nformation reaching the New Statesman indicates that Ghana's only oil refinery, The Tema Oil Refinery (TOR), has virtually collapsed under the tenure of the ruling National Democratic Congress administration.
Since NDC government took over the reins of government in 2009, TOR has been virtually dormant except in 2010 when the company operated continuously on the back of regular crude oil supplied by the Ghana National Petroleum Company under a 1-year 'processing' or 'tolling'agreement. However, since then, TOR's plants have been operating at less than 30% of capacity in 2009, 2011 and 2012.
TOR's virtual collapse has resulted in continuous year after year financial losses, massive brain drain of technical staff coupled with low morale and motivation among current TOR staff and management.
The New Statesman can confirm that the NDC government has pursued policies designed to 'kill' TOR – by promoting over 12 new private fuel importers, while denying tor the working capital it needs.
At the same time, the NDC government has refused outright to supply jubilee crude oil to TOR, with the baseless excuse that jubilee crude is not suitable for TOR. Meanwhile TOR's assay tests have confirmed that TOR can easily handle and refine jubilee crude.
In this edition, the New Statesman will assess TOR's current situation and the NDC's failed promises regarding the revival of TOR.
Expensive spare parts ordered and delivered to the Tema ports since 2009 have not been cleared and have been left to the mercy of the weather.
Technical personnel with years of experience, who are critical to the operations of the refinery, have also left for Qatar, Cameroon, Equitorial Guinea, Dubai and Abu Dhabi. The New Statesman can confirm that over 20 key engineers and technicians left TOR since 2011. It is being reported that TOR's board and management have now resorted to offering"bribes" to some key staff not to decamp to the Middle East refineries.
As though this was not enough, the government-to-government (g-to-g) crude oil agreement whereby the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) supplies crude oil to TOR under concessionary terms has been in limbo since beginning 2011, as is the agreement with Equitorial guinea.
TOR has not issued audited accounts since 2008. Without proper financial accounts and a clear turnaround plan, TOR's bankers are unable to provide working capital for tor's sustained operations.
These problems have reduced TOR to a fuel storage depot where private importers store their fuel in return for a modest fee. These storage fees have become TOR's only stable source of cash. As a result TOR is unable to meet salaries and other statutory payments, including payments to SSNIT, IRS and staff provident funds.
The Mills/Mahama/Amissah Arthur government have not given adequate financial support to TOR. In 2010, the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning paid a total of GH¢1.4 billion to Ghana Commercial Bank on TOR's behalf. This was only a part of TOR's debt, leaving a balance of about GH¢400 million payable to other creditors.
Beyond the payments to Ghana Commercial Bank, the NDC government has only given promises to TOR, but has not provided any additional funds.
In August 2011, then vice President John Mahama announced that the government of Ghana would provide $56 million to TOR immediately for retooling to improve its efficiency and performance.
In addition, the Minister of Finance, Dr. Kwabena Duffour, stated at the same meeting, that the TOR debt recovery levy had accumulated GH¢270 million as of August, 2011 which would be used as collateral to raise $200 million working capital for TOR.
As at today, 9th November 2012, the NDC government has failed to keep any of the above promises. Instead of taking bold and speedy actions to save tor, the NDC government continues to 'dilly dally', by launching endless consulting studies to find out how to save TOR.
Just Explain It: What is the Strategic Petroleum Reserve?
Eliminating America's dependency on foreign oil has been a policy goal for at least the last two U.S. Presidents. According to the International Energy Agency, by 2020, the U.S. will overtake Saudi Arabia as the world's number one oil producer.
However, there's still some work to do. The United States Energy Information Administration reported that 45% of the petroleum consumed by the U.S. in 2011 was from foreign countries. Even though the country is well on its way to becoming self reliant, there's always a chance we could hit a major bump in the road. The good thing is we have protection. It's called the Strategic Petroleum Reserve or S.P.R.
The reserve was created after the 1973 energy crisis when an Arab oil embargo halted exports to the United States. As a result, fuel shortages caused disruptions in the U.S. economy.
The reserves are located underground in four man-made salt domes in Texas and Louisiana. All four locations combined hold a total of 727 million barrels of oil. The inventory is currently at 695 million barrels. That's around 80 days of import protection. It's the largest emergency oil supply in the world -- it's worth about $63 billion.
Only the President has the ability to tap the reserves in case of severe energy supply interruption. It's happened three times. Twice within the last decade. In 2005, President Bush ordered the emergency sale of 11 million barrels when Hurricane Katrina shutdown 25 percent of domestic production. In 2011, President Obama ordered the release of 30 million barrels to help offset disruptions caused by political upheaval in the Middle East.
Following the release order, the reserve issues a notice of sale to solicit competitive offers. In the most recent sale involving the Obama administration, the offers resulted in contracts with 15 companies for delivery of 30.6 million barrels of oil. To put that in context, last year the U.S. consumed almost seven billion barrels of oil — that's 19 million per day -- or about 22% of the world's consumption.
The release in 2011 had little effect on the price of gas at the pump. Consumers paid about 2% less for a week before the prices began to climb again.
SCRANTON, Pa. (AP) — If the trash truck or bus rolling down your street seems a little quieter these days, you're not imagining things. It's probably running on natural gas.
Surging gas production has led the drilling industry to seek out new markets for its product, and energy companies, increasingly, are setting their sights on the transportation sector.
Touting natural gas as a cheaper, cleaner-burning alternative to gasoline and diesel, drillers, public utilities and government officials are trying to boost demand for natural gas buses, taxis, shuttles, delivery trucks and heavy-duty work vehicles of all sorts, while simultaneously encouraging development of the fueling infrastructure that will be needed to keep them running.
The economics are compelling. Natural gas costs about $1.50 to $2 per gallon equivalent less than gasoline and diesel. That can add up to tens of thousands of dollars in savings for vehicles that guzzle the most fuel.
Fleet managers are taking notice. Companies as diverse as AT&T, Waste Management and UPS are converting all or parts of their fleets to natural gas, as are transit agencies, municipalities and state governments.
"Now that you can save a dollar or two dollars a gallon, there's huge interest in the market, especially in those fleets that use a lot of fuel," said Richard Kolodziej, president of the trade group Natural Gas Vehicles for America.
Waste Management, the nation's largest trash hauler, has committed to replacing 80 percent of its fleet with trucks powered by natural gas. Rich Mogan, the company's district manager in southwestern Pennsylvania, said about half of his fleet of 100 trucks now run on the cheaper fuel. They are quieter and less expensive to maintain, he said, and "we are looking at a 50 percent reduction in our (fuel) cost."
Driller EQT Corp. opened its own natural gas filling station outside Pittsburgh in summer 2011, using it to refuel its trucks while also making it available to the public. It's now doing about 1,000 fill-ups a month — and only half involve EQT vehicles. Other users include City of Pittsburgh trash trucks, shuttles run by the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, a taxi service and a handful of consumers.
EQT wasn't sure how the station would be received.
"We didn't have commitments at all beyond our own vehicles. It was really a guess of what we think we could do," said David Ross, an EQT vice president focused on market development. "We had people who, at the beginning, said, 'No, we're not interested.' Today they actually own a vehicle that's natural gas. I think having the physical asset sitting there has helped it become real for people."
Natural gas vehicles aren't new. But the drilling boom — spurred by new technology that unlocked vast reserves of natural gas in deep rock formations like the Marcellus Shale underneath parts of New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio — created a gas glut that depressed prices. That, in turn, has made natural gas more attractive as a transportation fuel.
Partly because of a lack of fueling infrastructure, gas isn't expected to grab significant market share from petroleum anytime soon. Only a tenth of 1 percent of the natural gas consumed in the Unites States last year was used as vehicle fuel, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. Of more than 250 million vehicles on the road today, perhaps 125,000 are powered by natural gas.
But energy companies see potential.
Chesapeake Energy Corp., the nation's No. 2 producer, has been especially aggressive about targeting transportation. The Oklahoma City-based driller invested $150 million in Clean Energy, a company backed by Texas investor T. Boone Pickens that's building a nationwide network of liquefied natural gas refueling stations for long-haul truckers. Chesapeake also teamed up with General Electric on "CNG In A Box," a compressed natural gas fueling system for retailers; announced a partnership with GE and Whirlpool to develop a $500 appliance that would allow consumers to refuel their natural gas-powered cars at home; and has been working with 3M to design less expensive tanks.
"It's simply a matter of time before the U.S. meaningfully shifts from transportation systems built around consuming high-priced oil to consuming low-priced domestic natural gas," Chesapeake CEO Aubrey McClendon wrote to investors this year.
States are also promoting natural gas as a transportation fuel. Nearly two dozen state governments have formed a consortium to add natural gas-powered vehicles to their fleets, an effort launched by the governors of Oklahoma and Colorado that attracted more than 100 bids from dealerships last month.
Separately, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection is dangling $20 million worth of incentives to goose the market for medium- and heavy-duty natural gas vehicles. The three-year program, which launches Dec. 1 and is funded by a state fee on drillers, aims at putting 600 to 700 new natural gas-powered trucks and buses on the road in its first year.
State officials also hope to use the grant program to spur a network of new filling stations. Pennsylvania has only 14 publicly available stations, and more places to fill up could help stoke consumer demand.
"The big prize here is to get consumers purchasing vehicles that run off natural gas," said Geoff Bristow of the Pennsylvania DEP.
Industry officials, though, acknowledge that's a long way off.
Conventional gasoline engines are becoming more efficient, and consumers might balk at spending more on a natural gas-powered car. Plus, the United States has less than 600 natural gas filling stations available to the public, compared with 160,000 gas stations.
The only factory-made, natural gas-powered passenger car available to U.S. consumers is the Honda Civic Natural Gas. While Honda expects sales to top 2,000 this year, that's a fraction of the number of gasoline-powered Civics it moves in a single month.
Analyst Mike Omotoso of research firm LMC Automotive sees natural gas as a niche transportation fuel.
"There is very little interest in natural gas for cars," Omotoso said. "People looking for alternatives are looking at hybrids and electric vehicles."
For now, the gas industry is concentrating on heavy trucks and buses, vehicles that ply a regular route and return to the same base to fill up.
But both Kolodziej and Norman Herrera, Chesapeake's director of market development, see a future where natural gas-powered cars and SUVs are commonplace and "you have a market like transit and trash, where all the pieces are in place and all the bottlenecks have been resolved," Herrera said.
BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Four Chinese oil workers have been freed in the same southern jungles where the country's largest rebel group kidnapped them 17 months ago, police said Thursday. China's ambassador said that no ransom was ever sought for the men.
The four Chinese nationals, three contractors and a translator, were the only foreigners known to still be held by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.
Their release around midnight Wednesday to the International Red Cross comes three days after the FARC and Colombia's government began peace talks in Cuba that were partially conditioned on the rebels halting extortive kidnapping. It led Colombia's defense minister to call them "mendacious and traitorous" Thursday for having claimed in September to no longer hold kidnap victims.
The rebels announced in February that they were halting all kidnapping and they insist they hold no more captives, neither "political prisoners" nor "economic" hostages.
The FARC has been fighting successive Colombian governments for a half century and has used kidnapping for political leverage and as a financing source, at one point holding three U.S. military contractors as well as several dozen prominent Colombian politicians.
Asked whether a ransom was paid for the men's release, Chinese Ambassador Wang Xiaoyuan told reporters in Bogota that "a ransom was not even demanded." He said no one ever claimed responsibility for the kidnapping.
He did not explain how the men's release was accomplished.
State police chief Col. Carlos Vargas said the four were released in good shape in a rural area of San Vicente del Caguan, a FARC bastion.
The country chief of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Jordi Raich, told reporters the four were freed by a small group of unarmed men in civilian clothing. He said the freed oil workers all appeared in good health though one appeared to have difficulty walking and would surely be given a medical checkup.
Employed by the British company Emerald Energy, which is part of the China-based Sinochem Group, they were seized June 8, 2011, while engaged in oil exploration work.
The men's driver, who was released with their vehicle, said they were taken by at least seven FARC rebels.
Authorities identified the freed men as Tang Guofu, 28, Zhao Hongwei, 36, Jian Mingfu, 46, and Jiang Shan, 24. They said Jiang was the translator.
The men were flown to Bogota on a plane chartered by the Chinese Embassy. Ambassador Wang said they would fly home to China on Friday.
Wang has said the embassy had never received any proof-of-life evidence for the four men and that neither their relatives nor the company had contact with them.
The FARC said in early September, when it and the government announced the beginning of formal peace talks, that it no longer held any kidnap victims.
Yet the citizen's group Pais Libre, which tracks kidnap victims, claims the rebels have kidnapped at least a dozen people this year and that dozens more abducted in previous years remain unaccounted for.
Defense Minister Juan Carlos Pinzon took the opportunity to accuse the FARC of being "a mendacious and traitorous organization" that "lies to the country and the international community.
"We have already become accustomed to hearing a lie every time they pick up a microphone," he told a gathering Thursday at a police operations center in Tolima state, according to the ministry's website.
Pinzon used equally harsh rhetoric Monday in reacting to the FARC's announcement of a unilateral two-month cease-fire that began the following day.
Associated Press writers Vivian Sequera in Bogota and Frank Bajak in Lima, Peru, contributed to this report.
Crude oil options volatility declined with the underlying futures after Hamas said a draft accord for a cease-fire that would end fighting between Israeland Palestinian groups in the Gaza Strip is almost ready.
Implied volatility for at-the-money options expiring in January, a measure of expected price swings in futures and a gauge of options prices, was 27.95 as of 4:20 p.m. on the New York Mercantile Exchange, down from 28.91 yesterday.
Crude oil for January delivery declined $2.53 to $86.75 a barrel on the Nymex, the biggest decrease since Nov. 7. The contract surged to $89.28 yesterday, the highest settlement price since Oct. 19.
