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Exclusive: Saudi Arabia threatens to ditch dollar oil trades to stop ‘NOPEC’ – sources

FILE PHOTO: An oil tanker is being loaded at Saudi Aramco's Ras Tanura oil refinery and oil terminal in Saudi Arabia
FILE PHOTO: An oil tanker is being loaded at Saudi Aramco's Ras Tanura oil refinery and oil terminal in Saudi Arabia May 21, 2018. REUTERS/Ahmed Jadallah

April 5, 2019

By Dmitry Zhdannikov, Rania El Gamal and Alex Lawler

LONDON/DUBAI (Reuters) – Saudi Arabia is threatening to sell its oil in currencies other than the dollar if Washington passes a bill exposing OPEC members to U.S. antitrust lawsuits, three sources familiar with Saudi energy policy said.

They said the option had been discussed internally by senior Saudi energy officials in recent months. Two of the sources said the plan had been discussed with OPEC members and one source briefed on Saudi oil policy said Riyadh had also communicated the threat to senior U.S. energy officials.

The chances of the U.S. bill known as NOPEC coming into force are slim and Saudi Arabia would be unlikely to follow through, but the fact Riyadh is considering such a drastic step is a sign of the kingdom’s annoyance about potential U.S. legal challenges to OPEC.

In the unlikely event Riyadh were to ditch the dollar, it would undermine the its status as the world’s main reserve currency, reduce Washington’s clout in global trade and weaken its ability to enforce sanctions on nation states.

“The Saudis know they have the dollar as the nuclear option,” one of the sources familiar with the matter said.

“The Saudis say: let the Americans pass NOPEC and it would be the U.S. economy that would fall apart,” another source said.

Saudi Arabia’s energy ministry did not respond to a request for comment.

A U.S. state department official said: “as a general matter, we don’t comment on pending legislation.”

The U.S. Energy Department did not respond to a request for comment. Energy Secretary Rick Perry has said that NOPEC could lead to unintended consequences.

DOLLAR HEGEMONY

NOPEC, or the No Oil Producing and Exporting Cartels Act, was first introduced in 2000 and aims to remove sovereign immunity from U.S. antitrust law, paving the way for OPEC states to be sued for curbing output in a bid to raise oil prices.

While the bill has never made it into law despite numerous attempts, the legislation has gained momentum since U.S. President Donald Trump came to office. Trump said he backed NOPEC in a book published in 2011 before he was elected, though he not has not voiced support for NOPEC as president.

Trump has instead stressed the importance of U.S-Saudi relations, including sales of U.S. military equipment, even after the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi last year.

A move by Saudi Arabia to ditch the dollar would resonate well with big non-OPEC oil producers such as Russia as well as major consumers China and the European Union, which have been calling for moves to diversify global trade away from the dollar to dilute U.S. influence over the world economy.

Russia, which is subject to U.S. sanctions, has tried to sell oil in euros and China’s yuan but the proportion of its sales in those currencies is not significant.

Venezuela and Iran, which are also under U.S. sanctions, sell most of their oil in other currencies but they have done little to challenge the dollar’s hegemony in the oil market.

However, if a long-standing U.S. ally such as Saudi Arabia joined the club of non-dollar oil sellers it would be a far more significant move likely to gain traction within the industry.

WHAT IF?

Saudi Arabia controls a 10th of global oil production, roughly on par with its main rivals – the United States and Russia. Its oil firm Saudi Aramco holds the crown of the world’s biggest oil exporter with sales of $356 billion last year.

Depending on prices, oil is estimated to represent 2 percent to 3 percent of global gross domestic product. At the current price of $70 per barrel, the annual value of global oil output is $2.5 trillion.

Not all of those oil volumes are traded in the U.S. currency but at least 60 percent is traded via tankers and international pipelines with the majority of those deals done in dollars.

Trading in derivatives such as oil futures and options is mainly dollar denominated. The top two global energy exchanges, ICE and CME, traded a billion lots of oil derivatives in 2018 with a nominal value of about $5 trillion.

Just the prospect of NOPEC has already had implications for the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. Qatar, one of the core Gulf OPEC members, quit the group in December because of the risk NOPEC could harm its U.S. expansion plans.

Two sources said that despite raising the dollar threat, Saudi Arabia did not believe it would need to follow through.

