🔹The US 🇺🇸 is also reportedly planning to ban the exports of U.S. chipmaking equipment that produces advanced NAND chips to major Chinese 🇨🇳 chipmakers. In late July, the United States expanded its bans on exports 🚢 to China of equipment that can make semiconductors up to 14 nanometers in size.

🔹The US 🇺🇸 Chips and Science Bill aimed at boosting domestic semiconductor production was signed into law.

Background:
💠South Korea 🇰🇷 attempts to assure China 🇨🇳 on supply chain amid US pressuring over exclusive ‘chip alliance’. Concerns remain over neon gas supply chains for semiconductors.

💠Taiwan 🇹🇼 Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, TSMC manufactures 92% of the advanced semiconductors necessary for...

🔹Norway 🇳🇴 on announces that due to an 'uncertain and demanding situation' over sky-high electricity prices 📈 - caused by low water levels at hydroelectric stations, as well as the "dramatic situation in Europe", the government will be limiting electricity 💡exports "when the water level in the reservoirs drops to very low levels."

🔹Norway has notably been referred to as the "battery 🔋 of Europe" thanks to its ability to generate and export massive quantities of hydroelectric power. So far this year, far less electricity (11.6 TWh) has been produced in southern Norway than at the same time last year - 18% less.

🔹In April, The Norwegian 🇳🇴 government were facing increasing calls to curb electricity 🔌 exports to Europe as power prices jumped at home.

Photo: NO2 region (Top Left) in the south of Norway, which is connected to mainland Europe by several interconnectors. Here reserves are record low. NO4 region (Top Right) in the north of Norway are good.

🔹The pro-Russian 🇷🇺 hacker group Killnet took down the website of the American 🇺🇸 arms manufacturer Lockheed Martin. Earlier today, the official web resource of the corporation does not open, giving a 504 error.

🔹Systems that stopped working as a result of the attack, include an authorization system for Lockheed Martin employees. Lockheed manufactures and delivers HIMARS MLRS and Javelin anti-tank systems to Ukraine.

🔹Earlier this week in the US 🇺🇸 - Lockheed Martin has delivered more than 800 F-35 fighter jets 🛩, but production is still marred by excessive defects and rework that risk substantial delivery delays and reduced readiness.

🔹The Reserve Bank of Australia 🇦🇺 will trial a digital currency in a “ring-fenced” pilot program as part of a year-long collaborative research project into how it could be used by consumers and businesses. A pilot digital currency would be used that had a real claim on the Reserve Bank 🏦.

🔹CBDCs, much like all blockchain based currency 💵 mechanisms, are inherently devoid of privacy. By it's very design, blockchain tech requires a ledger of transactions than can be tracked by governments if they so choose. With the advent of widespread CBDCs the very notion of privacy in trade would utterly disappear from society within a generation.

Background:

💠 Bank for International Settlements (BIS) 🇨🇭report on CBDC interoperability.
💠 Catherine Austin Fitts- CBDC's are a foundational building block of tyranny.

Video- UK Maajid Nawaz warns of gov't control through CBDC's.

🔹 Germany - 🇩🇪 Water levels 💧on the Rhine River are nearing dangerously low levels, and new forecasts expect Europe's most critical waterway for inland commodity shipments 🚢 via barges could be impassable by the end of the week. (Photo - Top commodities 🛢 🌾 ⛏ shipped via barge on the river.)

Background:

💠 Freight shipping on the river continues but with vessels 🚢 sometimes forced to sail 75% empty.
💠 German 🇩🇪 companies faced supply bottlenecks and production problems in 2018 for this situation.
💠 This is preventing at least two power plants in Germany from getting all the coal they need.

🔹Russia 🇷🇺 is expected to resume oil exports to Europe 🇪🇺 via Ukraine today, after transit was halted by Ukraine’s 🇺🇦 Ukrtransnafta, earlier this month. The payment Transneft had made to Ukraine’s Ukrtransnafta on July 22 for the transit fees for August didn’t process due to unclear banking regulations from sanctions.

🔹Slovakia’s 🇸🇰 Slovnaft and Hungary’s 🇭🇺 MOL paid Ukraine the transit fees 💵 for August for the Ukrainian section of the Druzhba pipeline as a temporary solution.

