INGAPORE (Reuters) - China’s threat to impose duties on U.S. oil imports will hit a business that has soared in the last two years, and which is now worth almost $1 billion per month.
FILE PHOTO: A pump jack lifts oil out of a well, during a sandstorm in Midland, Texas, U.S., April 13, 2018. REUTERS/Ann Saphir/File Photo
In an escalating spat over the United States’ trade deficit with most of its major trading partners, including China, U.S. President Donald Trump said last week he was pushing ahead with hefty tariffs on $50 billion of Chinese imports, starting on July 6.
China said Friday it would retaliate by slapping duties on several American commodities, including oil.
Investors expect the spat to come at the expense of U.S. oil firms, pulling down the share prices of ExxonMobil and Chevron by 1 to 2 percent since Friday, while U.S. crude oil prices fell by around 5 percent.
“This escalation of the trade war is dangerous for oil prices,” said Stephen Innes, head of trading for Asia/Pacific at futures brokerage OANDA in Singapore.
“Let’s hope cooler heads prevail, but I’m not overly optimistic,” he added.
To view a graphic on Russia vs Saudi vs U.S. oil production, click: reut.rs/2JAw1dG
The dispute between the United States and China comes at a pivotal time for oil markets.
Following a year and a half of voluntary supply cuts led by the Middle East-dominated Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), as well as the non-OPEC producer Russia, oil markets have tightened, pushing up prices.
The potential drop-off in American oil exports to China would benefit other producers, especially from OPEC and Russia.
The OPEC kingpin Saudi Arabia and Russia indicated on Friday they would loosen their supply restraint and were starting to raise exports.
A cut in Chinese purchases of U.S. oil may also benefit Iran’s sales, which Washington is trying to curb with new sanctions it announced in May.
“The Chinese may just replace some of the American oil with Iranian crude,” said John Driscoll, director of consultancy JTD Energy Services.
“China isn’t intimidated by the threat of U.S. sanctions. They haven’t been in the past. So in this diplomatic spat they might just replace U.S. crude with Iranian oil. That would obviously infuriate Trump,” he said.
To view a graphic on U.S. crude oil exports to China, click: reut.rs/2ymEr7m
BOOMING BUSINESS
China’s aggressive riposte to Trump took some in the industry by surprise.
FILE PHOTO: A booth of U.S. major ExxonMobil is seen at the China (Dongying) International Petrochemical Trade Exhibition in Dongying, Shandong province, China May 29, 2018. Picture taken May 29, 2018. REUTERS/Chen Aizhu/File Photo
U.S. crude exports to China have been rising sharply, thanks to a production surge in the past three years that was a welcome alternative to make up for the cut in supplies from OPEC and Russia.
“We’re caught by surprise that crude oil is on the list,” said an official with a Chinese state oil major, asking not to be named as he was not authorized to speak to media.
“We were actually preparing to raise imports according to an earlier government line,” he added, referring to a Beijing policy enacted earlier this year to help reduce the U.S. trade deficit with China.
U.S. oil exports, which have been surging thanks to a sharp increase in production in the past three years, were seen as a viable alternative to make up for the cut in supplies from OPEC and Russia.
Shipping data in Thomson Reuters Eikon shows that U.S. crude oil shipments to China have soared in value recently, jumping from just $100 million per month in early 2017 to almost $1 billion per month currently.
The threatened tariff would make U.S. oil more expensive versus supplies from other regions, including the Middle East and Russia, and likely disrupt a business that has soared recently.
“With Trump’s politics, we’re in a world of re-aligning alliances. China will not just swallow U.S. tariffs,” said Driscoll.
“This is tit-for-tat petroleum diplomacy,” he added. “The OPEC/non-OPEC cartel is the big beneficiary of all this oil diplomacy, as it will squeeze global spare oil capacity and likely push up crude prices.”
To view a graphic on ExxonMobil & Chevron share prices, click: reut.rs/2MyQUrv
(This version of the story has been refiled to fix graphic links.)