“I don’t think the NOPEC bill will pass but the Saudis have ‘what if’ scenarios,” one of the sources said.

ASSET SALES

In the event of such a drastic Saudi move, the impact would take some time to play out given the industry’s decades-old practices built around the U.S. dollar – from lending to exchange clearing.

Other potential threats raised in Saudi discussions about retaliation against NOPEC included liquidating the kingdom’s holdings in the United States, the sources said.

The kingdom has nearly $1 trillion invested in the United States and holds some $160 billion in U.S. Treasuries.

If it did carry out its threat, Riyadh would also have to ditch the Saudi riyal’s peg to the dollar, which has been exchanged at a fixed rate since 1986, the sources said.

The United States, the world’s largest oil consumer, relied heavily on Saudi and OPEC supplies for decades – while supporting Riyadh militarily against its arch-foe Iran.

But soaring shale oil production at home has made Washington less dependant on OPEC, allowing it to be more forceful in the way it deals with Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern nations.

Over the past year, Trump has regularly called on OPEC to pump more oil to lower global oil prices, and linked his demands to political support for Riyadh – something previous U.S. administrations have refrained from doing, at least publicly.

(Reporting by Dmitry Zhdannikov and Alex Lawler in London and Rania El Gamal in Dubai; additional reporting by Timothy Gardner in Washington; editing by David Clarke)

Source: OANN

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Putin Hopes For Fresh Start With Trump After “Notorious” Mueller Commission Found Nothing

Russian president Vladimir Putin said he’s ready to turn the leaf on the first two years of diplomatic scandals between the US and Russia, and is seeking areas of cooperation with his US counterprart (and according to various now debunked lunatics, spy) Donald Trump, calling the furor over election-meddling allegations part of the deep political crisis in Washington.

In his first public comments on the outcome of Robert Mueller’s investigation which found no collusion or conspiracy between Trump and Russia, Putin welcomed the controversial findings.

“We said from the very start that this notorious commission of Mr. Mueller wouldn’t find anything because we know this better than anyone,” Putin told the International Arctic Forum in St. Petersburg on Tuesday, adding that it was “utter nonsense aimed solely at a domestic audience and used for internal political struggle in the U.S.”

In retrospect, he was right.

Vladimir Putin delivers a speech at the International Arctic Forum in St. Petersburg on April 9, Photo: TASS

As a reminder, Trump scored the biggest political victory of his presidency – even as the credibility of the US liberal medial plumbed new lows – last month after AG William Barr published a summary of Mueller’s finding that there was no collusion during the campaign. Trump, who repeatedly – and correctly – condemned the 22-month inquiry as a “witch hunt” said he’d been completely exonerated.

Agreeing with his US colleague, Putin said that witch hunts are “a black page” in U.S. history and “I would not like it ever to happen again” (here the conspiracy nuts should be ready to chime in with a witty rejoinder). The outcome of the Mueller investigation showed that “a mountain gave birth to a mouse,” the Russian president said.


Italy’s Matteo Salvini recently said his nationalist party, The League, is here to stay. Dan Lyman with Infowars Europe joins Owen to discuss the future of Europe and solutions for the immigration crisis.

While Putin said when the two leaders met in Helsinki last year that he’d wanted Trump to win the 2016 election because of his pledge to improve relations – and because Hillary Clinton’s State Department did everything in its power to set the stage for a war between Russia and Ukraine – he avoided generating more controversy, and said he supports Trump’s re-election in 2020.

“We respect the wishes of the American people,” he said. “Whoever is president, we’re ready to work with them.”

To be sure, much bad blood remains between the US “deep state” and Moscow: recall that US intelligence agencies “concluded” that Russia was behind hacking aimed at damaging Democratic Party contender Hillary Clinton (which unveiled that the DNC had rigged the primaries against Bernie Sanders, and that Hillary Clinton was a professional in saying one thing to the public and something else to Wall Street). Russia, naturally, rejects the allegations. Trump pledged during his campaign to improve ties with Russia and has repeatedly said he wants good relations with Putin.

As for how the former KGB spy and Trump are getting along currently, Putin said he has “plenty of disagreements” with Trump, whose administration has imposed a series of new sanctions on his country, but is ready to work with the U.S. on issues of joint interest including terrorism and arms control.

“We hope that when this situation normalizes, opportunities will emerge for bilateral cooperation on all issues,” Putin said.

