Tag Archives: holders

Mets owner Steve Cohen pens letter to season ticket holders: ‘You are rightfully disappointed and so are we’ – Yahoo Sports

  1. Mets owner Steve Cohen pens letter to season ticket holders: ‘You are rightfully disappointed and so are we’ Yahoo Sports
  2. Steve Cohen promises ‘formidable’ 2024 Mets team in letter to season ticket holders New York Post
  3. Mets Owner Steve Cohen Sends Apology Email To Fans, And That Should Definitely Make Up For Disastrous Season Outkick
  4. Steve Cohen pens apology email to Mets season ticket holders for 2023 season: ‘You are rightfully disappointed’ Sporting News
  5. Steve Cohen’s Mets letter mirrors Rangers’ famous message New York Post
  6. View Full Coverage on Google News

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Everything XRP holders have been shouting has ‘been confirmed’ — Pro-XRP lawyer – Cointelegraph

  1. Everything XRP holders have been shouting has ‘been confirmed’ — Pro-XRP lawyer Cointelegraph
  2. XRP Price Prediction as Lawsuit to End Favourably – Can XRP Hit $10 in 2023? Cryptonews
  3. Ripple Lawsuit Takes A Dramatic Turn – SEC Emails Exposed | Bitcoinist.com Bitcoinist
  4. SEC Emails Suggest XRP Is Not Security, SHIB Scores New Listing, ADA to Reach $500 Billion Market Cap, Says Crypto Capital Venture CEO: Crypto News Digest by U.Today U.Today
  5. XRP Bears to Target Sub-$0.45 on Anti-Crypto Rhetoric FX Empire
  6. View Full Coverage on Google News

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Majority Of Dogecoin Holders In Profit, While 67% Of Shiba Inu Owners Are Underwater – Benzinga

  1. Majority Of Dogecoin Holders In Profit, While 67% Of Shiba Inu Owners Are Underwater Benzinga
  2. New Meme Coin Dogetti is Set to Surpass Dogecoin and Shiba Inu! Analytics Insight
  3. Most Dogecoin (DOGE) Holders in Profit As Over 65% of Shiba Inu (SHIB) Owners Languish Underwater: IntoTheB… The Daily Hodl
  4. Dogecoin (DOGE) and Shiba Inu on the slide: plummeting since last week, while TMS Network’s (TMSN) Bitcoinist
  5. Dogetti Presale Crosses the Quarter-million Mark As Dogecoin and Dogelon Mars Users Troop to the New Project Analytics Insight
  6. View Full Coverage on Google News

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How 3 hours of inaction from Amazon cost cryptocurrency holders $235,000

Amazon recently lost control of IP addresses it uses to host cloud services and took more than three hours to regain control, a lapse that allowed hackers to steal $235,000 in cryptocurrency from users of one of the affected customers, an analysis shows.

The hackers seized control of roughly 256 IP addresses through BGP hijacking, a form of attack that exploits known weaknesses in a core Internet protocol. Short for border gateway protocol, BGP is a technical specification that organizations that route traffic, known as autonomous system networks, use to interoperate with other ASNs. Despite its crucial function in routing wholesale amounts of data across the globe in real time, BGP still largely relies on the Internet equivalent of word of mouth for organizations to track which IP addresses rightfully belong to which ASNs.

A case of mistaken identity

Last month, autonomous system 209243, which belongs to UK-based network operator Quickhost.uk, suddenly began announcing its infrastructure was the proper path for other ASNs to access what’s known as a /24 block of IP addresses belonging to AS16509, one of at least three ASNs operated by Amazon. The hijacked block included 44.235.216.69, an IP address hosting cbridge-prod2.celer.network, a subdomain responsible for serving a critical smart contract user interface for the Celer Bridge cryptocurrency exchange.

On August 17, the attackers used the hijacking to first obtain a TLS certificate for cbridge-prod2.celer.network, since they were able to demonstrate to certificate authority GoGetSSL in Latvia that they had control over the subdomain. With possession of the certificate, the hijackers then hosted their own smart contract on the same domain and waited for visits from people trying to access the real Celer Bridge cbridge-prod2.celer.network page.

