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China coal futures slump as govt announces ‘clean up’ of illegal storage sites

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China’s thermal coal futures slumped to their lowest in more than a month on Wednesday, marking a sixth consecutive day of declines, after the country’s state planner said it would conduct “clean up and rectification” work on coal storage sites.

The most-traded thermal coal contract on the Zhengzhou Commodity Exchange fell 10%, hitting its daily trading limit on Wednesday morning, and is down about 40% from the record highs hit last week on the back of a coal supply shortage.

Other commodities prices followed suit, trading largely in the red on Wednesday morning. Coking coal and coke futures also hit their limit down of 9%, while liquefied petroleum gas fell 4.8%.

Petrochemicals such as methanol and ethylene glycol fell 6.9% and 4.3% respectively, while urea, which uses coal as feedstock, declined 3.8%.

China, the world’s biggest producer and consumer of coal, has been grappling with a power crunch. Coal-fired power accounts for about 60% of the country’s total electricity generation, leading to electricity rationing for industry in many regions and hurting growth in the world’s second-largest economy.

Beijing has taken a raft of measures to raise coal and power supplies, including approving new coal mines and allowing power firms to raise prices for customers.

In its latest move, China’s state planner said it will conduct “clean up and rectification” work on coal storage sites in some coal-producing areas and ban storage sites without approvals in its latest move to address skyrocketing coal prices.

The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) said in a statement late Tuesday that there were many unlicensed coal storage sites around mines in the main producing areas of Shanxi, Shaanxi and Inner Mongolia, “making it convenient for illegal traders to hoard coal,” and “seriously disrupting” the market’s operations.

Besides stepping up investigations and strengthening supervision, the three areas also need to establish a reporting system for legal and compliant coal storage sites, and ban those without approvals, the NDRC said.

They should also crack down on illegal profit-making activities such as hoarding and driving up coal prices by using illegal coal storage sites, the statement said.

In a bid to ease the supply crunch, China has been pushing coal miners to ramp up output and increasing imports so power stations can rebuild stockpiles before the winter heating season, but analysts say shortages are likely to persist for at least another few months.

Average coal prices for next year are forecast to ease to 700 yuan from 912 yuan in 2021, Morgan Stanley said in a research note to clients on Tuesday.

“We highlight the risk of disappointing average selling prices for coal miners on the back of government intervention,” it said.

“Near term, we see policy measures increasing the incentive for producers to push coal production higher for the winter peak season,” it added, adding that moderating demand will further narrow the supply-demand gap.

Profits at China’s industrial firms rose at a faster pace in September despite surging prices and supply bottlenecks, mainly due to stellar growth in mining and raw materials industries, although power firms profits were squeezed as they struggled to shake off the high costs of coal.

(Reporting by Shivani Singh in Beijing and Shanghai newsroom. Editing by Gerry Doyle)

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MEG Energy earnings dip year over year to $167 million in third quarter

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CALGARY – MEG Energy says it earned $167 million in its third quarter, down from $249 million during the same quarter last year.

The company says revenues for the quarter were $1.27 billion, down from $1.44 billion during the third quarter of 2023.

Diluted earnings per share were 62 cents, down from 86 cents a year earlier.

MEG Energy says it successfully completed its debt reduction strategy, reducing its net debt to US$478 million by the end of September, down from US$634 million during the prior quarter.

President and CEO Darlene Gates said moving forward all the company’s free cash flow will be returned to shareholders through expanded share buybacks and a quarterly base dividend.

The company says its capital expenditures for the quarter increased to $141 million from $83 million a year earlier, mainly due to higher planned field development activity, as well as moderate capacity growth projects.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 5, 2024.

Companies in this story: (TSX:MEG)

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.



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Eby wants all-party probe into B.C. vote count errors as election boss blames weather

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Premier David Eby is proposing an all-party committee investigate mistakes made during the British Columbia election vote tally, including an uncounted ballot box and unreported votes in three-quarters of the province’s 93 ridings.

The proposal comes after B.C.’s chief electoral officer blamed extreme weather, long working hours and a new voting system for human errors behind the mistakes in last month’s count, though none were large enough to change the initial results.

Anton Boegman says the agency is already investigating the mistakes to “identify key lessons learned” to improve training, change processes or make recommendations for legislative change.

He says the uncounted ballot box containing about 861 votes in Prince George-Mackenzie was never lost, and was always securely in the custody of election officials.

Boegman says a failure in five districts to properly report a small number of out-of-district votes, meanwhile, rippled through to the counts in 69 ridings.

Eby says the NDP will propose that a committee examine the systems used and steps taken by Elections BC, then recommend improvements in future elections.