The conflict in Gaza threatens further instability in theMiddle East and North Africa after a wave of uprisings since Last year, including one in Libya that almost entirely cut the nation's crude exports. The region accounted for 36 percent of global oil output and held 52 percent of proved reserves in 2011, according to BP Plc (BP)'s Statistical Review of World Energy.
The most active options in electronic trading today were January $80 puts, which gained 13 cents to 42 cents a barrel on volume of 4,635 lots at 4:59 p.m. January $95 calls were the second-most active, with 2,489 lots exchanged as they fell 45 cents to 39 cents a barrel.
Bets that prices would rise, or calls, accounted for 49 percent of the 52,235 lots traded.
The exchange distributes real-time data for electronic trading and releases information the next business day on open-outcry volume, where the bulk of options activity occurs.
In the previous session, bullish bets made up 58 percent of the 192,293.
January $105 calls were the most actively traded options yesterday with 19,279 contracts. They rose 3 cents to 21 cents a barrel. January $102 calls rose 4 cents to 28 cents on volume of 16,812.
Open interest was highest for January $105 calls, with 53,858 contracts. Next were January $110 calls with 38,540 lots and January $60 puts with 34,935.
Ghana's export trade recorded an annual growth of 3% in the first three quarters of 2012.
The country registered a value of $10.1 billion in terms of the total merchandises exported during the period compared to $9.8 billion in the same period of 2011, according to the Bank of Ghana (BoG).
Ghana exported $4.1 billion worth of gold, $1.9 billion cocoa beans and $2.1 billion crude oil, the during 2012, the central bank said.
It noted that other exports amounted to $2 billion.
Despite the growth rate in exports, Ghana's import rate continues to rise therefore widening the country's trade deficit.
The BoG noted that the country's total merchandise imports amounted to $13.2 billion for the first three quarters of 2012 compared with $11.5 billion in the same period of 2011.
"Crude oil imports amounted to $681.9 million while imports of refined oil products were $1.7 billion. Gas imports through the West African Gas Pipeline amounted to $128.7 million," the BoG said in a Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) press release November 14, 2012.
Total non-oil imports, the release said, grew by 15.1% to $10.7 billion in the three quarters of 2012. Of this, the BoG indicated that capital imports were estimated at $2.4 billion (22% of total imports), intermediate imports amounted to $5.2 billion (48.3%), consumption imports, $2.4 billion (22%) and other imports $873.4 million.
BoG data shows that from January to September 2012, the current account deficit was $4 billion, as against $1.7 billion recorded in the same period of 2011. This outturn was mainly attributed to a trade deficit of $3.2 billion, a net services and income outflows of $2.7 billion, and a net inflow from transfers of $1.8 billion during the period, it added.
The data further stated that the capital and financial account improved to $1.6 billion in the first three quarters of 2012, compared with $1.3 billion in the same period of 2011. "This was accounted for by increased net portfolio investments and Foreign Direct Investments," the BoG observed.
The overall balance of payments, according to the central bank, resulted in a deficit of $2.3 billion during the period, compared to a deficit of $288 million for the corresponding period of 2011.
LONDON, (Reuters) - OPEC acknowledged for the first time on Thursday that technology for extracting oil and gas from shale is changing the global supply picture significantly, and said demand for crude will rise more slowly than it had previously expected.
In its annual World Oil Outlook, OPEC cut its forecast of global oil demand to 2016 due to economic weakness and also increased its forecast of supplies from countries outside the 12-nation exporters' group.
"Given recent significant increases in North American shale oil and shale gas production, it is now clear that these resources might play an increasingly important role in non-OPEC medium- and long-term supply prospects," the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries said in the report.
OPEC has been slower than some to acknowledge the impact that new technologies such as hydraulic fracturing - known as "fracking" - may have on supply. Conoco's Chief Executive Ryan Lance has gone so far as to predict North America could become self-sufficient in oil and gas by 2025.
In OPEC's new forecast, shale oil will contribute 2 million barrels per day (bpd) to supply by 2020 and 3 million bpd by 2035. For comparison, 2 million bpd is equal to the current output of OPEC member Nigeria, which is Africa's top exporter.
Fracking involves pumping chemical-laced water and sand into a well to open cracks that release oil and gas. The technology has transformed the production outlook in North America but drawn criticism from environmentalists, although the industry insists it is safe as long as wells are properly built.
OPEC said that in the medium-term shale oil would continue to come from North America only, but other parts of the world might make "modest contributions" in the longer term.
Previous editions of the report saw no significant supply addition from shale oil. As recently as June, oil ministers including Rafael Ramirez of Venezuela played down its prospects as OPEC met in Vienna for its last meeting to set output policy.
However, Thursday's report shows that the world is expected to need less oil from OPEC members, which pump more than a third of the world's oil and hold about 80 percent of its conventional crude reserves.
That is partly because of a reduced demand outlook, reflecting immediate concerns about the strength of economic growth particularly in the euro zone and, over the longer term, higher oil prices.
OPEC forecast world demand would reach 92.9 million bpd by 2016, a cut of over 1 million from last year's report. By 2035, consumption will hit 107.3 million bpd, more than 2 million less than previously thought. Demand was 87.8 million bpd in 2011.
Partly due to the higher amounts of shale oil, supply from countries outside OPEC is expected to rise to 56.6 million bpd by 2016, up 4.2 million bpd from 2011.
As a result, OPEC expects demand for its crude to average 29.70 million bpd in 2016, less than it is currently producing. The amount of crude needed from OPEC by 2015 is more than 1.6 million bpd less than it expected last year.
"This downward revision, together with updated estimates of OPEC production capacity over the medium-term, implies that OPEC crude oil spare capacity is expected to rise beyond 5 million bpd as early as 2013/2014," OPEC said.
OPEC assumes its preferred measure of oil prices OPEC-B-D will average $100 a barrel in the medium term, up from the $85-$95 during this decade that it assumed in last year's forecasts. It sees prices rising with inflation to $120 by 2025 and $155 by 2035, compared with $107 most recently.
VENICE, La. An explosion and fire ripped through a Gulf oil platform Friday as workers used a cutting torch, killing two people, sending at least four others to a hospital with burns and leaving two more missing in waters off Louisiana.
Kirk Trascher, a spokesman for rig owner Black Elk Energy, told CBS Houston affiliate KHOU-TV that two workers died in the incident. Black Elk is an independent oil and gas company headquartered in Houston.
Petty Officer Carlos Vega, a Coast Guard spokesman, told CBS News that the two missing workers had jumped overboard.
Coast Guard Capt. Ed Cubanski told a news conference in New Orleans the well was not producing at the time and no oil was leaking. A small amount of oil spilled from the rig when workers using a torch cut into a 75-foot-long, 3-inch-wide line on the platform. Cubanski said a sheen one-half mile long and 200 yards wide was reported in the area.
"It's not going to be an uncontrolled discharge from everything we're getting right now," Cubanski said.
Taslin Alfonzo, spokeswoman for West Jefferson Medical Center in suburban New Orleans, said four injured workers were brought to the hospital in critical condition with second- and third-degree burns over much of their bodies. Three arrived by helicopter at 9:55 a.m. and one by helicopter at 10:10 CST.
Two were sent by ambulance to the Baton Rouge Burn Center. Two others were to be sent later. She could not release identities or any other information.
The production platform is about 25 miles southeast of Grand Isle, La. The Coast Guard said 26 people were aboard the platform at the time of the explosion.
The platform is for oil production from an established well, unlike the Deepwater Horizon rig, which was drilling an exploratory well for oil giant BP in mile-deep water when it blew up and triggered a massive oil spill in 2010. That site is well to the east of Friday's explosion.
Cubanski said the platform appeared to be structurally sound. After the April 2010 explosion on the Deepwater Horizon, that rig burned for about 36 hours before suffering structural collapse and sinking to the Gulf floor.
The Coast Guard got the call about the fire at 8:42 a.m. CST.
Black Elk's website says it holds interests in properties in Texas and Louisiana waters, including 854 wells on 155 platforms.
NEW ORLEANS — Oil giant BP has agreed to pay the largest criminal penalty in U.S. history, totaling billions of dollars, for the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, a person familiar with the deal said Thursday.
The person, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record about the deal, also said two BP PLC employees face manslaughter charges over the death of 11 people in the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig that triggered the massive spill.
The person said BP will plead guilty to obstruction for lying to Congress about how much oil was pouring out of the ruptured well.
The Deepwater Horizon rig, 50 miles off the Louisiana coast, sank after the April 20, 2010, explosion. The well on the sea floor spewed an estimated 206 million gallons of crude oil, soiling sensitive tidal estuaries and beaches, killing wildlife and shutting vast areas of the Gulf to commercial fishing.
BP's environmentally-friendly image was tarnished, and independent gas station owners who fly the BP flag claimed they lost business from customers who were upset over the spill. BP chief executive Tony Hayward stepped down after the company's repeated gaffes, including his statement at the height of the crisis: "I'd like my life back."
The cost of BP's spill far surpassed the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989. Exxon ultimately settled with the U.S. government for $1 billion, which would be about $1.8 billion today.
The government and plaintiffs' attorneys also sued Transocean Ltd., the rig's owner, and cement contractor Halliburton, but a string of pretrial rulings by a federal judge undermined BP's legal strategy to pin blame on them.
At the time of the explosion, the Deepwater Horizon was drilling into BP's Macondo well. The rig sank two days later.
After several attempts failed, engineers finally were successful in capping the well on July 15, 2010, halting the flow of oil into the Gulf of Mexico after more than 85 days.
administration dealt with a political headache, in part because the government grossly underestimated how much crude was spilling into the Gulf.
U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier in New Orleans was assigned to oversee tens of thousands of court claims spawned by the explosion. A trial date was set, but Barbier postponed it so BP could hammer out a deal with attorneys for Gulf Coast shrimpers, commercial fishermen, charter captains, property owners, environmental groups, restaurants, hotels and others who claim they suffered economic losses after the spill. Relatives of workers killed in the blast also sued.
Barbier gave his preliminary approval to that proposed settlement in May and scheduled a January trial for the remaining claims, including those by the federal government and Gulf states.
In a pretrial court filing, the Justice Department said it would argue that BP's actions and decisions leading up to the deadly blowout amounted to gross negligence.
"We do not use words like `gross negligence' and `willful misconduct' lightly," a Justice Department attorney wrote. "But the fact remains that people died, many suffered injuries to their livelihood, and the Gulf's complex ecosystem was harmed as a result of BP and Transocean's bad acts or omissions."
One of Barbier's rulings possibly insulates Transocean and Halliburton from billions of dollars in liability. Barbier said Transocean and Halliburton weren't obligated to pay for many pollution claims because of contracts they signed with BP.
The Justice Department opened a criminal investigation of the spill. The only person facing charges so far is former BP engineer Kurt Mix, who was arrested in Texas in April on obstruction of justice charges. Mix is accused of deleting text messages about the company's response to the spill, not what happened before the explosion.
The companies also sued each other, although some of those cases were settled last year. BP has sued Transocean for at least $40 billion in damages.
And there are still other claims against BP from financial institutions, casinos and racetracks, insurance companies, local governments and losses caused by a government-imposed moratorium on drilling after the spill.
None of those are covered by BP's proposed settlement with the private lawyers.
In January 2011, a presidential commission found that the spill was caused by time-saving, cost-cutting decisions by BP, Halliburton and Transocean that created unacceptable risk. The panel didn't point blame at any one individual, concluding the mistakes were caused by systemic problems.
Shell's unit in Nigeria, Shell Petroleum Development Co. (SPDC), has closed its eighth sale in Nigeria of its Niger Delta assets. The company completed the assignment of its 30% interest in OML 30 to Shoreline Natural Resources Ltd.. Total cash proceeds for Shell amount to some $567 million.
This divestment is part of SPDC's onshore portfolio and is in line with Nigerian government's aim of developing indigenous companies in the country's upstream oil and gas business.
OML 30 covers an area of some 1,097 sq km and includes the Kokori, Afiesere, Oweh, Olomore, Eriemu, Evwreni, Oroni and Isioka fields and related facilities. The divested infrastructure includes most of the Trans Forcados major crude oil pipeline from OML 30 to the Forcados River manifold. The remaining 8 km to the Forcados terminal will remain with the SPDC JV. The divested fields produced around 35,000 bpd of oil and condensate.
Total E&P Nigeria (10%) and Nigerian Agip Oil Co. (5%) have also assigned their interests in the lease, ultimately giving Shoreline a 45% interest.
SPDC is the operator of a JV between NNPC (55%), Shell (30%), Total E&P Nigeria (10%) and Nigerian Agip Oil Co. (5%).
Shoreline Natural Resources Ltd. is a Nigerian JV company between Shoreline Power Company Ltd. and Heritage Oil Plc.
ABUJA (Reuters) - Shell shut its Imo River oil pipeline in Nigeria on October 31 due to damage caused by thieves and deferred 25,000 barrels per day (bpd) of production, the company's local unit said on Sunday.
This latest outage will add to a growing list of production problems for Africa's biggest oil exporter.Nigeria's worst flooding in 50 years contributed to Shell and Eni declaring force majeure on major crude oil grades in recent weeks. This means they cannot keep to contract agreements due to problems out of the company's control.
U.S. oil major Exxon said on Saturday it had shut a pipeline off the coast of Nigeria's Akwa Ibom state after an oil leak but it didn't say what the cause of the spill was or how much output was affected.
"(Shell) shut down the Imo River Trunkline in its eastern operations after it found several crude theft points on the facility," an emailed statement from Shell's Nigerian arm said.
"Some six crude theft points have so far been confirmed on the 12-inch trunkline, of which three have been repaired."
Shell said two crude oil theft valves had also been attached to its Trans-Niger Pipeline on Sunday but these had been closed off and the pipeline was being reopened.
Oil spills are common in Nigeria's onshore Niger Delta due to widespread theft by oil gangs tapping into pipelines and the poor maintenance of some ageing infrastructure.
Crude theft is a growing problem in Nigeria and oil companies estimate around 150,000 bpd is stolen. Some of it is made into fuel locally in makeshift refineries, hundreds of which are hidden in dense mangroves of the Delta.
But much gets transported into international markets as part of criminal networks, oil industry sources say.
Oil spills have a devastating environmental impact, destroying fishing communities and leaving large parts of the Niger Delta's winding waterways layered in a shiny black film.
Shell said there had been 26 spills in the Imo River area so far this year alone, spilling 3,000 barrels of oil.
Information reaching the New Statesman indicates that Ghana's only oil refinery, The Tema Oil Refinery (TOR), has virtually collapsed under the tenure of the ruling National Democratic Congress administration.