In all, the malicious contract drained a total of $234,866.65 from 32 accounts, according to this writeup from the threat intelligence team from Coinbase.

Coinbase TI analysis

The Coinbase team members explained:

The phishing contract closely resembles the official Celer Bridge contract by mimicking many of its attributes. For any method not explicitly defined in the phishing contract, it implements a proxy structure which forwards calls to the legitimate Celer Bridge contract. The proxied contract is unique to each chain and is configured on initialization. The command below illustrates the contents of the storage slot responsible for the phishing contract’s proxy configuration:

Enlarge / Phishing smart contract proxy storage

Coinbase TI analysis

The phishing contract steals users’ funds using two approaches:

  • Any tokens approved by phishing victims are drained using a custom method with a 4byte value 0x9c307de6()
  • The phishing contract overrides the following methods designed to immediately steal a victim’s tokens:
  • send()- used to steal tokens (e.g. USDC)
  • sendNative() — used to steal native assets (e.g. ETH)
  • addLiquidity()- used to steal tokens (e.g. USDC)
  • addNativeLiquidity() — used to steal native assets (e.g. ETH)

Below is a sample reverse engineered snippet which redirects assets to the attacker wallet:

Enlarge / Phishing smart contract snippet

Coinbase TI analysis

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New Israeli rules would require foreign passport holders to declare romantic relationships with Palestinians

Comment

TEL AVIV — Foreign passport holders in the West Bank will be required to report their romantic relationships with Palestinians to Israeli authorities, according to new, hotly contested rules set to take effect on Monday.

Palestinian legal experts and human rights advocates say the move, which would also restrict Palestinians from visiting family members and sharply limit Palestinian academic exchanges with foreign universities, is an escalation of an already entrenched system of discrimination against Palestinians in the West Bank, which Israel captured in 1967.

The 97-page Israeli ordinance detailing the new restrictions requires foreign passport holders, including, in some cases, American Palestinian dual citizens, in a romantic relationship with a Palestinian resident of the West Bank to “inform” Israeli security authorities “in writing (at a special e-mail address) within 30 days of the relationship’s start.”

“The ‘starting date of the relationship’ shall be considered the day of the engagement ceremony, of the wedding, or of the start of cohabitation — whichever occurs first,” it said.

The new restrictions — which also ask applicants to declare if they have land or are inheriting land in the West Bank — would not apply to the Jewish settlements in the West Bank. The territory’s two-tiered legal structure treats Jewish Israelis as citizens living under civilian rule while Palestinians are treated as combatants under military rule, subject to nighttime military raids, detention and bans on visiting their ancestral lands or accessing certain roads.

Palestinian rights advocates condemned the updated, more stringent procedures on social media as another example of Israel stripping rights from Palestinians living under its 55-year occupation.

“One side of this is about control & isolation,” Salem Barahmeh, executive director of Rabet, the digital platform of the Palestine Institute for Public Diplomacy, wrote on Twitter Saturday. “The other is: if you can’t be together in Palestine then you will have [to] leave & to do so elsewhere. It’s about driving as many people as they can outside of Palestine to maintain supremacy.”

Ahead of Biden visit, Israel launches biggest eviction of Palestinians in decades

Fadi Quran, campaign director for activist group Avaaz, tweeted that the new rules signal that in the occupied West Bank, “love is dangerous.”

Foreigners visiting the West Bank already face intensive screening. One Palestinian woman, who lives in Germany and is married to a German man, said she worries that the rules will make it even more difficult for her and her husband — and their future children — to visit her relatives in the West Bank. The woman spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid calling the attention of Israeli authorities to her case.

After learning of the new rules, the woman decided to bring her new husband to the West Bank to meet her family in May, before they took effect.

Even then, she said, Jordanian authorities at the border crossing advised the couple not to cross together and to scrub any evidence of their relationship from their phones, since Israeli officials had been turning back foreign spouses of Palestinians.

