Changes to the order of Gangland

The changes to the order of gangland brought about by Pax Mexicana is now well advanced in the DR, The Bahamas, Jamaica and most graphically in Guyana with T&T now showing the early signs of the reactions within gangland to the pressure applied by the Order of Pax Mexicana. The dominant Order demands the maximisation of wealth generation through illicit trade and all and sundry acts of groups/individuals must enhance wealth generation and maximisation rather than harm and hinder the business. Killing for the sake of killing, because someone disrespect you or looking to move in on a woman you consider as yours, because someone from an enemy area, simply because somebody mash your Jordans and because you simply like to kill is not tolerated in the Order of Pax Mexicana as its bad for business. What use are you to Pax Mexicana locked up in a small piece of geography because if you leave it you expect shots to shower you? Those in gangland who are locked in this cycle and refuse to end it and embrace the Order are then excluded, rejected and marginalised because Pax Mexicana does not sell its products to those who are not under the rule of the Order. Only gangland affiliates have access to the illicit products and the  trade those excluded face marginalisation from the trade in reality they have few choices. They either go to war with the Order, seek other sources of supply which are not secure and pay more or go into new businesses such as mobbing and robbing, murder and mayhem. some have tried war against the Order but they soon lost their heads most have chosen the mayhem, murder, mobbing and robbing. We are now seeing then various reactions to the Order in T&T but one strategy must be understood where you unleash a wave of murder and mayhem to force the politicians to come to you and make deals run some projects, run some make work hustles so those faced with retrenchment by the Order can now feed off the state and in return there is the hope the violence becomes acceptable but it never will because the level of retrenchment is placing a lifestyle under the threat of extinction via permanent job loss. Those who feed off the state will have to defend the food supply with violence as those excluded must eat. T&T’s journey through this new landscape is now beginning and the ride will be long and violent. Pax Mexicana!!!

T&T’s national secret: the LNG business

The LNG business in T&T is wrapped in secrecy as if it’s a covert dark op. You learn more about the LNG business in T&T from sources external of T&T than from where the business operates from so much for transparency in a democracy. At this time in the history of T&T where the energy paradigm that fashioned our entire economy and consumption patterns is in its death throes as a new energy paradigm sweeps the world we continue to be inundated with propaganda and blissful silence. The business guardian of January 10, 2016 printed an article titled “Atlantic confident about LNG’s future” which again is another instance of the play on the people of T&T. Who says Atlantic’s future is our future? A globalised transnational seeks its own interests and when those interests and T&T’s collide will they supplant theirs for ours? Like duh neo-liberal capitalism is not a charity. What the article didn’t tell us even though Atlantic said it before is that Atlantic says it cannot speak for Train 4 as it’s governed by a different structure where Atlantic is just a processor of gas to LNG supplied by companies and the LNG belongs to the supplier of gas not Atlantic therefore Atlantic cannot sell it internationally. So when Atlantic chooses to speak locally we remain ignorant of what is going on with LNG exported from Train 4 because the gas suppliers simply disclose nothing. In the said article Atlantic says in fact the LNG from trains 1 to 3 are sold on long term contracts but as to expiry dates of these contracts silence. As to the impact of the present LNG market on these contracts silence since we know at least one contract for train 1 expired and LNG was sourced from Yemen replacing Atlantic. In the article Atlantic says that they have destination flexibility in their contracts for their LNG. What does this mean for T&T’s revenue collection and how do we as a nation in these guava times benefit from this. Does it mean that LNG is sent on a long term contract to Gas Natural of Spain of which Repsol is a major shareholder who then resells the gas and T&T does not share in the profit of this reselling play? In the article Atlantic says that 51% of its LNG is sold in South America but according to the trade journals the major buyers of LNG in this region buy subject to demand through tender bids and short term contracts based on fixed load amounts. When there is no demand there is no tender. Newsday of January 19, 2016 in an article titled “Energy Minister says use it or lose it” reported that the Minister of Energy indicated that the the arrangement where the profit earned from the sale of diverted LNG cargoes was shared on a 50/50 basis is now up in the air. The Minister asked the question if diverted cargoes to South America were being passed to arms of the shareholders of Atlantic via transfer pricing who then sold the diverted cargoes thereby evading paying to T&T our share of the profits earned via diversion. We all should call for an answer from Atlantic. Wait on it. We all must now understand that this not a specific aspect of the so-called commodity cycle T&T is in. A new energy paradigm with a new brand of geopolitics is battling a falsified energy/geopolitics paradigm for hegemony and T&T is on the losing side. This new paradigm is more than US shale gas and oil it’s also Chinese shale oil and gas, Argentinian shale oil and gas and the inclusion of the huge gas resources of Iran as the South Pars fields into the world energy markets. The dinosaurs of the old paradigm as the house of saud and the angry white dinosaurs of US politics will rant and rave and bay at the moon and end up as the Luddites of the first industrial revolution. T&T live with the reality and deal with it this one denial will not postpone.

