Sunday 30 November 2014

Swiss Have Voted No To Gold Initiative: SNB Will Not Compete With China, India and Russia.

  


  Swiss people have voted today with no to the Swiss Gold Initiative. BIS and SNB can report back to FED the good news. Jim Rickards will have so large new audience to educate for his books in the years to come now. China, India and Russia will be buying Gold without any competition from the West now. Monday Gold trading session will be interesting with record negative GOFO rates, India news and, as some are suggesting, even short covering in Gold on this news.
  The focus should be on the dollar and Oil, stock exchanges in Saudi Arabia and Dubai are falling very sharply today and Saudi Arabia is in a bear market now. All these games can be out of control and Shale Oil in U.S. economic miracle is at stake now.


 Peter Schiff has discussed the expected by him No Vote last Friday with interesting observation: "Now all Swiss people who voted yes, will be buying Gold to protect themselves."

  

ZeroHedge: Federal Reserve Confirms Biggest Foreign Gold Withdrawal In Over Ten Years.


The disconnect in the demand for Gold and its manipulated price continues ... Instead of breaking out above MA50 Gold was sold out heavily in the very thin holiday trade with Oil crashing down after OPEC decision. Next week will be crucial for the Gold and other commodities markets. US Dollar on the chart below will be the guide. Who will risk deflation now? Higher US Dollar and lower Oil prices mean exactly that. Say good buy to Oil Shale and all economic boom connected to it. Before yesterday the most crowded trade: Long US Dollar looked like reversing itself, next week will show the next step in this epic ongoing Oil and Currency Wars.  Actually for the FED the higher Gold price and lower US Dollar will be the best outcome now - it will show the "so much needed Inflation", save Shale Oil and allow to manage next cycle of the gradual rise in the stock market preventing the collapse. In this logic discussion about ECB ability to buy Gold doesn't look so crazy any more. Will FED join this game now? At some stage it will have to deliver all that Gold "safely stored in its vaults" and this repatriation virus is not going just to fade away. Normally markets are positioned for the majority of participants to lose, this outcome will be the most unexpected I guess. Read more."



ZeroHedge:

Swiss Gold Referendum Fails: 78% Vote Against "Protecting The Country's Wealth"




Whether as a result of an unprecedented scare campaign by the Swiss National Bank (most recently reinforced by Citigroup), or due to confidence that Swiss gold is as safe abroad as it is at home, or simply due to good old-fashioned "hanging chads", today's most awaited event has come and gone and the result - according to early projections by Swiss television SRF - is that the Swiss population overwhelmingly rejected a referendum to force the Swiss National Bank to hold some 20% of its reserves in gold in a landslide vote, with about 78% voting against what AP politely termed "protecting the country's wealth by investing in gold." ... 
...And then there is the question of what happens to the tension in the gold swap market: as noted last week, the 1 Month GOFO rate had tumbled to the most negative in over a decade. It was not clear if this collateral gold squeeze was the result of Swiss referendum overhang or due to other reasons. The market's reaction on Monday should answer those questions. Read more at ZeroHedge."


Saturday 29 November 2014

ZeroHedge: Federal Reserve Confirms Biggest Foreign Gold Withdrawal In Over Ten Years.




  The disconnect in the demand for Gold and its manipulated price continues ... Instead of breaking out above MA50 Gold was sold out heavily in the very thin holiday trade with Oil crashing down after OPEC decision. Next week will be crucial for the Gold and other commodities markets. US Dollar on the chart below will be the guide. Who will risk deflation now? Higher US Dollar and lower Oil prices mean exactly that. Say good buy to Oil Shale and all economic boom connected to it. Before yesterday the most crowded trade: Long US Dollar looked like reversing itself, next week will show the next step in this epic ongoing Oil and Currency Wars.
  Actually for the FED the higher Gold price and lower US Dollar will be the best outcome now - it will show the "so much needed Inflation", save Shale Oil and allow to manage next cycle of the gradual rise in the stock market preventing the collapse. In this logic discussion about ECB ability to buy Gold doesn't look so crazy any more. Will FED join this game now? At some stage it will have to deliver all that Gold "safely stored in its vaults" and this repatriation virus is not going just to fade away. Normally markets are positioned for the majority of participants to lose, this outcome will be the most unexpected I guess.




