🔹China’s 🇨🇳 holdings of US 🇺🇸 Treasuries fell from US$1.003 trillion in April to US$980.8 billion in May, the lowest since 2010. A desire by Beijing to avoid “the risk of possible conflict” with Washington could have contributed to China cutting its holding of US government debt to below US$1 trillion for the first time in over 12 years.

🔹Hong Kong 🇭🇰 also slashed its holdings from US$195.4 billion in May to US$186.6 billion last month. China’s current holding of US Treasuries represents around a 25 per cent retreat from its peak of US$1.32 trillion in November 2013 and a 10.4 per cent fall since Joe Biden took over as US president in January 2021.

🔹Chinese junk dollar bonds 💵 are on the brink of a record low, as the nation’s property crisis deepens with pain spreading from developers to suppliers and banks.

🔹Netherlands 🇳🇱 - The Dutch port of Rotterdam on July 21 announced that it will halt container transport to and from Russia 🇷🇺 adhering to the sanctions imposed by the EU 🇪🇺. Port website states - "In anticipation of the sanctions on coal and oil, less Russian coal, crude oil, oil products and LNG were imported 🚢 in recent months. Companies are increasingly importing from other countries,".

🔹Reuters reported the port’s ⚓️ throughput dropped by 1.5% in the first half of this year amid the conflict in Ukraine and the sanctions. The report said in 2021 30% of all oil 🛢coming to Rotterdam was from Russia, while Russian gas made up 25% of all imports, and coal 20%.

🔹EU 🇪🇺 prevents action against Russian 🇷🇺metals company VSMPO-Avisma PJSC at the last minute, EU diplomats said, after France 🇫🇷 and other member states objected to sanctions over fears of a potential retaliatory ban by Russia on titanium exports to the bloc. The company is a critical supplier of titanium to ✈️ Airbus SE, headquartered in France.

🔹Europe has lost about half of its zinc and aluminum smelting capacity 🔥within the past year, and a further surge in power prices 📈 could knock more plants offline. The aluminum and zinc ⛏ industries aren’t major direct users of gas, but the vast amounts of power that smelters consume has left them at the sharp end of Europe’s crisis.

🔹A deal to unblock much-awaited grain 🌾 exports from Ukraine was signed at the 🇺🇳 UN-brokered talks in Istanbul, Turkey. Under the terms of the deal, representatives of Ukraine, 🇺🇦 Russia 🇷🇺, the UN, and Turkey 🇹🇷 agreed to open a joint coordination center in the Turkish capital to oversee shipments from Ukraine, and to maintain safe transit routes for these shipments across the Black Sea.

🔹Though Ukraine has mined 💣 the waters near the ports, there is no further need for de-mining. Rather, Ukrainian pilots will guide the ships 🚢 along safe channels in its territorial waters, with a minesweeper vessel on hand as needed but no military escorts. Monitored by the JCC, the ships then transit the Black Sea to Turkey’s Bosphorus Strait and off to world markets. 🚢

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🔹Warm welcome yesterday in Cairo, Egypt 🇪🇬 for Russia's FM Sergey Lavrov as representatives of 22 nations on the Arab League Council (AL) line up to greet him.

🔹AL Secretary General Ahmed Abul Gheit held a session of talks with visiting 🇷🇺 Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on ways of fostering Arab-Russian ties and the latest regional and international developments of common concern.

🔹In remarks in front of the AL, the top Russian diplomat greatly appreciated what he called "a balanced, just and responsible stance" of the league’s member states regarding the Ukrainian crisis.

✳️ NB There are unconfirmed reports that the US State Department told the AL representatives not to take photos with Russia's FM, as it would be 'bad PR'. 😂

Special post for subscribers who are gold and silver 🪙 bugs:

🔹Update to story circulating of a Texas, 🇺🇸 female, billionaire who has purchased a large amount of Silver Eagles, (update) 👉and intends to buy more. Coin dealer Andy Schechtman of Miles Franklin Precious Metals reportedly filled her order. Therefore this order could be a legit explanation for the premium stickiness 📈 over the last several months.