The couple took off their wedding rings, unlinked their Airbnb booking and deleted their WhatsApp conversations and photos together. Her husband told border guards he was visiting the West Bank for tourism. Still, he faced intense questioning from the Israeli police.

A spokeswoman from COGAT, Israel’s military agency responsible for coordinating with the Palestinians on civilian matters, declined to comment on the new restrictions, but said that a new version of the regulations would likely be published on Sunday.

Israel escalates surveillance of Palestinians with facial recognition program in West Bank

The ordinance describes the “purpose of the procedure” as a way to codify norms that have already been in place for years for foreign passport holders entering the occupied territory. The goal is to “define the levels of authority and the manner of processing for applications from foreigners who wish to enter the Judea and Samaria area through the international crossings, in accordance with policy and in coordination with the appropriate offices,” said the document, referring to the biblical name Israel uses for the West Bank.

Since first announced in February, implementation of the new restrictions has been delayed repeatedly by Israel’s High Court.

In June, HaMoked, an Israeli human rights organization, along with 19 individuals, petitioned the High Court to halt the new rules, arguing that they set “extreme limitations on the duration of visas and visa extensions” that would impede foreigners’ ability to work or volunteer for Palestinian institutions for more than a few months, bar them from leaving the West Bank and returning during the visa period, and in some cases require people to remain abroad for a year after their visa expires before they can apply for another.

The rules would also “deny thousands of Palestinian families the ability to live together without interruption and lead a normal family life,” HaMoked said in a statement in June, as well as make it more difficult for foreign academics to work at Palestinian universities.

The new rules allow 100 professors and 150 students with foreign passports to stay in the West Bank — a substantial blow to Palestinian higher education institutions. They rely on academic collaborations and recruit hundreds of foreign passport-holding students every year. More than 350 European university students and staff studied or worked at Palestinian universities under the Erasmus program, an E.U. student exchange program, in 2020, up from just 51 five years earlier.

Mariya Gabriel, E.U. commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth, suggested in July that the development could also harm Israel-Europe academic ties.

“With Israel itself benefitting greatly from Erasmus+, the Commission considers that it should facilitate and not hinder access of students to Palestinian universities,” Gabriel said. She added that E.U. officials have expressed their concerns to Israeli authorities “including at the highest levels.”

Sam Bahour, an American-Palestinian economist, cited Israel’s High Court rulings to delay the new rules’ implementation as proof of their illegitimacy.

He said he has been fielding daily phone calls from Palestinian emigres throughout the world worried that the new procedures could make future visits difficult or impossible. He said the new protocols would be so “absurd” that they would be “impossible to implement.”

But, he said, they have delivered a decades-old message from Israel to the Palestinians: “Stay away.”



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Russia warns sovereign bond holders that payments depend on sanctions

Russian rouble coins are seen in this illustration taken, February 24, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo

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  • Some dollar bonds to be paid in roubles
  • Russian debt now rated ‘junk’
  • Russia could face first foreign debt default since 1918

LONDON, March 6 (Reuters) – Russia said on Sunday that sovereign bond payments will depend on sanctions imposed by the West over the invasion of Ukraine, raising the spectre of its first major default on foreign bonds since the years following the 1917 Bolshevik revolution.

Russia’s finance ministry said it would service and pay sovereign debts in full and on time but that payments could be hampered by the international sanctions.

“The actual possibility of making such payments to non-residents will depend on the limiting measures introduced by foreign states in relation to the Russian Federation,” the finance ministry said in a statement.

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That raises the possibility of a technical default on debt by Russia after much of its $640 billion in reserves were frozen by the West after President Vladimir Putin ordered what Russia describes as a special military operation in Ukraine on Feb. 24.

From now on, Russia will use roubles to make payments to residents on bonds denominated in foreign currency, the ministry said.

The finance ministry in Moscow also explicitly said that Russia might not be able to make bond payments because of restrictions imposed by the Russian government.