Eric Sprott: Global Gold Demand Is Overwhelming Supply.

Nobody believes that Gold can make a true reversal here. Sentiments are at total extreme. We have the capitulation in gold miners and, maybe, this is the sign of the end of this gold bear market. Read more."

Claudio Grass: Will the Swiss Vote for Gold?



ZeroHedge:


Federal Reserve Confirms Biggest Foreign Gold Withdrawal In Over Ten Years




A week ago, when we reported that in a stunning move, the "Dutch Central Bank Secretly Withdrew 122 Tons Of Gold From The New York Fed", and when looking at the NY Fed's monthly reports of gold deposits by foreign entities, we observed that "we can see that while the 5 tons outflow in 2013 was most likely Germany, the recent surge in gold repatriation from Liberty 33 was the Netherlands. That said, only 57.5 tons of NY deposits gold has been officially repatriated through September, which means the October update, when it comes out, will be a doozy." Yesterday, the long anticipated October update of "earmarked gold" held on deposit at the NY Fed was released, and sure enough it did not disappoint. Declining in dollar value from $8.305 billion to $8.248 billion, this was the equivalent of 42 tonnes of gold being withdrawn, in the process reducing net gold located in the vault of JPMorgan the NY Fed to 6,076 tonnes. The 42 tonnes withdrawal was also the biggest single monthly redemption from the NY Fed since 2001.
So with the 119 tonnes of gold withdrawn so far in 2014, it is now abundantly clear that the "logistical complications" excuse used by Germany to halt its own gold repatriation program was nothing but a lie to cover up what, as Deutsche Bankexplained earlier this month, was an escalation of "diplomatic difficulties" between the US and Germany, one in which Germany has folded, if only for now. ZeroHedge."

Claudio Grass: Will the Swiss Vote for Gold?


"Jeff Deist and Claudio Grass discuss this Sunday’s historic gold referendum vote from Claudio's insider’s perspective. This referendum would require the Swiss National Bank to stop selling gold reserves, to keep its gold in Switzerland, and to maintain 20% of its total assets in gold.

What might the growing gold repatriation movement mean for the ECB and the Fed? Is this vote a watershed moment for the credibility of central banks generally? Is hostility against Swiss neutrality, Swiss wealth, and Swiss identity the unspoken motivation behind EU and US attempts to control this country of only 8 million people? And why do financial elites hate the idea of a strong Swiss franc?"

Alan Greenspan: Gold Is The Premier Currency And The Dollar Can't Match It.


"We have "the new rock star for the gold bugs community." Interesting revelations from Alan Greenspan to say at least. Chinese must be listening. Swiss can join the party as well now. Read more."


Bloomberg: 1,500 Tons Of Gold On The Line In Swiss Vote To Buy Back Bullion.


Bloomberg.

  The story about Swiss Gold Referendum has made its way up to the Bloomberg. Now everything depends on the people of Switzerland, but at least we will have the opportunity for the proper discussion about the FIAT Currency systems and Gold. China is not only buying record amounts of gold now, but taking out the best long term mining assets all over the globe. Read more."

Swiss Gold Referendum on November 30 - All You Need To Know To Vote Yes!



Grant Williams: All You Need To Know About Swiss Gold Referendum.






Great presentation from Grant Williams on this groundbreaking event for the Switzerland and the Gold market! We are close to the very important catalyst point for the Gold market now.

Eric Sprott: Global Gold Demand Is Overwhelming Supply.


Charles Nenner: “Gold Close To Major Bottom”.