Reporting by Henning Gloystein in SINGAPORE; Additional reporting by Aizhu Chen in BEIJING; Editing by Philip McClellan
Apple sets up iPhones to relay location for 911 calls
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Apple is trying to drag the U.S.’s antiquated system for handling 911 calls into the 21st century.
If it lives up to Apple’s promise, the iPhone’s next operating system will automatically deliver quicker and more reliable information pinpointing the location of 911 calls to about 6,300 emergency response centers in the U.S.
Apple is trying to solve a problem caused by the technological mismatch between a 50-year-old system built for landlines and today’s increasingly sophisticated smartphones.
An estimated 80 percent of roughly 240 million emergency calls in the U.S. this year will come from mobile phones, most of which are capable of precisely tracking where their users are.
Emergency calling centers, however, don’t get that detailed location information from mobile 911 calls. Instead, they get the location of the cellular tower transmitting the call, and must rely on other methods to figure out where the caller is.
That can take up precious time and often isn’t very accurate, especially when calls come from inside a building. Emergency responders are sometimes dispatched a mile or more away from a caller’s location.
Apple’s upcoming 911 feature relies on technology from RapidSOS, a New York startup. The approach developed by Apple and RapidSOS sends location data from an iPhone to a “clearinghouse” accessible to emergency calling centers. Only the 911 calling centers will be able to see the data during the call, and none of it can be used for non-emergency purposes, according to Apple.
Individual call centers will each have to embrace the technology required to communicate with the RapidSOS clearinghouse. Some centers already have the compatible software, according to Apple, but others will have to install upgrades to their existing software.
Apple expects calling centers for large metropolitan areas to upgrade more quickly than those in rural areas.
Tom Wheeler, a former chairman for the Federal Communications Commission, believes Apple’s new approach for locating 911 calls will set a new industry standard. “This is going to save a lot of lives,” said Wheeler, now a visiting professor at Harvard University. He said he hopes other phone makers will follow Apple’s lead.
The planned changes were announced Monday in Nashville, Tennessee during a 911 convention. They’ll be part of iOS 12, the next version of Apple’s iPhone software, which the company will release in September as a free update.
Galaxy S10 Leaks Expose Samsung's Radical Design
As the Samsung Galaxy S10 rumor mill continues to grow, it is possible to take the information and build up a pretty good vision of the next South Korean flagship. What will next year’s leading Android handset look like?
The team at Mobil-Henden and Phone Designer have taken the best information available on the Galaxy S10 features, the expectations of the South Korean design, and put them together into a series of concept renders to illustrate the ‘best guess’ at the Galaxy S10’s appearance.
Creative Commons, by mobil-helden.de
Galaxy S10 Concept (Creative Commons, by mobil-helden.de)
Perhaps the key feature is the technology under the screen. Thanks to the icon displayed on the screen, the location of the under-the-screen fingerprint reader is clearly marked when it is part of the UI, and naturally it becomes invisible when not required and that part of the display becomes part of the screen.
As expected Samsung is maximizing the amount of display available on the forward fascia of the Galaxy S10. It’s also expected to have much narrower bezels at the top and bottom of the display, while the left and right hand sides will continue the South Korean design language and curve round to form the edge.
Galaxy S10 Concept (Creative Commons, by mobil-helden.de)
The striking element of the design is that the Galaxy S10 looks remarkably like the Galaxy S9 and S8 families at first glance. Yes there are radical hardware changes, smaller bezels, more screen, but there’s nothing that screams ‘new'. Of course these are concept renders and the South Korean company may have a trick or two not yet on show, but I doubt that DJ Koh and his team will want to stray too far from a tried and tested design that has the benefit of being recognizably a Samsung.
Wrangling Wild Horses in the Mountains of Montana | Short Film Showcase
RUSSO BROS INSIST INFINITY WAR’S DEATHS MIGHT BE REAL
Avengers: Infinity War shocked comic book movie fans earlier this year when it mercilessly killed off some fan favorite characters. And that was before the “snap” heard around the universe that wiped out Spider-Man, Black Panther, Doctor Strange, Nick Fury, Maria Hill, and most of the Guardians of the Galaxy. While we’re pretty sure that most of those deaths will be reversed by the end of Avengers 4, the Russo brothers are sticking to their guns about the permanence of the Infinity War deaths. Today’s Nerdist News is consulting the Soul Stone for answers!