🔹If and when fiat money 💵 suddenly becomes useless, precious metals still have something of value to trade for supplies. 💰Silver is one of the more popular choices for this purpose.

🔹Silver is tied at the hip to copper more and more, especially with a war showing the vulnerability in economies. The combination of recession fears in the US, failed reflation fears in China, drove CTAs to sell silver more aggressively along with Copper. They initiated shorts in copper and silver for months and finally broke them along with a lack of 🇨🇳 Chinese buying.

🔹Gazprom 🇷🇺 will stop the operation of a second Siemens turbine. As a result, supply through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline 🔥 will not exceed 33 million cubic meters per day from July 27, corresponding to 20% of the pipeline's capacity.

🔹Several of the nine turbines at the 🇷🇺🇫🇮 Portovaya compressor station are in need of repair. Gazprom has not yet authorised further repairs, and the last turbine took about three months to overhaul.

🔹If Russian gas flows through the Nord Stream pipeline remain low, Germany 🇩🇪 will not be able to fill the reservoirs to 95% in November, ⛄️❄️ as targeted by the government. Europe's TTF gas contracts spiked today as a result.

💠 My take- It seems clear now that Gazprom is not taking any chances so as to ensure safety of it's equipment. They seem uneasy, even paranoid after 🇩🇪 Siemens delayed technical and legal documents from 🇨🇦 Canada to verify that the last turbine was serviced as contractually agreed. Does Gazprom fear tampering/sabotage of their turbines?

🔹The price of natural gas in Europe has climbed to its highest level since March 📈 amid fears of a further reduction in Russian 🇷🇺 supplies. It comes after it was announced that another turbine, used by the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, will be shut down.

🔹August futures on the TTF trading hub in the Netherlands 🇳🇱 reached $2,020 per thousand cubic meters or €188.68 ($192.5) per megawatt-hour💡in household terms. European NatGas 1m forward is trading at a massive $48 spread over front-month US 🇺🇸 NatGas futures - almost 5x its historical peak. Basing the pricing of EU natural gas in terms of 🛢 barrels-of-oil equivalent, it is trading at $333. - (Photo)

🔹The EU Commission 🇪🇺 is discussing plans to get emergency powers that would allow it to impose block-wide gas rationing from August to May. (Communism through the back-door?)🤔

Wheat 🌾 update this week:
🔹US- 🇺🇸 North Dakota: Spring wheat crop in good shape, but behind normal pace. Eastern Montana soil moisture profiles were extremely lacking during planting, and the region has struggled with drought ☀️ conditions through the growing season.

🔹Wheat prices in India 🇮🇳 have risen about 14% in the past 1.5 months, due to high demand from millers.

🔹Kazakhstan's 🇰🇿 wheat harvest in 2022 will be 15%-20% above last year's level at 13-13.5 million tonnes.

🔹Lebanese 🇱🇧 lawmakers have voted to use a $150 million World Bank loan to import wheat for its cash-strapped country.

🔹African 🇨🇬 countries tries wheat import substitution using sweet potato and cassava flour.

🔹 India - 🇮🇳Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Gujarat International Finance Tec-City on July 29 in Gandhinagar, where he will launch several initiatives including the country’s first international bullion exchange.

🔹 The India International Bullion 🪙 Exchange (IIBX), which will facilitate efficient price discovery with the assurance of responsible sourcing and quality, apart from giving impetus to the financialisation of gold in India. This also re-enforces the commitment of the Government of India towards enabling India to be able to influence global bullion prices as a principal consumer,".

🔹 Meanwhile, Zimbabwe 🇿🇼 has launched gold coins 💰to be sold to the public in a bid to tame runaway inflation that has further eroded the country’s unstable currency. Trust in Zimbabwe’s currency is low after people saw their savings wiped out by hyperinflation in 2008.

