Vale expects to receive in coming weeks
its first-ever mineral transport ship propelled in part by sails, the
company said on Thursday.
The ship, a VLOC, or very-large ore carrier, will also be the largest
ever to be outfitted by the rotating sails, Vale said in a statement.
The sails in question are large metal cylinders four meters in
diameter and 24 meters tall. While underway, the cylinders spin at
different velocities, creating air pressure differences that help propel
the ship forward.
Vale has been working to reposition itself in recent years as a trailblazer for sustainability in the mining industry
“Wind energy was how commercial navigation started. It was forgotten
about in the last few centuries, and it’s coming back,” Rodrigo
Bermelho, Vale’s head of marine engineering, told Reuters in a video
interview.
Vale has been working to reposition itself in recent years as a
trailblazer for sustainability in the mining industry, with executives
increasingly focusing on the company’s potential role in supplying
electrical vehicle manufacturers.
The ship in question, which has a load capacity of 325,000 tons and
has five sails, will be 8% more energy efficient, equivalent to 3,400
tons of carbon dioxide per year, Bermelho said.
If the project proves successful, at least 40% of the company’s 114
Guiabamax and Valemax ships could also be retrofitted. Retrofitting all
those ships with sails, Bermelho said, would reduce Vale’s
shipping-related emissions by 1.5%.
While Brazil’s geographic distance from China – its main export
market – is a relative disadvantage, the Brazil to Asia route is on
average windier than the route from mining powerhouse Australia to
mainland Asia, Bermelho said.
(By Marta Nogueira and Gram Slattery; Editing by Andrea Ricci)
Colonial Pipeline reportedly paid nearly $5 million to a cybercriminal
gang on Friday after the company’s systems were targeted with
ransomware.
Despite initial claims that the company did not intend to pay, Bloomberg reported on Thursday that Colonial Pipeline agreed to the extortion fee in an effort to restore its services.
The company, which operates a pipeline that transports close to half
of the East Coast’s fuel, is said to have transferred the DarkSide
ransomware gang millions of dollars in cryptocurrency just hours after
being infected.
After receiving the payment, DarkSide provided Colonial Pipeline with
a decryption tool designed to give the company access back to its own
files. Yet the tool reportedly worked so slowly that the company
ultimately ended up relying more on its own server backups.
Colonial Pipeline, which intentionally halted its services in an
effort to contain the ransomware’s spread, has since stated that it
believes it will return to full operating capacity by the end of
Thursday.
The incident is largely unsurprising to some, including the author of a 2018 audit of Colonial Pipeline’s network who argued that “an eighth-grader could have hacked into that system.”
Concerns over the ransomware incident led to panic buying at gas
stations across the East Coast, leading to fuel shortages as a result.
The company, which operates a pipeline that transports close to half
of the East Coast’s fuel, is said to have transferred the DarkSide
ransomware gang millions of dollars in cryptocurrency just hours after
being infected.
After receiving the payment, DarkSide provided Colonial Pipeline with
a decryption tool designed to give the company access back to its own
files. Yet the tool reportedly worked so slowly that the company
ultimately ended up relying more on its own server backups.
Colonial Pipeline, which intentionally halted its services in an
effort to contain the ransomware’s spread, has since stated that it
believes it will return to full operating capacity by the end of
Thursday.
The incident is largely unsurprising to some, including the author of a 2018 audit of Colonial Pipeline’s network who argued that “an eighth-grader could have hacked into that system.”
Concerns over the ransomware incident led to panic buying at gas
stations across the East Coast, leading to fuel shortages as a result.
DarkSide, a suspected Eastern European group which has only been
active for around six months, is believed to have generated more than $30 million so far through its extortion efforts.
Although the FBI currently recommends that targets of such hacks not pay, reports
suggest that funds received by ransomware groups continue to increase.
In 2020 alone, victims are believed to have paid over $350 million in
cryptocurrency in total after being targeted by ransomware.
In the wake of the pipeline incident, President Joe Biden on Wednesday announced a new executive order aimed at strengthening the country’s digital defenses.
An oil and energy expert calling in to the Alex Jones Show
Wednesday claimed the US fuel crisis and gas shortages were part of a
“manufactured collapse.”