Join guest host and queen of the undusted, Amy Vorpahl, as she walks us through Anthony and Joe Russo’s latest interview with the Huffington Post. Essentially, the Russo brothers are countering the seemingly inevitable resurrections of Spidey and other sequel-bound heroes by arguing that Marvel is embracing non-linear stories. For example, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 could take place before Infinity War.
There is something to that argument, since both Ant-Man and the Wasp, and Captain Marvel will take place before Infinity War. That shows us Marvel does have a willingness to step outside of its forward progression for the right story. Of course, we still believe that the dusted will be restored after the sacrifice of a few heroes whose contracts are up after Avengers 4. That’s far more likely than Marvel and Disney trying to do Black Panther 2 without Chadwick Boseman.
The Russo brothers are likely being truthful about some of the deaths in Infinity War. Anyone who wasn’t dusted is less likely to get a comeback. Loki, Heimdall, and even Gamora fall into that category. However, the ending of Infinity War implied that Gamora’s soul lives on in the Soul Stone. Regardless of whether she is technically alive again, Gamora will probably still play a part in Guardians 3.
Which heroes do you think will be permanently dead after Avengers 4? Share your theories below!
I missed five penalties and was still Maradona' - Diego comes to Messi's defence after spot-kick fiasco
The Argentina captain missed a chance to take victory for his nation, but he has the backing of one of the Albiceleste's heroes
Argentine football legend Diego Maradona has leapt to Lionel Messi's defence after seeing the star err from the penalty spot against Iceland.
With Saturday's World Cup Group D opener poised at 1-1, Messi had the chance to restore Argentina's advantage when Maxi Meza was shoved in the area.
But Maradona pointed out that even the best players can make mistakes from 12 yards out - including himself.
"I missed five penalties in a row and I was still Diego Armando Maradona," the 1986 World Cup winner explained to Telesur.
"The game and the two points lost by the team are not down to his penalty.
"He showed his face and gave everything he had to give. The 'kid' did his duty.
"Seeing him on the field, he was pretty pissed off. Just like I would have been. It was all him, he always had to shrug two players off and when he did, there was no pass open."
Imran Khan fails to satisfy angry party protestors over 'unfair award of tickets'
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan failed to satisfy protesting party workers on Monday, who had gathered outside his Bani Gala residence to oppose his decision of awarding tickets for the upcoming general elections.
Despite his assurance of reviewing the decision, PTI workers continued to stage a protest against the “unfair award of party tickets.”
According to Imran, the decision of awarding tickets came from parliamentary members on the basis of merit.
He also added that he would not take the decision back just because of pressure, urging the party workers to submit review petitions which he would look into along with the party’s board in the following three days.
“If I change my decision today because of you, tomorrow more people will come here… I am not saying this because of me or my honesty.. I am saying this because I fear Allah,” Imran had said earlier during the day.
Later on, another group of protestors, amounting to 1500 to 2000, emerged outside Imran’s residence once again.
Imran stated that the matter is being looked after by him for the last 12 hours. He also urged the workers to have faith in him.
The workers then tried to storm inside, after which the police started to disperse them.
Following that, PTI workers from Gujrat, who were protesting against the party's seat adjustment plans with PML-Q, managed to barge inside Imran's office before being shown out by private guards.
Around 9pm Imran once again appeared outside in order to address the workers and laud them for their "commitment and passion.”
THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING WORLD OF ANT-MAN AND THE WASP WANTS TO DISORIENT YOU
You know that comic panel of Batman slapping Robin? Of course you do. Robin asks what Batman’s parents are getting him for Christmas, Batman screams that his parents are dead, and a thousand meme variations were smacked into existence. Ant-Man and the Wasp director Peyton Reed has a version of it sitting at his monitor where Robin says, “Do it in post!” and slappy Batman shouts, “Do it in camera!”
