2024-09-06 21:26

HOUSTON, Sept 6 (Reuters) - Federal regulators on Friday gave Venture Global LNG permission to begin preparations for the start-up of liquefied natural gas equipment at its Plaquemines export plant in Louisiana, taking a step closer to first LNG production for the facility, about 20 miles south of New Orleans. A tanker containing LNG has been docked at Plaquemines with a cargo of chilled gas since late August, according to Venture Global LNG and data from financial firm LSEG. The cargo is expected to be used to cool equipment for initial operations. Venture Global LNG has said it expects the first phase of the Plaquemines plant to begin LNG exports later this year. When in full operation, the up to 20 million tons per annum facility will become the second-largest single LNG facility in the U.S. Energy analysts and traders said last week that Venture Global would use that LNG as part of the plant's testing and commissioning process. LNG plants under construction, like Plaquemines, use super-cooled fuel to test and cool equipment in preparation for startup. In addition to the tanker holding LNG for the startup, another LNG vessel, the Venture Gator, according to data from LSEG, was anchored in the Mississippi River near Plaquemines. Analysts said it was likely that vessel, which was listed as available for orders, would go to Plaquemines. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/us-regulators-okay-first-step-start-plaquemines-lng-plant-louisiana-2024-09-06/

2024-09-06 21:24

NEW YORK, Sept 6 (Reuters) - Massachusetts and Rhode Island are moving ahead with three offshore wind projects totaling 2.9 gigawatts (GW), or enough electricity to power about 1.6 million homes, government officials announced on Friday. The project selections, following a joint solicitation in March for wind farms to be built off of New England's shores, move Massachusetts and Rhode Island closer to state renewable energy goals aimed at combating the effects of climate change. "We are taking an important step towards energy independence, cleaner air and transforming our economy," Governor Maura Healey said in a statement. The U.S. offshore wind industry has stabilized in the second half of 2024, after a disastrous pervious year that saw developers cancel multiple project contracts and take $9.1 billion in write-offs and impairments on abandoned projects. New England's newly selected offshore projects include SouthCoast Wind, New England Wind 1 and Vineyard Wind 2. Avangrid is behind New England Wind 1, Southcoast is backed by a joint venture between EDP Energias de Portugal (EDP.LS) , opens new tab and Engie (ENGIE.PA) , opens new tab and Vineyard Wind 2 is being developed by Vineyard Offshore, which is held by funds managed by Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners. The projects are expected to begin delivering power in around the end of the decade. Federal and state climate pledges have largely centered around decarbonizing electrical grids by replacing fossil-fired power with renewable wind and solar. Massachusetts aims to slash its power sector's carbon emissions by 50% by 2030 and 100% by 2050. The much smaller Rhode Island has set a goal to use all renewables by 2033. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/new-england-states-move-forward-with-three-giant-offshore-wind-farms-2024-09-06/

2024-09-06 20:35

NEW YORK, Sept 6 (Reuters) - A well-timed trade in GameStop's (GME.N) , opens new tab options reaped a handsome profit on Friday after an account associated with "Roaring Kitty," a stock influencer and longtime champion for the video game retailer, published a cryptic post on social media platform X. The post from "Roaring Kitty," whose real name is Keith Gill, showed an image from the 1999 film "Toy Story 2" altered to show a dog's face placed over one of the characters. This was the first post in more than two months from Gill, whose social media updates are eagerly followed by retail traders and often ignite a frenzy of activity in the shares and options of stocks he mentions. GameStop shares rose as much as 9% on the day on Friday following Gill's post. They later pared gains and were recently up 4% at $23.39. A trader appears to have bought about 10,000 GameStop Sept. 13 call options with a strike price of $22.5 for about $1.74 million, about 18 minutes before Gill's post which came at noon. About 20 minutes after the tweet, two blocks of these options, 5,000 contracts each, appear to have been sold for a total of about $2.29 million. With only about 4,300 of these contracts open prior to Friday, the position being closed was very likely the same one that had been opened minutes before, netting the trader about $550,000, or a gain of about 30%, according to Reuters calculations based on LSEG data. "That's a lot of short-dated calls just before a weekend, where you don't have a whole lot of time to expiration, so you need a quick move, which also makes it a little more egregious," said Brent Kochuba, founder of financial insights company, SpotGamma. "It's going to raise eyebrows, no doubt about that," he said. Gill did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In June, he published a picture of a puppy on social media platform X, sparking speculation that the post could be a reference to Chewy (CHWY.N) , opens new tab. The stock rose to a near one-year high following the post. A regulatory filing later showed Gill had bought a 6.6% stake in Chewy three days before his post. In July, investors in GameStop withdrew a lawsuit accusing Gill, who helped spur the meme stock mania of 2021, of defrauding them through a "pump-and-dump" scheme for the video game retailer. On Friday, Chewy shares were up 1.5% at $26.54 after recovering from a nearly 4% drop following Gill's post. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/business/well-timed-gamestop-options-trade-scores-550k-profit-after-roaring-kitty-post-2024-09-06/

