Farewell. The Flying Pig Has Left The Building.

Steve Hynd, August 16, 2012

After four years on the Typepad site, eight years total blogging, Newshoggers is closing it's doors today. We've been coasting the last year or so, with many of us moving on to bigger projects (Hey, Eric!) or simply running out of blogging enthusiasm, and it's time to give the old flying pig a rest.

We've done okay over those eight years, although never being quite PC enough to gain wider acceptance from the partisan "party right or wrong" crowds. We like to think we moved political conversations a little, on the ever-present wish to rush to war with Iran, on the need for a real Left that isn't licking corporatist Dem boots every cycle, on America's foreign misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. We like to think we made a small difference while writing under that flying pig banner. We did pretty good for a bunch with no ties to big-party apparatuses or think tanks.

Those eight years of blogging will still exist. Because we're ending this typepad account, we've been archiving the typepad blog here. And the original blogger archive is still here. There will still be new content from the old 'hoggers crew too. Ron writes for The Moderate Voice, I post at The Agonist and Eric Martin's lucid foreign policy thoughts can be read at Democracy Arsenal.

I'd like to thank all our regular commenters, readers and the other bloggers who regularly linked to our posts over the years to agree or disagree. You all made writing for 'hoggers an amazingly fun and stimulating experience.

Thank you very much.

Note: This is an archive copy of Newshoggers. Most of the pictures are gone but the words are all here. There may be some occasional new content, John may do some posts and Ron will cross post some of his contributions to The Moderate Voice so check back.


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Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Time is on the MEND

By Fester:

MEND, the Nigeria Delta insurgency/bunkering operation(s) is still active.  We just have not been hearing as much about it for two reasons.  First, they have slowed down operations while the media attention is focused on the more spectacular piracy operations in the East African littoral. Secondly, with the global drop in oil demand, MEND's ability to knock out half a million to a million barrels of potential (& easy) production per day is far weaker.  Right now, every major oil producer has significant slack capacity, so marginal drops in Nigerian production do not have large impacts on oil prices. 

Eagle Speaks has an update on recent MEND activities:

The latest ONI Worldwide Threats to Shipping Report (to 27 May 09)can be found
here. Highlights:

1.
NIGERIA: Oil platform attacked 26 May 09 in the Niger Delta region off
the coast of Nigeria. Approximately five men in a speedboat approached
an oil platform in Amenam field

.

2. NIGERIA: Vessel robbed 21 May 09 at 0320 local time while anchored
in Lagos roads. Six robbers armed with automatic weapons boarded the
vessel.
.

3. NIGERIA: Tanker (CM SPIRIT) hijacked 13 May 09 while underway in the
Chanomi Creeks in the Niger Delta.
.

4. NIGERIA: Vessel (CHIKANA) hijacked 13 May 09 while underway in the
Chanomi Creeks in the Niger Delta.


I truncated the reports for brevity's sake.  These attacks may be important as there is a potential for continued upward pressure on oil prices from the combination of demand getting rebuilt and a weakening dollar.

Econbrowser has more on oil prices:

So to the extent that oil speculators see any green shoots, perhaps
they're in the nature of Asian bamboo rather than American prairie
grass. Chinese oil consumption was up 4% in
April, though that was the first year-on-year gain for them in 6 months.
India's oil consumption also seems to be growing. But so far those gains are well below the drops seen in the U.S. and elsewhere.....

so far this year inventories have been well above average. Futures
prices had exceeded spot prices by enough until recently that there was
a risk-free profit to be had from buying at spot, storing the product
physically, and hedging by selling futures. Had it not been for the
added demand for oil coming from inventory accumulation, the price
would have fallen further. Nevertheless, it is interesting that U.S.
inventories have been coming down significantly during May, the same
month when oil prices started to rise significantly, although inventory
levels remain above average.

IF, and this is a big IF, there is growth in demand instead of just a positive second derivative for oil in the near future, then MEND's strategy of hitting the Nigerian oil production and export infrastructure will have larger global impacts than local impacts which is a converse of the current pay-off matrix. 

MEND is just something to keep an eye on for this summer but I don't expect a whole lot of impact unless several other things go wrong. 



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