That’s the production ethos of a sequel seeking to warp our sense of reality without relying on CGI to do the trick. Disorientation is the name of their game, and they’re making full practical use of heroes who can change size and alter the world around them.
First off, there’s the story itself. Scott Lang, Hope van Dyne, and Dr. Hank Pym only have one night to pull off a rescue mission to save Janet van Dyne in the Quantum Ream—a mission that was once thought impossible. The resultant breakneck pace might mirror something like Goor Midnight Run, leaving the audience breathless. Perfect for a superhero franchise obsessed with delivering a new spectacle every 10 minutes.
But the biggest object of that commitment to disorientation, and also one of its smallest, is Hank Pym’s new lab. Built on his workbench with help from his ant army, it’s either the size of a factory or a carry-on suitcase depending on what he needs it for.
“It’ll give you a headache…it’s so much,” Pym’s portrayer Michael Douglas said during a set visit Nerdist attended with other outlets. “It’s a stunning set.”
He wasn’t kidding. It’s discombobulating to be inside, like Saint Peter’s Basilica or a too-bright airport mall. The practical set is the largest Marvel has ever built, and it’s dizzying not just because of its stories-high size, but because of its mind-scrambling mix of building materials. There’s a metal bridge supported by clothespins the size of floor lamps. Consoles and pylons are supported by Erector Set pieces you can’t wrap your arms around. You know those rectangular plastic tabs that keep your bread fresh in the bag? They’re as big as laser discs and holding thick electric cables in place.
The mish-mash of Cold War-era and modern tech inside is a nod to Pym’s personality and the era that saw him at the top of his scientific game. The antique radio embedded in his comm console is set to smooth jazz, and there are pipes marked “Acid Waste” running along the corridor that safety inspectors might want to check on. There’s a bonsai tree inside a glass case. A bit of nature, sealed off in an unnatural space. There are a thousand thousand multi-colored buttons.
A dollhouse expanded to a warehouse, Pym builds it with whatever’s lying around before embiggening it all. He has to scrounge for parts because 1) members of his construction crew are tiny (cue the Zoolander GIF) and 2) he’s living life on the run after refusing to register with the government following the Sokovia Accords. As you might guess, the exterior of the lab is a bit less flamboyant.
“How does he hide in plain sight?” production designer Shepherd Frankel began, explaining the extensive creative process that conjured Pym’s portable physics lab. “We started talking about the buildings that you drive by every day that you never notice. The places you go into to get your accounting done, and you’re, like, ‘Wait! Is this my dentist office or my dermatologist? Like, what is this?’ And we thought that’s a very cool way of creating a building that you forget is there, and you’re, like, ‘Was that building always there?'”
In other words, more disorientation.
Characters (and the audience) will step inside the bland, utilitarian mid-century office building to find a Willy Wonka factory of humming scientific goo-gahs. Frankel likened the experience to walking under the blue whale at the Museum of Natural History—”You’re like, ‘I’ve seen pictures of whales but never been close to one. Who am I? What size am I? Is this thing real?'”—or leaning against a statue only to realize what you’re touching is only the toe of a much larger statue. “Almost like creating a little bit of vertigo,” he said. “Scale vertigo.”
Bucking the Marvel trend by focusing more on practical effects on this scale also serves a vital narrative purpose: delineating between the real world and the Quantum Realm, where they will have a second, totally different style of disorientation awaiting. From M.C. Escher to full-on acid trip.
“[The Quantum Realm] is problematic in terms of the fact that it’s essentially infinite,” Reed said. “It can be whatever you want it to be, and so we needed to decide what the Quantum Realm wants to be for our story. I knew one thing: there had to be a device with which they enter the quantum realm. In the first movie, Scott goes down, he adjusts the regulator, and goes down free fall. Here it needed to be bigger.”
So, dominating the second floor is the accordion-like bridge—inspired by Irwin Allen’s The Time Tunnel—that will take Pym and the crew into the Quantum Realm.
