Peak Oil Is Back! Secret Trade Memos, TTIP And Write-down Of Two-thirds Of US Shale Oil Explodes Fracking Myth.

  

 We will start with the punch line:

"According to a secret trade memo obtained by the Huffington Post, the Obama administration and the European Union are pushing ahead with efforts to "expand US fracking, offshore oil drilling and natural gas exploration", as well as exports to the EU, under the prospective Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) agreement. The Guardian."

  Why nobody in mass media is really talking about it? You decide for yourself, we will give you just couple of thoughts and will present the brilliant article by Dr Nafeez Ahmed in full, people are lazy these days even to click through - and we are not even talking about some independent thinking here. Gold and Truth about Peak Oil are two major things exposing the Central Banks scam and Inflation tax on our societies, so expect the full blown attack on both to keep the status quo. For those who are quick to come to the conclusions on who is behind the assault on "100% Safe Fracking" we will start with:

NATO: Russian Spies Against "100% Safe Fracking", Two-thirds Of US Shale Oil "Could Be Stolen By Chinese Hackers."

Even Golden Bubbles Are Made Of Bubbles: Bitcoin Vs. Gold - Some Thoughts And Infographic.

"Some wise, but very dangerous men once said: "We will take the best out of Them, we will intrigue them by Enigma and Secret, we will make Them think that they are running the world ... but it will be Us who is really in charge." Do you see the historical parallels?"Brothers" are still in denial and Bitcoin "revolutionaries" are fighting the FED ... "

Peak Oil Was Just Postponed - IEA Write-down Of Two-thirds Of US Shale Oil Explodes Fracking Myth.

"Jim Puplava has a very interesting discussion about Peak Oil on his Financial Sense this week.  You do not hear a lot in the mass media about the report on coming write-down by IEA of two-thirds of US shale oil reserves, but it is the really groundbreaking news exposing fracking hype and myth everybody should be worried about now. Peak Oil Is Back! You can find my own findings and how we are addressing this coming Peak Oil by building our International Lithium to make Electric Cars mass market possible one day below on the links. Please, enjoy: "Jim Puplava's Big Picture: Peak Oil - Delayed But Not Resolved":

"Jim’s first topic on the Big Picture this week is “Peak Oil – Delayed but Not Resolved”. Jim lays out the issue of Peak Oil in depth, and quotes studies that believe it could still arrive by the end of this decade. Jim also looks at the Shale Revolution in the US and discusses how long the shale story may delay the onset of Peak Oil. The next topic is “OPEC’s New Competition”. Jim looks at the geological and geopolitical constraints on OPEC and sees North America as a growing and viable competitor to OPEC’s energy dominance in the future. Jim Puplava."

The Guardian:

Write-down Of Two-thirds Of US Shale Oil Explodes Fracking Myth. 

Dr Nafeez Ahmed

Next month, the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) will publish a new estimate of US shale deposits set to deal a death-blow to industry hype about a new golden era of US energy independence by fracking unconventional oil and gas.

EIA officials told the Los Angeles Times that previous estimates of recoverable oil in the Monterey shale reserves in California of about 15.4 billion barrels were vastly overstated. The revised estimate, they said, will slash this amount by 96% to a puny 600 million barrels of oil.

The Monterey formation, previously believed to contain more than double the amount of oil estimated at the Bakken shale in North Dakota, and five times larger than the Eagle Ford shale in South Texas, was slated to add up to 2.8 million jobs by 2020 and boost government tax revenues by $24.6 billion a year.

Industry lobbyists have for long highlighted the Monterey shale reserves as the big game-changer for US oil and gas production. Nick Grealy, who runs the consultancy No Hot Air which is funded by "gas and associated companies", and includes the UK's most high-profile shale gas fracker Cuadrilla among its clients, predicted last year that:

"... the star of the North American show is barely on most people's radar screens. California shale will... reinvigorate the Golden State's economy over the next two to three years."

This sort of hype triggered "a speculation boom among oil companies" according to the LA Times. The EIA's original survey for the US Department of Energy published in 2011 had been contracted out to Intek Inc. That report found that the Monterey shale constituted "64 percent of the total shale oil resources" in the US.

The EIA's revised estimate was based partly on analysis of actual output from wells where new fracking techniques had been applied. According to EIA petroleum analyst John Staub:

"From the information we've been able to gather, we've not seen evidence that oil extraction in this area is very productive using techniques like fracking... Our oil production estimates combined with a dearth of knowledge about geological differences among the oil fields led to erroneous predictions and estimates."

