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Apple's offshore money of $102 billion is managed from the U.S. and much of it in banks in Manhattan, only technically for tax purposes recorded in foreign subsidiaries in Ireland and other locations. Other companies using this practice include Microsoft, HP, Google, and Abbott Labs, with a total of $1.6 trillion kept by U.S. companies overseas to avoid paying a 35% tax rate for repatriating it home.

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Biden's US target for offshore wind in 2030 is 30 gigawatts of energy. Companies ranging from Spain's Iberdola building off the coast of Massachusetts and Denmark's Orsted building off the coast of Rhode Island to Maryland say costs are soaring. Vessel sharing is a challenge, so is the competition for resources to build offshore wind farms from Europe.

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New U.S. sanctions on two large Chinese companies, China National Offshore Oil Company, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation, two of the largest companies in oil and chip industries, for ties to the military. The Trump administration is closing its term with sanctions on 35 of China's largest companies.

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Robert Morgenthau, District Attorney for Manhattan, 1975-2009, says there is more money on deposit in the Cayman Islands, than in all the banks of New York put together, with 19,000 companies listed there. Cayman is one of several tax havens. Apple use Luxembourg for iTunes. Other tax havens are the British Virgin Islands, Gibraltar, Antigua, Bermuda, the Bahamas. He cites the Senate's Permanent Sub-Committee on Investigations in 2008, which gives the estimate of $5 trillion to $7 trillion sheltered in offshore places on this list, by Americans, Chinese, Europeans and others. Morgenthau says these tax havens help American and European companies not only to avoid taxes, but also structure complex international transactions. He estimates these transactions cost the U.S. Treasury about $40 billion from outright tax fraud each year.

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This report on Danish wind energy company Orsted, looks at the journey of the largest developer of wind energy in the world from a company sending natural gas from North Sea to Europe to a joint developer with Denmark's Vestas of offshore wind farms. Last year Orsted, pronounced Ehrr-sted in Danish for the O and named after a Danish scientist, decided to invest $57 billion in offshore wind farms by 2027. It was not easy and the path required a bold vision and bold action to invest in wind energy for the long term even as debt piled up from losses in natural gas competing with coal, climate change committments were not yet strong, subsidies were required to make wind energy competitive, and debt was piling up. It would take a decade of hard work and technological innovation to produce wind energy that could outcompete coal and natural gas on cost without subsidies. The year is 2009 with the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. The predecessor company to Orsted was losing money in natural gas with lower cost coal energy generation in Europe at the time. Yet the mood was changing governments were willing to invest in renewables. In 2012 a new CEO Paulsen did a review of 12 businesses of this Danish energy company and decided wind energy was the only one with long term prospects. The Copenhagen Climate Change Conference created new awareness for the need to come up with a long term solution for energy that has no negative health effects and is renewable. That Conference set a goal of 20% for renewable energy by 2020 in the total mix for Europe up from 14%. Paulsen saw an opportunity in the crisis at the company then called Danish Oil and Natural Gas. The new company was called Orsted and the old divisions in fossil energy were sold to invest in wind farms offshore. The way Paulsen saw the situation was that the company had to take radical action whether it wanted to do so or not. By 2012 Danish pension funds were investing in large offshore wind farms of Orsted, taking a stake of as much as 50% in the Nysted wind farm. The Danish government which owned 80% of Orsted thought its projects were risky. Hard work with Vestas which builds the turbines in Denmark paid off in developing a huge new turbine that would bring costs down 65% comparing 2020 with 2012.  In 2018 the European Union was spending about 92 billion euros or $112 billion on energy subsidies including to wind farms. Britain also heavily subsidized offshore wind farms such as Hornsea 1 at about $198 a megawatt hour for 15 years double the electricity price in recent years. Windy conditions and shallow waters in the North Sea were favorable. Technology was being developed with Vestas which would reduce the cost each year. By 2016 Orsted was listed in Copenhagen. The remaining oil and gas business was then sold for $1 billion. The returns are less in wind than coal and natural gas- about 7-8% a year but the big thing is that there is certainty in this compared to coal and natural gas which are volatile and uncertain. The lesson companies are learning in renewables is that with solar and wind technology can. bring down costs, a lot of hard work and creative work lies ahead, that crisis can be turned into opportunity for companies that can be focussed enough to produce results. ...

