(23-04-2013, 06:32 PM)a74henry Wrote: [ -> ]We are coming up to the traditional May lull period - in the northern hemisphere - its always sell in May, go away. Will this be a reality or a myth?
This May may just turn out to be different... cause there is a WALL of Money to content with.
This will matter as the companies with solid fundamentals and real skills will ride this Wave of Money to be a prime beneficiary of economic recovery. The US has already done it as the originator of the controversial strategy, Abe is doing a copy cat and Euroland will eventually benefit since it will take time to work through the weird marriage of different economies with a uniform monetary regime.
GG
Silent Operator - Steadily Growing Cash Cow
Esri Australia - Study forecasts bright future for GIS industry
586 words
19 Apr 2013
ENP Newswire
ENPNEW
English
© 2013, Electronic News Publishing. All Rights Reserved.
Release date - 18042013
Geographic Information System (GIS) technology use is on the rise in the local government sector with many Australian councils set to expand their capabilities over the next five years, according to landmark industry research.
Supported by the Surveying and Spatial Sciences Institute (SSSI) and GIS technology leaders Esri Australia; and conducted by an independent research firm; the 2013 GIS in Local Government Benchmark Study surveyed 150 council representatives on their use of spatial technology.
While the local government sector is already Australia’s largest user of GIS technology, the Study showed 38 per cent of councils surveyed planned to increase their GIS technology budget in the near future.
It also confirmed use of the technology remained widespread in the sector, with 85 per cent of respondents reporting they provide GIS access to all departments within their organisations - and 68 per cent indicating the value of the technology is becoming widely understood across their organisations.
Speaking from the launch of the Study at the SSSI annual conference in Canberra today, Esri Australia Managing Director Brett Bundock said it is clear the role of GIS technology within the local government sector is expanding.
‘As the findings of the 2013 GIS in Local Government Benchmark Study attest, the past few years have seen significant change across the spatial industry, brought on largely by the growing demand for GIS capabilities,’ Mr Bundock said.
‘The deployment of Cloud-based solutions; enhanced mobile capabilities; and the use of crowdsourced data - are typical of the advancements fuelling this demand.
‘Local governments have traditionally been early adopters of GIS advancements and, as a result, are responsible for driving innovation within spatial deployments.
‘For example, Gold Coast City Council was the first organisation in Australia to start implementing a fully-integrated geo-enabled SAP solution; and since then numerous groups around the country have followed suit.’
Mr Bundock said the Study sought to explore these types of achievements - and throw a light on ‘where to next’ for Australia’s local governments.
‘One of the takeaways from the Study is the ambition many councils show to break ground in new areas - whether it’s using GIS to verify crowdsourced data during an emergency; or as a means to instigate a two-way conversation with members of the public via smartphone apps.
‘The insights gathered from the Study reveal a promising future for our industry because, when it comes to GIS usage - where local government goes, the broader user community invariably follows.’
According to Study respondents, asset management (97 per cent), planning and analysis (94 per cent), customer service (89 per cent) and emergency management (71 per cent) are the key areas in which the technology is currently used by councils.
Priorities for deployment over the next five years includes mobile roll-outs, imagery solutions and Cloud-based GIS services.
SSSI President Gary Maguire said the Study provided a reliable indication of where the geospatial profession was heading.
‘Look between the lines of this survey and you will see a vibrant future for the geospatial profession,’ Mr Maguire said.
‘There are key insights into where the geospatial industry is heading, including trends like Cloud-based services, mobile GIS, data sharing, evidence-based decisions and situational awareness.
‘The Study provides evidence of why geospatial technology will become more and more essential in the future - and highlights the important role of geospatial professionals.’
[Editorial queries for this story should be sent to newswire@enpublishing.co.uk]
Electronic News Publishing Ltd.
Document ENPNEW0020130419e94j000gj
Landmark study predicts rise of council smartphone apps
654 words
18 Apr 2013
ENP Newswire
ENPNEW
English
© 2013, Electronic News Publishing. All Rights Reserved.