  I am putting Charles Nenner on the record here. Can he be right again this time? So far, after hitting $1,130 Gold was cooperating with his Call. Gold space is full of buzz again. Alan Greenspan is talking about Gold with FT, Le Pen in France is demanding Gold audit and its repatriation after Netherlands brought some of its Gold from NY and Swiss are going vote in their referendum this Sunday. Will it all translate into the Gold breakout above $1,225 level next week? Read more."

Friday 28 November 2014

India Eases Gold Import Rule In Surprise Move.

  

  This is very interesting development in India. Something is going on behind the scenes now - it looks like India is not so willing to cooperate and prevent its citizens from accumulating Gold now. Eric Sprott has discussed it in detail in this podcast:

Eric Sprott: Global Gold Demand Is Overwhelming Supply.



Charles Nenner: “Gold Close To Major Bottom”.


  I am putting Charles Nenner on the record here. Can he be right again this time? So far, after hitting $1,130 Gold was cooperating with his Call. Gold space is full of buzz again. Alan Greenspan is talking about Gold with FT, Le Pen in France is demanding Gold audit and its repatriation after Netherlands brought some of its Gold from NY and Swiss are going vote in their referendum this Sunday. Will it all translate into the Gold breakout above $1,225 level next week? Read more."



Reuters:


By Suvashree Choudhury and Meenakshi Sharma
Nov 28 (Reuters) - India has scrapped a rule mandating traders to export 20 percent of all gold imported into the country, in a surprise move that could cut smuggling and raise legal shipments into the world's second-biggest consumer of the metal afterChina.
Along with a record duty of 10 percent, India introduced the so-called 80:20 import rule tying imports to exports of jewellery last year to bring down inbound shipments and narrow the current account deficit that had hit a record.
"It has been decided by the Government of India to withdraw the 20:80 scheme and restrictions placed on import of gold," the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said on Friday, without giving a reason for the change in the rule.
Only days ago there were talks between officials of the Mumbai-based central bank and the finance ministry in New Delhi to bring back curbs on some trading houses following a surge in imports over the past few months.
Traders said before the decision on Friday that India's gold imports could climb to around 100 tonnes for a third straight month in November as dealers bought heavily on fears of curbs on overseas purchases, especially as the wedding season picks up.
But the government's latest move came as a surprise even to some officials.
A policymaker associated with India's gold import policy said the government instructed the RBI at 1830 local time on Friday to urgently change the rule. A notification was posted on the central bank's website two hours later.
"We were not informed about the reason for scrapping this rule. The restrictions on who all can import who can't are still valid," said the policymaker, declining to be named as he is not authorised to talk to media.
The rule change, however, was a relief to jewellers facing difficulties in sourcing gold during the key festival and wedding season that started in October.
Bachhraj Bamalwa, director of the All India Gems and Jewellery Trade Federation, said the 80:20 rule was not only encouraging smuggling but was also misused by many traders.
From getting human mules to swallow nuggets to hiding gold bars in dead cows, smugglers had raised their activity since the middle of last year after the import curbs.
Following the disbanding of the 80:20 rule, the government may place a monthly or yearly quota for traders, said Sudheesh Nambiath, a senior analyst at consultancy Thomson Reuters GFMS.
"Quota is a more logical and simple way of monitoring and limiting gold imports," Nambiath said. (Additional reporting by Neha Dasgupta and Devidutta Tripathy; Writing by Krishna N. Das; Editing by Sumeet Chatterjee and David Evans) Reuters."

World’s Largest Lithium-ion Battery To Be Built In Southern California.

  



  Solar and Wind power are growing very fast now and lithium battery-based energy storage facilities will provide the next step for the integration of this power sources into the smart grid. Elon Musk with Tesla Gigafactory is in the picture again here as well.