Russia in 1998 defaulted on $40 billion in domestic debt and devalued the rouble under President Boris Yeltsin because it was effectively bankrupt after the Asian debt crisis and falling oil prices shook confidence in its short-term rouble debt.

This time, Russia has the money but can’t pay because the reserves – the world’s fourth largest – that Putin ordered be built up for just such a crisis are frozen by the United States, European Union, Britain and Canada.

It could be Russia’s first major debt default in more than a century. Even when the Soviet Union collapsed, Russia assumed its foreign debt.

In 1918 Bolshevik revolutionaries under Vladimir Lenin repudiated Tsarist debt, shocking global debt markets because Russia then had one of the world’s biggest foreign debt piles.

With the bonds worth nothing, some holders of the Tsarist notes used them as wallpaper. The Soviet Union under Josef Stalin stopped servicing loans to the United States and Sweden after World War Two.

RUSSIAN DEFAULT

While Russia has only $40 billion in international bonds outstanding across 15 dollar or euro-denominated issues, its corporates have built up vastly more foreign debt.

The eurobonds have been issued with a mix of terms and indentures.

Notably, bonds sold after Russia was sanctioned over its 2014 annexation of Crimea contain a provision for alternative currency payments in dollars, euros, British pounds or Swiss francs, with the rouble listed as an alternative currency option for bonds issued since 2018.

On March 16 Russia is due to pay $107 million in coupons across two bonds, though it has a 30-day grace period to make the payments. The next full ‘principal’ repayment is a $359 million 2030 bond on March 31 and then a larger $2 billion maturity on April 4.

Russian gas giant Gazprom has a $1.3 billion dollar bond due for repayment on March 7.

According to JPMorgan, the OFZ bond market totalled 15.5 trillion roubles, or about $200 billion at January rouble rates, with foreigners holding a little less than a fifth of the bonds.

Earlier on Sunday, Moody’s cut Russia’s credit rating to Ca, the second-lowest rung of its ratings ladder, citing central bank capital controls that are likely to restrict payments on the country’s foreign debt and lead to default. read more

Moody’s said its decision was driven by “severe concerns over Russia’s willingness and ability to pay its debt obligations”.

The ratings agency said default risks had increased and that foreign bondholders are likely to recoup only part of their investment.

Moody’s and its peers Fitch and S&P Global had scored Russia at investment-grade levels of Baa3/BBB as recently as March 1. All three have since cut their ratings by several notches, sending Russia’s sovereign debt deep into so-called “junk” territory.

($1 = 121.0370 roubles)

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Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge
Editing by David Goodman

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Rams tickets sold out to season ticket holders, but no restrictions on re-sales to 49ers fans

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Rams season ticket holders bought up every ticket to Sunday’s NFC Championship Game, but there are no restrictions on those tickets being re-sold to 49ers fans — raising concerns for the Rams that their home field will feel like a road game.

When the Rams and 49ers met in the regular season finale, 49ers fans were so loud inside SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles that the Rams had to use a silent count. That led to the Rams asking fans not to sell their NFC Championship Game tickets to 49ers fans, and putting a restriction on sales outside the Los Angeles area.

But that restriction has now been lifted, raising questions about how many of those Rams season ticket holders will choose to make a profit by re-selling to the highest bidder, which may be a 49ers fan.

“The game is sold out. Our Season Ticket members bought up all available tickets during a presale over the weekend, so there is no policy in place,” the Rams said in a statement to ABC 7 in Los Angeles.

The 49ers have plenty of fans in the Los Angeles area, so even if the geographic restriction were in place, plenty of 49ers fans could get in. Ultimately, both teams should prepare for the possibility that they’ll need to use a silent count.

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Walmart is seeking a crypto product lead, the Dogecoin Foundation is active again after a long break, Coinbase has amassed a $4 billion cash-backed war chest: Holder’s Digest, Aug. 15-21

Coming every Saturday, Hodler’s Digest will help you track every single important news story that happened this week. The best (and worst) quotes, adoption and regulation highlights, leading coins, predictions and much more — a week on Cointelegraph in one link.