🔹Druzhba, which is one of the longest pipeline networks in the world, carries crude 🛢 some 4,000km from the eastern part of European Russia to refineries in the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia.Russia normally supplies about 250,000 barrels of oil per day via the southern leg of the route.

🔹USA 🇺🇸 - Fire 🔥 destroys historic flour mill in eastern Oregon. The Pendleton Fire Dep't 🚒 responded to a report of visible black smoke and quickly extinguished a small fire. Officials say the fire reignited around 4 a.m. Wednesday and the building was soon fully engulfed. Grain Craft officials said 🚑 no injuries have been reported.

🔹The Pendleton Flour Mills is owned by Grain Craft, which is the largest independent flour 🌾 milling company in the country 🇺🇸. "Although the building is a total loss, this will be an ongoing emergent situation due to the amount of grain that is [slowly] burning,".

Recent Related News:

💠 Disruptions to US 🇺🇸 food security from fires 🔥 in June at multiple food processing plants and in May. Also in May, a fire 🔥 at Purdue Farms facility in Virginia.

💠 Grain Storage facility in Prosser, Washington, burnt 🔥 down.

Video: Pendleton Fire Dep't social media account

🔹German 🇩🇪 Vice Chancellor announced that public buildings across the country won't be allowed to set heating 🌡 above 19 deg. C (66.2F) this fall. Germany's grid regulator, Klaus Mueller, said that German families would need to cut 20% of their normal energy consumption in order to avoid gas shortages by December.

🔹Germany's 🇩🇪 incoming gas price levy, which is meant to distribute the high costs of replacing Russian gas among all end-consumers from October, has been set at 2.419 💶 euro cents per kilowatt hour💡(kWh). The levy, planned by the German cabinet in a bid to help Uniper and other importers cope with soaring prices 📈.

🔹Salzgitter AG, Germany's second-largest steelmaker, 🔥 is in talks with regulators in a bid to secure exemption from potential gas rationing. Salzgitter makes the pipes needed to connect two planned LNG terminals with the national grid.

🔹Idaho, USA 🇺🇸 - A previous year's potato 🥔 crop cycle is supposed to last through the following August. And before the 2022 harvest comes into the pipeline (it’s just now beginning), consumers are facing the shortage from last year's crop. ”There is not a gap. There are just less potatoes being shipped right now than there normally are this time of year because of the shorter supply that we started the season with,”.

🔹Shippers 🚛 are running low on fresh Idaho potatoes 🥔 statewide and it will take careful planning over the next few weeks to make sure fresh spuds remain on grocery store shelves nationwide. Until this year’s crop is harvested and new shipments begin, shippers are under the gun to keep supply chain issues to a minimum.

🔹“Consumers 🍟 might not notice anything,”. As far as the 2022 potato crop, potato acreage is down 8%, to about 290,000 acres, but better growing conditions should increase yields 🌱.

🔹France 🇫🇷 is contending with its worst nuclear 🏭 outages in decades, putting it at greater risk of blackouts 🔌 this winter. Water levels have plunged in reservoirs and rivers, making it hard to generate hydropower, transport coal and cool nuclear plants, while reducing the efficiency of gas power plants.

🔹In France, 🇫🇷 the state plans to fully nationalize 🔋 Electricite de France SA, the embattled nuclear power utility. Benchmark Dutch gas futures 🔥 for next month extended last week’s gain, 📈 climbing as much as 4.2% in Amsterdam. The price has more than doubled since June.

Recent news -
💠 French 🇫🇷 utility Electricite de France 💡reported that nuclear power stations on the Rhone and Garonne rivers will reduce power generation 🏭 because of increasing water temperatures used for cooling.

🔹Germany 🇩🇪- Many farmers besiege with tractors 🚜🚜🚜 the Bonn Ministry of Agriculture. German farmers revolt against EU climate change policies and the agenda behind them, which, if carried out, will surely bring the agricultural 🌾 industry to its knees.

Background:
💠 German 🇩🇪 farmers have been protesting 🔥 draconian climate change policies against them in the name of curbing nitrates in groundwater.

💠 There is a blackout of farmers 🚜 protests in European corporate media.

💠 German 🇩🇪 farmers have been standing in solidarity with Dutch 🇳🇱 farmers after the Netherlands plan to cut farmers nitrogen emissions.

🔹Water levels on Germany's 🇩🇪 Rhine River continued to decline today, hitting a new threshold. Top companies exposed to falling water levels that would disrupt barge traffic, 🚢 implying they would have to resort to trucks 🚛 or rail 🚂 to transport goods.