Children are known to grow very quickly. This will often result in an abundance of clothing and baby accessories that you child has recently outgrown. Many want to keep these items for a future baby or for a family friend. Storing these items at Elite Storage in Lafayette, CO can ensure the safety and quality of your baby items. We offer a variety of storage units in order to make sure you get exactly what you need. We have also provided you with some tips on storing those special baby accessories so they are ready to be used again.
It is important to wash all clothing before placing it in storage. This way no old food particles left on the clothing will attract any unwanted guests. Make sure the clothes are completely dry before placing them in storage as to prevent mildew. Depending on how long you plan on storing the clothing will determine what you should place the clothing in. For short term storage a standard cardboard box will be more than sufficient. If you are planning are storing for long-term it is wise to store the clothing in a plastic bin or bag that seals tightly. Remember to store in an organized fashion. Sort clothing by age and size to make it easier when you come back to remove the clothing from storage.
Cleaning and even polishing your furniture will ensure its quality during its time in the storage unit. To fit more in the space of your storage unit disassemble any and all the furniture you can. It is easier to store smaller pieces of furniture rather than large, bulky items. Once you have your furniture placed desirably in the storage unit, cover it with a large sheet or packing blanket. This will protect it from dirt, dust, and other potential spills or hazards. If possible do not store furniture items on the floor. Prop up the furniture by placing it on a pallet, bricks, or a tarp. This will ensure the safety of your belongings.
Children outgrow toys as fast as they do clothing. It is smart to go through your child's toy box every few months and organize. After sorting through and figuring out what to toss or donate, you can keep the sentimental pieces in storage. Again, we recommend that you clean the toys thoroughly with soapy water to remove any excess food or dirt. Plastic bins will be needed for long term storage of toys. This will keep them in pristine shape when you are ready to part with them.
As your child grows, so will their belongings. This doesn't mean you need to part with all of it all at once. Elite Storage in Lafayette, CO can provide you with the perfect storage unit to keep all of your baby accessories safe. For more information on our storage units please call us today.
So now that you've stored the items that are taking up space at your storage unit in Lafayette, what's next? Maybe now is the perfect time to start adding some character to your home. If you're bored with the way your home looks or are looking for some new ideas, we have some suggestions that are sure to liven up your living space.
Unique lighting fixtures can take a drab room and really make it stand out. Head to a local antique shop or second-hand store to find pieces that are truly special. Whether it's a floor lamp, or a hanging fixture, this may be just the ticket to recreating any room in your home.
A cozy little reading nook is a great way to add some charm and sense of comfort to your home. This is also a great way to utilize any awkward spaces in your home that you're just not sure what to do with. You can add a platform or even a loveseat and then throw some cushions and blankets around the area for a comfy reading spot.
Paintings definitely have their place but have you ever considered wall decals? Wall decals are a fun and affordable way to really give any room some additional artistic flair. They're super easy to install and you can take them down and switch them out to your liking. Even something as simple as a tree decal can really add some character.
Sometimes just adding a little color to a room may be all you really need to give it the character you're looking for. Consider giving your walls a fresh coat of paint in a fun and bold color. If you have bookshelves, simply painting the back of them with a contrasting color will really liven things up. Colorful throws and pillows are also a great way to add some color to your bedroom or living room.
Going for bold patterns is certain to make your place stand out. If you're redoing your flooring, consider a strong, checkered pattern for a classic yet fun look. If you want a less permanent solution, check out some bold area rugs in stripes and bright colors to add to various rooms and make a statement.
Elite Storage in Lafayette hopes these tips help you add that character you've been looking for. Happy decorating!