Top Stories This Week

Walmart seeks crypto product lead to drive digital currency strategy

On Aug. 16, it was reported that U.S. retail giant Walmart was seeking out an experienced crypto expert who can develop and drive a digital currency strategy and product roadmap for the firm.

According to the job listing, Walmart is looking for someone with a track record of leading and scaling businesses. They also want at least 10 years of experience in product/program management and tech-based product commercialization.

Ideally, the candidate should also know a thing or two about crypto, blockchain tech and why JPEGs of poorly drawn pet rocks are selling for absurd prices on Ethereum.

Walmart’s future digital currency and crypto product lead will be based in the company’s home office in Bentonville, Arkansas. The state has produced talents such as Billy Bob Thornton and Johnny Cash, along with Bill and Hillary Clinton.

 

Team officially reestablishes Dogecoin Foundation after 6 years

There was good news for Doge fanatics this week as the Dogecoin Foundation resurfaced after several years of total media silence. 

According to an announcement on Tuesday, the foundation stated it was reestablishing itself in a bid to support the fiery-eyed Dogecoin (DOGE) community. The foundation also said it would be announcing new projects that are centered on encouraging adoption of DOGE and promoting its utility. 

The project’s website lists Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, Dogecoin co-founder Billy Markus and Dogecoin Core developer Max Keller as advisory board members. Furthermore, Tesla CEO and DOGE proponent Elon Musk’s interests may be catered to from the shadows via Neuralink CEO Jared Birchall.

It is yet to be revealed if Musk’s “toddler hodler” son has loaded up on DOGE in light of the announcement.

 

Coinbase amasses a $4B war chest so it can outlast ‘crypto winter’

Coinbase, the top U.S. crypto exchange, has amassed a cash-based war chest worth $4 billion on the back of two very productive quarters for the firm. 

The company reportedly expected to use the cash to cover costs incurred by a variety of factors, including conforming to new regulations handed down by the United States legislature.

Coinbase has also announced its official launch in Japan in partnership with banking giant Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, while also revealing plans to add $500 million worth of crypto to its balance sheet and invest 10% of all generated profits into digital assets moving forward.

 

 

Winners and Losers

 

 

At the end of the week, Bitcoin is at $48,778, Ether at $3,282 and XRP at $1.28. The total market cap is at $2.09 trillion, according to CoinMarketCap. 

Among the biggest 100 cryptocurrencies, the top three altcoin gainers of the week are Avalanche (AVAX) at 105.79%, Arweave (AR) at 96.17% and Audius (AUDIO) at 93.78%. 

The top three altcoin losers of the week are DigiByte (DGB) at -5.06%, Celsius (CEL) at -4.44% and BitTorrent (BTT) at -3.81%.

For more info on crypto prices, make sure to read Cointelegraph’s market analysis.

 

 

Most Memorable Quotations

 

“Poly Network has no intention of holding Mr. White Hat legally responsible, as we are confident that Mr. White Hat will promptly return full control of the assets to Poly Network and its users. As we have stated in previous announcements and encrypted messages that have been made public, we are grateful for Mr. White Hat’s outstanding contribution to Poly Network’s security enhancements.”

Poly Network team

 

“Lawmakers and regulators must work together to properly balance protecting innovation with any new regulations to ensure the digital asset marketplace flourishes in the United States.”

Glenn Thompson and Patrick McHenry, U.S. representatives

 

“The most important thing that can be done today is moving away from the idea that coin voting is the only legitimate form of governance decentralization.”

Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum co-founder

 

“Here at home in America, […] our payments infrastructure is arguably the worst of any developed country in the world, and increasingly falling behind, while China is moving with determination and haste to build an infrastructure that will make the digital yuan a challenger to the dollar as the world’s reserve currency.”

David Marcus, Diem co-creator

 

“Ethereum is outperforming Bitcoin, and it can be expected to continue this trend for the rest of 2021.”