The Intek Inc study for the EIA had relied largely on oil industry claims, rather than proper data. Hitesh Mohan, who authored the Intek study for the EIA, reportedly conceded that "his figures were derived from technical reports and presentations from oil companies, including Occidental Petroleum, which owns the lion's share of oil leases in the Monterey Shale, at 1.6 million acres." Mohan had even lifted his original estimate for the EIA to 17 billion barrels.

Geoscientist David Hughes, who worked for the Geological Survey of Canada for 32 years, said:

"The oil had always been a statistical fantasy. Left out of all the hoopla was the fact that the EIA's estimate was little more than a back-of-the-envelope calculation."

Last year, the Post Carbon Institute (PCI) published Hughes' study,Drilling California: A Reality Check on the Monterey Shale, which conducted an empirical analysis of oil production data using a widely used industry database also relied on by the EIA. The report concluded that the original EIA estimate was "highly overstated," and unlikely to lead to a "statewide economic boom.... California should consider its economic and energy future in the absence of an oil production boom."

A spokesman for the Institute, Tod Brilliant, told me:

"Given the incredible difference between initial projections of 15 billion barrels and revisions to 600 million, does this not call into account all such global projections for tight oil?"

As I'd reported earlier in June last year, a wider PCI study by Hughes had come to similar conclusions about bullish estimates of US shale oil and gas potential, concluding that "light tight oil production in the USA will peak between 2015 and 2017, followed by a steep decline", while shale gas production would likely peak next year. In that post, I'd pointed out previous well-documented, and alarmingly common, cases of industry over-estimates of reserve sizes which later had been questioned.

Analysts like Jeremy Leggett have said, citing exaggerated oil industry estimates, that if reserve and production reality are indeed significantly lower than industry forecasts, we could be at risk of an oil shock as early as within the next five years.

The latest revelations follow a spate of bad news for industry reassurances about the fracking boom. New research published this month has found that measured methane leaks from fracking operations were three times larger than forecasted. The US Environment Protection Agency therefore "significantly underestimates" methane emissions from fracking, by as much as a 100 to a 1,000 times according to a new Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences study published in April.

The Associated Press also reported, citing a Government Accountability Office investigation, that the US Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management had failed to adequately inspect thousands of oil and gas wells that are potentially high risk for water and environmental damage.

Despite the mounting evidence that the shale gas boom is heading for a bust, both economically and environmentally, both governments and industry are together pouring their eggs into a rather flimsy basket.

According to a secret trade memo obtained by the Huffington Post, the Obama administration and the European Union are pushing ahead with efforts to "expand US fracking, offshore oil drilling and natural gas exploration", as well as exports to the EU, under the prospective Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) agreement.

Dr. Nafeez Ahmed is an international security journalist and academic. He is the author of A User's Guide to the Crisis of Civilization: And How to Save It, and the forthcoming science fiction thriller, Zero Point. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter @nafeezahmed."

Central banks to add $15B in gold this year GLD, GDX, MUX, TNR.v

  

  As we have discussed before: we will see very soon who is selling and who is buying Gold this time. We have very important trend change in the Gold market: after years of Selling Gold Central Bankers all over the world are Buying Gold now.
  All these estimations could be proven to be very low, as China is accumulating Gold via different sources in order not to run up the market. Stephen Leeb is talking that "Chinese are looking to buy another 5,000 tons of Gold". 
  With Goldman Sachs and other investment banks we already know that they will be buying all the Gold that advised clients will be selling for sure.
  The quote of the day is related to the copper M&A activity from China, but it says it all:

McEwen Mining & TNR Gold: Las Bambas Copper Bidding From China Heats Up TNR.v, MUX, LCC.v, GDX, CU

“It is a good choice to invest in mining assets, which is a much better choice than investing in one government’s bonds – especially when this country cannot guarantee to pay even its own employees”

 Gu Liangmin, head of copper at Minmetals.

Gold Smashed Down In Desperation As COMEX Inventory Remains Thin GLD, GDX, MUX, TNR.v

  "Now we have the report from Jesse which shows us the reason for the recent run on the Gold. Game of the musical chairs is unfolding in front of our eyes, there is no Gold left for deliveries as China is taking everything availible from the system now. The very existence of Gold bullion banks fractional reserve system is under question now."

