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謀小行星採礦

- a pretty interesting article from HK Yahoo news of 明報
- mining in the ocean floor, deep sea mining, has been a major research in mining industry. Australia, a mining country, could be the leading country to do so. Other countries like Korea/Japan/South Africa are trying to follow. More than 70% of the earth is beneath the ocean. It could be a major break through for these projects to succeed. Despite the technology exists, lots of environmental issues are raised against them. 
- thus, people now have shifted their focus to the outer space with even better potential out there. However, i believe outer space mining would even raise more issues, especially in politics. Which country has the right to mine it? Technology should not be a problem. It will always come down to political and environmental problems.
- Despite political and environmental concerns, deep ocean and outer space mining could be a big hit in the future.

thanks
Lawrence
 

Falling Gold?

Gold falls on worries over Europe, China
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Gold fell Monday on worrying political developments in the euro zone and data from China showing continued contraction for the country’s manufacturing sector. 
-fell $13.80, or 0.8%, to $1,629.20 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange.

The metal settled marginally higher Friday at $1,642.80 an ounce but ended the week down 1%. 

worsened situation? 

Thanks

Lawrence

Fiat money from the Museum of Shanghai

Apple Store in Shanghai

Sinopec signs up to hot springs deal back in 2010

BEIJING - Sinopec Star Petroleum Co has signed an agreement with Iceland's Geysir Green Energy (GGE) for the exploration and development of geothermal resources in northern China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region, in a move to make further use of clean energy in the country.

According to the agreement, Enex China, the Chinese operation of GGE, and Sinopec Star will assist local authorities in initiating and compiling a geothermal survey in Aershan.

The parties agreed to cooperate on geothermal development and utilization in the city with an emphasis on building up indoor heating systems, greenhouse agriculture and geothermal electricity generation.

The Inner Mongolia project would be the third such investment in China for GGE.

Premier Wen Jiabao urged the two countries to expand cooperation in the sector of geothermal energy development in September during a meeting with Iceland President Olafur Ragnar Grimsson at the Summer Davos Forum in Tianjin.

Geysir Green Energy, one of the largest geothermal energy companies in Iceland, signed a five-year agreement with China's Sinopec Star in June to develop geothermal energy resources in northern China.

The five-year agreement includes developments in Shaanxi province, Hebei province, Beijing municipality, Tianjin municipality, as well as regions in northeastern China. It's estimated that the projects will cover 30 to 40 million square meters (sq m) eventually.

Geysir has already worked on two Chinese geothermal projects in Shaanxi and Hebei provinces through its subsidiary Enex.

Under the agreement signed in June, the two projects - in the cities of Xianyang and Baoding - will be expanded beyond their current capacity of 140 megawatt-hours. They are operated under a joint venture between Enex and Sinopec Star.

"The timeline would be to build up 20 million sq m of heating coverage in the next three years and further expand to 30 to 40 million sq m in the next five years," Jiang Zhu, managing director of Geysir in China, said earlier.

Sinopec's geothermal capacity can provide heating for 2.6 million sq m of housing in Xianyang, Shaanxi province, and Baoding, Hebei province, which translates into a reduction of 300,000 tons in carbon dioxide emissions, said Zan Qi, general manager of Sinopec Star.

Its current capacity can be expanded to 10 million sq m by 2015, according to the company head.

Sinopec, China's leading oil refiner, started commercial development of geothermal resources this year as part of its strategy of low-carbon economic growth through a joint venture - Shaanxi Green Energy Geothermal Development - between Sinopec Star and Enex.

According to the Ministry of Land and Resources, there are more than 1,000 geothermal energy fields around the country, and nearly a quarter of them have been developed. The country's utilization of geothermal energy ranks top in the world.

Geothermal energy could help cut carbon dioxide emissions by 25 million tons a year, according to the ministry.

via [ China Daily ] 

Facebook Acquired Instagram

I'm excited to share the news that we've agreed to acquire Instagram and that their talented team will be joining Facebook.

