"Tidbits From TNT" Thursday Morning 4-29-2021

TNT:

Tishwash: The World Gold Council offers a complete failure to Iraq if it wishes to increase its share of the precious metal

The Governor of the Central Bank of Iraq, Mustafa Ghaleb Makhaif, held a meeting on Thursday with the World Gold Council (upon their request).

The media office of the bank said in a statement received by Shafaq News that the meeting dealt with a number of issues, the most prominent of which were technical support and training files, in addition to discussing the increase in the foreign reserves of the Central Bank, which was achieved after the implementation of recent reforms in the work of this bank and the banking sector.

The statement noted that the World Gold Council had provided full support to the Central Bank in case it wished to increase the gold quota for Iraq.

It is noteworthy that the Central Bank of Iraq ranks fifth in the Arab world and 38 globally in terms of the size of gold reserves. link

Tishwash: Economist: The surplus in oil prices is sufficient to prepare a new budget

The economic expert, Ihssan Al-Kinani, confirmed that the government can prepare a budget sufficient for more than three months, after the price of oil rose to more than $ 60 a barrel, pointing out that Iraq is getting large returns after the rise in oil prices, sufficient to cover most of its debts that it borrowed recently.

Al-Kinani said in a statement to / the information /, that "oil prices and for nearly 3 months are still above the level of $ 60 a barrel, at a time when the government set the price of oil in the budget at less than $ 45 a barrel."

He added that "the surplus oil habits, the government can exploit it optimally to prepare a supplementary budget, especially since the revenues may be sufficient as a budget for more than 3 months."

Al-Kinani explained, "The government's continuation of its current approach and the failure to complete important projects such as electricity and services for new residential areas, Iraq will enter into a vortex, especially since there are debts owed by the country that may suffer from future governments. link

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Tishwash: Exciting expectations from the US bank ... Oil prices are creeping to an 'unprecedented summit'

On Thursday, oil prices continued to record gains today after a 1% rise in the previous session, as positive expectations about a recovery in demand overshadowed concerns about the impact of the increase in Corona infections in India, Japan and Brazil.

Brent crude rose 0.3 percent to $ 67.49 a barrel, by 04:05 GMT, while US West Texas Intermediate crude reached $ 64.04 a barrel, an increase of 0.3 percent as well.

The "OPEC +" group, which includes "OPEC", Russia and their allies, adhered to its plans to gradually ease restrictions on oil production from May to July of this year.

This came after OPEC slightly raised its forecast for demand growth in 2021 to six million barrels per day. The group also expects global stocks to reach 2.95 billion barrels in July, which is below the 2015-2019 average.

Analysts at Citi Bank said: "A closer look at the situation of global oil inventories indicates that the market may be closer to the point of equilibrium than OPEC + might think," adding that the market absorbed most of the accumulated crude stocks, but it is still necessary to work on The level of inventories of refined products.

The American bank also expects the vaccination campaigns in North America and Europe to raise the demand for oil to an unprecedented peak of 101.5 million barrels per day this summer, but it warned that the escalation of Covid-19 infections in India and Brazil may affect domestic demand if it is imposed again. Wider lockdown procedures.

Investors' attention focused on a rise in refinery operating rates in the United States and a decline in distillate stocks last week, according to data released by the US Energy Information Administration on Wednesday.

US crude inventories increased by 90,000 barrels last week, far below analysts' expectations, which had indicated an increase of 659,000 barrels. link

Mot: ooooh.... ooooh.... ooooh.... --- one from Waaaay Back When!! ~~~