Gold Manipulation: With China On A Weeklong National Holiday - Furloughed Government Workers Selling Gold, Silver? GLD, SLV, TNR.v, MUX

"What a timing! Gold is smashed big time again and it is so convenient that China is on a weeklong National Holiday now. It is such a shame that CFTC can not find any signs of Gold & Silver market manipulation. We could not even think that 800,000 furloughed Government employees are such big Gold savers and holders up to this day...and Have to Sell Gold today to cover the delay in paychecks.

  Can we safely assume that US Dollar will dive now below 0.80 and FED is already in the damage control mode? All resources are lined up to defend this line in the sand for US Dollar - below 0.80 it can experience the Waterfall stage. With Government shut down is only an opening to the Debt Ceiling gambit, we can expect more FED moves defying the normal laws of gravity for US Dollar.

  We will keep you posted Who is Selling and Who is buying the cheaper Gold & Silver  this time."

Financial Post:

Central banks to add $15B in gold this year

Bloomberg News | 07/10/13 | Last Updated: 07/10/13 4:29 PM ET

Ben S. Bernanke, the world’s most- powerful central banker, says he doesn’t understand gold prices. If his peers had paid attention, they might have stopped expanding reserves that lost $545 billion in value since bullion peaked in 2011.

Is gold having a comeback? Here are three factors driving its revival

Gold is having a summer revival.

The price of gold touched US$1,420 an ounce this week, a three-and-a-half month high, as escalating tensions in the Middle East, volatile currency markets and renewed demand for jewelry in China and India pushed prices higher.

Continue reading.

Bernanke, who holds economics degrees from Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and led the Federal Reserve through the biggest financial disaster since the Great Depression, told the Senate Banking Committee in July that “nobody really understands gold prices and I don’t pretend to really understand them either.”

Central banks, which own 18 percent of all the gold ever mined, will add as much as 350 tons valued at about $15 billion this year, the London-based World Gold Council estimates. They purchased 535 tons in 2012, the most since 1964. Russia is the biggest buyer, expanding reserves by 20 percent since prices reached a record $1,921.15 an ounce in September 2011. Gold slumped 31 percent since then.

As policy makers were buying, investors were losing faith in the metal as a store of value. The value of exchange-traded products dropped by $60.4 billion, or 43 percent, this year, saddling hedge fund manager John Paulson with losses, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Billionaire investor George Soros sold his holdings in the biggest gold-backed ETP this year and mining companies wrote down the values of their assets by at least $26 billion.

Gold, which entered a bear market in April, slid 21 percent to $1,316.28 in London this year on Oct. 4, set for the biggest drop since 1981. It rose sixfold as it rallied for 12 successive years through 2012, beating a 17 percent gain in the MSCI All- Country World Index of equities as the Standard & Poor’s GSCI gauge of commodities more than doubled. It’s this year’s third- worst performing raw material, after corn and silver. Gold today rose to $1,321.69 an ounce.

Policy makers, who are responsible for shielding their economies from inflation, often mistime gold investment decisions, buying high and selling low. They were reducing holdings when bullion reached a 20-year low in 1999 and as prices as much as quadrupled in the next nine years. Central bankers became net buyers just before the peak in 2011.

“Central bankers have typically bought when you probably should be selling and selling when you probably should be buying,” said Michael Strauss, who helps oversee about $25 billion of assets as chief investment strategist and chief economist at Commonfund Group in Wilton, Connecticut. “It’s going to be a difficult market and sometimes the price of gold is driven by emotions rather than fundamental factors. Central banks have been bad traders of gold.”

Holdings were little changed from the start of 2008 through early 2009. Then, policy makers increased gold reserves as prices doubled and they have purchased a net 884 tons since the 2011 peak, International Monetary Fund data show. Russia was the biggest buyer, adding about 171 tons. Kazakhstan bought 67.2 tons and South Korea purchased 65 tons. Turkey’s reserves swelled about 371 tons in the past two years as it accepted bullion in reserve requirements from commercial banks.

In addition to buying when prices rose, central banks sold into slumping markets, disposing of about 5,899 tons in the two decades from 1988, equal to about two years of current mine supply.

The U.K. auctioned about 395 tons from July 1999, a month before prices reached a two-decade low, through March 2002. Gold averaged about $277 as the country was selling. The Bank of England’s hoard of ingots and coins, including a bar smelted in New York in 1916, now totals 310.3 tons, or 13 percent of the nation’s total reserves.

Central bankers have typically bought when you probably should be selling and selling when you probably should be buying

Warren Buffett, the fourth-richest person in the Bloomberg Billionaires Index and the world’s most successful investor, has said the metal has no utility because it moves to vaults once mined. While countries from the U.S. to the U.K. adopted a gold standard by the 19th century to limit inflation, no central bank or government institution links currencies directly to the metal anymore. The Fed, created a century ago, cut the dollar’s ties to gold four decades ago.