* * *

Separately, Putin also said that Russia will dramatically increase its presence in the Arctic region by building new ports and other facilities and expanding its fleet of icebreaker vessels, as the competition for the area’s natural resources intensifies.

Putin told the leaders of Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden at the Forum that Russia’s efforts will help quadruple the level of cargo shipments across the Arctic sea route.

“This is a realistic, well-calculated, and concrete task. We need to make the Northern sea route safe and commercially feasible,” he said.

And here is another irony: climate change is directly benefiting Russia – the shrinking polar ice in the Arctic region is expected to offer new opportunities for resource exploration and the development of new shipping lanes, leading Russia, the United States, Canada, Denmark, and Norway into a competition for jurisdiction in the region.

Putin set a goal for the amount of cargo carried across the shipping lane to rise to 80 million metric tons by 2025 from the 20 million tons transported in 2018, the majority under Russian-flagged vessels. Russia, the only country with a fleet of nuclear icebreakers, is moving to expand its current inventory of four nuclear-powered vessels to a total of nine by 2035, he said. It also has four nonnuclear icebreakers in its fleet, according to RFE.

In 2017, Jim Mattis, the former U.S. defense secretary noted the Russian buildup and said that “America has got to up its game in the Arctic.”

“The Arctic is key strategic terrain. Russia is taking aggressive steps to increase its presence there. I will prioritize the development of an integrated strategy for the Arctic,” said Mattis, who left his position at the end of 2018.

At the Arctic forum, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov defended the military buildup, saying, “We don’t threaten anyone.”

“We ensure sufficient defense capabilities given the political and military situation around our borders,” He added.

Source: InfoWars

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Brazil’s Petrobras sets new rules for Liquigas deal, hoping to lure more bidders

FILE PHOTO: The logo of Brazil's state-run Petrobras oil company is pictured outside its headquarters in Rio de Janeiro
FILE PHOTO: The logo of Brazil's state-run Petrobras oil company is pictured outside its headquarters in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, December 17, 2015. REUTERS/Ricardo Moraes/File Photo

April 9, 2019

By Carolina Mandl

SAO PAULO (Reuters) – Brazilian oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA released new rules for companies that intend to bid for its liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) subsidiary Liquigas Distribuidora, according to a filing on Tuesday.

Hoping to increase the number of companies bidding, Petrobras, as the state-run oil company is known, reduced the amount of revenue a rival can have compared to Liquigas sales, when in a consortium.

Two weeks ago, Petrobras said that rivals with more than 10 percent of market share in the Brazilian LPG distribution market cannot have a stake in the consortium that is higher than 40 percent of Liquigas’ revenue.

But according to new rules included in the documents filed on Tuesday, rivals may not have a stake in the consortium higher than 30 percent of Liquigas revenue, in an attempt to lure more participants to any potential consortium.

Restrictions for rivals are aimed at keeping antitrust authorities from blocking a deal, which happened in Petrobras’ first attempt to sell Liquigas in 2017.

Banco Santander Brasil SA has been hired to manage the sale. Potential buyers may contact Santander by April 19 to formalize its interest.

(Reporting by Carolina Mandl; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)

Source: OANN

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WWII veteran, 95, takes four buses to march after New Zealand mosque shootings

A 95-year-old World War II veteran reportedly rode four buses to attend a solidarity march against racism in Auckland, New Zealand on Sunday in response to the Christchurch mosque attacks.

John Sato, 95, of Howick, told Radio New Zealand (RNZ) he hasn’t been able to sleep well since the March 15 Christchurch attacks in which a 24-year-old alleged white supremacist open-fired at two mosques in southern New Zealand, killing 50 Muslims.

"I stayed awake quite a lot at the night. I didn't sleep too well ever since. I thought it was so sad. You can feel the suffering of other people," Sato said.

The World War II veteran, who admitted to rarely leaving his neighborhood in the Auckland suburb of Howick, left his home at 10 a.m. to travel by bus to the neighboring suburb of Pakuranga about 15 minutes away to pay his respects at a local mosque.

Moved by the many flowers and messages, Sato decided to then hop on another bus to head to a march against racism in the city’s center, about 45 to 50 minutes away, depending on the bus route. Two bus transfers later, and Sato arrived at the rally in Aotea Square, the New York Post reported.