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The Trump economic plan would use tariffs as a tool to get foreign companies to make in the US. It does not include incentives to American companies to create American jobs that won't be offshored and would be expanded, and keep American technologies and incentive based expansion with American companies. In this sense Trump's economic policies are indifferent to whether it helps American companies or not. Biden/Harris are determined to make it America that controls its own destiny. Why would foreign companies care about expansion and building America's leadership in technologies in the Free World, they would use their technologies in their own national interests. Even when they build factories for Chips as TMC of Taiwan is doing in Arizona they do so skeptical of the power of US engineering.  A holistic plan is missing when American leadership is turned over to foreign companies. Biden-Harris would use tax revenues from corporations to give them the best infrastructure and logistics in the world that supports their growth. This alone would add to America's growth by 1+ percentage points considering what we see in Indian growth with or without the best infrastructure. America's infrastructure is dilapidated. Trump lacks a plan to invest trillions of dollars in new infrastructure as Biden-Harris are doing. ...

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The focus is shifting from the oil majors to the companies in the oil field services sector, companies that supply the oil companies with oil field services. Deepwater oil field drilling rigs some of the most modern computer controlled ones run $650 million are in great demand and one Norwegian supplier of drilling rigs has anticipated the demand for advanced deepwater drilling rigs which the major oil companies had not invested in and is now in a position to charge $600,000 a day for the advanced rigs he has ordered 3 years ago as the deepwater drilling took off in places like offshore Angola. Earlier this Norwegian had anticipated the shift to long haul shipping of oil to places like India and China from Iran and offshore Africa.

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The auction of the Libra ultra-deep water oil field in the waters off Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Shell, Total and two Chinese companies took part in the auction. Libra is estimated to hold about 12 billion barrels of oil and combined with the other fields in the newly discovered area has about 50 billion barrels of oil. Brazil's laws passed after the discoveries offshore were made in 2006 give Petrobras a critical role in development of the oil fields. A new company Petrasal was created to oversee the new oil fields. The winning bidder in this auction is required to pay the government $7 billion in an upfront payment and source much of the equipment inside Brazil. New investments are required in education, infrastructure and supporting public services after nationwide street protests, making oil field development and new revenues a priority for the government of Dilma Rousseff and the Workers Party that runs the government.

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Labour will introduce 40 bills in parliament to make changes in renewable energy, the environment, transport railways, and for cost of living action. Great Britain Railways and Great Britain Energy are two public companies to be set up to reach goals in public transport modernization and in getting a five fold increase in solar needed to meet 68% cut in emissions by 2030 (Paris Accords commitment). Great Britain Energy will be capitalized with 8.3 billon pounds. (Labour scaled down its 28 billion pounds Green Energy Plan because of Tory mismanagement of finances but will continue to invest in vital projects). The answer is to take a creative approach. More money will be released through the Crown estate bill that will have the crown estate use its auctions of offshore land for wind energy and make investments in green energy. National Wealth Fund will invest in low carbon projects.  Fro water Labour will hold the water bosses to account and put companies such as Thames Water in special measures. Renationalisation was considered but was considered costly at this time, other action is being taken.  Nine bills are part of the 40– the planning and infrastructure bill; the better buses bill; the three rail bills, which are the passenger railway services (public ownership) bill, rail reform bill and high speed rail (Crewe to Manchester) bill; the Great British Energy bill and crown estate bill; the sustainable aviation fuels bill; and the water (special measures bill) – that all focus on protecting the environment. ...

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Norway's oil and gas industry companies like Statoil buried carbon dioxide deep in the seabed for natural gas extracted offshore. Sttoil's carbon dioxide emissions per ton of oil and gas extracted is 39% of the industry average as a result of technology and tax saving measures after Norway enacted laws taxing at the rate of $65 per ton of carbon emitted by the oil and gas industry. But overall because of the growth in Norway, more offshore production of oil and gas, and use in the transportation sector, Norway's emissions have gone up by 15% compared to 1991, when Norway was the first to put a tax on carbon dioxide emissions.