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You are here: Home » Torah » Sefer Bamidbar » Korach » For the Entire Congregation is Holy
For the Entire Congregation is Holy
by Rabbi Dov Linzer (Posted on July 3, 2019)
Topics: Korach, Disabilities, God, Faith, Religiosity & Prayer, Mitzvot
The Korach story, in which Aharon's right to the priesthood was challenged, ends with the Torah enumerating the special priestly gifts that to which the Kohanim are entitled (Bamidbar 18:8-20). On this special status of the priesthood, the Sifrei comments: "There are three crowns: the crown of Torah, the crown of kingship, and the crown of the priesthood. The crown of priesthood was taken by Aharon, the crown of kingship was taken by David, the crown of Torah, however, waits for anyone to take it." This idea, that Torah is and should be accessible to all, is at the center of a responsum in the book Maseit Binyamin (no. 62), written by Rav Avraham Salnik (Poland, ca. 1550-1620), on the topic of whether a blind man can receive an aliyah.
In this responsum, Rav Salnik articulates a strong sense of moral and Torah obligation to ensure that everyone, regardless of circumstance or disability, is treated as an equal member of the community and is given full access to the Torah. He starts on a very personal note:
(1) Many great sages have debated whether a blind person can receive an aliyah and read from the Torah, this one permitting and this one forbidding…. And I said, "If the spirit of the ruler rises against you, leave not your place" (Kohelet 10:4), for you should not be cast off forever (Eicha 3:31). For… the Torah has always been placed in a corner, so that whoever wishes may come and take it. And even one mitzvah should not be negated.
(2) For behold, now in my old age, the sight from my windows has darkened, and my eyes have grown dim from sight (cf., Breishit 27:1). According to what the Rabbi (Yosef Karo) opined, I will be driven away this day from seeking refuge in the inheritance of the Lord (I Samuel 26:19)… God forbid that I should abandon the way of the tree of life, and from my youth I have grasped onto its branches, its laws, and its rule. Even in my old age I shall not cast it off. And I will open with the matter of halakha, to see for what purpose the Rabbi has done such a thing to me… I will stand firm and "speak regarding Your laws in the presence of kings and not be embarrassed". (Ps. 119:46)
Rav Salnik opens with a statement of what has compelled him to write this teshuva. He expresses the sense of abandonment that can be felt by being excluded. Significantly, he invokes the sense that the Torah – as opposed to the priesthood or the kingship – is, and is supposed to be, available to all (Sifrei Korach, 119 and Rambam, Talmud Torah, 3:1), and to be excluded from the ritual of receiving an aliyah is symbolically to be told that one is excluded from a connection to Torah and Torah study. Implicitly responding to those who would say that "why is exclusion from one mitzvah so important?" he states that every mitzvah is weighty and we should not allow someone to lose the opportunity even to do one mitzvah.
In the next paragraph, he becomes much more personal. We now find out that he himself has become blind. He takes personally the ruling of Beit Yosef, Rav Yosef Karo, that a blind man cannot receive an aliyah ("why has the Rabbi done such a thing to me?"). An impersonal, dispassionate ruling for a group of people is taken personally and passionately by those whom it affects. He once again speaks as to how this one exclusion will make him feel rejected from the world of Torah. This is reinforced by the phrase "not to be counted" among those who get an aliyah – when one isn't counted, the message is that one does not count.
His statement that "And in my old age I shall not be cast aside," reflects the disempowerment that often comes with the infirmities of old age, and in this case, with the reality of being blind. When such physical disempowerment is coupled with halakhic exclusion – for halakha sometimes makes requirements, like standing, speaking, hearing, and seeing, that cannot always be performed at this stage of life – the sense of disempowerment and rejection can be profound.
All that being said, it is quite remarkable that given his stature as a major posek of the time, one who had many people turning to him for halakhic guidance and teshuvot, the author would still feel so rejected "merely" because he could not receive an aliyah. This makes us realize how hard it is to fully appreciate, to have full empathy for, those who are being excluded when we are not in their shoes.
In the continuation of the teshuva, which we do not cite here, the author lays out three approaches to rendering a decision in a matter that is debated by earlier authorities, and goes on to show how his decision is supported through all three approaches. He concludes that a person who is blind, and an illiterate person, can receive an aliyah even lichatchilah.
We turn now to the closing section of the teshuva. The author here makes a critical point about the mandate of inclusion and the role that it plays in the halakhic process. While never compromising the integrity of the process, as seen above, it is clear that the author felt pushed to come to a certain conclusion.
(3) I remain astounded regarding those who forbid – how have they decided the law [with the effect] of casting off the Heavenly yoke from people? How much more so regarding an important and public mitzvah such as this! This is not what we have learned from our Rabbis, the authors of the Mishna and the Gemara! For behold… the Sages would take a sacrifice (which was being offered by women) into the Women's Courtyard so that the women could do the laying of the hands… and regarding every positive time-bound mitzvah – women are permitted to perform them and recite the blessing over them…
(4) …The Rabbis waived whatever concerns there might have been in these cases, because the value of accepting the Yoke of Heaven was more important, and also for the sake of giving religious satisfaction, as we said in Hagigah, "not because laying of the hands on sacrifices applies to women, but for the sake of giving religious satisfaction to women."
(5) The same, then, is true in our case. We should waive [any concerns] in the case of the person who is not literate person and the person who is blind, and we should not object to them being oleh to the Torah and from making the blessings, so that they may be included in the accepting of the Yoke of Heaven and to give them religious satisfaction.
Rav Salnik was aware that there are those who would say, "Although he is not clearly incorrect, this issue is not ironclad and it remains debatable. Therefore, we should be strict, and not allow such a person to have an aliyah, since we wouldn't want to make a brakha li'vatalah or not have all the aliyot done properly."
The author turns the tables on this argument (paragraph 3). Rather than responding to "how could you be so lenient?" the author challenges those who would restrict, and say, "how could you be so lenient?!". This argument could be made on the moral, ben-adam-li'chaveiro level. To rule restrictively means to hurt another person and is a compromise of our moral responsibilities. In other words, this would be being too lenient in the realm of ben-adam-li'chaveiro. In a similar vein, Rav Chaim Brisker said, "Don't say that I am being lenient on hillul Shabbat; no. I am being very strict on sakanat nefashot, risk of life." This is a calculus of weighing religious-moral obligations against religious-ritual ones.
Rav Salnik, however, makes a different argument. He states that to exclude someone is to be irresponsible in the religious-ritual realm as well. A person who is excluded feels rejected and alienated. Exclusion, then, can often lead to a general feeling of alienation and can lead to a rejection of the Jewish community or a life of observance. Many, many cases such as this have occurred in the past and continue to occur today. This is then Maseit Binyamin's challenge to those who would restrict and exclude: "How have you decided the law to cast the Heavenly yoke from this people?!" To be strict about full mitzvah observance demands that we maximize inclusion.
What emerges from this section is that need for inclusion can push a posek to find a path within the halakhic system that will allow him to rule that no exclusion exists. Alternatively, it can push a posek to find a practical way to allow a person to participate, even though the law still excludes him or her on a technical level.
In his signing off, Rav Salnik does something strange. He references the parasha of the week by referring to it as "For the entire community is all holy."
Binyamin Aharon ben Avraham Salnik, Thursday, 3 Tamuz, 5370 (1610), Parshat "For the entire community is all holy."
This is, of course, none other than our parasha, parashat Korach. Although those words were articulated by Korach, and could be claimed to represent an ideology of full equality that is in opposition to that of the Torah, Rav Salnik implicitly states that Korach's statement was correct. Korach may have been using this ideology cynically and in a self-serving way, but in the end, what he said was true: everyone is holy, and everyone therefore has a right to have access to that which is holy.
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Lindenbaum Center for Halakhic Studies
Daf of the Day
Berakhot 16
by Rabbi Dov Linzer, January 19, 2020
About Rabbi Dov Linzer
Rabbi Dov Linzer is the Rosh HaYeshiva of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School and holds the Norman and Tova Bulow Rosh HaYeshiva Chair. He is the primary architect of YCT's groundbreaking curriculum of Torah, Halakha, pastoral counseling and professional training. He teaches regular classes in advanced Talmud, advanced Halakha and the thought of Modern Orthodoxy, and serves as a religious guide to the yeshiva's 34 rabbinical students and its 100 + rabbis currently serving in the field. Rabbi Linzer has been a leading rabbinic voice in the Modern Orthodox community for over 20 years, and teaches a Daf Yomi shiur which is available on Youtube and iTunes. He publishes regular teshuvot on a wide variety of topics, and is the co-host of the highly popular Joy of Text podcast.
The Mitzvah to Plan for the Future
by Rabbi Dov Linzer, January 8, 2020
Where Does Ma'aser Kesafim Come From, and What Can it Be Used For?
by Rabbi Dov Linzer, November 26, 2019
Leadership and Holiness: Status or Sacred Duty?
by Rabbi Dov Linzer, June 14, 2018
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text:
Les Championnats du monde de duathlon 1997 présentent les résultats des championnats mondiaux de duathlon en 1997 organisés par la fédération internationale de triathlon.