2024-09-06 20:22

Fed's Waller says time has come to cut rates Broadcom tumbles after downbeat Q4 revenue forecast Losses in 'Magnificent Seven' pressure techs Indexes: Dow off 1.01%, S&P 500 down 1.73%, Nasdaq down 2.55% NEW YORK, Sept 6 (Reuters) - U.S. stocks fell on Friday, weighed down by a jobs report that showed a continued labor market slowdown but left traders uncertain about how far the Federal Reserve will go in cutting interest rates. All three main indexes were lower, with the 11 sectors of the benchmark S&P 500 (.SPX) , opens new tab losing ground led by declines in communication services (.SPLRCL) , opens new tab, consumer discretionary (.SPLRCD) , opens new tab and technology equities. The S&P 500 and the Dow had their biggest weekly drop since March 2023, with the Nasdaq registering its biggest weekly drop since January 2022. U.S. Labor Department data showed U.S. employers added 142,000 jobs in August, shy of analyst expectations, while jobs growth for July was revised down to 89,000, also below estimates. The report means Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell must cut rates later this month, but also suggests he may be too late for the economy to achieve a soft landing, said Lou Basenese, president and chief market strategist at MDB Capital in New York. "If we start seeing layoffs in the next month or two, it's going to suggest his timing was too late. Stocks are going to go down until next week when the Fed makes it definitive that they're cutting, which could put pressure on them to do 50 basis points versus 25 bps. I think 25 bps is all but guaranteed," Basenese said. Fed Governor Christopher Waller said on Friday "the time has come" for the U.S. central bank to begin a series of interest rate cuts, adding he is open-minded about the size and pace. Traders' bets for a 25-basis point rate cut in September stood at 73%, according to the CME Group's FedWatch Tool, while those for a 50-bps reduction in rates were at 27%, down from a brief rise to 51% after the report. "I still think the Fed is going to move 25 basis points," said Tony Roth, chief investment officer at Wilmington Trust in Radnor, Pennsylvania. "I don't think that the Fed is really ready at this point to push the panic button." The Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI) , opens new tab fell 410.34 points, or 1.01%, to 40,345.41, the S&P 500 (.SPX) , opens new tab lost 94.99 points, or 1.73%, to 5,408.42 and the Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC) , opens new tab lost 436.83 points, or 2.55%, to 16,690.83. Losses in leading megacap growth stocks dragged the indexes, including the so-called Magnificent Seven: Nvidia (NVDA.O) , opens new tab fell 4%, Tesla slumped 8.4%, Alphabet (GOOGL.O) , opens new tab lost 4%, Amazon (AMZN.O) , opens new tab shed 3.7%, Meta (META.O) , opens new tab declined 3.2%, Microsoft (MSFT.O) , opens new tab dropped 1.6%, and Apple (AAPL.O) , opens new tab weakened 0.70%. Broadcom (AVGO.O) , opens new tab sank 10.4% after the chipmaker forecast fourth-quarter revenue slightly below estimates, hurt by sluggish spending in its broadband segment. Other chip stocks were down. Marvell Technology (MRVL.O) , opens new tab fell 5.3% and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD.O) , opens new tab ended down 3.7%. The Philadelphia SE Semiconductor index (.SOX) , opens new tab finished lower by 4.5%. The semiconductor index logged its biggest weekly drop since March 2020. Super Micro Computer (SMCI.O) , opens new tab dropped 6.8%. J.P. Morgan analysts had downgraded AI server maker's shares to "neutral" from "overweight". Declining issues outnumbered advancers by a 3.08-to-1 ratio on the NYSE. On the Nasdaq, 1,006 stocks rose while 3,183 fell as declining issues outnumbered advancers by a 3.16-to-1 ratio. Total volume across U.S. exchanges was about 11.8 billion shares, up from a 20-day moving average of 10.7 billion shares. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/futures-drop-investors-brace-payrolls-data-2024-09-06/