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NIgeria needs $60 billion betwen 2008 to 2012 to fund oil development costs, its share of the funding of joint projects with international oil companies. But the Nigerian state oil company needs to borrow half that amount. And credit markes are tight and will remain so for a long time so where will it find the money to fund shortfalls. Nigerian foreign minister said last week that production was just 1.5 million barrels a day. Observers pegged production at 2 million barrels a day. Violence in the Niger Delta is raising production costs ant CEO of Amni Nigerian oil company says costs are 250 percent higher than offshore counting security costs and kidnapping insurance for employees. Other problems with west african production are the high costs of developing the offshore fields and their rapid depletion rates as international oil companies seek to recoup their costs quickly. So even as new drilling takes place in offshore fields in Angola and Guinea the outlook is not so good. Consultancy John Mckenzie sees production declining by 2013. And PFC Energy estimates sees production peak at 7.1 million barrels a day in 2014 from current 5.8 million barrels. In the past African production has made up for declines in places like Russia and Mexico, now this is less likely. ...

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This NYT editorial brings up the 14-19% tax proposed by U.S. president Obama for overseas profits of U.S. companies. The 5.25% tax in 2005 under the Bush administration for repatriation of about $300 billion did not result in a positive experience says NYT, as most of the money went into dividend payments, share buybacks, and severance for laid off employees. It led to a new surge in unrepatriated profits in the expectation of another tax holiday of this type. A Senate investigation in 2013 showed Apple has $100 billion in Ireland with no tax paid on much of this amount, as cited here. The NYT says Apple shows arrogance in thinking the EU Commission which has taken up cases on tax avoidance of Fiat, Starbucks, Amazon, BASF, would not look at Apple in Ireland. It calls tax deferral on overseas profits as the root of the problem, as it allowed companies initially to look at investment opportunities, but now simply to stash the money abroad till some better tax arrangement can be achieved with U.S. Treasury. The Obama administration proposal was to immediately tax existing profits at 14%, whether repatriated or not, and thereafter at 19% on profits moved offshore. The NYT is in favor of ending corporate tax deferral altogether, and applying taxes on profits in the same year they are made.  ...

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European companies rushed to make new business investment in Iran after the lifting of Iran sanctions with the Iran Nuclear Deal in 2015. This report in the NYT shows companies in Europe were wary that the nuclear detente with Iran would not last. As a result the European exports to Iran up to $12.8 billion in 2017 were up 30% but still ranked Iran as the 33rd largest trading partner, behind Serbia. Other problems were bureaucratic hurdles and a lack of coordination in Iran for moving ahead with projects. After the deal was signed companies such as Peugeot, Airbus, Total, Daimler moved ahead to invest in Iran. Yet the investments were made carefully considering the opposition of the Trump administration. In one deal Airbus agreed to provide 100 new aircraft for Iran Air's aging fleet, yet only 3 were delivered by May 2018. Daimler had a deal with Iran's Khodro vehicle maker for Fuso brand trucks, yet Daimler officials say demand was weak. A deal made by Total to explore for offshore natural gas may require a waiver under a "grandfather clause" say Total officials, or the option to turn over the investment to its minority partner CNPC, a Chinese state owned company. The U.S. ambassador to Germany, Mr. Grennell, says European companies should stop operations in Iran immediately showing the U.S. plans to take stronger action.  ...

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Cyprus a small country of 860,000 people turned to a role as a offshore tax haven after the Turkish takeover of the northern part of the island in 1974. Before this the country was mainly agricultural, and depended on potato farming. To get some idea of what this means consider that the corporate registry in Cyprus has 320,000 registered companies, mostly shell companies setup for foreign companies and rich individuals looking to escape taxes. And a whole sector of professionals of accountants, lawyers and others has developed to service this.