Ces  se sont déroulés à Guernica en Espagne le .

Distances parcourues

Résultats

Élite

Junior

Tableau des médailles

Notes et références

Voir aussi

Liens externes
  Site de l'ITU
  Archive.triathlon.org

1997
Duathlon
Duathlon 1997
Guernica
Événement sportif dans la communauté autonome du Pays basque
Sport en Espagne en 1997
Sport en septembre 1997
duathlon

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text:
Flights to Ahmedabad
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Etihad Aviation Group to fund construction of 30 new wells to help improve water access in Africa
Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates — Etihad Aviation Group will fund the construction of 30 water wells in three African nations to assist in easing a critical shortage of clean water in remote communities. The initiative was announced today by Mr Tony Douglas, Group Chief Executive Officer of Etihad Aviation Group, in support of the 'Well of Hope' water security initiative launched during the Holy Month of Ramadan by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai.
Globally, more than 844 million people lack access to clean drinking water, equivalent to one in every 10 people on earth. Each day, over 800 children under five years of age die due to consumption of contaminated water or exposure to poor health conditions.
Mr Douglas said construction of the water wells in select locations of Nigeria, Mauritania and Sierra Leone would begin by the end of 2019 as part of Etihad's commitment to humanitarian aid through its Corporate Social Responsibility program. "Etihad Aviation Group is committed to supporting or initiating campaigns for the betterment of communities in need, and water security is a critical issue," said Mr Douglas. "This initiative reflects our recognition of this crisis, and our commitment to contribute in a small way to a practical solution."
Last week, hundreds of Etihad employees 'pumped' 20,595 litres of water through a virtual pumping device, as part of the 'Well of Hope' water security initiative of Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Global Initiatives, which has committed to match the virtual water volumes achieved by 20 private or public organisations in the UAE with an equivalent amount of clean water in needy remote communities.
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Florida guard Scottie Lewis returning for sophomore season
Associated PressApr 6, 2020, 11:46 AM EDT
GAINESVILLE, Fla. (AP) — Florida guard Scottie Lewis, one of the Southeastern Conference's top defenders, is returning for his sophomore season.
Lewis made the announcement Monday via social media by saying "we have some unfinished business."
"My dream of playing in the NBA is still a top priority, but my heart is in Gainesville!" he added. "I am excited for the journey that lies ahead. My story hasn't even started, and trust me the best is yet to come!"
A McDonald's All-American in high school, the 6-foot-5 Lewis had been considered a one-and-done prospect when he arrived in Gainesville last summer. But his defensive prowess overshadowed his offensive skills for much of his first collegiate season.
The New Jersey native averaged 8.5 points and 3.6 rebounds to go along with a team-leading 36 blocks. He was second on the team with 36 steals.
He was at his best in SEC play, averaging 9.2 points and shooting 43.6% from 3-point range. He scored a career-high 19 points in the team's regular-season finale against Kentucky. The postseason was canceled amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The Gators (19-12, 11-7 SEC) now await word on a pair of sophomores: point guard Andrew Nembhard and versatile forward Keyontae Johnson.
Nembhard entered the NBA draft last year before withdrawing his name and returning for a second season. Johnson led Florida in scoring this season, averaging 14 points, and was second on the team with 7.1 rebounds. He also led the team with 38 steals.
More AP college basketball: https://apnews.com/Collegebasketball and https://twitter.com/AP_Top25


Featuring 88 rooms and suites onsite, the Howard Johnson Hotel - Victoria City Centre offers affordable accommodations near downtown Victoria. Business travelers, vacationers, and families are all welcomed to enjoy a comfortable stay at this hotel, located just north of Victoria's vibrant downtown district. Travelers can easily access everything on Vancouver Island just by traveling down Gorge Road.
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Guests staying at the Howard Johnson Hotel - Victoria City Centre are welcome to utilize all of amenities that make them feel right at home. Free parking is always offered to guests of the hotel, with an easily accessible indoor gym facility and Jacuzzi. During the summer months, an outdoor pool is also available for all guests. In the evenings, guests are welcome to enjoy The Lakes Grillhouse and Bar, offering a number of meals for every taste.
When it's time to play, the Howard Johnson Hotel - Victoria City Centre is just a short drive away from some of Victoria's favorite tourist attractions. The Royal BC Museum and the Victoria Royal Theatre are less than five miles away from the hotel and is accessible by public transportation or taxi. The Save-On-Foods Memorial Centre, a sports and concert arena, is also a short drive away from the hotel. And those looking for high-end shopping can visit the MayFair Shopping Centre, just a 15-minute walk away from the hotel.
Comfortable hotel stays don't have to cost a lot of money. The Howard Johnson Hotel - Victoria City Centre brings that point home— figuratively and literally. With a number of free amenities travelers won't find at other local hotels, combined with rooms for every type of traveler, this prime Victoria hotel is welcoming to guests of all types. No matter what brings you to Vancouver Island, you're sure to find comfort at this hotel.
"Great Wi-Fi signal in the room" "Free wifi"
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"Fantastic staff" "Helpful cleaning staff"
"Excellent buffet breakfast" "Hotel offers complimentary breakfast"
"Gym was old" "Everything looked old"
66% didn't like the unstylish hotel.