They also built a helicopter-inspired vehicle that they can use to navigate once inside. It’s a vehicle Pym built decades earlier, but he’s never gotten it off the ground. Now, after getting some kind of signal from inside the Quantum Realm that his long lost wife is still alive, Pym is a man “desperately trying to get his science to work.” The Pymcopter (not the official name; call me, Marvel) looks like something the A-Team might fly around in, converted with extra sciencey bits and elements of the first Ant-Man suit.
“The idea is to not make it a branded toy, per se,” Frankel said. “But to make it something that’s being worked on and comes from another time.”
They hadn’t zeroed in on the look of the Quantum Ream when we visited, but it was clear that it would be a centerpiece of the film’s action.
“Peyton really wants to try and bring us deeper into it and have more details about it,” VFX artist Stephane Ceretti said. “The thing that we did in Doctor Strange and that we will keep doing here is that we want things to be all the time fluid and moving and evolving and being alive.”
You can tell from the trailer that every element of the movie (from production design to fight choreography to throwing a Hello Kitty Pez dispenser the size of LeBron James at a motorcycle) is meant to utilize size-changing technology to thrill and confound. Even The Wasp’s costume couldn’t simply be one color. It’s “gilver, which is like a mixture of gold and silver,” Head of Specialty Costumes Ivo Coveney said with a laugh.
“Disorientation” was the watchword throughout the entirety of the set visit. Reed and company want the audience to lose their bearings throughout Ant-Man and the Wasp. The only grounding element of the movie we got a glimpse of was the recurring theme of family. A structure meant to orient the disoriented.
Scott has found stability with his ex-wife and daughter before being pulled back into the spatially inconsistent hero business. Hope is trying to pull her family back together. Hank Pym is trying to save his wife and seeing his daughter reach a greater potential. After growing and shrinking and manipulating space, it’s possible that these three are all adrift, searching for an anchor and a compass.
With Pym’s roll-away lab, the frenetic fight choreography, and frantic pace of the mission, Reed and company are shooting for bewilderment and awe. If they pull it off, you can expect to be smacked in the face over and over throughout Ant-Man and the Wasp.
Images: Disney Marvel, 20th Century Fox Television
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The dispute between the United States and China comes at a pivotal time for oil markets.
Following a year and a half of voluntary supply cuts led by the Middle East-dominated Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), as well as the non-OPEC producer Russia, oil markets have tightened, pushing up prices.
The potential drop-off in American oil exports to China would benefit other producers, especially from OPEC and Russia.
The OPEC kingpin Saudi Arabia and Russia indicated on Friday they would loosen their supply restraint and were starting to raise exports.
A cut in Chinese purchases of U.S. oil may also benefit Iran’s sales, which Washington is trying to curb with new sanctions it announced in May.
“The Chinese may just replace some of the American oil with Iranian crude,” said John Driscoll, director of consultancy JTD Energy Services.
“China isn’t intimidated by the threat of U.S. sanctions. They haven’t been in the past. So in this diplomatic spat they might just replace U.S. crude with Iranian oil. That would obviously infuriate Trump,” he said.
To view a graphic on U.S. crude oil exports to China, click: reut.rs/2ymEr7m
(This version of the story has been refiled to fix graphic links.)
Reporting by Henning Gloystein in SINGAPORE; Additional reporting by Aizhu Chen in BEIJING; Editing by Philip McClellan
Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
There is something to that argument, since both Ant-Man and the Wasp, and Captain Marvel will take place before Infinity War. That shows us Marvel does have a willingness to step outside of its forward progression for the right story. Of course, we still believe that the dusted will be restored after the sacrifice of a few heroes whose contracts are up after Avengers 4. That’s far more likely than Marvel and Disney trying to do Black Panther 2 without Chadwick Boseman.
The Russo brothers are likely being truthful about some of the deaths in Infinity War. Anyone who wasn’t dusted is less likely to get a comeback. Loki, Heimdall, and even Gamora fall into that category. However, the ending of Infinity War implied that Gamora’s soul lives on in the Soul Stone. Regardless of whether she is technically alive again, Gamora will probably still play a part in Guardians 3.
Which heroes do you think will be permanently dead after Avengers 4? Share your theories below!