2024-09-06 19:58

HOUSTON, Sept 6 (Reuters) - Fuel oil exports bound for the U.S. Gulf Coast slumped to their lowest level since January 2019 last month, a sign of weakened refinery demand as margins have softened, analysts said. Feedstocks like high sulfur fuel oil and other heavy residues can be refined into higher value products such as gasoline and diesel using secondary units. But loadings of those products to the Gulf Coast, America's largest refining hub, fell by a third in August from the prior month to 260,000 barrels per day (bpd), according to data from ship tracker Kpler, marking a more than five-year low. Cargoes departing Mexico for the Gulf Coast fell 25% month-over-month, hitting 77,000 bpd and their lowest level since July 2021, driving much of the decline, Kpler data showed. "On the demand side, refinery margins aren't strong enough to incentivize U.S. Gulf Coast refiners to run their secondary units harder to process this fuel oil," said Rohit Rathhod, a market analyst at energy researcher Vortexa. U.S. gasoline cracking margins - the spread between gasoline futures and West Texas Intermediate crude futures - typically narrows as the summer driving season draws to a close. Even so, that spread is currently at around $12 a barrel, roughly $10 a barrel below last year's levels. "We are seeing at least double digit percentage point reductions in secondary unit utilization, particularly on the East and Gulf Coast because of shrinking margins," said Rommel Oates, founder of refinery operations intelligence firm, Refinery Calculator. Refinery Calculator expects this trend to spread more broadly across other U.S. refineries over the next few months, weighing on August fuel oil loadings. Gulf and East Coast combined operating refining capacity accounted for just under 60% of total U.S. capacity as of June 2024, according to an analysis of the most recent data from the Energy Information Administration. ATTACKS HINDER FLOWS Fuel oil deliveries from east of Suez to the U.S. Gulf Coast also fell last month as ongoing attacks on vessels crossing the Red Sea continued to push shippers to divert around the horn of Africa, avoiding the faster Suez Canal route, according to Vortexa analysts. Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthi militia has been disrupting global shipping to display its support for Palestinians in the Gaza conflict, targeting vessels in the Red Sea. Two vessels carrying fuel oil, the AFRODITI and SEAMAJESTY, departed Iraq around two months ago for Louisiana and sailed around the Cape of Good Hope to avoid the Red Sea, contributing to a drop in U.S. Gulf Coast imports in August, said Vortexa's Rathod. "Red Sea attacks and the summer demand in the Middle East where they burn fuel oil for power generation definitely seem to have taken a toll on fuel oil imports into the U.S.," Rathod added. Saudi imports of fuel oil jumped to 385,000 bpd in August, Kpler data show, rising by a quarter on the month and by just over 40% on the year. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-gulf-coast-bound-fuel-oil-cargoes-hit-5-yr-low-refinery-demand-weakens-2024-09-06/

2024-09-06 19:49

SANTIAGO, Sept 6 (Reuters) - Slimy, green seaweed floats in water-filled beakers, buckets and bins in the University of Santiago's labs, algae which scientists in the Chilean capital are trying to turn into an efficient power source. Their field is biophotovoltaics, which uses a photosynthetic organism such as seaweed to convert light into electrical energy. The scientists spread the seaweed onto electrodes on biophotovoltaic panels, similar to the solar type. "Algae use light to oxidize water, and in the process they release electrons," said project leader Federico Tasca, adding that these can then be picked up in electric circuits, with the oxygen released in the process an added benefit. Similar projects before have used microalgae, which are single-celled organisms, while seaweed is a macroalga, or multicellular organism, Tasca said. "Macroalgae are more hardy, easier to work with, easier to harvest," Tasca said, while acknowledging that the process was still far from being energy efficient. "That's exactly what the investigation is about, it's about improving the efficiency of producing electricity," he said. Seaweed could be used in some cases where alternatives were not available. "It's a good system to feed energy to a light bulb, to light up some LEDs," he said. Algae are still under-researched, said Alejandra Moenne, who heads the University of Santiago's marine biology department. "I've always said that algae are like a treasure chest buried at sea. They're full of genes and molecules that we still don't know enough about, which could even be used for medicinal purposes one day," said Moenne. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/electric-seaweed-fuels-pursuit-algae-power-chile-2024-09-06/