🔹Kaub's reading is just 6 centimeters (2.4 inches) from 2018's record low of 25 centimeters (9.9 inches), which then caused the waterway to close.

Background:
💠 Five days ago a warning ⚠️ was issued of the effects of lower levels.
💠 Freight shipping on the river continues but with vessels 🚢 sometimes forced to sail 75% empty.

💠 German 🇩🇪 companies faced supply bottlenecks and production problems in 2018 for this situation.

💠 This is preventing at least two power 🏭 plants in Germany from getting all the coal they need.

🔹Gold coins 💰used as currency in Zimbabwe 🇿🇼 will soon be available in smaller denominations, the central bank says. Sky-rocketing inflation 📈saw people rushing to cash in their Zimbabwean dollars for US dollars, to stop their savings losing value.

🔹This led to a shortage of US 💵 currency and drove up exchange rates, so the central bank reacted by halting loans. But it soon changed tack, and last month issued gold coins worth US$1,800 instead, to ease demand for US dollars.

🔹Inflation topped 256% in July - and the local currency tumbled in worth from Z$108.66 to US$1 at the start of the year, to 🇿🇼 Z$481.85 to US$1 in August. Banks have sold 4,475 of the one-ounce coins 🪙 so far, with 90% having been purchased with local currency.

🔹The Lithuanian 🇱🇹 Siauliai Bank that facilitates cargo transit payments between mainland Russia 🇷🇺 and its exclave of Kaliningrad went through with an earlier announced decision to stop operations in Russian rubles.

🔹The lender is also planning to completely cease operations with Russia 🇷🇺 and Belarus 🇧🇾 in any currency starting in September. Russia’s state rail operator, Russian Railways, 🚅 said today that it continues to successfully settle with Lithuania 🇱🇹 payments for transit to Kaliningrad but that these settlements are not made in rubles.

Background:
💠 Lithuania 🇱🇹 recently attempted to block Russian 🇷🇺 goods to Kaliningrad via rail citing EU 🇪🇺 sanctions. This action violated existing agreements and was reversed.

🔹China’s 🇨🇳 daily coal ⛏ output in July grew 16% year-on-year on growing energy demand. Overall production in July amounted to 372.66 million tons, or 12.02 million tons per day. China’s power 🔋 generation surged 4.5% year-on-year to 805.9 billion kilowatt-hours 💡. Analysts attribute the increase in power demand to high temperatures, 🌡 which has led to an increased use of air conditioning.

🔹South Africa’s 🇿🇦 coal sales to Europe 🇪🇺 have surged following an increase in demand for fossil fuel amid sanctions on Russia. Thungela Resources reported that its half-year profits were 20-times higher 📈 than the year before. South Africa's coal sales to Europe have risen eight-fold. 📈

🔹Australian 🇦🇺 mining firm BHP revealed that its profits jumped nearly 40% 📈 in the past year despite falling iron ore prices, bolstered by unprecedented demand for coal and copper.

🔹European power 💡prices surged to a record high for a fifth straight day. German 🇩🇪 baseload year-ahead power 🔋prices topped 500 euros today — up almost 500% from a year earlier.

🔹Dutch TTF natural gas futures, 🔥 were up almost 8% 📈 today to 237.50 euros a megawatt hour, their highest level since early March. Gas prices in 🇪🇺 Europe were above $2,600 per 1,000 cubic meters earlier today.

Background:
💠 Natural gas flows via Nord Stream 1 to Germany 🇩🇪 remains @ 20% capacity due to failure by Siemens Germany to service and return gas turbine to Russia's 🇷🇺 Gazprom.

💠 Norway 🇳🇴 will limit electricity 🔌 exports to Europe due to low water levels at hydroelectric power stations.

💠 France 🇫🇷 continues to face restrictions on nuclear 🏭 and hydroelectric power 🔋generation.

💠 Germany 🇩🇪 has moved to the second stage of a three-tier emergency gas plan.

💠 Low water levels on Germany's 🇩🇪 Rhine River continues to prohibit full cargo of coal ⛏ transported to coal power plants.

🔹UK’s 🇬🇧 inflation rate 📈 rose to a new 40-year high of 10.1% in July. It is only the fourth time in 70 years that inflation has breached the 10% threshold.