So I just created my calendar rundown for the month of September and man am I gonna be busy. There are a good handful of TV shows I'm excited to return and a some others that are just starting and looking promising.
I'll post my full list of everything soon, so keep an eye out for that.
Really quickly I'm just going to express my feelings about this season so far.
WHAT THE FRAK?!?!!? Teen Wolf, why you gotta play with my emotions like this? And will you please just explain Parrish? I need to know who/what/how he is. Like asap. It's pretty much the main reason I'm still watching.
A couple weeks ago, the AdultBooklr tumblr page asked for suggestions on Mythology and Fairy Tale reccomendations, the first one to come to my head was this book. Ever since I suggested it, I have had this hankering to read it. I checked out my local library's digital catalog and found this book on audio book and immediately put it in my cart for check out. I really enjoy this audio book, it's great for my drives to and from work. Abandon is a modern retelling of the story of Persephone and Hades, and Meg Cabot is my favorite author of all time. The combination of the two, is extraordinary.
This book has been rolling around in my purse for MONTHS. I need to just sit down and finish it but I keep getting distracted by stuff. It seems really good and I really want to give it a good shot.
I picked up this comic because I found a Skottie Young variant of it… I know. It really is becoming a problem. BUT, the comic is actually really good. I'll be working on a review for Comics Recap in the next few days. Meanwhile, check out the other awesome articles being posted over there.
On Friday my amazing stylist friend is going to do something to my hair that I've been contemplating for YEARS. PURPLE. Now due to my job, I can't go all over purple, so we're going to do a purple shadowbox underneath and dark on top. I'M SO EXCITED FOR SOMETHING NEW!!! This will be most daring hair color I've ever done (I know, at 26… that's a little sad).
What are some things you're excited about this week?