Release date - 18042013
Australians are about to see an explosion of location-aware smartphone apps from their councils as local governments explore new ways to connect with their citizens, a landmark technology study has found.
Conducted by the Surveying and Spatial Sciences Institute (SSSI) and Geographic Information System (GIS) technology leaders Esri Australia, the 2013 GIS in Local Government Benchmark Study surveyed 150 councils on their use of mapping technology.
It found more than half (58 per cent) of respondents expected to release location-based smartphone apps in the next two years, while a majority believed further development of mobile technology was a key priority over the next five years.
The research also indicated smartphone apps are expected to play a crucial role in information gathering during emergency situations, as well as serve as a means to open up community access to council data.
Speaking from the SSSI annual conference in Canberra today at the launch of the Study, Esri Australia Principal Consultant Gary Johnson said the research showed councils see GIS - an advanced data mapping technology - as the key to better communication with the public.
‘Ninety-nine per cent of respondents believe GIS technology can improve the way councils communicate with citizens,’ Mr Johnson said.
‘That might be through the development of user-friendly online maps, or as part of a location-aware smartphone app.
‘This is given further weight when we consider 83 per cent of respondents believe information sourced from the public is important to emergency response activities.
‘It is no surprise councils are planning to act on these understandings and connect with the community through location-based smartphone apps.
‘Many respondents indicated this was also being driven by the community, which now expects greater access to council information in the easy-to-use, visual format of digital maps.’
The Study also revealed councils see GIS technology as integral to emergency management internally, with around half of respondents declaring it strengthened decision-making (53 per cent) and resource allocation (47 per cent), and heightened situational awareness (48 per cent).
SSSI President Gary Maguire said the report aimed to raise understanding and awareness of the role of the GIS professional in Australia’s local government sector.
‘The survey serves as an important piece of industry research because it provides an outline of how councils across the country are currently using GIS,’ Mr Maguire said.
‘It also highlights how they plan to use it in years to come, providing an indicator of areas of growth for the sector and new trends.
‘Most importantly, it provides our councils the opportunity to share with each other knowledge and insights that will impact future technology strategies and potentially facilitate collaboration in areas such as open data or emergency response.’
Mr Johnson said the Study showed councils continued to be national innovators in the use of GIS technology.
‘Local governments are the largest user of GIS technology in Australia,’ Mr Johnson said.
‘They have consistently been early adopters of GIS advancements, and as a result drive much of the innovation in how the technology is used.
‘This is evident in the way local government have used GIS technology during emergencies to verify crowdsourced data, and to develop a two-way conversation with the community via smartphones apps.’
Mr Johnson said the Study was proof that the use of GIS technology within local government was becoming widespread.
‘Sixty-eight per cent of respondents believe their organisations have a strong understanding of the value of GIS technology,’ Mr Johnson said.
‘Given the Study showed 85 per cent of councils already provide all of their departments with access to GIS capabilities it is clear we are seeing an expansion of the technologies within our councils - which can only mean better services and more open communication with their residents.’
[Editorial queries for this story should be sent to newswire@enpublishing.co.uk]
Electronic News Publishing Ltd.
Document ENPNEW0020130418e94i000bc
Boustead will release their FY 2013 results on
May 21, 2013. There will also be the usual live audiocast on the same day.
Education 2.0 in Indonesia: Bamboo innovators
1287 words
11 May 2013
The Jakarta Post
JKPOST
English
© 2013 The Jakarta Post
Kee Koon Boon, Singapore
"What use is an esoteric academic theory like Einstein's theory of relativity?" scoff street-smart students and "practical" businesspeople. Answering this question using the Bamboo Innovator framework can help foster resilient value creators in varied disciplines and remake Education 2.0 in Indonesia as we walk through the seemingly unrelated stories below and be amazed by how the dots connect toward the end.
Without Einstein's modern physics theory, it would be impossible to use your iPhone to find your location on a map. The transistors in the phone rely on effects predicted accurately to several decimal places by quantum mechanics.
The Global Positioning System (GPS) that the phone uses to determine locations incorporates in its software the deformation of space-time predicted by relativity theory to achieve navigation accuracy within about 15 meters of one's actual position.