Lithium Batteries Gigafactory: Why Morgan Stanley Is Betting That Tesla Will Kill Your Power Company


  


  Morgan Stanley is very vocal about the coming disruption to trillion dollar industries. Cheaper lithium batteries will enable not only mass market for electric cars, but the distributed power generation. Wind and solar power can be used with the existing grid. Every household potentially becomes the power plant and you can use this power for your own electric car. 
  China is the leading wind and solar power generation country in the world now and moving fast to secure the supply for strategic commodities for this green economy: Lithium and REE. Read more."

Elon Musk With Tesla Gigafactory Starts The Race To Secure Supply Of Lithium Batteries And Lithium.





ExtreameTech:

World's largest lithium-ion battery to be built in Southern California, dwarfs previous installations 


Battery power developer AES Southland has announced a contract with Southern California Edison to deliver a 400MW lithium ion battery-based energy storage facility that will be capable of providing 100MW of power for a total of four hours. For comparison, when the State Grid Corporation of China teamed up with electric car manufacturer BYD to build the largest battery in the world, the stated capacity was 36MWh — less than 1/10 the size of the SCE facility.
That gap is so large it seems ridiculous, yet all available data points to this new facility as one of the largest, if not thelargest lithium-ion battery storage facilities in the entire world.
One of AES' lithium-ion facilities
For all that, the new plant is just a fraction of the total generative capability that SCE selected from the proposed solutions. AES will also provide a 1284MW worth of cycle-gas fired generation capability, with other solutions contributing roughly 600MW. Total capacity to be built out is 1,892MW across 63 contracts. Of that amount, only 44MW is classified as renewable according to SCE’s own website.
The real significance of the AES announcement is that this battery is apparently being bought to replace older gas peaker plants. Typically, older gas plants are repurposed to provide peak power generation (hence the “peaker” nickname). Because these plants are only operated occasionally, they have extremely high costs and take time to spin up. Oftentimes these are older, less efficient plants as well — all of which contributes to the high cost of peak power. SCE isn’t abandoning peak power generative capacity, but only 98MW of the 1,891MW total will be peaker plants.
The idea behind using a 100MW battery as a buffer is that it can offset the need for expensive peak power generation. 400MW isn’t really large enough to feed an area the size of SCE’s distribution grid, but it is sufficient to buffer conventional supplies at peak load and reduce operating costs.

Battery sizes set to boom

This installation isn’t set to come online until 2021, but all indications are that this will be one of the largest lithium-ion installations in North America. Given that 30-40MW projects were hailed as the largest in the world as recently as two years ago, while the largest battery installation in the world was capable of providing 40MW for just seven minutes back in the early 2000s, it’s clear that we’re about to see an explosion in total battery capacity. Hybrid energy grids are also becoming common.
What’s less clear is whether or not lithium-ion batteries are the right tool to drag ourselves away from dependence on coal, gas, and oil. While they’re currently a “best we’ve got” solution, the fact is, the energy density and specific energy of lithium-ion batteries is terrible in comparison to almost everything.
EnergyDensity
Lithium-ion is in the far lower-left-hand corner.
There’s definitely a market for lithium-ion as a partial replacement for peaker plants, but theeconomics of using it in conjunction with wind and solar power are dubious at large scale. SCE’s own bid makes this point — while the order pulls together a variety of energy sources to achieve its goals, the overwhelming majority of the power is created using natural gas. Solar power and battery reserves are a fraction of the total energy. ExtremeTech."

Thursday 27 November 2014

Elon Musk: The House Always Wins - Gigafactory Made In USA.




Fortune: How Nevada Won The Tesla Gigafactory.


 We have a lot of people trying to bring Elon Musk's  image down these days and question his remarkable success. My advice will be - just try to change the world yourself. He has already done it. Whatever happens next will only define the speed of this rEvolution. He has shown the way and that the Lithium Technology is here. The most important words in the video paraphrased: "This place could be in China, but it is here in Nevada." Just look at this place and how fast Elon Musk moves with Gigafactory! This could be the real American Renaissance: Solar and Electric Cars. Shale Oil has given us all the opportunity to catch some time - today's OPEC war will take this opportunity very quickly away.