THOUSANDS ATTEND NEW ZEALAND VIGIL TO REMEMBER CHRISTCHURCH VICTIMS AND PROTEST RACISM

Sato, whose mother was Scottish and father was Japanese, was one of only two Kiwi-Japanese recruited to fight in World War II against Japan. Though he told RNZ he lost touch with modern life, Sato said he felt compelled to join the march against racism.

"I think it's such a tragedy, and yet it has the other side. It has brought people together, no matter what their race or anything. People suddenly realized we're all one. We care for each other," Sato said.

John Sato, 95, one of only two Japanese servicemen in the New Zealand army in WWII, took two buses from Howick to join the march against racism at Aotea Square on March 24, 2019 in Auckland, New Zealand.

John Sato, 95, one of only two Japanese servicemen in the New Zealand army in WWII, took two buses from Howick to join the march against racism at Aotea Square on March 24, 2019 in Auckland, New Zealand. (Fiona Goodall/Getty Images)

Though many people were amazed by the 95-year-old’s commute to the march, Sato joked that taking the bus was a piece of cake compared to walking. At one point, the veteran was photographed being helped by a police officer named Constable Rob and actor Bruce Hopkins, best known for playing Gamling in "The Lord of the Rings" film trilogy.

“Sitting in a bus is much more comfortable than walking,” he said, jokingly. “You know you just sit back and you sit all comfortable and you feel lazy. You’re brought along you don’t have to walk. It saves your shoes.”

Not a stranger to hardship, Sato lost his wife 15 years ago and his daughter, who was born blind, passed away last year. The 95-year-old’s journey home was easier than the way he came.

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A police officer “took me all the way home and waited down there until he saw me get up the stairs. Very kind you know,” Sato told RNZ, adding “That tragedy in Christchurch — look what it brought out in the people. It shows the best of humanity.”

Sato said life is too short to be wasted on meaningless things like hatred. He said he hopes the Christchurch tragedy was a wakeup call for many to make an effort to understand people of different backgrounds.

"We all go through our furnace in certain ways and some of the things that happen to us will make you more understanding, I hope," Sato told RNZ.

Source: Fox News World

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Hogan Gidley: Trump's First Veto a 'Sad and Important Moment'

President Donald Trump's first veto, being signed to reject a congressional resolution opposing his emergency declaration, marks a "sad and important moment," because of what it represents, Deputy Press Secretary Hogan Gidley said Friday.

"That is a lack of understanding and belief on the part of Democrats in Congress to recognize the serious, severe crisis we face along our southern border, and to recognize the emergency that exists in this country," Gidley told Fox News' "Outnumbered Overtime." "With so many people dying every year, people pouring into this country illegally, the drugs that are now in this country, that are killing American citizens."

Trump will have "angel" families, or people who lost family members to immigrant violence, at the veto event, which was scheduled for about 3:30 p.m., said Hogan.

"These deaths are needless, senseless, and 100 percent preventable," said Gidley. "This president has the power to do this and that authority was granted by Congress. All he's doing is enforcing the laws written and passed by Congress. "

There were also 12 Senate Republicans who voted against Trump's order, and Gidley said its "far from me" to try to guess why.

"Some mention the procedural line they didn't like, and some questioned it on other grounds," said Gidley. "That vote against that measure effectively makes our country less safe. It puts American people, American people's lives, at risk."

Officials from law enforcement and Customs and Border Protection will also be at the veto signing, said Gidley, "to explain exactly what's going on and what that vote meant to the people of this country."

Source: NewsMax Politics

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FBI aids probe after car plows into 8 California pedestrians

The FBI is assisting California officials in the investigation of a motorist who appeared to deliberately plow into a group of people, injuring eight, authorities said Wednesday.

Prentice Danner, a spokesman for the FBI's field office in San Francisco, said the Sunnyvale Police Department is the lead agency in the investigation but that the bureau will become more involved "if it is determined a federal crime was committed."

Sunnyvale Police Cpt. Jim Choi said the driver of the car was arrested and has been identified but that his name is not being made public to avoid compromising the investigation.

He said the department notified the FBI after the Tuesday evening crash because "we are making sure we are looking at all the possible motives and angles."

Witnesses told investigators the motorist was speeding and drove directly toward the pedestrians without trying to veer away or stop the car before striking them, Choi said.