Without the proper application of relativity, GPS would fail in its navigational functions within about two minutes. Thus, this theory plays a critical role in the multi-billion growth industry centered on GPS.
GPS, in turn, has enabled the development of the Geographic Information System (GIS) to revolutionize the way we capture and analyze all types of geographical data for multiple applications from urban planning, disaster response, epidemic planning, mining and oil exploration to location-based services.
ESRI is the GIS software pioneer, founded by Jack Dangermond in 1969. ESRI has an installed base of more than 1 million users in more than 350,000 organizations with over US$1 billion in annual revenue achieved by 3,000 employees. ESRI grew by focusing on its users and employees, eschewing incentives such as sales commissions.
ESRI, in turn, is linked to Singaporean entrepreneur Wong Fong Fui, who runs the conglomerate Boustead, which has an exclusive country license to ESRI GIS software in Southeast Asia and Australia.
Wong is known as a turnaround specialist, having helped the loss-making unfocused QAF with a market cap of US$15 million;
then in 1988, built the Gardenia bakery brand in Singapore into a $500 million food business by the time it was sold, and now Boustead, which he bought for $14 million in 1996 has a current market value of $580 million.
Interestingly, this $500 million market value has been exceeded by Wendy Yap who helped focus her family business, Nippon Indosari, to become a Gardenia 2.0 and the largest mass-market producer of bread in Indonesia under the "Sari Roti" brand, which has a market value of $750 million.
Around the same time FF Wong got into Boustead, Wendy started Indosari in 1995 with her father, Piet Yap, a Salim Group executive who cofounded the Bogasari flour mills. The typical businessman might shrug and point out that for Indosari to be larger than Gardenia is a given, since Indonesia is a far larger market than Singapore.
However, many companies and multinational corporations (MNC), such as SaraLee, had earlier tried to expand in Indonesia but all retreated with heavy losses. So, why was Wendy Yap able to scale up while others with abundant tangible resources failed?
Indosari has adopted an open innovation business model in collaboration with Japan's Shikishima Baking, which helped Indosari in its technological processes in introducing Japanese-style soft breads that won over the Indonesian
palate.
Importantly, Indosari has built trust with retailers and customers to overcome the logistics nightmare that doomed its better-capitalized rivals through its strong distribution network for its highly perishable commodity of more than 2 million pieces of bread daily, resulting in a dominant 90 percent market share.
It sells its products through modern distribution channels and an innovative system of around 3,000 mobile tricycle carts to penetrate more than 17,000 small traditional shops in rural parts of Indonesia.
However, Indosari's market value of $750 million pales in comparison to Mexico's Grupo Bimbo's $15 billion, even though both Indonesia and Mexico have gross domestic product (GDP) of $1 trillion.
Bimbo is also the world's largest bread manufacturer, making more than $13 billion in sales. So, how was this "small white teddy bear", Bimbo's corporate image, which "began with great limitations" in 1945 in Mexico, a country where half the population lived below the poverty line, able to become the largest in the world and compound 24-fold in market value since 1994?
Given that over 80 percent of bread is sold in mom-and-pop stores in Mexico, scattered miles from one another over poor roads, cultivating trust and support among its community of customers, suppliers and employees is critical to overcome the geographical limitations in scaling up.
Small store owners tend to ask for credit, which is provided informally by Bimbo. Its partnership with community bank FinCom?n leveraged upon the bank's pioneering expertise in providing micro-loans to extend credit yet reduce bad debt and improve the working capital position to free up more cash to carry out expansions.
In a country known for the exploitation of workers, Bimbo has built an unusually people-oriented culture with its well-known policy of avoiding layoffs even in times of crisis and sponsoring its employees' education, which has helped foster loyalty and commitment.
As a result, Bimbo was able to resist the 1991 threat from the arrival on the Mexican market of giant PepsiCo. While Bimbo innovated in integrating production-delivery-finance, none of it would amount to much if Bimbo had not offered the country affordable, edible aspiration, spreading this dream to nearly every remote corner of Mexico.