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Carnival in Oruro
By lifenomadik | April 23, 2016 - 4:13 pm | Uncategorized
Declared one of the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity in 2001 by UNESCO, the Oruro Carnival is Bolivia's most celebrated festival taking place for two weeks in February each year. It is a massive event in which more than 150 groups with 30 thousand dancers and 10 thousand musicians take part- an impressive procession of color, sound and movement spanning across the length of a few kilometers.
We have never heard about nor did we plan to go to Oruro for the carnival, until our new Chilean friends told us about it. Visiting this part of Bolivia in the beginning of February is an example of being on the right place at the right time, we thought. So from Uyuni, we head to Oruro, for the carnival.
The town of Oruro is a big blunt Bolivian town with not a single tourist attraction, not a single site of interest. Not a single tourist visits it, except in February, when the place becomes suddenly flooded with over half a million people from all over the world, here for this ancient religious festival- a tradition dating back more than 200 years.
It started with the Uru indigenous people in the area once called Uru Uru- "Sacred Mountain of the Urus", a place for religious pilgrimage and spiritual center of the Andean world. But soon after the arrival of the Spanish colonizers, the indigenous celebrations were banned and replaced by catholic rituals and iconography. For the conquered Uru people, the only way to survive and to preserve their tradition and culture was to accept the new religion and to blend their old beliefs, symbolism and customs with the new ones. Thus, Christian icons and saints were used to conceal Andean divinities. The Virgin Mary became Pachamama (Mother Earth) and the Devil from Catholic teachings was absorbed into the local idea of Tio Supay (Uncle or God of the Mountains).
The carnival is a bright example of this tradition-blending in Bolivia. The main character of the event is El Diablo (the devil) and the main event- the Diablada- the leading traditional Dance of the Devil.
Our bus drops us off in Oruro in the middle of the night a day before the beginning of the carnival, only to realize, that all hotels and hostels are full and their prices are not double but triple, at places quadruple than normal. "It's because of the carnival", they tell us shamelessly, and there is nothing to do but to pay the price.
We check in a cheap hotel, in a room with two beds and we pay only $18.00 for the first night, but we are asked to pay $60.00 for the second (when the carnival officially starts). Luckily, we meet again our Chilean friends from the group in Uyuni, and we "invite" them in our room to share the cost. The hotel owner agrees to bring two more single mattresses in the already small room, and we somehow manage to place them between our two single beds. This, we sleep seven people in a room for two for $15.00 per person…
We are also shocked to find out that the entrance fee for the carnival is $20.00 per person- a small fortune in Bolivia, and we are told, that if we don't pay, we would not be able to enter and would not be able to see anything. Well, this is one of those Once-In-A-Lifetime things, so we pay…
Thousands upon thousands of people in elaborate colorful costumes and masks dancing with unlimited energy to the sounds of traditional music- the Oruro carnival is truly a glorious monumental event.
But for us, spending so much money for the hotel and for the entrance fee is a BIG MISTAKE!!! Not because you can enter for free and watch the carnival, like half the people do, but because the same groups and the same people dressed in the same costumes perform the same music and the same dances for free in the center of Bolivia's capital La Paz, a few days after Oruro.
So we watch the carnival twice- once in Oruro and once in La Paz, where we go after Oruro, and we have much more fun in La Paz.
In La Paz, after the carnival, groups of local women dressed in their best polleras(traditional skirts and shawls) decorated with their best top hats, gather and occupy the space in front of small corner-stores, furnished with chairs, tables and cases of beer. And begin drinking. I have no idea where the men go.
If you pass by and smile at them, they will smile back. And if you are in their range, they will pull you in and before you know it, you will have someone's glass in your hand, full of beer.
You will have to drink it at once, and they will laugh at you and poor you another shot.
This is what happened to us in La Paz. More than once. At the end of the street, we are slightly drunk and covered with colorful paper garlands. A very drunk woman tried to kiss Ivo. More than once…
Now that is a carnival we really enjoyed, and it's not the one in Oruro…
ORURO CARNIVAL PHOTOS
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Uyuni Salt Flats in Bolivia
By lifenomadik | April 18, 2016 - 12:05 am | Uncategorized
Not far from the Atacama Desert in Chile, we prepare to visit another unique natural site- El Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia. At 3,600 m (12,000 feet) above sea level, the world's largest salt flats are a dry ancient lake part of the Altiplano- a high plateau in South America formed during the uplift of the Andes Mountains.
From San Pedro de Atacama, we hitchhike to the town of Calama- a big regional city near the Chilean-Bolivian border, where we look for the cheapest bus to Uyuni. But there is a problem. There are no buses going from Chile to Bolivia, because of the roadblocks. The truckers and transportation workers in Bolivia are on strike demanding better pay and working conditions, and have blocked the major routes and border-crossing points to the country. All buses have been canceled until further notice. Apparently, this is a normal routine event for Bolivia (like volcanoes erupting in Nicaragua) and we are the only surprised people without a plan B. We walk from one bus company to another in desperation, until we find a company selling tickets for a bus leaving after two days, when the roadblock is expected to be lifted. Not many seats left. We buy three tickets and look for a hostel. Then we meet again the two young backpackers from Chile, whom we first met in San Pedro hitchhiking on the same spot like us. They tell us, that one bus is leaving tomorrow and will be crossing the border through a checkpoint, where the roadblock has already been lifted. But this bus is full, no places left, and we already have tickets for another bus… Yet, we plead with the woman at the terminal to sell us "passillo" tickets- no seats, we will be standing up. She refuses at first, but then tell us to show up at 06:00 a.m. the next morning, when the bus is leaving, and promise to get us in. We hurry back to the other bus company to try to return the tickets we already got. We can return them, but there is some 20% penalty fee, so instead we sit in the waiting room and sell our tickets directly to passengers. Within one hour, we sell our three tickets for the full price. Now we worry that we might not be able to get on the 6 o'clock bus the next morning, and we don't have our tickets for the day after.
We sleep in a cheap hostel disturbed by a group of Chilean students on vacation high on marijuana who party in the room next door all night (we remember how much better is on the boat), and early in the morning we show up for the bus to Bolivia. We are not the only ones without tickets who hope to ride this bus. Our two backpacker friends and four more tourists are hoping to get on it too. The woman from the agency collects some extra cash from all extra passengers right there on the street, and everyone is off! Standing up or sitting, in seats or on the floor, we are all heading to Bolivia! Nine hours…
There are no cars on a road winding through land with no nature. We are climbing higher and higher across the barren dusty mountains of the Altiplano. It's getting colder. We spot families of lamas on the side of the road and pink flamingoes in distant lakes. We reach the border- a couple of trailer-like buildings next to an abandoned train station with a rusty dead locomotive. There is no roadblock. All bus passengers line up for customs and immigration. After about an hour, we board another bus. The one from Chile has to return in Chile and a Bolivian bus is picking us up for the rest of the trip.
a lama on the road
We begin seeing the first Bolivian villages, like scenes from the past, or the apocalyptic future: poor huts made of clay and salt bricks, dirty streets without pavement, very few old cars, large stray dogs scavenging for scraps of food in piles of garbage, women with long black braids with top hats and long skirts carrying huge bundles on their backs, men chewing coca leaves sitting in corners.
We arrive in Uyuni. The driver of the Bolivian bus tries to extort all extra "passillo" passengers for some extra cash (as we paid half price), but we all refuse to pay and are ready to call the police if he refuses to give us back our luggage. Thanks to this little episode, we make new friends with the passillo-passengers from the bus- mostly 19-year-old Chilean students on vacation, and we find a great deal as a group of 12 people: one night in a hostel with breakfast included plus tour of the Salt Flats with lunch included for $22.00 per person. We are all set for tonight and for tomorrow.
The tour takes all day. We split in two groups riding in big 4×4 jeeps. We meet Domingo- a 50-year-old super friendly and funny guy. He is our driver and guide and we are lucky to have him. The other group gets the boring quiet type, who skips one of the sites- the Incahuasi island.
First, we visit the train cemetery, about 3 km outside of the city. Built by British engineers in the end of the 19th century, the train system, used by mining companies to transport minerals to the Pacific Ocean ports, collapsed in the 1940s and was abandoned.
Train Cemetery
From there, we drive to a village with houses made with bricks of salt where we have lunch- tasty lama-steaks with quinoa and steamed vegetables.
Lama chops with quinoa
From there, we head for the main attraction- El Salar de Uyuni, with a first short stop at the "salt mountains"- small stacks left to drain and dry before harvesting the salt.
Maya's Bubba at Uyuni salt flats. He is coming everywhere with us since Maya was a baby
Formed by the transformation of a few prehistoric lakes some 30-40,000 years ago, surrounded by mountains with no drainage outlets, El Salar is today a vast dried lake covered by a flat salt crust thick several meters at places, spreading over more than 10,000 sq. km (4,000 sq. mi)- 100 times the size of the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah. This flattest white region on the planet is so big, it's visible from space, and contains the largest deposits of lithium on Earth.
We drive for an hour on top of a thick layer of salt further and further in the interior of the Salt Flats. At first, this lifeless monotonous landscape is dry, but then a thin layer of water filtering through the salt transforms this vast white field into the biggest most beautiful mirror in the world, in which the gods to contemplate themselves.
The world transforms into an endless heavenly blue liquid sky, above and below us. We walk on a sky of water!
From here, we head even further towards the center of the lake. Our guide is slowing down and is very cautious, as splashing in the salty water is not good for the vehicle. We reach the Incahuasi Island covered by giant cacti- the remains of the top of an ancient volcano submerged in the lake.
The next stop on our tour is El Palacio de Sal- a hotel built in 1995 entirely from salt in the middle of the Salar. Due to sanitation problems, the hotel no longer accepts guests and has been transformed into a museum. There, we find the Rally Dakar monument also made from salt.
We watch the sunset reflected over a shallow pool of salty water before we head back to the city to catch another overnight bus to another extraordinary place.
Salar de Uyuni Photo Gallery
Tagged bolivia, salar, salt flats, thelifenomadik, travel, uyuni
Atacama Desert in Chile
We leave the boat at anchor in font of marina Puerto Amistad in Bahia de Caraquez, Ecuador. For $5.00 per day while we are away, the marina staff will watch over Fata Morgana, clean the green vegetation and logs floating downriver catching on the chain, and provide a 24/7 security service. They will contact us if anything comes up, and will deal with any issue while we are miles away. It is important to know that the boat will be OK while we are backpacking in Chile, Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador for about two months; to have peace of mind, even if it costs us a little something.
We take the bus to Guayaquil in Ecuador, then the bus to Lima in Peru, then the bus to Arica in Chile and then the bus to San Pedro de Atacama. A total of four endless days and nights, riding the cheapest possible busses, waiting hours in bus terminals or walking kilometers from one terminal to another with heavy backpacks, sleeping in bus seats, listening to terrible music and watching horrible films, wearing the same stinky clothes, shoes and socks, no shower, using pubic and bus bathrooms, eating whatever we can find around the terminals as long as it's cheap and not too suspicious…
It's a long trip- over 4,000 km. The plan is to get to the farthest point of our trajectory as fast as possible and then slowly to start returning towards the boat. This is Ivo's plan and he doesn't care if it sounds more like torture than a trip.
As soon as we cross the border from Ecuador to Peru, the landscape becomes monotonous arid desert unchanged for thousands of kilometers.
On our right is the blue of the Pacific Ocean, on our left is the ochre of the rocky desert sprinkled with small poor villages of tiny straw houses and big dusty cities with unfinished brick buildings. Nature remains dry and lifeless all the way to Chile.
Hungry, dirty and exhausted, we arrive in San Pedro de Atacama- a town made of red clay in the middle of the desert, dominated by the Licancabur volcano.
Licancabur Volcano
The town, which begun as an oasis in the high plateau of Bolivia at about 8,000 feet (or 2,400 m), is today part of Chile (after the War of the Pacific), and is constantly invaded by tourists and backpackers; there are more hotels and hostels than private homes and everything is extremely expensive. We find a hostel on the outskirts of town- $40.00 per night is the cheapest option!!! We get a nice room with private bathroom and hot water. We feel like spoiled kings. First thing's first- we collapse on the beds. We haven't been in a lying position since over 100 hours. Next- we take off our shoes and toxic socks, we remove our clothes which smell of lamas, and one by one we hit the shower. There, in the shower, we find paradise…