Bernanke, when asked to explain gold’s volatility and the long-term impact of reducing economic stimulus, told the Senate Banking Committee July 18 that investors see a reduced need for “disaster insurance.” In a Congressional hearing two years ago, he described the commodity as an asset rather than money and said central banks own bullion as a “long-term tradition.”

Following that tradition has proved a poor investment decision. Kazakhstan almost doubled reserves the past two years and South Korea expanded them sevenfold since mid-2011.

“Bernanke was suggesting in his own way that too much importance is given to gold, it’s too hyped,” said Nouriel Roubini, professor of economics and international business at New York University. “Gold is not a currency.”

Bullion rose 70 percent from December 2008 to June 2011 as the Fed debased the dollar by pumping more than $2 trillion into the financial system, spurring demand for a hedge against inflation. That protection hasn’t been needed, because U.S. consumer prices have risen at an average annual pace of 1.7 percent in the past five years, compared with a four-decade average of 4.3 percent, Bureau of Labor Statistics data show.

After taking inflation into account, gold is worth almost half of what it was in 1980. It reached a then-record $850 that year after U.S. political and financial turmoil in the late 1970s caused a surge in consumer prices. The metal is valued at $464 in 1980 dollars, according to a calculator on the website of the Fed Bank of Minneapolis.

The most accurate analysts say the bear market will deepen. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Societe Generale SA correctly forecast this year’s rout. New York-based Goldman says prices will drop to $1,110 in 12 months and Societe Generale, in Paris, sees an average of $1,125 in 2014. Prices will average $1,300 in the fourth quarter, the lowest in three years, according to the median of 12 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg.

Central banks bought metal as the Fed’s balance sheet swelled fourfold since 2008 and policy makers around the world lowered interest rates to record low levels. Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Cyprus needed bailouts since the European debt crisis erupted four years ago, sparking concern that nations would be forced out of the euro.

“There was a widely-circulated belief that the euro as a currency will cease existing,” said Michael Aronstein, the president of Marketfield Asset Management LLC in New York, whose MainStay Marketfield Fund beat 97 percent of its peers in the past five years. “A lot of foreign central banks thought they cannot keep the euro and did not want to increase dollars. It was desperation and fear that drove the surge in demand.”

While gold is trading below the 1980 high on an inflation- adjusted basis, it has still been better than the dollar in preserving its purchasing power. A dollar bought about three quarters of a gallon of milk in 1970, a year before the peg to gold ended, and an ounce of gold 28 gallons. By the end of 2011, a dollar got you about a quarter of a gallon and an ounce of bullion 420 gallons.

Holding gold is a reasonable, prudent strategy and central bankers probably build reserves with a one- to two-decade view rather than one to two years, Nathan Sheets, the former head of the Fed’s international-finance division and now the global head of international economics at Citigroup Inc., said in an interview in August. The U.S., Germany and Italy, which together own 44 percent of all central-bank holdings, changed gold reserves by less than 3 percent since the start of 1999.

U.S. holdings of 8,133.5 tons, valued at $344.2 billion and accounting for 72 percent of total reserves, are the world’s largest. Most is stored at the U.S. Bullion Depository at Fort Knox in Kentucky and has been held at a book value of $42.22 an ounce since 1973, the U.S. Mint’s and Fed’s websites show. The hoard contracted by about 450 tons, or 5 percent, since then.

Former Texas Representative Ron Paul, the Republican who pushed for an independent count of U.S. gold holdings to prove they exist, also urged that a commission consider “a metallic basis for U.S. currency.” Utah recognizes precious metals as currency and lawmakers in at least six other states have or are considering bills to accept bullion coins as legal tender.

“The gold standard era, at least from an academic view and I think from people that were contemporaries in the 19th century, were that it didn’t work very well,” St. Louis Fed President James Bullard said Aug. 23 in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. “It seems like it would be very problematic to tie the dollar to gold in an environment where gold is fluctuating like crazy.”

Returning to a gold standard, a monetary system in which currencies are converted into fixed amounts of metal, wouldn’t be feasible because there’s not enough available and it would prevent governments loosening monetary policy, Bernanke said at George Washington University in March 2012.