Nigel Green, CEO of DeVere Group

 

“This is all about DeFi. […] This is the Treasury Department trying to work out how to get jurisdiction over DeFi […] and also expand its warrantless surveillance over a peer-to-peer financial system.”

Jake Chervinsky, general counsel at Compound

 

“Frankly, as one of the first pilots, we have on the table the question of paying salaries to employees of the Ministry of Digital Transformation in electronic hryvnia.”

Mykhailo Fedorov, vice prime minister of Ukraine

 

“It’s important to remember that when we look at the business, the long-term arc of adoption of digital assets in crypto matters far more than the businesses we are building.”

Mike Novogratz, founder and CEO of Galaxy Digital

Prediction of the Week 

 

Ethereum ‘liquidity crisis’ could see new ETH all-time high before Bitcoin — Analyst

Bitcoin, the crypto industry’s largest asset by market cap, and Ethereum (ETH), the second-largest asset, have both posted notable price recoveries over the past several weeks. Although BTC has yet to be surpassed as the crypto industry’s top dog, ETH might tap its own all-time price high near $4,400 sooner than BTC reaches its record level of nearly $65,000, according to thoughts from CryptoQuant CEO Ki Young Ju. 

“$ETH might reach its all-time high earlier than $BTC in the long term,” Ju tweeted on Wednesday. “Current $ETH price is closer to ATH compared to $BTC. Higher demand, lower supply. $ETH sell-side liquidity crisis still intensifies, while $BTC exchange reserve stopped its downward trend in May.” 

On Friday, BTC fluctuated above the $48,000 mark, and ETH traded above $3,200 — which, however, are both still notably shy of their record highs.

FUD of the Week 

 

JPMorgan Chase reportedly shuts down bank accounts of Bitcoin mining firm

On Aug. 19, U.S. banking behemoth JPMorgan Chase reportedly blocked all account activities of Bitcoin mining firm Compass Mining. 

Whit Gibbs, the CEO of Compass Mining, took to Twitter to share the news:

“Shoutout to @Chase for shutting down @compass_mining accounts for doing our part to replace the old guard with self-sovereign, future-focused supporters of hard money. Get behind #Bitcoin or get out of our way.”

It is unclear if the temper tantrum will be enough to sway JPMorgan Chase to change its mind, and it is also unclear how shutting down banking services to one Bitcoin mining firm represents an attack on BTC in any way. 

If anything, the banking giant has been upping its exposure to Bitcoin and the crypto sector in 2021.

 

Liquid exchange hacked to the tune of $80 million

Liquid, a Japanese crypto exchange, was the victim of a $80 million-plus hack this week which made the platform not so… liquid. 

Cointelegraph reported on the news quickly after the exchange announced the attack, which compromised digital assets including BTC, Tron (TRX), Ripple (XRP) and Ether.  

The exchange explained that only its hot wallets were affected and added that its assets were being moved into cold storage for security purposes. 

The platform has since provided an update and revealed the hack totaled $91.35 million. The firm has urged users to not deposit any crypto assets in Liquid wallets until further notice.

 

T-Mobile looking into potential hack of data on 100 million customers

Speaking of hacks, U.S. telecom giant T-Mobile was looking into an alleged massive data breach at the start of this week that may have compromised the information of more than 100 million users. 

According to Vice’s Motherboard, T-Mobile is looking into a potential data breach claimed by an author who posted details on an underground forum. A Sunday report said the hacker claims to have obtained data on more than 100 million customers from T-Mobile servers.

Unlike the Poly Network hacker, who syphoned $600 million worth of digital assets because “cross-chain hacking is hot,” the T-Mobile hacker seems to be displaying entrepreneurial instincts, as they were asking for 6 BTC —  worth around $280,000 at current prices —  in exchange for some of the data.

 

Best Cointelegraph Features

Shanghai Special: Crypto crackdown fallout and what happens next

Owning Bitcoin isn’t banned, but many fear for the future of regulations in China. Here’s a look at where we stand and where we might be headed.