"Some of the statements (from witnesses) show that the driver did not try to avoid the pedestrians at the cross walk, and there was no attempt to swerve, drive away or break," he said.

Some of the eight people injured were at a corner or on the crosswalk when the car hit them before smashing into a tree, he said. The crosswalk remains closed Wednesday as officials investigate.

A 13-year-old boy and seven others were taken to the hospital Tuesday evening after the crash near a shopping center in Sunnyvale, more than an hour south of San Francisco, Choi said. An update on their conditions was expected later Wednesday.

Source: Fox News National

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Pompeo: China financing of Maduro prolongs Venezuela crisis

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says China's financing of President Nicolás Maduro's government is prolonging the crisis in Venezuela.

Pompeo kicked off a four-country tour of Latin America on Friday in Chile. He met with President Sebastián Piñera in Santiago, where they discussed Venezuela's crisis and the U.S.-China trade war, among other issues.

Pompeo said China is a major U.S. trading partner, but that its "trade activities often are deeply connected to their national security mission, their technological goals, their desire to steal intellectual property, to have forced technology transfer, to engage in activity that is not economic."

He also criticized Russia's links with authoritarian regimes in Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela.

Source: Fox News World

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Joe Biden’s brain surgeon said his former patient is “totally in the clear” as speculation over the candidate’s health — with Biden possibly becoming the oldest president in U.S. history — is likely to become a campaign issue.

The former vice president, who had been perceived by many as the strongest potential contender for the Democratic Party’s 2020 presidential nomination, formally announced his candidacy Thursday.

But Biden’s age – 76 – is expected to become a source of attacks from a younger generation of Democrats not because of obvious generational differences, but possibly for actual health concerns if Biden gets into office.

WHY THE MEDIA ARE CONVINCED JOE BIDEN WILL IMPLODE

Biden himself agreed last year that “it’s totally legitimate” for people to ask questions about his health if he decides to run for president, given his medical history — which has included brain surgery in 1988.

“I think they’re gonna judge me on my vitality,” Biden told “CBS This Morning.” “Can I still run up the steps of Air Force Two? Am I still in good shape? Am I – do I have all my faculties? Am I energetic? I think it’s totally legitimate people ask those questions.”

“I think they’re gonna judge me on my vitality. …  I think it’s totally legitimate [that] people ask those questions.”

— Joe Biden

But Dr. Neal Kassell, the neurosurgeon who operated on Biden for an aneurysm three decades ago, told the Washington Examiner that Biden appears to be “totally in the clear” — and even joked that the operation made Biden “better than how he was.”

“Joe Biden of all of the politicians in Washington is the only one that I’m certain has a brain, because I have seen it,” Kassell said. “That’s more than I can say about all the other candidates or the incumbents.”

“Joe Biden of all of the politicians in Washington is the only one that I’m certain has a brain, because I have seen it.”

— Dr. Neal Kassell

BIDEN’S CLAIM HE DIDN’T WANT OBAMA TO ENDORSE TRIGGERS MOCKERY

At the same time, however, Biden hasn’t been forthcoming about his health at least since 2008 when he released his medical records as a vice presidential candidate. The disclosure that time revealed some fairly minor issues such as an irregular heartbeat in addition to detailing previous operations, including removing a benign polyp during a colonoscopy in 1996, the outlet reported.

It remains unclear if Biden had more aneurysms. Some medical experts say that people who have had an aneurysm can have another one.

An aneurysm, or a weakening of an artery wall, can lead to a rupture and internal bleeding, potentially placing a patient’s life in jeopardy.

Biden won’t be the only Democrat grappling with old age. Sen. Bernie Sanders, another 2020 frontrunner, is currently 77 years old and agreed with Biden last year that their ages will be an issue in the race.

“It’s part of a discussion, but it has to be part of an overall view of what somebody is and what somebody has accomplished,” Sanders told Politico.

“Look, you’ve got people who are 50 years of age who are not well, right? You’ve got people who are 90 years of age who are going to work every day, doing excellent work. And obviously, age is a factor. But it depends on the overall health and wellbeing of the individual.”

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Sanders released his medical records in 2016, with a Senate physician saying in a letter that the senator was “in overall very good health.”

Source: Fox News Politics

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Cambodian authorities have ordered a one-hour reduction in the length of school days because of concerns that students and teachers may fall ill from a prolonged heat wave.