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Questions about the wisdom of Exxon's moves against Venezuelan oil company Petroleos de Venezuela- taking it to court for taking a majority interest in 4 big oil projects managed previously by large western oil companies. Responding to Venezuelan public concerns about the deterioration in the oil production and development in Venezuela, President Chavez is negotiating with Shell and Total to bring in technical expertise and capital from western oil companies, while working at the same time with Petrobras and other national oil companies from China and Russia to develop its heavy oil assets. With Brazil facing capital needs for its own huge offshore Tupi oil field discovery, the $10 billion that is needed for developing the Carabobo oil field in the Orinoco will have to be financed with other foreign help and expertise. Petroleos Venezuela cannot rely solely on other national oil companies as it had thought it could do before. With things changing in Venezuela, and possibly even a new more friendlier government in future elections, has Exxon found itself on the outside when the European oil companies can build their presence in Venezuela?...

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1. ACCELERATION OF DECLINING PRODUCTION FROM GULF OF MEXICO AS DRILLING RIGS LEAVE THE GULF. Offshore oil production mostly in the Gulf fell by 19% between 2003 and 2005. Natural gas production fell by about 22% from 2001 to 2004, according to EIA. The drilling rigs jack-up rigs and deep-water rigs that drill for oil and gas are declining rapidly in the Gulf of Mexico. There were 148 rigs in 2001, now only 90 remain with more leaving soon. Many of the rigs that are leaving are jack-up rigs, used for drilling for natural gas in shallower waters, and this should lead to a pronounced effect on natural gas production. Gulf Gas reservoirs that use these jack-up rigs are quickly exhausted requiring new wells to be drilled to just maintain production. Fewer rigs available mean upward pressure on natural gas prices more so than oil because gas is a market supplied locally. EIA estimates natural gas will move from recent close (July 5, 2006) of $6.10 per million BTU's to a price of $10.00 by end of 2007. This compares with a price in 2001 of $2.43. Hurrican related disruptions pushed oil prices up by $10 a barrel for hurricanes Katrina and Rita, in each of two years, so there will be continued upward pressure on oil price from this acceleration in production declines in the Gulf. 2. SEA CHANGE IN THE OFFSHORE DRILLING RIG MARKET, IN DAY RATES, IN PREFERRED DRILLING LOCATIONS, AND IN RIG PRODUCTION. The hurricanes Katrina and Rita destroyed 5 rigs. What is a bigger effect is that drilling companies are signing longterm deals with companies overseas. Global Santa Fe Corp. for instance signed a deal last month to send 4 jack-up rigs to Saudi Aramco at $160,000 per day, for 4 years. Ensco International will send one to Tunisia at rates approaching $200,000 for 2 years. There are hotter prospects for petroleum offshore in the Middle east, and in Africa, whereas the easier drilling spots in the Gulf have already been tapped. Worldwide 91 major offshore rigs are under construction compared to 10 in 2003 according to ODS-Petrodata. The new rigs may take till 2009 and may have delays so as to come out after 2009. They cost $160-190 million for one jack-up rig and about $600 million for one deep-water rig. All this has pushed day rates throug the roof. BP PLC agreed to pay Transocean Inc $520,000 a day for three years for a massive drill ship. The same ship cost BP PLC $185,000 a day in 2004. The drilling ship is as large as 3 football fields and can drill in oceans upto 10,000 feet deep. ...

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After 22 months the Brazilian government of President Lula has come up with 4 bills in Congress that willl lay out the basis of ownership of the new oil discovered offshore, called pre-sal because its deep below salt deposits in the Atlantic ocean. The oil in the new fields is made the property of the state, and not that of companies that buy concesssions. In each block half of any oil produced will go to the state. The other half will go to a production sharing agreement between Petrobras and companies that partner with it in proportion to their costs. One bill creates a company Petrosal to finance social spending, infrastructure and other projects. And this is modeled on the Norwegian Oil Fund that has saved oil revenues for the people. Petrobras will also get an injection of the monetary equivalent of 5 billion barrels of oil to strengthen it as the dominant oil company.