For years, we've focused on building the best experience for sharing photos with your friends and family. Now, we'll be able to work even more closely with the Instagram team to also offer the best experiences for sharing beautiful mobile photos with people based on your interests.

We believe these are different experiences that complement each other. But in order to do this well, we need to be mindful about keeping and building on Instagram's strengths and features rather than just trying to integrate everything into Facebook.

That's why we're committed to building and growing Instagram independently. Millions of people around the world love the Instagram app and the brand associated with it, and our goal is to help spread this app and brand to even more people.

We think the fact that Instagram is connected to other services beyond Facebook is an important part of the experience. We plan on keeping features like the ability to post to other social networks, the ability to not share your Instagrams on Facebook if you want, and the ability to have followers and follow people separately from your friends on Facebook.

These and many other features are important parts of the Instagram experience and we understand that. We will try to learn from Instagram's experience to build similar features into our other products. At the same time, we will try to help Instagram continue to grow by using Facebook's strong engineering team and infrastructure.

This is an important milestone for Facebook because it's the first time we've ever acquired a product and company with so many users. We don't plan on doing many more of these, if any at all. But providing the best photo sharing experience is one reason why so many people love Facebook and we knew it would be worth bringing these two companies together.

We're looking forward to working with the Instagram team and to all of the great new experiences we're going to be able to build together.

via Mark Zuckerberg Facebook

Tumble Wednesday

Forbes: Gold Socked, Stocks Rocked By Fed's Reluctance For QE3
-Gold dropped significantly 2 days in a row at 11 weeks low, getting closer to $1600/oz price that leads to price drop in most mining companies stocks.
-Drop in Technology and Financial sectors as well.

CBC: Loonie, TSX slump as commodities fall
-Copper and Oil prices drop as well.

Reuters: Yahoo to lay off 2,000 employees

Mining Stocks Approaching Most Oversold Level Since Start of Bull Market

-looks like people are getting into the panic mode and start selling again, especially for mining stocks.






-A chart showing some readings in comparison of the performance of mining stocks (XAU) versus the broader stock market (S&P 500); it resembles what happened in 2008.

- here comes the opportunity?

Thanks
Lawrence

What is Drop Box?

The Libra Full Moon

The Libra Full Moon on April 6 is the first of five SuperMoons in 2012.


A SuperMoon occurs when the Moon is at both perigee—orbiting point closest to Earth and syzygy— in line with the Sun and the Earth. This greatly intensifies the gravitational pull on the tides, tectonic plates and human life. For instance, humans are made of sixty percent water. This gives the Moon tremendous influence over our body, emotions and consciousness.

How will the market react to this event? I wonder.

via UBC Campus Security

Thanks 

Paul

Shifting to more Natural Gas from Oil?

Encana looks for partners Moves comes as natural gas price hits new 10-year low
from CBC article.
oil/gas companies are shifting from more oil focused into gas focused as:
1. "...the price of natural gas dipped to a new 10-year low..."
2. "The low price for dry gas has led companies to concentrate on producing more of what are called gas liquids, such as butane or pentane, which are used as fuels or solvents and which are more profitable."
3.  believe to have a long term potential in future
4. continuing rise of gas price due to political issues between middle east and rest of the world

A representative from Shell in a Money Trade Conference told me that they are shifting into more natural gas focused this year as well. Also, they are setting a higher expectation this year as their new CEO is their former CFO.

Thanks
Lawrence

Graphs Comparison.

6 Months

3 Months

1 Month

1 Month Loser: Hong Kong / Winner: US

3 Months Loser: UK / Winner: Germany 

6 Months Loser: UK / Winner: Germany

The strangest thing is that the UK Pound (GBP) closes at a high level of 1.60331 in the same time being the loser in the stock market in terms of 3 months and 6 months graphs. The market explains this phenomenon to be the Olympic Effect. 

US, the winner in the graph of one month, reflects the strength in the US stock market. The market explains that " Apple " has contributed a lot of effort into the US stock market with improving Economic data. 

Thanks

Paul