Education Minister Hang Chuon Naron said in an announcement seen Friday that the shortened hours will remain in effect until the rainy season starts, which usually occurs in May. The current heat wave, in which temperatures are regularly reaching as high as 41 Celsius (106 Fahrenheit), is one of the longest in memory.

Most schools in Cambodia lack air conditioning, prompting concern that temperatures inside classrooms could rise to unhealthy levels.

School authorities were instructed to watch for symptoms of heat stroke and urge pupils to drink more water.

The new hours cut 30 minutes off the beginning of the school day and 30 minutes off the end.

School authorities instituted a similar measure in 2016.

Source: Fox News World

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Explosions have rocked Britain’s largest steel plant, injuring two people and shaking nearby homes.

South Wales Police say the incident at the Tata Steel plant in Port Talbot was reported at about 3:35 a.m. Friday (22:35 EDT Thursday). The explosions touched off small fires, which are under control. Two workers suffered minor injuries and all staff members have been accounted for.

Police say early indications are that the explosions were caused by a train used to carry molten metal into the plant. Tata Steel says its personnel are working with emergency services at the scene.

Local lawmaker Stephen Kinnock says the incident raises concerns about safety.

He tweeted: “It could have been a lot worse … @TataSteelEurope must conduct a full review, to improve safety.”

Source: Fox News World

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The Wider Image: China's start-ups go small in age of 'shoebox' satellites
LinkSpace’s reusable rocket RLV-T5, also known as NewLine Baby, is carried to a vacant plot of land for a test launch in Longkou, Shandong province, China, April 19, 2019. REUTERS/Jason Lee

April 26, 2019

By Ryan Woo

LONGKOU, China (Reuters) – During initial tests of their 8.1-metre (27-foot) tall reusable rocket, Chinese engineers from LinkSpace, a start-up led by China’s youngest space entrepreneur, used a Kevlar tether to ensure its safe return. Just in case.

But when the Beijing-based company’s prototype, called NewLine Baby, successfully took off and landed last week for the second time in two months, no tether was needed.

The 1.5-tonne rocket hovered 40 meters above the ground before descending back to its concrete launch pad after 30 seconds, to the relief of 26-year-old chief executive Hu Zhenyu and his engineers – one of whom cartwheeled his way to the launch pad in delight.

LinkSpace, one of China’s 15-plus private rocket manufacturers, sees these short hops as the first steps towards a new business model: sending tiny, inexpensive satellites into orbit at affordable prices.

Demand for these so-called nanosatellites – which weigh less than 10 kilograms (22 pounds) and are in some cases as small as a shoebox – is expected to explode in the next few years. And China’s rocket entrepreneurs reckon there is no better place to develop inexpensive launch vehicles than their home country.

“For suborbital clients, their focus will be on scientific research and some commercial uses. After entering orbit, the near-term focus (of clients) will certainly be on satellites,” Hu said.

In the near term, China envisions massive constellations of commercial satellites that can offer services ranging from high-speed internet for aircraft to tracking coal shipments. Universities conducting experiments and companies looking to offer remote-sensing and communication services are among the potential domestic customers for nanosatellites.

A handful of U.S. small-rocket companies are also developing launchers ahead of the expected boom. One of the biggest, Rocket Lab, has already put 25 satellites in orbit.

No private company in China has done that yet. Since October, two – LandSpace and OneSpace – have tried but failed, illustrating the difficulties facing space start-ups everywhere.

The Chinese companies are approaching inexpensive launches in different ways. Some, like OneSpace, are designing cheap, disposable boosters. LinkSpace’s Hu aspires to build reusable rockets that return to Earth after delivering their payload, much like the Falcon 9 rockets of Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

“If you’re a small company and you can only build a very, very small rocket because that’s all you have money for, then your profit margins are going to be narrower,” said Macro Caceres, analyst at U.S. aerospace consultancy Teal Group.

“But if you can take that small rocket and make it reusable, and you can launch it once a week, four times a month, 50 times a year, then with more volume, your profit increases,” Caceres added.

Eventually LinkSpace hopes to charge no more than 30 million yuan ($4.48 million) per launch, Hu told Reuters.

That is a fraction of the $25 million to $30 million needed for a launch on a Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems Pegasus, a commonly used small rocket. The Pegasus is launched from a high-flying aircraft and is not reusable.