There is a common thread running through these stories: the resilient Bamboo Innovator. The vitality of the bamboo revolves around its empty hollow center in the same way as the "emptiness" of the Bamboo Innovator with its "indestructible intangibles" derives its strength from "know-how" and "trust and support in the community".
The "emptiness" is why bamboo bends but does not break, even in the wildest storms that snap the mighty but resisting oak tree.
The intangible know-how in relativity theory has led to the multi-billion dollar GPS industry, which in turn enabled the development of the GIS pioneered by ESRI under Jack Dangermond, whose leadership nurtured a culture of empowerment and innovation.
FF Wong was attracted by this intangible know-how of ESRI, having built the "intangible" Gardenia brand. While FF Wong was building Boustead, Wendy Yap developed a larger, more focused Gardenia 2.0 at Indosari by cultivating trust and support among the company's customers, suppliers, partners and employees, in the same way that this "emptiness" worked wonders at Grupo Bimbo.
In the landscape of Education 2.0 in Indonesia, students can search for facts on Google, but Google and Facebook cannot tell them how to connect the dots in alignment with their talent and personality to pursue what they can excel in.
With the Bamboo Innovator in their hearts, they will experience the uncanny: The raw sensual data reaching their eyes before and after are the same, but with this pertinent framework of meaning, the chaotic features and anomalies in the marketplace are visible.
Instead of producing "grades", "checklist-based holistic CVs" and "high graduation salaries", the education system inspires students to be the Jack Dangermond inventor, the FF Wong and Wendy Yap entrepreneur, the quantum mechanics engineer and physics expert, the geography-based business and trade specialist, the teacher and the value investor, and so on.
Their fates all intertwined as Bamboo Innovators to forge their own larger-than-self path to create value for Indonesia and the world.
The writer is an investment professional and a former accounting lecturer at the Singapore Management University (SMU).
PT Bina Media Tenggara
Document JKPOST0020130513e95b0003h
With reference to the latest CNBC thread on shale exports from US, Boustead's niche specialist - BIH is probably one of the few niche players in the world that may benefit from the eventual flurry of construction activities in US.
As construction of such mammoth plants take years - downstream installation of energy efficient boilers and heaters may come many years down the road - never say never.
Vested
GG
Shale gas revolution in US has changed the facade of energy exploration and production globally. In order to tap into the abundance of this economically viable new energy resources, substantial capex is required to be committed for the development of this new found energy. The focus will then be focused on North American where is action is all about.
While the focus on SGX remain on proven rig builders, offshore industry support players that keep going into deeper waters, coal miners and petroleum explorers and other resource based hunters, so far very few analysts have talked about shale gas. Chances are not many are familiar as US shale gas is too far away. However, Boustead International Heaters substantially owned by Boustead Singapore is one of the proven players to potentially benefit from this revolution. Since its shale gas, boilers and heaters are definitely part of the newly proposed plants...
http://www.bihl.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_LNG..._terminals
North America [edit]
Canada [edit]
• Kitimat LNG, Kitimat, British Columbia,[40]
United States [edit]
• Sabine Pass Liquefaction at Sabine Pass LNG, Louisiana[41]
• Freeport LNG Dev in Freeport, TX
• Cheniere Energy in Corpus Christi, TX
• Jordan Cove in Coos Bay, OR
• Southern Union in Lake Charles, LA
• Sempra in Hackberry, LA
• Dominion in Cove Point, MD
• Oregon LNG in Astoria, OR [42]
The United States has had a massive shift in LNG terminal planning and construction starting in 2010-2011 due to rapid increase in domestic supply with the widespread adoption of hydraulic fracking. Many brand-new LNG import terminals are planning or have begun addition of liquefaction facilities to operate as export terminals, at the cost of billions of dollars each.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_LNG..._terminals
United States and Gulf of Mexico [edit]
Proposed LNG Terminals:[60]
• Broadwater Energy, proposed floating terminal in Long Island Sound between New York State and Connecticut
• BlueOcean Energy, 20 miles off-shore from New Jersey[61]
• Bradwood Landing, east of Astoria, Oregon, on the Columbia River [62]
• Oregon LNG, proposed for a site in Warrenton, just west of Astoria, Oregon on the Columbia River [63]
• AES Sparrows Point LNG near Baltimore, Maryland [64]
• Downeast LNG on Passamaquoddy Bay, Robbinston, Maine[65] As of 6 January 2010, Downeast LNG will be one-and-one-half years late in supplying answers to FERC's technical questions arising from the Draft Environmental Impact Statement. FERC's deadline was 6 July 2009.