Maya enjoying her comfy bed in Hostal Licancabur
But we have no time to loose. It's still morning and even though we are super tired, we cannot afford to spend more than one night in this expensive place, so a soon as we check in the hostel and after a short rest, we walk to town to decide which of the many tourist attractions to visit before we continue on to Bolivia- a much poorer country, where everything is much cheaper.
Church of San Pedro, National Monument, built with adobe
Adobe houses in San Pedro
San Pedro de Atacama is strategically located near various sites in the Atacama Desert but for most you have to join an expensive tour, as there is no public transportation. A visit to Chaxas Lagoon in Los Flamencos National Reserve, Salar de Atacama, home of pink flamingoes, or El Tatio geyser field with over 80 active geysers are very attractive places but will ruin our budget. The cheapest option is to rent bikes – $6.00 per person per day and bike to the Valley of the Moon- El Valle de la Luna, 13 kilometers (8 mi) west of San Pedro.
In the heat and salty dust (the exhaustion continues), we ride our rental bikes to one of the strangest most desolate places on the planet, with such an otherworldly appearance, it actually reminds us of another planet- inhospitable, burning, red.
Situated in the two-sided rain shadow of the Andes and the Chilean Coastal Range, which prevent the arrival of moisture from the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, Atacama is the oldest driest desert on Earth, stretching for over 1,000 km (600 mi), west of the Andes Mountains. Rain is the rarest of occurrences here, and some parts of the desert have never ever seen it at all! This vast stretch of dry land has been covered with nothing but rocks, salt, lava and sand for the last 200 million years- a phenomenon called hyperaridity, making it the oldest continuously arid region in the world, rivaled only by Africa's Namib Desert.
The Salt Caves
We enter the Moon Valley National Park. Stone and sand formations, salt caves and dunes colored in yellow orange and red, carved and shaped by wind and ancient water. Not a blade of grass, not a single flower, not a bird, not one tiny creature can survive in such alien environment. In fact, the driest parts of the Atacama Desert, one of which is The Valley of the Moon, have been used by NASA to test instruments for future Mars missions and the location has been used by Hollywood for filming Mars scenes in films like Space Odyssey and others.
And there, amidst this dry hot lunar landscape devoid of any life form- the loneliest saddest of places on Earth- we suddenly hear a familiar language! A group of tourists walking on the road are speaking BULGARIAN! Now, this is impossible! How often you meet Bulgarians? In the desert? Twenty of them! A group of adventure-travelers from the Adventure Club in Sofia touring Chile, Peru and Bolivia. Our reaction to this miracle, as well as to any other sudden unexpected wonderful miracle, is utter surprise and happiness. We lough, we scream, we hug each other like old friends. Some of the guys in the group recognize us as "the Bulgarian family who lives on a boat" and we make plans to meet with them for dinner.
An unexpected meeting with 20 Bulgarian travelers from the Adventure Club
And even though we dream about the moment when we will hit the beds for the first time in five days, as soon as we return from the bike trip- we find our compatriots' hotel and they take us to a nice restaurant in town where we celebrate with delicious local meals and beers the most surprising of meetings in the Atacama Desert. Thank you friends!
Sites of interest near San Pedro de Atacama:
Church of San Pedro, National Monument, built with adobe, a building material used in the colonial times.
Chaxas Lagoon, part of Los Flamencos National Reserve in the Salar de Atacama, inhabited by pink flamingos.
El Tatio, a geyser field with over 80 active geysers.
Llano de Chajnantor Observatory, a radio-telescope site, home of "ALMA", the Atacama Large Millimeter Array.
Laguna Miscanti (Miscanti Lagoon) and Laguna Miñiques (Miñiques Lagoon), two neighbouring altiplanic lagoons at the altitude of 4,200 m (13,500 ft).
Licancabur, a notable volcano near San Pedro de Atacama.
Pukará de Quitor (Fort Quitor). A fortification built by the Atacameño people in the 12th century.
Puritama Hot Springs
Salar de Atacama, a giant salt area (3,000 km² / 1,864.11 mi²) in the middle of the Atacama Desert.
Valle de la Luna ("Valley of the Moon"), a moon-like landscape with ruins of old Chilean salt mines, and worker huts.
Valle de la Muerte (Death Valley): a valley where gigantic dunes and rocks abound.
Tagged atacama desert, chile, desert, moon valley, road trip, thelifenomadik, valle de la luna
Passage from Panama to Ecuador
By lifenomadik | April 3, 2016 - 3:51 pm | Uncategorized
After cruising for many months all over the Caribbean Sea, visiting hundreds of tropical islands and beautiful beaches, we passed through the Panama Canal and found ourselves on the Pacific Ocean side with its extreme tides and calm seas. We spent a few months in Panama and went backpacking in Costa Rica and Nicaragua. Then, we sailed again. From Panama, south to Ecuador, we covered over 650 nautical miles and we crossed the equator! It was an epic record-fast passage complete with a small crossing-the-line celebration. (YouTube video available Sailing from Panama to Ecuador
Before you sail, and especially when you are planning a big ocean passage, you have to prepare the boat and stock up provisions. We haul out Fata Morgana to do a quick bottom job. This means- to clean and sand the hulls and then paint them with a fresh coat of anti-fouling paint. It is a requirement when you are visiting the Galapagos Islands, which we are planning to visit, and it has to be done anyways every 2-3 years.
We found a haul-out facility near Panama at Puerto Viequez and based on Eric Bauhaus Panama Cruising guide's information, we thought this would be the cheapest option to do the bottom job. BIG MISTAKE! It turned out this is the most expensive option, where you pay separately for the haul-out, for the preparation of the platform, plus per day and electricity fees; there is a fish and shrimp processing plant inside the boatyard, which stinks of rotten fish, thousands of feral dogs and no showers; as well as no access to town. To go there you have to go through all the process of obtaining zarpe, visiting the port captain, the customs and immigration (all in different far-away locations), paying port fees and the whole thing is just a big screw-up. We regret we didn't research better before we showed up there, based on old information in the Panama cruising guide… It is much cheaper with way better facilities to haul out at the fancy Flamenco Marina on Amador, and for smaller boats even cheaper option would be the Balboa Yacht club.
Ivo during the haul-out
Fata Morgana haul-out at Puerto Viequez, Panama
Maya taking a "shower" in the botyard
Painting the hulls
After the paint job, we go shopping. Panama City is great for stocking up, with so many shopping malls, stores and markets filled with cheap good quality merchandise, thanks to all the ships arriving here from all over the world to transit the Panama Canal, bringing goodies. Our friends living in Panama help us enormously driving us around the city and bringing all the stuff back to our boat. We get tons of long-lasting food provisions and fresh fruits and vegetables for the journey south.
On January 15th 2016, we say good-by to Panama City and sail 34 nautical miles south, where the Gulf of Panama is dotted by over 200 mostly uninhabited islands of extraordinary beauty, named Islas de las Perlas (The Pearl Islands).
Sailing in the Gulf of Panama
In Las Perlas, we meet our Canadian friends on yacht Daybreak, who were our neighbors for a while in Panama! Maya and Lea are good friends and they spend the next day playing together!
Fata at anchor in Las Perlas
Maya and Lea, reading at Las Perlas
Maya and Lea
On January 17th, we sail again starting in the evening- 600 nautical miles ahead of us. The north winds pick up a lot behind us as soon as we get out of the Gulf of Panama and the sea rises. Ivo reefs the sails and still Fata is running with 10-11 knots. The waves are big and we feet seasick. We keep a course south and south west, well away from the Colombian cost. The second day of the passage, January 18, the wind gets even stronger- 30-35 knots behind us- and the waves are as big as hills and foamy. With reefed sails Fata is surfing with up to 16 knots- a speed record for us! It is scary, but with time we get used to it. By day 3 we are all pretty used to this fast downwind sailing and even start to enjoy it. We prepare quick meals, which can be a challenge in a moving boat.
In the morning on the third day, January 19, about 200 miles from the Columbian coast, 2oo miles from Panama and 300 miles from Ecuador we approach Malpelo Island- a sinister and forbidding rock formation plunging vertically into the depths of the Pacific Ocean, renowned for its abundance of sharks. But there is no anchorage here as it is very deep close to the island and in rough weather conditions the uninhabited rock is unattainable. So we sail by it adjusting our course south-southeast, direction Bahia de Caraquez, Ecuador.
In the late afternoon that same day, the wind starts dropping down and we can finally relax. The fast part of the passage is over, 160 NM to destination and two more fishes in the fridge. That day, we have an anniversary- 23 years since Ivo and Mira met and we make a mountain of sushi to celebrate.
Ivo and Mira 23 years anniversary
About 80 miles before the equator, we reach the doldrums- a no wind zone, where the winds kind of switch from north to south with periods of total calms. This is weird. Suddenly the wind stops completely and rain starts pouring vertically down in total silence. It washes the boat and we collect rainwater in buckets. We take down the sails and we drift for a few hours waiting for the wind to comeback. But the north winds never came back. Instead, winds from south gently pick up in the evening and we are on our way again!
On the fifth day, January 21st 2016, at about 8:00 o'clock in the morning, we are slowly approaching the equator. The sky is covered with clouds.
Crossing the equator for the first time by boat is a big deal. Until then, you are a Slimy Pollywog but as soon as you cross the equator you transform into a Trusty Shellback. And so we organize a small Crossing-the-Line ceremony to celebrate this unique event. As soon as all the numbers of our latitude become zeros, we offer Neptune a pineapple (and if he wants to, he can share it with Sponge Bob under the sea) and Maya gives him some of her goldfishes thanking Neptune for the fishes he has given us. We make a toast, we drink seawater, and we danced. We organize a little dancing challenge- who is going to fall down first! It is strange dancing in the cockpit of a moving boat and it is not easy at all to keep your balance while the boat is dancing on the waves too.
We imagine the equator as a bright red line, about two meters wide, shining on the surface of the water, or a sort of an ocean underwater rainbow. But we don't see any line and nothing really changes when we pass from the North Pacific Ocean into the South Pacific Ocean. Except later, we feel the heavy sea-turtle shells growing on our backs. We are now officially Trusty Shellbacks!
We see the western shores of South America for the first time shortly after we cross the equator. We arrive in Ecuador in the evening of the fifth day of this passage, after exactly four days of sailing and we drop anchor outside the bay, at the entrance of a river delta. For the entire passage, we never turned on the engines, including when we picked up and dropped anchor, zero fuel was spent.
In the morning, instead of contacting the port via the VHF radio and requesting a pilot boat to lead us through the shallows and reefs for a $20 charge, two fishermen passing by in a small motor boat agree to lead us, for a few dollars and a couple of beers. We motor up river, where all the other sailboats are moored, protected from the ocean waves. This is going to be Fata's new temporary home for the next couple of months. It is one of the most protected anchorages, were the wind rarely jumps above 5 kts, there are no squalls, no lightning storms and the marina Puerto Amistad provides 24/7 security, dinghy dock, bar and restaurant, fresh water, fast wi-fi internet, clean hot water showers and a wonderful atmosphere. The city of Bahia de Caraquez itself is a small tranquil place on the shore of the ocean, of friendly welcoming people, cruisers and ex-pats. We have a good feeling about it and we are ready to leave the boat here for a couple of months, and visit the many wonders of Peru, Bolivia, Chile and Ecuador by land.
Watch our YouTube video Sailing from Panama to Ecuador.
Making a deal with the fishermen
The fishermen leading us through the shallows of the river delta to the anchorage in Bahia
Lighthouse in Bahia de Caraquez
Anchorage in Bahia
Mira with the Galapagos turtle- a resident in the local school
Our Boat Friends Saved a Little Girl November 12, 2018
Back in Canada June 11, 2018
A Day in Suva April 12, 2018
Passage from New Zealand to Minerva Reefs March 8, 2018
What are we going to do? December 28, 2017
Running a Marathon and Celebrating Maori Culture in Hamilton December 11, 2017
Road Trip in North Island November 6, 2017
Christmas Camping in Mangawhai October 24, 2017
Exploring New Zealand's Northland with Willi September 25, 2017
Passage to New Zealand. Weather is King August 23, 2017
Hina, my Beautiful Friend in Tonga August 3, 2017
Beveridge Reef and Niue July 18, 2017
The Big Marsters Family and Other Extraordinary Encounters in Palmerston July 5, 2017
Maupihaa. A Few People on A Tiny Island June 25, 2017
Hitchhikers with Generator in Maupiti May 22, 2017
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Brien A. Eaton on Back in Canada
Petio Ivanov on The Crew
adam on Kitesurfing in Nicaragua
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"Wake up, mommy, wake up," PJ shouted with excitement!
"Mom, you remember, don't you?" said PJ.
"Oh, mom, is this what I think it is?" PJ hoped she had gotten all his hints about what he wanted. A new guitar! The kind that his favorite band plays. Shiny blue and sounding awesome!
His mom had been listening, as she had each day. She was so proud of him for not giving up. PJ and his mom would sit for hours together while PJ played the song over and over until it was perfect! PJ was so proud of himself and his mom was so proud of him too!
PJ and his mom sat together on a nest of leaves while PJ played his music as the sun set around them.