🔹The biggest increases came for bread 🍞and cereals, dairy, meat and vegetables, with the rising cost of food leading to record increases for restaurant and hotel prices. Price rose for other staple items such as pet food, toilet rolls, toothbrushes and deodorants.

🔹Annual energy 💡bills in Great Britain 🇬🇧 are forecast to rise to more than £3,500 from October, with a further jump to more than £4,200 in January expected, up from a current level of just under £2,000.

Related UK developments:
💠 Britain's 🇬🇧 cap on domestic energy prices is expected to rise by 70% in October.

💠 Dockers at England's Felixstowe (8th-largest container 🚢 port in Europe.) ⚓️ are planning eight days of strike action over pay.

💠 Thames Water may have shut down an emergency ☀️ drought plant (desalination plant in Beckton, east London) to save on power costs.

🔹OPEC Secretary-General Haitham Al-Ghais - "We are running on thin ice, because spare crude 🛢 capacity is becoming scarce. The likelihood of a squeeze is there". Saudi Arabia's 🇸🇦 production stands around 10.5 million bpd and has a production capacity ceiling of 12 million bpd.

🔹Saudi 🇸🇦 Aramco reported a net profit of $48.4 billion for the Q2 of the year, a record figure and a 90% increase on the year thanks to stronger oil prices.

🔹Exports of crude oil 🛢and condensates from Latin America, excluding Venezuela 🇻🇪, have fallen by 700,000 barrels per day to 3.1 million barrels per day in August compared to high levels in July, as more crude is being used by domestic refineries.

🔹Switzerland 🇨🇭might have to resort to using oil for electricity generation this winter as Europe faces low Russian 🇷🇺 natural gas supply. Major energy-intensive industries in France 🇫🇷are looking to convert gas boilers to run on oil 🛢.

🔹Russia 🇷🇺 proposes a new international standard for trading in precious metals: the Moscow World Standard (MWS) which will become an alternative to the London 🇬🇧 Bullion Market Association (LBMA) known to manipulate precious metals markets to depress prices.

🔹The Russian Finance Ministry, precious metals 🪙 prices will be fixed either in the national currencies of key member-countries or using new monetary units used in international trade—for instance, the new BRICS 🇧🇷🇷🇺🇮🇳🇨🇳🇿🇦 currency proposed by Putin.

🔹It aims to swiftly destroy the monopoly of LBMA and to provide for stable development of the precious metals sector. In essence, Russia 🇷🇺 proposes to create a market for gold, platinum, etc., which will be regulated by countries that control the resources for these metals.

💠Maneco64 talks on this today - link

💠My article from April 9th mentioned the moves to bring down the LBMA. - link

🔹Arizona and Nevada 🇺🇸 face deeper cuts on the amount of water they can draw from the drought ☀️-stricken Colorado River. Under new conservation efforts, 21% of Arizona's annual water allocation from the river system will be reduced in 2023. Nevada will see 8% of water deliveries reduced, and Mexico's share will be cut by 7%.

🔹Lake Mead supplies drinking water 💧and agricultural irrigation to 20 million people across seven states. It also generates hydroelectric 🔋power via water flowing back into the Colorado River via the Hoover Dam.

🔹For the Hoover Dam, 🔋 950 feet is the lowest water elevation at which the lake can produce power. It's currently at 1040 feet. Arizona is allocated nearly 19% of the energy 🔌 generated at Hoover Dam.

🔹Germany 🇩🇪- Shell slashed its refinery output at its Shell Energy and Chemicals Park Rheinland fuel-making facility as low Rhine River levels halted the 🚢 flow of goods. Shell did not reveal how much of the refinery’s capacity had been cut. It is capable of processing 345,000 barrels of crude oil per day.

🔹Switzerland 🇨🇭will further tap its strategic fuel stocks as imports along the River Rhine to the land-locked country have almost come to a standstill. The government will release another 490,000 cubic meters -- about 3 million barrels 🛢-- of fuel until the end of September.

Background:
💠 Warnings ⚠️ of Rhine low levels have been recently issued.

💠 Freight shipping on the river continues but with vessels 🚢 sometimes forced to sail 75% empty.

💠 German 🇩🇪 companies faced supply bottlenecks and production problems in 2018 for this situation.

💠 This is preventing at least two power 🏭 plants in Germany from getting all the coal they need.