Poly Network hack exposes DeFi flaws, but community comes to the rescue

The DeFi hacker’s initial intentions remain unclear, but they refused to accept a $500,000 bounty after returning all funds.

The perfect storm: DeFi hacks will advance the crypto sector moving forward

There is a silver lining from the DeFi hacks as new tech develops to protect the sector: “DeFi will be much safer in 12 months from now.”

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Elon Musk Asks ‘Major Dogecoin Holders’ To Sell Most Of Their Coins

Benzinga

What Keystone Pipeline Cancellation Means For Crude-by-rail

President Joe Biden’s revocation of the March 2019 permit enabling the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline will likely result in more crude-by-rail volumes, according to industry observers. But how much volumes will increase could largely depend on the price that heavy crude oil can fetch in the global market. “The cancellation of the Keystone pipeline project was inevitable once the government changed. Despite its merits or drawbacks, it is now a deflated political football,” said Barry Prentice, University of Manitoba supply chain management professor and former director of the Transport Institute there. “This means that more crude will have to move by rail. The huge investments in the oil sands will not be abandoned, and the oil has to go somewhere.” But crude-by-rail “has been problematic because with the low price for oil, and the relatively higher price for rail transport, nothing looks very appealing. The problem is not oil supply, it is the reduced demand during the pandemic. Once we come out of this period, demand will return, and $100-per-barrel oil will, too,” Prentice said. Indeed, the oil markets serve as one highly visible factor determining how much crude gets produced and shipped. For the production and transport of heavy crude oil from western Canada and the U.S. to be profitable, the pricing spread between a heavy crude product such as Western Canadian Select (WCS) and a light, sweet crude such as West Texas Intermediate (WTI) needs to be favorable. WCS crude is typically priced at a discount against WTI crude because of its lower quality and its greater distance from the U.S Gulf Coast refineries. The COVID-19 pandemic was among the factors that contributed to WTI crude oil prices’ tailspin in 2020. Why the interest in crude oil production and transport? The oil market isn’t the only factor that dictates crude oil production and its subsequent transport. Another is the vast oil reserves and the amount of investment already directed into crude oil production, as well as crude oil’s export prospects. According to the government of Alberta, the province’s oil sands represent the third-largest oil reserves in the world, following Venezuela and Saudi Arabia. Its reserves equal about 165.4 billion barrels, and capital investments to the upstream sector have equaled as much as $28.3 billion in 2016 and $26.5 billion in 2017. Furthermore, according to Natural Resources Canada, 98% of Canada’s crude oil exports in 2019 went to the U.S. Those investments and vast oil reserves have also resulted in significant investments in other areas of the energy sector, including investments in pipelines. The pipelines bring Canadian heavy crude south to U.S. refineries because American refineries were built and optimized to mostly handle heavier crude oil, according to Rob Benedict, senior director of petrochemicals, transportation and infrastructure for the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers Association. Crude oil pipelines from Canada to the U.S. have been viewed as an efficient way to transport large amounts of Canadian heavy crude oil to U.S. Gulf Coast refineries. TC Energy’s 1,210-mile Keystone XL pipeline would have had a capacity of 830,000 barrels per day with crude oil originating from Hardisty, Alberta, and heading to Steele City, Nebraska, where it would then be shipped to U.S. Gulf Coast refineries. Had construction continued, the pipeline would have entered service in 2023. But TC Energy abandoned the project after Biden revoked an existing presidential permit for the pipeline in January. “TC Energy will review the decision, assess its implications, and consider its options. However, as a result of the expected revocation of the Presidential Permit, advancement of the project will be suspended.The company will cease capitalizing costs, including interest during construction, effective January 20, 2021, being the date of the decision, and will evaluate the carrying value of its investment in the pipeline, net of project recoveries,” TC Energy said in a release last month. The Keystone XL pipeline “is an essential