The manufactured myth of El Chapo

El Chapo supposedly created the largest illicit trafficking transnational organisation today whilst he was boxed in Mexico supposedly on the run from Mexican state agencies and prosecuting a war for hegemony within the Sinaloa Federation in his quest to be El  Don then against the Gulf and Los Zetas organisations. That El Chapo was able according to the manufactured myth to successfully complete all of these agendas simultaneously whilst never leaving Mexico speaks to his genius. El Chapo should be running the capitalist world and lecturing in every ivy league business school in the capitalist world. Imagine a go-for in the Sinaloa Federation with a minimal primary education rises to the top and creates a multi-billion trafficking enterprise. To believe this then you must believe in the tooth fairy and know very little of 21st century capitalism. The Mexican journalist Anabel Hernandez in her book “Narcoland” expresses the reality of El Chapo most succinctly as follows: “Semi-illiterate  peasants like El Principe, Don Neto, El Azul, El Mayo, and El Chapo would not have gotten far without the collusion of businessmen, politicians, and policemen, and all those who exercise everyday power from behind a false halo of legality. All these are the true godfathers of Narcoland, the true lords of the drug world.” Pg 6 “There will always be substitute candidates for support to continue the criminal enterprise. Many have seen their time come in this way: Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo, Rafael Caro Quintero, Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo, Amado Carrillo Fuentes, Joaquin Guzman Loera alone will quit when he feels like it, not when the authorities choose. Some say he is already preparing his exit.” Pg 7. Anabel hernandez’s paradigm is them premised on the position that drug trafficking in Mexico is a state and oligarchic enterprise. Those who read Mexican history know that the Mexican oligarchy pre-dates the Mexican illicit drug trade. How then can the peasants of Sinaloa supplant an oligarchy that dominates Mexico up to today? Please!! My question from a Caribbean perspective is this: where is the so-called war between cartels that is going on in Mexico in the Caribbean Basin? There is Mexican trafficking hegemony but no cartel war. The sellers of the myth of El Chapo must explain this by reference to reality on the ground not with myth and personal attacks on the messengers.

T&T’s Energy Reality Today

The foreign exchange we love to spend in T&T is predominantly derived from the taxes etc that the energy sector pays to the state and the largest single source of foreign exchange is derived from companies involved in the production of gas to LNG and the export of LNG. T&T has been faced since 2010 with falling volumes of natural gas supplied to the sector that utilises gas as feedstock and a glut of LNG on world markets appeared in 2015. What then is the reality of LNG in 2016? Cheniere Energy at Sabine Pass in the US is presently producing LNG and the first shipment will be delivered to British Gas (BG). Three nuclear reactors shuttered in Japan since Fukushima have either been re-started or will be re-started negatively impacting Asian spot LNG prices which was below 7USD for February 2016 delivery. China and South Korea are not taking up the slack created by Japan’s noted lowering of its LNG purchases and Asian supply continues to expand. Qatar took the decision to protect market share in light of Asian realities for LNG by setting the precedent to drastically change the terms of the 25 year contract between RasGas and Petronet of  India by cutting the contract price of its LNG by half and ending the take or pay clause. It is reported that Petronet has already indicated to its Australian suppliers that it wants a similar deal the cascade effect. Qatar’s move is the equivalent for LNG of the House of Saud’s move in oil markets and it will run through LNG markets as castor oil and send T&T to the latrine. LNG from Asia and the US seeking markets will then end up in Europe and given the willingness to protect market share by any means necessary we can then expect blood letting and further price pressures downward. The gas producers of T&T can then continue to demand a brand new gas structure in T&T and hold out waiting for the government to surrender because politicians have a 5 year vision horizon at best. The last government did nothing hoping for the best and that inaction did not bear fruit. The present government is even more precariously placed and the global actors wait. The gas supply in 2015 actually worsened and the news is not good as the failure of BG’s Starfish project. The question arises if the fall in LNG production and exports justified by a shortfall in gas feedstock given the nature of the world LNG markets is in keeping with the global strategy of the gas/LNG producers of T&T?  Where are our LNG markets today as exports to the US and Spain shrink?The gas/LNG paradigm of T&T is then falsified by the evolution of gas and LNG markets of the world. Such is life deal with it.

http://www.worldoil.com/news/2015/12/22/american-lng-exporters-turn-to-europe-as-asian-demand-sputters

http://www.ogj.com/articles/2015/12/bptt-gas-production-falls-20-to-1-76-bcfd-during-2015.html

https://in.finance.yahoo.com/news/lng-gas-pricing-bonanza-qatar-220800324.html

http://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/rasgas-contract-revision-to-boost-gas-utility-firms-116010100612_1.html

http://www.sharekhan.com/stock-market/news/Petronet-LNG-is-set-to-renegotiate-Austr/e2d2357a-6350-4764-8347-8192ad334b31/MustKnowNews/161/News.htm