“You’re 100 percent right,” says the caller, who claims he’s surveyed the Colonial Pipeline in the past.
“I’ve spent 15 years working in the oil and gas industry and also the
energy industry, I just finished working 10 months in California and
I’ve seen what they’re doing there, and it’s 100 percent a manufactured
collapse.”
“If they wanted this thing going they would send guys out and open
the valves up and get gas flowing tomorrow. They don’t need the
electrical instrumentation to do that. So this is 100 percent a
manufactured crisis. They’re trying to collapse the country.”
Gas stations along the Southeast coast are beginning to feel the
pinch from the shutdown of the biggest oil pipeline in the US due to a
crippling cyberattack believed to be orchestrated by a Russia-based criminal group.
The closure of the 5,500-mile Colonial Pipeline, which carries more
than 100 million gallons of fuel from Texas to New Jersey each day, has
stretched into its fifth day. The Alpharetta, Georgia-based company
suspended all operations after it was hit Friday by a ransomware attack that could prove to be among the most costly in US history.
Colonial said Monday it hopes to get most of its operations back
online by the weekend, but that’s not soon enough to avoid shortages and
price hikes as supply has already started to dwindle.
About 7.6 percent of gas stations in Virginia were out of fuel
by early Tuesday, according to GasBuddy analyst Patrick DeHaan’s
estimates. He added that nearly 5 percent of gas stations in North
Carolina, 3.3 percent in Georgia as well as 2.4 percent in Florida are
also reporting that they’ve sold out of fuel.
The shortages spurred North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper to declare a state of emergency on Monday to help ensure the state maintains a sufficient fuel supply.
Drivers could see shortages and price hikes as Colonial Pipeline recovers from a cyberattack.AP
Panic buying appears to have exacerbated the limited supply. DeHaan
said that across Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina and
Virginia, demand for gasoline rose more than 40 percent.
Supermarket chain Ingles, which operates gas stations across North
Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee, is already seeing
shortages and running completely out of gas at some of its locations,
CFO Ron Freeman told the Citizen Times.
At an Exxon Mobil station in Asheville, North Carolina, a clerk
answered the phone with “Hello, I’m currently out of gas,” according to Bloomberg. The outlet added that another station in Manning, South Carolina, had bagged their pumps and marked them “Out of service.”
Latest statewide numbers for gas stations without gasoline as of 6am CT according to GasBuddy data. GA 3.3% AL 0.4% TN 0.02% SC 1.5% NC 4.8% FL 2.4% VA 7.6% Note: these numbers may be low as our data stream is only hours old and more updates flow in. https://t.co/A5TguUjDzT
Atlanta-based RaceTrac confirmed to WSBTV-2 that
some of its Georgia gas stations are already reporting temporary
outages. And WBTW-TV reported lines at stations across South Carolina,
from Marion and Mullins to Myrtle Beach, are growing longer as drivers
scramble to stock up on gas.
Concerns about gas shortages and images of panic buying rolled in on social media Monday night.
North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper declared a state of emergency over the potential gas shortages.AP
In a meeting on Monday, Colonial’s chief executive Joseph Blount
warned state officials that supply shortages could occur throughout the
week as the company and the federal government work to get operations
back up and running, Bloomberg reported. The outlet added that the White House said it is “monitoring supply shortages in parts of the Southeast.”
While the company said Monday that it’s manually operating a portion
of the pipeline running from North Carolina to Maryland, most of the
line is still down. Colonial is working with the federal government to
investigate and respond to the hacking. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo
said Sunday that an “all-hands-on-deck” effort is underway to restore
operations.
This
gas station in Robbinsville is all out of gas. Clerk said manager told
her it could be five days before they have gas again. Says phone has
been ringing off the hook of people calling around to find gas @WLOS_13pic.twitter.com/SCcwmb1Pc0
“We are working closely with the company, state and local officials
to make sure that they get back up to normal operations as quickly as
possible and there aren’t disruptions in supply,” Raimondo said.
On Monday, the FBI confirmed the cyberattack was carried out by a professional gang of hackers known as “DarkSide.”