• Aguirre GasPort LNG Terminal in Salinas, Puerto Rico[66]
• Jordan Cove Energy Project, Coos Bay, Oregon[67]
Think it is still early days for Shale. Let's be prudent and not assume too much for Boustead at this point.
Reality check for shale oil boom In US
Date
May 20, 2013 - 2:27PM
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For the past three years, the boom in the US shale oil industry has outstripped all expectations. Production surged far faster than any forecasts; drillers raced to secure space in new pipelines to get their crude to market.
Now, at the periphery, that may be changing - at least for a while.
News from two of the country's less developed shale plays in Colorado and Ohio last week offer a reality check for the wave of euphoria that has washed across the industry. The stumbles mark a break from the past few years, when nearly every new project was an overnight success and output grew and grew.
On Thursday, Ohio, home to the Utica shale, finally released annual data on 2012 production that showed the state pumped less than 700,000 barrels of oil from its shale wells - barely enough to fill a small oil tanker. North Dakota's Bakken shale pumps more than that every day. Even state officials said it the result was "lower than initially estimated."
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The day before, NuStar Energy LP had said it would shelve a plan to reverse a pair of underused refined products pipelines to ship crude from Colorado's Niobrara shale oil play to Texas. It failed, twice, to garner enough commitments from potential customers to justify investing in the conversion.
Neither development was a surprise to industry experts, and both were likely affected by extenuating circumstances.
A growing preference for rail shipments likely dimmed interest in long-term commitments to use NuStar's pipeline. Ohio's shale may yet offer up large volumes of liquid gas and condensate, if drillers can find new ways to coax it out.
Yet taken together they offered a sign that the flush of enthusiasm and rush of investment that piled into shale fields from one coast to the other has hit a curve.
While the basic technologies of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling was enough to coax an unexpected gusher of oil from shale rock in many regions, these more challenging seams may require incremental innovation to unlock.
"This is all about technology," said Sandy Fielden, an analyst at RBN Energy in Austin, Texas. "The bottom line is that this stuff is down there, it's just figuring out the sweet spot of where to get it and the right conditions to get it out."
For now, few are questioning the notion that the booming Bakken and Eagle Ford and Permian Basin in Texas will keep growing, driving domestic oil production beyond its highest in two decades and shrinking America's reliance on imports.
But the breakneck pace of the past three years was unlikely to last forever.
"The companies have established their acreage positions, they have established sweet spots, but there are still a number of really enormous challenges in understanding how to most efficient and effective ways to maximize production in the long run," Pete Stark, senior research director at IHS.
"We're in the start of the second inning in a nine-inning ball game as far as know-how."
Living up to hopes
Niobrara and Utica are not the first shale plays to disappoint investors. Michigan's Collingswood enjoyed a mini-boom for a few months in 2010; California's huge Monterey shale has thwarted drillers for years.
Yet the scale of the let-down is remarkable.
Just two years ago, Chesapeake Energy's former CEO Aubrey McClendon put the Utica on the map, proclaiming it could hold a $uS500-billion bounty and that it would be the "biggest thing to hit Ohio since the plow". Oil companies including Total spent billions of dollars buying drilling rights. State geologists estimated that it could hold between 1.3 billion and 5.5 billion barrels of oil reserves, a vast sum.
"The Utica has failed so far to live up to its hype," said Ed Morse, managing director of commodity research at Citigroup.
According to Reuters calculations, the average oil production per well per days the well was active, was 80 barrels per day - about one-tenth what it is in North Dakota.