Central banks’ gold holdings are valued at $1.35 trillion now and totaled $1.9 trillion in September 2011 at prices then. Nations will buy more than another 500 tons by 2018, Morgan Stanley says. Their appetite contrasts with investors who cut the value of holdings in ETPs by 43 percent this year to $81.4 billion, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

The most recent central-bank buying began less than a year before Soros called bullion the “ultimate asset bubble” in January 2010. The 83-year-old sold his entire stake in the SPDR Gold Trust, the biggest gold-backed ETP, in the second quarter. Paulson cut his company’s stake by 53 percent in the period.

Venezuela holds 67 percent of its reserves in gold, the most among emerging-market countries, compared with less than 9 percent for Russia. While Russia’s central bank will continue buying, the pace may vary, former First Deputy Chairman Alexei Ulyukayev said in January. Bullion’s fluctuations failed to change the bank’s view on the role of gold in reserves, former Bank Rossii Chairman Sergey Ignatiev said in June.

“There’s been a perception that they are a contrary indicator when they buy and sell, but they’re not traders,” said Quincy Krosby, a market strategist for Newark, New Jersey- based Prudential Financial Inc., which oversees more than $1 trillion of assets. “Some central bankers have come to see gold as an alternative currency, certainly as a defense against potential inflationary pressures from the historical deployment of quantitative easing and low rates by global central banks.”

Bloomberg.com"

The History Of Money And Why US Dollars Are Issued By Private Bank - Federal Reserve System

  We are at the very important point in the history of the modern financial system. The recent events in Europe  are no less than ground-changing historical  development and the magnitude of it will be understood only many years later. European countries are giving up their Sovereignty in order to save the Euro zone. Now the history of money will be your guide to the new order, when the New Normal will be transformed into the New World Order. 

  Private FED manipulates all markets now and has the right at its own discretion to increase the FED rate at any moment, which will increase all interest rates in a chain: mortgage payments, car loans, student loans, credit card loans, business loans etc. Should FED decide to stop monetary expansion at some point: QEn+1 and Twists - yields on the Treasuries will explode. U.S. is at the total mercy of the unelected managers running the private bank. You would think: who can do such a thing, which will bring a total collapse to the world economy - watch the movies to get your own answer. The idea to buy the assets for pennies on the dollar can be irresistible again.

Europe Is One Step Closer To The End Game - New World Order

"We are on the verge of a global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis and the nations will accept the New World Order" 

David Rockefeller

Watch the movies End Game and Fall Of The Republic.

  Europe is done now. New European Order is here - what is the Next Step? In one sentence - Keep your Freedom - Dump the Pump and Buy Gold. In the big picture you will have to study and think - to separate the truth and reality. This movie gives a very interesting context for the recent European events - what do they really mean for the future of Europe?

  Maybe the movie is too heavy - it is really about everything...but history is there, you just need to find it out, learn and make your own conclusions about what is true. FED, Eugenics, State Control - Facebook, Google, iPhones - we are happy to tell everybody about us, somebody knows everything what we are searching for and our location is reported literally every minute. 

  Conspiracy theory will not be the real conspiracy without President Kennedy - has he tried to return the Right to issue the U.S. Currency to the U.S. Government?

"Executive Order 11110 was issued by U.S. President John F. Kennedy on June 4, 1963.

This executive order delegated to the Secretary of the Treasury the president's authority to issue silver certificates under the Thomas Amendment of the Agricultural Adjustment Act."


  By the way, President Lincoln has tried it before:


"Despite strong opposition, President Lincoln signed the First Legal Tender Act,^[8] enacted February 25, 1862, into law, authorizing the issuance of United States Notes as a legal tender—the paper currency soon to be known as "greenbacks." In his correspondence, Lincoln credited Edmund Dick Taylor for his suggestion of the greenback currency, and named him "Father of the Greenback."

  Unfortunately for all of us, somebody did not like the idea of U.S. currency to be issued by U.S. Government and we have what we have now - US Dollar issued by privately owned bank called Federal Reserve System.


  It is not about George W Bush with his Family of Secrets or Barrack Obama - it is about the system. You know how President Obama is tough to the Wall Street on the TV: here is another movie to connect the dots - Goldman Sachs was the second largest contributor to Barrack Obama in 2008 elections, with JP Morgan, CitiGroup, UBS and Morgan Stanley among the Top 20 contributors. Mitt Romney knows Goldman Sachs as well - according to Jesse Ventura this bank manages Mitt Romney's blind trust and Goldman Sachs is the largest contributor to his campaign among other banks.


  We are out of politics, but if you are still an adept of Efficient Market Theory you should better watch at least these couple of movies - it could be your best investment this year. Question is not what is right or wrong there, but that you can start question things around you."