DarkSide claimed in a statement, “Our goal is to make money, and not creating problems for society.”AFP via Getty Images
DarkSide is known to extort cash from corporations and give a cut to
charity, the Associated Press reported Sunday, citing sources familiar
with the federal investigation.
In a statement reportedly posted on DarkSide’s website, the group
claimed, “Our goal is to make money, and not creating problems for
society. From today we introduce moderation and check each company that
our partners want to encrypt to avoid social consequences in the
future.”
No need to wonder why there's a #gasshortage on the east coast. Ole buddy had eight containers lined up at the Murphy across from Tanger 17 in Myrtle Beach. pic.twitter.com/RYBFLlQRyn
The statement, provided to CNBC
by the Boston-based security company Cybereason on Monday, added: “We
are apolitical, we do not participate in geopolitics, do not need to tie
us with a defined government and look for our motives.”
The White House said it was monitoring the gas shortages in the Southeast.REUTERS
While President Biden stopped short Monday of linking the Kremlin and DarkSide, he said that “there is evidence that the actors’ ransomware is in Russia.”
During a White House briefing, Anne Neuberger, deputy national
security adviser for cyber and emerging technologies, also described
DarkSide as “a criminal actor” but said that “our intelligence community
is looking for any ties to any nation-state actors.
The world’s top copper producer Chile
is giving bulls another reason to cheer while prices soared to an
all-time high on Friday as optimism about a global rebound from the
pandemic spurs a surge across commodities markets.
Copper for delivery in July ended the day up 3.2%, with futures
trading at $4.7490 per pound ($10,470 a tonne) on the Comex market in
New York.
Chile’s lower house on Thursday approved a measure that
would introduce progressive taxes on copper sales, potentially creating
a total burden of more than 80% — or almost double that of other major
copper-producing nations.
The measure, which would go into effect in 2024, still needs to be
approved by the senate and could be blocked by the government in court.
But if it succeeds, it could stall investments in a country where mature
low-grade deposits need plenty of expenditure just to maintain output
levels of about 5.7 million tonnes a year.
“This would at the very least delay any new capacity, extending the
lengthy time-line to bring on a new mine,” said Grant Sporre, an analyst
at Bloomberg Intelligence.
“Chile’s output could start to fade to 5 million tonnes.”
Chile’s copper export revenue jumped 69% in April. The world’s top
copper producer said it had exported $4.541 billion worth of copper in
April alone.
“The copper market as it currently stands is not prepared for this demand environment”
Goldman Sachs Group
Prices are up more than 30% this year and have more than doubled from lows in March of last year.
Click here for an interactive chart of copper prices
“Given high payments to the state, some assets would be un-investable
and thus it limits the pool of mines that can make adequate returns,
limiting supply,” said BTG Pactual analyst Cesar Perez-Novoa.
“No mining company is going to take risks without being rewarded.”
“It’s hard to foresee copper prices turning around amid the current
bullish atmosphere,” Ji Xianfei, an analyst with Guotai Junan Futures
told Bloomberg.
“Macro easing, ample liquidity and
a weaker dollar continue to drive the rally, while the broader
commodities surge is being fueled by bets on inflation.”
Trading house Trafigura Group, Goldman Sachs, and Bank of America expect copper to extend gains.
Steel prices across Asia and North America are also booming, iron ore is at a record
above $200 per tonne as miners struggle to keep up with the frenzied
pace of consumption, and tin topped $30 000 for the first time in a
decade.
“The copper market as it currently stands is not prepared for this demand environment,” said Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
There are a few major mines in development and none on the scale required to meet forecasts for future demand.
“We don’t have many shovel-ready projects,” said Ivan Glasenberg, billionaire CEO of Glencore Plc.
“You will need the so-called $15,000 copper price to encourage a lot of this more difficult investment.”
Risks
There’s signs emerging in China, the top consumer, that high copper
prices are starting to bite and authorities have pledged to stabilize
raw material prices.
China’s imports of copper ore and concentrate fell in April from the previous month, according to customs data released Friday.
Some manufacturers and end-users have been slowing production or
pushing back delivery times after costs surged, Shanghai Metals Market
said last week.