Jonathan Garrett at Wood Mackenzie in Houston says the Utica may yet prove to be a successful natural gas development, with close proximity to the East Coast demand center. But with natural gas trading at a low $4 per million British thermal units for the foreseeable future, that is not the outcome drillers had hoped for a few years ago.
Rails trump pumps
In Colorado, where oil production has risen by less than 100,000 bpd since serious development began on the Niobrara several years ago, NuStar's biggest problem was likely competition - from other pipelines and railways.
SemGroup Corp is building an 848-km crude pipeline to move oil from Colorado to the US crude futures hub in Cushing, Oklahoma, by the first half of 2014, and already has twice expanded its capacity. Plains All American Pipeline LP is expanding and building new rail capacity in Colorado to haul oil out by train later this year.
Those projects combined will be able to move 230,000 bpd, on top of 30,000 to 40,000 bpd of Niobrara crude that already goes to Suncor Energy's 93,000 bpd refinery in Commerce City, Colorado.
"We're at a point now where we're going to see some of these lower-quality projects weeded out," said Bradley Olsen, director of midstream research at Tudor Pickering Holt & Co in Houston.
That surpasses current output in the play's so-called sweet spots - the Denver-Julesburg (DJ) and Powder River Basin (PRB) - which reached 170,000 bpd as of January this year, according to energy consultancy Bentek. The consultancy projects output to rise to 235,000 bpd by the end of 2013.
The option to ship crude by rail is attractive to oil producers who are uncertain how long their wells may keep pumping out crude. Rail terminals are less expensive to build, can start up faster and do not require long-term contracts sought to justify the cost of building or converting pipelines.
Refiners also like being able to pick up the cheapest oil at the moment from one of dozens of rail terminals rather than be tied to a certain type of crude for five or 10 years.
"It could come from Niobrara. It could come from Bakken. It could come from West Texas. And that's one of the nice things about rail systems - there's flexibility to move those cars around to market to provide the greatest opportunities," Alon Energy USA chief executive Paul Eisman said this month.
Reuters
Boustead a step ahead of Goldman?
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CNA - Goldman Sachs to Invest in Japan Green Energy
TOKYO: US investment banking giant Goldman Sachs said Monday it will start investing in Japanese renewable energy projects, with a reported $2.9 billion outlay over the next five years.
The injection comes after Japan's government stepped into the green power market to set minimum prices in a bid to encourage the sector as the country seeks to rebalance its post-Fukushima energy mix.
A wholly owned unit in Tokyo said it will invest in a solar power generation project in Ibaraki prefecture on the outskirts of Tokyo, which is due to start operation in January 2015.
The firm, Japan Renewable Energy, will put some 13 billion yen into the project, its first, which will have power generation capacity of 40 megawatt, a company spokesman said.
The Ibaraki project is just one of a number of ventures involving wind or solar that Japan Renewable Energy is part of in Japan, it said, with the business daily Nikkei saying it would pour up to 300 billion yen ($2.9 billion) into the sector over coming years.
Electricity generated at the Ibaraki facility will be supplied to major utility Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) -- the operator of the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant -- over an expected span of about 20 years, it said.
Goldman Sachs has already invested in renewable energy firms in the United States and India.
Last year the government introduced a scheme that guaranteed generating companies a premium for the electricity produced from renewable sources and forced the country's power monopolies to buy whatever was on sale over 20 years.
The move was part of a plan to dramatically increase the amount of electricity from renewables, up from its current less-than 2 per cent, and reduce Japan's reliance on expensive imported fossil fuels.
Until the tsunami-sparked disaster at Fukushima, more than 50 atomic reactors produced around a third of Japan's electricity, but public nervousness about nuclear power has left all but two units offline.
The premium for firms producing energy from solar, wind, hydro-electric and bio-gas is part-funded by a 100 yen ($0.98) monthly levy on consumers' bills.
In recent years, Japanese firms from a range of industries -- including mobile phone operator Softbank, a joint venture led by Mitsui Chemicals, and ship- and plant-building firm IHI, have entered the renewable energy business.
In the last fiscal year to March, at least 1.39 million kilowatt of renewable energy generation capacity was created in Japan, most of it solar power generation, according to the industry ministry.