🔹Cards of the 🇷🇺 Mir payment system have started being accepted in South Korea. 🇰🇷

🔹Iran and Russia working on introduction of Mir payment system in Iran 🇮🇷.

🔹Syria 🇸🇾 considers important to be connected to Russia’s Mir payment system in the environment of the West’s sanction policy.

🔹Desperate for Russian tourists, Cuba 🇨🇺 starts accepting Mir cards.

🔹Russia invites Sri Lanka 🇱🇰 to recognise Mir payment system to boost Russian tourist arrivals. ✈️

🔹The record-high release of crude oil from the U.S. 🇺🇸Strategic Petroleum Reserve will end as scheduled this fall. A total of 180 million barrels of crude 🛢was planned for release. US announced steps to repurchase oil for the SPR “in future years, likely after FY2023.

🔹Libya, 🇱🇾 plagued by port blockades and protests at oil facilities in recent months, has now managed to raise its oil production to 1.1 million barrels per day.

🔹Iran's 🇮🇷 revenues 💰 from exports of oil and condensate surged by 580% during the first four months of the current Iranian year that begins on March 21.

🔹China 🇨🇳 Evergrande CEO and chief financial officer have resigned after preliminary results of an investigation found the two were involved in diverting loans.

🔹China’s Banking regulator may intervene into the ongoing mortgage boycott and give affected homebuyers 🏠 a mortgage holiday without penalties.

🔹New report claims that China's State Council had passed a $44.4 billion bailout plan 💵aimed at certain Chinese property developers.

Video - An intermediary in China's housing market explains the complicated web of China's housing bubble.

🔹Dutch 🇳🇱 farmers dumped manure and set fire hay on fire along major highways yesterday, prompting traffic jams 🚜 in central and eastern parts of the Netherlands, in protest over government plans to reduce fertilizer use and livestock numbers.

🔹A police spokesman said that it would be difficult to ascertain who exactly left the manure or other waste on the highways and that the ministry for public works would be responsible for clearing the roads.

🔹 The direct action has reportedly received some support from drivers, 🚗 with an on the scene reporter for RTV Oos claiming: “Some raise their thumbs. 👍 You see sympathy for the actions, but others shake their heads, because it does cause a lot of delay.”

🔹 Belarus 🇧🇾 plans to increase food exports 📈 up to $7.8 billion by the end of the year. “The Russian Federation remains our main market: it accounts for about 70% of our food exports. We are planning to increase this percentage by the end of the year since the price factor is very good. The CIS countries account for about 10% of the Belarusian total food 🌾 exports,”. There has been a significant growth in the exports to other countries – up almost 67%.

🔹 Belarus refuses to go along with the 'climate change' agenda and face western sanctions on their industries (Russia 🇷🇺 and Belarus 🇧🇾 are the world's top #2 &#3 potash fertilizer producers), yet have growing food production. The Russian/Belarussian 🥛diary market is highly integrated and there are talks of making it more "free-market" for both raw and end-products.

Video - President of Belarus warns of coming food crisis if the western sanctions on grains continue.

🔹Nuclear energy 🏭 is becoming more popular this year because other energy sources are getting more expensive. Fossil fuels 🛢 are going up in price, and renewable energy isn’t producing enough electricity 🔋to make up the difference.

🔹China 🇨🇳 has built the world's first waterless reactor, which generates electricity 🔌 in the desert and is extremely safe. This kind of water-free nuclear reactor is called molten salt reactor (usually abbreviated as MSR). Unlike conventional nuclear power plants driven by solid fuel rods, its coolant and fuel are molten salt mixed.

🔹The US 🇺🇸 has the largest fleet of nuclear power plants in the world (93 nuclear reactors with an installed capacity of 95 GW, which generate 20% of US electricity). 💡95% of uranium for commercial needs is imported to the States.

India - 🇮🇳 Within Rajasthan’s Sikar district, the government is considering establishing up an exploratory mining centre where over 14,000 tonnes of uranium ore deposits have been discovered.