(Click https://reut.rs/2UVBjKs to see a picture package of China’s rocket start-ups. Click https://tmsnrt.rs/2GIy9Bc for an interactive look at the nascent industry.)

NEED FOR CASH

LinkSpace plans to conduct suborbital launch tests using a bigger recoverable rocket in the first half of 2020, reaching altitudes of at least 100 kilometers, then an orbital launch in 2021, Hu told Reuters.

The company is in its third round of fundraising and wants to raise up to 100 million yuan, Hu said. It had secured tens of millions of yuan in previous rounds.

After a surge in fresh funding in 2018, firms like LinkSpace are pushing out prototypes, planning more tests and even proposing operational launches this year.

Last year, equity investment in China’s space start-ups reached 3.57 billion yuan ($533 million), a report by Beijing-based investor FutureAerospace shows, with a burst of financing in late 2018.

That accounted for about 18 percent of global space start-up investments in 2018, a historic high, according to Reuters calculations based on a global estimate by Space Angels. The New York-based venture capital firm said global space start-up investments totaled $2.97 billion last year.

“Costs for rocket companies are relatively high, but as to how much funding they need, be it in the hundreds of millions, or tens of millions, or even just a few million yuan, depends on the company’s stage of development,” said Niu Min, founder of FutureAerospace.

FutureAerospace has invested tens of millions of yuan in LandSpace, based in Beijing.

Like space-launch startups elsewhere in the world, the immediate challenge for Chinese entrepreneurs is developing a safe and reliable rocket.

Proven talent to develop such hardware can be found in China’s state research institutes or the military; the government directly supports private firms by allowing them to launch from military-controlled facilities.

But it’s still a high-risk business, and one unsuccessful launch might kill a company.

“The biggest problem facing all commercial space companies, especially early-stage entrepreneurs, is failure” of an attempted flight, Liang Jianjun, chief executive of rocket company Space Trek, told Reuters. That can affect financing, research, manufacturing and the team’s morale, he added.

Space Trek is planning its first suborbital launch by the end of June and an orbital launch next year, said Liang, who founded the company in late 2017 with three other former military technical officers.

Despite LandSpace’s failed Zhuque-1 orbital launch in October, the Beijing-based firm secured 300 million yuan in additional funding for the development of its Zhuque-2 rocket a month later.

In December, the company started operating China’s first private rocket production facility in Zhejiang province, in anticipation of large-scale manufacturing of its Zhuque-2, which it expects to unveil next year.

STATE COMPETITION

China’s state defense contractors are also trying to get into the low-cost market.

In December, the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp (CASIC) successfully launched a low-orbit communication satellite, the first of 156 that CASIC aims to deploy by 2022 to provide more stable broadband connectivity to rural China and eventually developing countries.

The satellite, Hongyun-1, was launched on a rocket supplied by the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp (CASC), the nation’s main space contractor.

In early April, the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALVT), a subsidiary of CASC, completed engine tests for its Dragon, China’s first rocket meant solely for commercial use, clearing the path for a maiden flight before July.

The Dragon, much bigger than the rockets being developed by private firms, is designed to carry multiple commercial satellites.

At least 35 private Chinese companies are working to produce more satellites.

Spacety, a satellite maker based in southern Hunan province, plans to put 20 satellites in orbit this year, including its first for a foreign client, chief executive Yang Feng told Reuters.

The company has only launched 12 on state-produced rockets since the company started operating in early 2016.

“When it comes to rocket launches, what we care about would be cost, reliability and time,” Yang said.

(Reporting by Ryan Woo; Additional reporting by Beijing newsroom; Editing by Gerry Doyle)

Source: OANN

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At least one person is reported dead and homes have been destroyed by a powerful cyclone that struck northern Mozambique and continues to dump rain on the region, with the United Nations warning of “massive flooding.”

Cyclone Kenneth arrived just six weeks after Cyclone Idai tore into central Mozambique, killing more than 600 people and displacing scores of thousands. The U.N. says this is the first time in known history that the southern African nation has been hit by two cyclones in one season.

Forecasters say the new cyclone made landfall Thursday night in a part of Mozambique that has not seen such a storm in at least 60 years.

Mozambique’s local emergency operations center says a woman in the city of Pemba was killed by a falling tree.

Source: Fox News World

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