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Rappaport of the NYT asks how it is possible that the U.S. Treasury is critical of the EU Commission's ruling that Apple pay back $13 billion in taxes because of its low tax rate of .005% in Europe, when Treasury is strongly critical of tax avoidance. The negligible tax by Ireland, base of Apple operations, is seen as a state subsidy not available to competitors. It also, as the EU Commission says, does not correspond to economic reality because the revenues are mostly made outside Ireland. An arrangement that is basically a strategy of tax avoidance. Today the leading candidates for president, Trump and Clinton, the major parties, and Congress, all are critical of tax avoidance strategies which deprive Treasury of much needed revenues. Restoring upward mobility is a priority today and programs to provide tution free access to public colleges, healthcare access, and infrastructure development, require public funding. Then why is the U.S.Treasury critical of the EU ruling? It is because Treasury sees this as money that should be coming to Treasury not the EU. However Treasury has failed to make this clear. The Financial Accountability and Corporate Transparency Coalition's Clark Gascoigne, calls it very ironic. And other experts say the money would not be coming to the U.S. anyway unless a low tax rate induces Apple to repatriate profits to the U.S. One expert calls it hypocritical. Senator Schumer says he agrees with Paul Ryan that tax legislation for a low tax rate for repatriation of profits back to the U.S. should be the next step, so that an infrastructure fund can be setup. Senator Levin and transparency advocates sees the EU action as normal and to be expected, as the anti-establishment sentiment today comes from such dealings that create the impression that the system is rigged in favor of some corporations. ...

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Exxon, BP, Eni, Shell, are actively working in Iraq to increase oil production, along with Lukoil, Gazprom, China National Petroleum, China National Offshore Oil Corporation. Foreign companies are attracted to Iraq because of the potential for growing oil production. Iraq produces 3 million barrels a day in 2012. An additional 400,000 barrels a day is planned for 2013. Shell's Iraq country chairman, Hans Nijkamp,says Iraq could eventally produce 6 to 10 million barrels a day by the early part of the next decade. Iraqi government officials have set a target of 10 million barrels a day by 2017, which is overly ambitious because of the many problems that need to be tackled, including building port and pipeline infrastructure, huge water projects to pump saline water into old oil fields, and passing a national oil law. Passing a national oil law means negotiating a deal acceptable to the Kurdish and other regions about sharing oil profits.

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The writedown on Greece bonds held by large banks in Cyprus of 50% after an EU agreement in Oct 2011, added to the stress on Cyprus banks from the property bubble, and from loans to Greek companies. The central bank and the country's president at the time were not on speaking terms according to reports and the regulatory was extremely weak. The head of Laiki bank was a Greek tycoon and made loans to well connected Greek companies. The property bubble created problems that remained hidden till the large writedown on Greece bonds led to an impossible situation in 2011. Cyprus's economic model of an offshore tax haven, which included laundering of dirty money according to reports, was based on lax banking laws. These very banking laws made regulatory supervision, capital requirements and eurozone wide deposit guarantees, the necessary framework for the euro currency that is now being built, outside the scope of this economic model. Seen from this perspective of setting a sound basis for the euro, the German position that this economic model had to go was a logical move. Something the Cypriot leaders and the bank management entirely failed to anticipate and grasp. These very lax banking laws made it impossible to know the real condition of the banks, and plan for contingencies, right down to the end. ...

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The Leviathan gas field, 84 miles from Israel's northern coast and three miles below the Mediterranean seabed, is the largest deepwater gas find in the last ten years, estimated to contain 16 trillion cubic feet of gas. Houston based Noble Energy is an independent oil company that is operating the field. Before this find the US Geological Survey had released its first assessment of the zone- the Levant basin stretching offshore in the Mediterranean- estimating that it contained 1.7 billon barrels of oil and 122 trillion cubic feet of gas. This is equal to half the proven reserves in the US. Before this find Israel had failed to find much oil and gas and big oil and gas companies had stayed away not wanting to disturb relations with Arab and Iranian partners. Because of a 1952 petroleum law, Israel offers very attractive terms to oil companies such as Noble, with low royalties and low corporate taxes on exploration. Now the Israeli government is considering changing the terms retroactively on previously assigned leases. In November 2010, Finance Minister Steinitz says a government appointed committee has made preliminary recommendations to abolish tax breaks for energy firms and impose tax increases of 20% to 60% on windfall profits. Israel's Securities Authority has also started to clamp down on trading irregularities, and raided the offices of two enegy exploration companies. Rumors of big finds have set off a speculative frenzy in Israel's stock market. The energy index of the Tel Aviv stock exchange went up by 1700% in 2010, and energy stocks account for half of the activity on the exchange. ...