2. Saving for a Rainy day (Reserve build up).
This is the one that i really thank her for,she made me realise the importance of this.
3. Accounting and Documentation (Total Quality Management).
She had a what one refers to as Kanaku pillai note book and documented everything .


She passed away last November at the age of 85,and this is the first birthday of mine when i did not get to hear the three things mentioned above from her, and I really miss that.

Anyways Happy Birthday Dindi, you just got a bit more wiser this year.

Monday, June 9, 2008

CPO Contracts and CER contracts on the MCX







Perfectly timed contract launches by MCX, it cannot get better than this,post the soya oil ban and hedgers wanted an alternative.I am now sure that the MCX IPO is on schedule, i also wanted to add that my guess is that they would have been dissappointed that the new rbi guidelines for setting up of the FX exchange does not include commodity exchanges and includes only existing stock exchanges recognised by sebi(or new stock exchanges although to my knowledge there has been no new stock exchange recognised by sebi for more than a decade)

Personally my view on the prices of these commodities/instruments is that it can go only one way up but first let me tell you what a CER is I had blogged about this in the past when i had asked an honest question are we ready for carbon trading ?

Certified Emission Reductions (CERs) are climate credits (or carbon credits) issued by the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) Executive Board for emission reductions achieved by CDM projects and verified by a DOE under the rules of the Kyoto Protocol. CERs can be used by Annex 1 countries in order to comply with their emission limitation targets or by operators of installations covered by the European Union Emission Trading Scheme (EU ETS) in order to comply with their obligations to surrender EU Allowances, CERs or Emission Reduction Units (ERUs) for the CO2 emissions of their installations. CERs can be held by governmental and private entities on electronic accounts.

CERs are split into long-term (lCER) or temporary (tCER), depending on the likely duration of their benefit.

Presently, most of the approved CERs are recorded in CDM Registry accounts only. It is only when the CER is actually sitting in an operator's trading account that its value can be monetized through being traded. The UNFCCC's International Transaction Log has already validated and transferred CERs into the accounts of some national climate registries , although European operators are waiting for the European Commission to facilitate the transfer of their units into the registries of their Member States.

Coming To CPO I personally want the price of cpo to go so high that there is a disruptive demand shift on this commodity. We dumb arrogant humans fail to realise that we are guests/visitors to this planet and think that we own the whole dam place.

This summer My family and I had an opportunity to visit the equatorial rain forests of south east asia, The feeling was scary, huge tracts of rain forests are being destroyed to grow palm (not for food but as a bio diesel). Huge amounts of beautiful wild animals are going extinct,including the bornean orangutan.

And that the next time if and when we come here again there would be no forests but only malls.When I told tejas this he just cried.

The irony is so apparent in the photo where my kid is seeing outside our hotel room, outside one window there is a concrete jungle and through the other one there is a jungle.

God save our arrogance.

MY Price view for both these commodities CPO is always a buy,and i pray that prices go so high that people cannot afford to consume it and hence stop using that, coz atleast that will save the Malaysian Orangutan

After suspension of soyoil futures in early May, Indian edible oil importers were planning to shift abroad for their hedging needs, analysts said.
The contract is Kandla delivery-based as most of the imports come through this port, the official said. The pricing will be high sea-base, which is delivery prices exclusive of local taxes.
The trading unit is 10 tonnes, while the daily initial fluctuation limit is 2 percent and final fluctuation allowed is 4 percent.
The bourse will offer July, August and September as the initial contracts of trade.
The rival National Commodity and Derivatives Exchange has an illiquid crude palm oil contract.

am trying to locate the snaps of palm oil plantations that i took, will post the one with forest which we could infact view from our resort.

Saturday, June 7, 2008

What is driving the commodities super cycle ?





1.Population The 21st Century is going to experience the largest population growth in history of human kind.The united nations estimates that world wioll add a little fewer than 1 billion people during each of the first five decades of the 21st century. This means that the global population will grow to about 10 billion people by 2050. Ok why is it that suddenly we have adopted a tone of a demography scientist ????? Elemantary my dear watson! Siginificant growth in population growth translates into greater global demand for commoditoes, could Add QED and close this booklet here.....