🔹Australian 🇦🇺 consumer price inflation sped to a 21-year 📈 high last quarter and is likely to accelerate even further as food and energy costs explode, stoking speculation interest rates will need to more than double to bring the outbreak under control. The annual CPI picked up to 6.1% from 5.1%, the highest since 2001 and more than twice the pace of wage growth.

🔹Australian PM has urged Beijing 🇨🇳 to lift import restrictions on coal and other imports from Australia. The import restrictions on Australian coal, ⛏ barley 🌾 and wine 🍷 into China have been in place since 2020.

🔹Australia is the world’s largest exporter of coal 🚢 as measured by energy and the second largest exporter as measured by tonnes. Including gas, Australia is about the world’s third largest exporter of thermal energy behind Russia 🇷🇺 and Saudi Arabia 🇸🇦 and ahead of Indonesia 🇮🇩.

🔹London's 🇬🇧 High Court has rejected President Nicolas Maduro's latest efforts to gain control of more than $1 billion of 🇻🇪 Venezuela's gold reserves stored in the Bank of England's underground vaults in London. It marked the latest victory for Guaido, who has won a series of legal clashes over the bullion after the British gov't recognised him as Venezuela's president.

🔹Iran 🇮🇷 is increasing supplies of a key 🛢 crude grade that Venezuela is using to boost its aging refineries' 🏭 productivity and free domestic oil for exports. Both, in the past have swapped Venezuelan 🇻🇪 heavy oil & other commodities for Iranian gasoline, condensate, refinery parts & technical support.

🔹Venezuela 🇻🇪 has agreed to provide Iran with one million hectares of agricultural land 🚜for food 🌾 growing projects. the biggest advantage of overseas cultivation for Iran 🇮🇷 is the preservation of its valuable water 💧resources. Iran’s agriculture uses about 85% of all available water resources. (Video from last month).

🔹Germany's 🇩🇪 BASF, the world's largest chemical company, is cutting ammonia (NH3) production further due to soaring natural gas 🔥prices. Germany's biggest NH3 maker SKW Piesteritz and number four Ineos also said they could not rule out production cuts.

🔹NH3 plays a key role in the manufacturing 🏭 of fertiliser, engineering plastics and diesel exhaust fluid. Its production also yields high-purity carbon dioxide (CO2) as a byproduct, which is needed by the meat and fizzy drinks industries.

🔹US 🇺🇸 farmers 🚜 face high input fertilizer costs and face lower profit margins unless harvests fetch higher prices. Farmers without large capital available may have to scale down. Western sanctions on Russia 🇷🇺 and Belarus 🇧🇾 prevent these 2 major fertilizer exporting countries from easing prices on world markets. The sanctions also cut Russia's natural gas export as feedstock to NH3 producers.

🔹 Russian 🇷🇺 gas giant Gazprom says that it has stopped deliveries to Latvia due to “violations of the terms of gas extraction.” Latvia's 🇱🇹 contractual breach is likely connected with Moscow's demand of payments in rubles. Latvia's gas company chairman, is reported to admit buying Russian natural gas 🔥 even after refusing to pay in rubles.

🔹The Latvian natural gas system is interconnected with transmission networks located in Lithuania, Estonia and Russia. Latvia's Inčukalns Underground Gas Storage (UGS) facility (shown in photo) was 49.04% full a week ago.

🔹The NordStream1 pipeline to Germany 🇩🇪 (photo) is flowing at 20% capacity due to Gazprom being restricted to service their gas turbines under normal timelines due to western sanctions. Denmark was the most recent of 5 countries failing to pay for gas in rubles.

Countries cut off from Russian 🇷🇺 gas for failure to pay in rubles so far:
❌ Bulgaria 🇧🇬
❌ Poland 🇵🇱
❌ Finland 🇫🇮
❌ The Netherlands 🇳🇱
❌ Denmark 🇩🇰
❌ Latvia 🇱🇹