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DAILY ENERGY NEWS | 03/22/2022
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** The editors of Pravda wouldn't run with the stuff coming out of the White House.
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National Review ([link removed]) (3/17/22) op-ed: "Gasoline prices are nothing if not visible, and that such prices are high and rising is unlikely to help the party holding the White House. Average U.S. gasoline prices have risen from about $2.87 per gallon a year ago to $4.31 (as of March 16), an increase of 50 percent. It is unsurprising, therefore, that the administration now has put forth several bogeymen as the sources of this pain at the pump...The oil companies are engaged in 'price gouging' and 'profiteering.' They are allowing thousands of approved leases on federal land to go unused...Because there are 37,496 leases in effect, a 75 percent utilization rate would be 'a historic high.' Many leases are mired in litigation by environmental groups politically aligned with the administration...So incoherent is the overall Biden policy on fossil fuels — increases in artificial constraints on domestic production and investment combined with exhortations
that foreign producers increase their output, all in the context of a 'climate crisis' for which there is no evidence — and so politically damaging are high gasoline prices, that we now find the administration reversing course and imploring domestic fossil producers to increase output. The longer-term political implications of the administration’s incoherence, mendacity, and self-delusions are vastly worse. There is no easy route out of the corner into which the administration has painted itself; it must subject the citizenry to ever-greater dishonesty merely to get through an endless series of increasingly difficult news cycles. Accordingly, doubling down on perverse arguments will prove to be the path easiest to take, in particular given the administration’s obvious desperation not to alienate its supporters on the left. And so the administration inexorably will descend into Orwell’s world where war is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength. The Biden administration translation:
Expensive energy is cheap, environmentally destructive energy is clean, and central planning will create utopia. That the American people are being subjected to such dishonesty is deeply perverse. But here we are."


** Biden and his team have a wealth of doublespeak to pull from.
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** "Democrats can’t pass their climate agenda through Congress, so they are using financial regulation to block investment in fossil fuels. Vladimir Putin will be delighted."
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– Wall Street Journal Editorial Board ([link removed])

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Biden has a big issue with mining here in America, but in China on the other hand...

** Epoch Times ([link removed])
(3/21/22) reports: "Volkswagen will form joint ventures with Huayou Cobalt and Tsingshan Group to secure nickel and cobalt supplies for electric vehicles in China. The move is part of a 30 billion euro ($33 billion) push by the world’s second-largest carmaker to build a network of battery cell factories and secure more direct access to vital raw materials that are needed to supply them. Volkswagen, Huayou Cobalt, and Tsingshan have signed a memorandum of understanding for a joint venture in Indonesia, where more than 10 percent of the world’s laterite nickel ore reserves are located, to focus on nickel and cobalt raw material production...In her remarks to the Republican forum on the U.S. departure from Afghanistan, distinguished fellow at the Institute for Energy Research Mary Hutzler expanded on the scale of U.S. dependence on China for minerals used in electric vehicles, solar panels, and similar technologies. 'Our reliance on China is about 80 percent for these minerals right now, where
the high for us in 2001 on oil from the Middle East was 23 percent. We’re going to be four times as dependent on China as we were on the Middle East,' she said. Hutzler has also previously highlighted China’s dominance in new lithium-ion battery factories. In a 2020 analysis, she noted that 'of the 136 lithium-ion battery plants in the pipeline to 2029, 101 are based in China.'”

An it isn't just lithium we're having trouble getting out of the ground.

** Wall Street Journal ([link removed])
(3/22/22) reports: "Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has shaken the global market for uranium, a critical fuel for nuclear-power plants, prompting some in the U.S. to propose reviving domestic production. Russia enriches more uranium for use in nuclear plants than any other country in the world. Its increasing economic isolation following its attack on Ukraine—and talk of potential added sanctions on Russian uranium—have exposed the fragility of global nuclear-fuel supplies, which are controlled by a handful of countries. Republican Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming—one of the main U.S. uranium-producing states—filed legislation on Thursday to ban Russian imports, calling the dependence on foreign uranium 'simply unacceptable.' Uranium prices have jumped more than 30% since the start of the war as a price hike hits commodities broadly and utilities try to lock down supplies on fears that sanctions could pinch some part of the specialized fuel cycle...Nuclear power provides about 20% of U.S.
electricity generation and 10% of the global total, according to the World Nuclear Association. While uranium can be mined in many parts of the world, the multistep processing that turns the heavy metal into a fuel is concentrated in a handful of places globally. Uranium must be mined and milled, converted into a gas, and enriched to increase the percentage of the isotope needed for nuclear reactors before fuel fabrication. Each step occurs in specialized facilities, and with the nuclear-power industry in a yearslong decline, there has been little reason for companies in the supply chain to invest. Raw uranium prices haven’t been high enough to encourage U.S. mining over cheaper imports."

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If it can be mined at home, why not mine it at home?

** Bloomberg ([link removed])
(3/21/22) reports: "Indian coal prices have surged in auctions held by the country’s state-run miner, with domestic buyers rushing to secure supplies as global disruptions push up the cost of imported fuels. Customers paid Coal India Ltd. an average premium of more than 340% above baseline prices in two sales this month, according to people familiar with the results, who requested anonymity as they are not permitted to speak publicly. That compares to premiums of about 100% in auctions in January. Coal India, the world’s top producer of the fuel, sells about 15% to 20% of its output through an online auction system in which consumers make offers above a minimum set price. Rates paid are typically far higher than the long-term contracts that account for the majority of sales. Thermal coal loaded at Australia’s Newcastle port, a benchmark for seaborne supply in Asia, soared to a record last week as buyers shun Russian shipments and seek alternatives to pricey natural gas. That’s tightening a
global market that was already squeezed by disruptions in other exporter nations."

Energy Markets


WTI Crude Oil: ↓ $111.22
Natural Gas: ↑ $5.06
Gasoline: ↓ $4.24

Diesel: ~ $5.04
Heating Oil: ↓ $379.02
Brent Crude Oil: ↓ $114.97
** US Rig Count ([link removed])
: ↓ 751



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