Humans are the most voracious consumers of raw materials on the planet( Americans are also nowadays considered to be humans though) and is the only one who pays for it either by cash,kind, government contracts or credit cards. As the number of humans in the world increases, so will demand for natural resources. After all,people need food to eat,houses to live,vehicles to travel-and all this requires raw materials.(Ratan tata and his one lakh car team i am sure will agree , although only to an extent).THIS LARGE POPULATION GROWTH IS THE KEY DRIVER FOR INCREASING DEMAND FOR COMMODITIES,which will continue to put upward pressures on commodity prices and hence inflation and hence the seats of harvard educated finance ministers who fail to understand this and tell people who dont have bread to eat cakes.



2. The new exodus: Urbanization

In the begining of the 20th according to the united nations,less than 10% of the Global population lived in cities by 2005 that number shifted to 50% and by the year 2030 nearly 66.66 % of the population would live in urban areas.

The number of large metropolitan areas with 5 million or more popeluation is sky rocketing and will continue for the rest of the century.



Urbanization is highly significant for commodities becayse people who live in urban centers consume a lot more natural resources than those who loive in rural areas.Significantly additional amount of natural resources are required to expand the size of the citires as more people migrate to urban areas from rural areas.More natural resources are required for roads,cars and personal appliance that are the staple of city life.



3. Industrialization and the Modern BRIC economy china & India

Thursday, June 5, 2008

And finally Jobs for commodity market bloggers!

An interesting and totaly surprising job description got this info from a good friend of mine, basically this means that if you are running a commodity specific yahoogroups or a blog you might get hired by MCX!!!

thought must share this with you all! No not because i am going to get a refferal fee for this, but for the fact that such an advertisement is going to encourage a lot of writers and niche analysts to start their own blog or yahoogroups and write about commodities or atleast post on existing yahoogroups articles on commodities.

Social networking /web communities as they say is turning out to be the next big internet revolution after all.

Position Internet Media & Web Communities
(Manager's & AVP)
(Code: MCX/MGR/INTMW)


Role
Create, manage and grow and grow online communities for various baskets of commodities and technology products and services. Create and edit online content for Domestic and International coverage..

Experience
Online writer, with favourite or own e-zones, portals, blogs, news-feed and proven experience in building online communication and communities.



Believe you need to go to the careers link on MCX and apply online , and you got mention the code else your application gets rejected i believe.

Cheers

P.S: No wonder Amitab bachan is blogging these days! Post retirement job guaranteed.

Food Security global Food Crisis and the US





Food Security Et All. And this is the Kill this is from the Mouth of the US food secretary on the Global Food Crisis in which he presented a three-pronged strategy to combat food prices.


U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Ed Schafer rolled out his three-pronged plan to fight rising global food costs at a press conference Monday in Rome at the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization Food Security Summit. The summit is designed to establish a global conversation on how to best address both the immediate and long-term effects of the current food crisis.

Schafer's plan emphasizes expanded humanitarian aid, addressing underlying causes of food prices such as energy and global cooperation for the free flow of food and safe technologies.

"Now is the time to lift trade-restrictive policy measures such as export restrictions," says Schafer. "While they are designed to increase short-term food security in the countries imposing the restrictions, these policies often have the opposite effect and only make the situation worse. They take food off the global market, drive up prices, and discourage farmers to respond to market signals."

Schafer also spoke about work to complete the Doha Round of global trade talks and addressed the concerns many have expressed about the role biofuels have in the world food situation.

"I look forward to hearing other perspectives on these important issues, so that together we can determine how best to work through the United Nations structure to increase the availability of food for all," Schafer says. The summit began Monday and runs through Wednesday.



I mean this guy is going to get himself invited on the David Lettermans Tonight Show! thats for sure !

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Petrol and Diesel hiked



The government today hiked petrol and diesel prices by Rs 5 and 3 a litre and that of LPG by Rs 50 a cylinder, while sparing poor man's cooking medium kerosene from any increase.
The Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh took a slew of measures to offset the surging global oil prices that had put the national oil companies under acute pressure. The increase in prices would be effective from midnight tonight, Petroleum Minister Murli Deora said.

The price hike would help oil companies to earn Rs 21,123 crore more.

As part of measures, the government decided to take a burden of Rs 94,601 crore for which it will issue oil bonds to state-run BPCL, HPCL and IOC which were reporting a daily loss of over Rs 720 crore.

In addition, the oil producing PSUs like ONGC would shell out Rs 60,000 crore through discounts to state-owned oil refiners and marketing companies.

Despite all the measures, there would still be a gap of Rs 29,000 crore, Revenue Secretary P V Bhide told reporters briefing about the decisions taken at the Cabinet.