“I look forward to working with all MLAs to uphold our shared commitment to free and fair elections, the foundation of our democracy,” he said in a statement Tuesday, after a news conference by Boegman.

Boegman said if an independent review does occur, “Elections BC will, of course, fully participate in that process.”

He said the mistakes came to light when a “discrepancy” of 14 votes was noticed in the riding of Surrey-Guildford, spurring a review that increased the number of unreported votes there to 28.

Surrey-Guildford was the closest race in the election and the NDP victory there gave Eby a one-seat majority. The discovery reduced the NDP’s victory margin from 27 to 21, pending the outcome of a judicial review that was previously triggered because the race was so close.

The mistakes in Surrey-Guildford resulted in a provincewide audit that found the other errors, Boegman said.

“These mistakes were a result of human error. Our elections rely on the work of over 17,000 election officials from communities across the province,” he said.

“Election officials were working 14 hours or more on voting days and on final voting day in particular faced extremely challenging weather conditions in many parts of the province.

“These conditions likely contributed to these mistakes,” he said.

B.C.’s “vote anywhere” model also played a role in the errors, said Boegman, who said he had issued an order to correct the results in the affected ridings.

Boegman said the uncounted Prince George-Mackenzie ballot box was used on the first day of advance voting. Election officials later discovered a vote hadn’t been tabulated, so they retabulated the ballots but mistakenly omitted the box of first-day votes, only including ballots from the second day.

Boegman said the issues discovered in the provincewide audit will be “fully documented” in his report to the legislature on the provincial election, the first held using electronic tabulators.

He said he was confident election officials found all “anomalies.”

B.C. Conservative Party Leader John Rustad had said on Monday that the errors were “an unprecedented failure by the very institution responsible for ensuring the fairness and accuracy of our elections.”

Rustad said he was not disputing the outcomes as judicial recounts continue, but said “it’s clear that mistakes like these severely undermine public trust in our electoral process.”

Rustad called for an “independent review” to make sure the errors never happen again.

Boegman, who said the election required fewer than half the number of workers under the old paper-based system, said results for the election would be returned in 90 of the province’s 93 ridings on Tuesday.

Full judicial recounts will be held in Surrey-Guildford and Kelowna-Centre, while a partial recount of the uncounted box will take place in Prince George-Mackenzie.

Boegman said out-of-district voting had been a part of B.C.’s elections for many decades, and explained how thousands of voters utilized the province’s vote-by-phone system, calling it a “very secure model” for people with disabilities.

“I think this is a unique and very important part of our elections, providing accessibility to British Columbians,” he said. “They have unparalleled access to the ballot box that is not found in other jurisdictions in Canada.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 5, 2024.



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Memorial set for Sunday in Winnipeg for judge, senator, TRC chair Murray Sinclair

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WINNIPEG – A public memorial honouring former judge, senator and chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission into residential schools, Murray Sinclair, is set to take place in Winnipeg on Sunday.

The event, which is being organized by the federal and Manitoba governments, will be at Canada Life Centre, home of the NHL’s Winnipeg Jets.

Sinclair died Monday in a Winnipeg hospital at the age of 73.

A teepee and a sacred fire were set up outside the Manitoba legislature for people to pay their respects hours after news of his death became public. The province has said it will remain open to the public until Sinclair’s funeral.

Sinclair’s family continues to invite people to visit the sacred fire and offer tobacco.

The family thanked the public for sharing words of love and support as tributes poured in this week.

“The significance of Mazina Giizhik’s (the One Who Speaks of Pictures in the Sky) impact and reach cannot be overstated,” the family said in a statement on Tuesday, noting Sinclair’s traditional Anishinaabe name.

“He touched many lives and impacted thousands of people.”

They encourage the public to celebrate his life and journey home.

A visitation for extended family, friends and community is also scheduled to take place Wednesday morning.

Leaders from across Canada shared their memories of Sinclair.

Premier Wab Kinew called Sinclair one of the key architects of the era of reconciliation.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Sinclair was a teacher, a guide and a friend who helped the country navigate tough realities.

Sinclair was the first Indigenous judge in Manitoba — the second in Canada.

He served as co-chair of the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry of Manitoba to examine whether the justice system was failing Indigenous people after the murder of Helen Betty Osborne and the police shooting death of First Nations leader J.J. Harper.

In leading the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, he participated in hundreds of hearings across Canada and heard testimony from thousands of residential school survivors.

The commissioners released their widely influential final report in 2015, which described what took place at the institutions as cultural genocide and included 94 calls to action.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 5, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.



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