piece that would have allowed Canada and the U.S. to continue the very good relationship they have with transporting energy products across the border,” Benedict said. However, suspending pipeline construction doesn’t necessarily translate into a one-for-one increase in crude-by-rail volumes, according to Benedict. “The gist of the story is, it’s going to have some impact on crude-by-rail. It’s not going to shift all 830,000 barrels per day onto the rails, but any additional amount is potentially going to have some impact,” Benedict said. Several factors will influence how much crude moves by rail. In addition to the WCS/WTI price spread, the railways’ capacity to handle crude-by-rail is crucial. Not only are there speed restrictions for crude trains and possible social ramifications, there also capacity issues. The Canadian railways have reported record grain volumes over the past several months, and crude volumes must compete with grain, as well as other commodities, for the same rail track. There are also other pipelines between Canada and the U.S. that could take some of the volumes that would have been handled by the Keystone XL pipeline, Benedict said. Those include Endbridge’s (NYSE: ENB) Line 3 pipeline, which runs from Canada to Wisconsin; Endbridge’s Line 5 pipeline, which runs under the Strait of Mackinac and Lake Michigan to the Michigan Peninsula; and the Trans Mountain pipeline that’s under development in Canada. It would run from Alberta to the Canadian West Coast and then potentially south to U.S. refineries. And one other factor that could influence crude-by-rail is how much crude oil volumes go into storage, Benedict said. “It’s not just a simple question of, does one pipeline being shut down ship all to rail? It’s complex because you have to consider all the different nodes of the supply chain, including storage that would come into play,” Benedict said. The Canadian railways’ views on crude-by-rail For their part, Canadian Pacific (NYSE: CP) and CN (NYSE: CNI) have both said they expect to ship more crude volumes, but neither has indicated just how much volumes will grow. CP said during its fourth-quarter earnings call on Jan. 27 that it has been seeing increased activity as price spreads have become favorable. The railway also expects to begin moving crude volumes from a diluent recovery unit (DRU) near Hardisty, Alberta. US Development Group and Gibson Energy had agreed to construct and operate the DRU in December 2019. As part of that agreement, ConocoPhillips Canada will process the inlet bitumen blend from the DRU and ship it via CP and Kansas City Southern (NYSE: KSU) to the U.S. Gulf Coast. “These DRU volumes will provide a safer pipeline-competitive option for shippers and will help to stabilize our crude business into the future,” CP Chief Marketing Officer John Brooks said during the earnings call. CP President and CEO Keith Creel also said he sees U.S. actions on the Keystone pipeline as benefiting crude-by-rail and the DRU volumes. The actions “bode for more strength and more potential demand for crude. We think it creates more support for scaling up and expansion of the DRU. So, we’re bullish on that opportunity,” Creel said. He continued, “We still see the short-term, not long-term … pipeline capacity [eventually] catch up [but] we just think there is a longer tail on it right now. So, we think there’s going to be a space for some potential upside in both spaces.” Meanwhile, in a Jan. 27 interview with Bloomberg, CN President and CEO JJ Ruest called crude-by-rail a “question mark” in terms of what energy outlook the railway is seeing for 2021. Ruest said low oil prices, decreased travel and the Keystone pipeline cancellation are among the factors influencing CN’s energy outlook. However, crude-by-rail could be a “slight positive bump on the rail industry,” Bloomberg quoted Ruest as saying. CP and CN declined to comment further to FreightWaves about crude-by-rail, and CN directed FreightWaves to the Bloomberg article. Subscribe to FreightWaves’ e-newsletters and get the latest insights on freight right in your inbox. Click here for more FreightWaves articles by Joanna Marsh. Related articles: Social risk trumps financial risk for Canadian crude-by-rail Transport Canada issues new speed restrictions for trains hauling dangerous goods Construction of Alberta crude unit expected to start in April Commentary: Railroad tank cars take a hit See more from BenzingaClick here for options trades from BenzingaForward Air Doubles Down Amid Heightened Interest From ActivistsDrilling Deep: Reviewing Q4 Earnings; How Did Werner Do So Well?© 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.

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