Elon Musk Interview: World Needs Hundreds of Gigafactories.


 Elon Musk talks about the Gigafactory and incredible numbers behind his vision: "Everything will be fully electric, except for Rockets!" In China his vision can be the only way forward with personal mobility due to the terrible level of air pollution. Watch the video."



China Rolls Out Welcome Mat for Electric Cars: Ganfeng Lithium Partners with International Lithium in Argentina and Ireland.


“Ganfeng has an army of lithium-focused geologists who looked at projects in every corner of the planet,” stated ILC president Kirill Klip in an exclusive interview, “but they chose ILC to do business with. This is a big de-risking factor for our current and future shareholders. The Chinese do their homework. They believe in the geology of our assets, our management and our development strategy.” Read more.



Elon Musk:




There have been several articles recently implying that Tesla, through clever machinations, maneuvered Nevada into providing an overly large incentive package for the Gigafactory. I love backhanded compliments as much as the next person, but this is untrue.
Nevada is the entertainment capital of the world, home to the most sophisticated casinos on Earth. As everyone knows, the money to build those resorts arises because the casino houses generally tend notto lose. Even were they to lose, the state of Nevada, through the taxes it collects, would still win – it is the house to the house. They really know what they are doing.
Moreover, when the incentive proposal went to the Nevada legislature, it received approval from every member of the Senate and House with no dissenting votes. This includes every Republican and Democrat representative from every part of the state. Following passage of the bill, the debt ratings agency Moody’s assessed the deal as credit positive for both the Reno area and Nevada as a whole.
The reason is that it is a no-lose proposition for the state. The deal is not merely slightly good for the people of Nevada, it is extremely good.
To understand why, one must look closely at the terms of the deal. A casual reader of stories about the Gigafactory might assume that the $1.3 billion number in the headlines means that the state wrote Tesla a huge check for that amount. In fact, Tesla has received no money from the state at all. We did receive land through a swap the state did with our developer, but, if you have been to Nevada, you will notice that there is quite a lot of extra land with nobody on it. This is not in short supply.
Of the $5 billion investment needed to bring the Gigafactory to full production in five years, state incentives will cover about 5%. Compared to the operational and upgrade costs over a 20 year period, expected to be approximately $100 billion, state incentives will constitute just over 1%. This makes sense: the $1.3 billion in incentives mostly consists of alleviating a few percent of annual property and use tax on a huge amount of equipment over the course of 20 years, an average of about $50 million per year after initial construction.
However, the 20 year mark is simply when the last of the incentives expires. The Gigafactory itself will continue contributing economically to Nevada for much longer. Our automotive plant in California has been in operation for over 60 years with no foreseeable end in sight.
It stands to reason that the beneficiaries of a project should also contribute to its creation. Given that Nevada will have the largest and most advanced battery factory in the world and a very large number of high-paying direct and indirect jobs, contributing about 5% to the initial construction cost and a few percent to costs thereafter seems pretty fair.
Finally, with the exception of the land conveyance, all of the incentives approved by the legislature are performance based. We must execute according to plan to receive them, meaning that, while the state and Tesla both share the upside, only Tesla suffers the downside.
At Tesla, we believe in doing deals where both parties benefit, and, when there is an asymmetry or underperformance on our part, interpreting that in the other party’s favor. This is true for big deals like the Gigafactory and for everyday transactions. For example, if you buy or lease our car and don’t like it (within a reasonable amount of time), you can automatically give it back, accounting only for usage and damage. Tesla will absorb loss of the new car premium when reselling it as a used vehicle.
Our goal in doing so is to build long-term trust. If people know that we will not take advantage of them and aspire to fairness, even at our own expense, then they are much more likely to want to work with us in the future.
The article below about our vehicle factory in California gives a sense of what we expect of the Gigafactory in Nevada.
- Elon