Baghdad, Kurds strike temporary oil deal : Crisis & Opportunity

http://www.crescent.ae/?utm_source=IOR+Email+Update+Subscribers&utm_campaign=435908e38a-Email_Update&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f9870911e6-435908e38a-192733646 ------------------------------------------------------------ http://us1.campaign-archive1.com/?u=13d058ed214708c66bc5170b2&id=435908e38a&e=2f05fd0611 www.iraqoilreport.com (http://iraqoilreport.com?utm_source=IOR+Email+Update+Subscribers&utm_campaign=435908e38a-Email_Update&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f9870911e6-435908e38a-192733646) Friday November 14, 2014 BREAKING: KRG and ‪#‎Baghdad‬ reached an agreement over oil and budget issue in which ‪#‎KRG‬ gives 150K barrels per day to Baghdad and Baghdad pays KRG $500 million. ** (http://www.iraqoilreport.com/news/baghdad-kurds-strike-temporary-oil-deal-13629/?utm_source=IOR+Email+Update+Subscribers&utm_campaign=435908e38a-Email_Update&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f9870911e6-435908e38a-192733646) ------------------------------------------------------------ http://www.iraqoilreport.com/news/baghdad-kurds-strike-temporary-oil-deal-13629/?utm_source=IOR+Email+Update+Subscribers&utm_campaign=435908e38a-Email_Update&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f9870911e6-435908e38a-192733646 ‪#‎Iraq‬ finance minister Hoshyar ‪#‎Zebari‬: Sending the salaries of the (KRG) employees is the condition of the visit by the KRG delegation (to ‪#‎Baghdad‬). ========= Hi Guys, Taken a wee while to absorb all the info that was presented yesterday - looks like the market has done the same. IMHO the most important information was imparted at the Genel capital markets day as it has implications for all the KRI players. The most important piece of information IMHO is that a KRG PSC is no longer to be regarded as sacrosanct. Genel have taken 2 of them and tossed them in the bucket. In their place they are in the process of creating a new type of PSC that amongst other things does away with Profit Oil and Cost oil as we know it and also kicks the R factor into touch. Instead of a single contract covering the disposition of all the hydrocarbons their contact splits the hydrocarbons into streams and each stream has a separate disposition. I must admit at first glance setting the KRI price for raw gas at 78 cents per mcf did not exactly have me turning somersaults given the amount of gas we have to deal with. A closer look at the Genel proposition has made me change my mind. Under the new contract Genel now get 100% of the oil until they recover 100% of their total costs for everything. The oil is then split 50-50. Note no R factor and intriguingly no mention of CBBT either. Genel get 100% of the condensate for the lifetime of the contract. Genel sell the gas to the KRG at 78 cents per mcft. The KRG have signed a contact with Turkey to sell them gas at $6.75 per mcfu i.e more than 8 times what they are paying for it. Meanwhile Turkey who are currently paying $12-13 for their gas will get gas from KRI at approx half of what they are currently paying. On the Capex front Genel have committed to $1b to pay for everything up to delivery of the gas to the processing plant while the KRG need $4b to build and operate the gas plant and any customer facing infrastructure.( apparently their are loads of Turkish contractors ready to step in here). The deal works better for those with more oil which suites Genel at Miran - less so for Bina Bawi so OMV have taken the opportunity to cash their chips and bow out. A decision I suspect not completely unrelated to the kicking they are getting as a 10% partner in Pearl. Genel propose to start with a horizontal well at Miran to tap the oil there first of all before drilling the gas wells. Win win all round. Turkey gets a 50% reduction in its energy bill for their Power Stations KRI gets really cheap gas with an export contact worth 8.5 times cost price while being able to provide domestic gas cheaply at a profit. Genel and their shareholders get a 15% return on the deal and TH is happy with that. What does that mean for GKP and the other contractors. From the Q&A it was made clear that this deal was made between Genel and the KRG without recourse or thought for the other contractors. What comes out of it for the other contractors is purely happenstance. The contact only works if Genel get paid for their oil. If Genel don't get paid for their oil then the KRI don't get the cheap gas and Turkey don't get a 50% cut in their electricity generation bill. This puts tremendous pressure on both the KRG and Turkey to get a solid payments mechanism in place as their benefits come at the back end of this deal so the quicker it is in place the better. This will benefit all the KRI contractors, us probably most of all. The breaking of the sanctity of the KRG PSC shows what is now possible. Your assets now have 2 or more valuations. They can be valued using the standard PSC which we all understand but there is now also a value for ingenuity as well for those that come up with more creative methods for monetising the assets. Not all the hydrocarbon streams have to be valued the same way under the PSC- Genel have shown this. Depending on the composition of your hydrocarbons there must now be an incentive for some operators to come up with a proposition that at the very least removes the "R" factor and, can we even whisper it, removes the CBBT as well. On the down side if you stick with the standard PSC and have a lot of gas then it becomes a liability, a cost if you like that we have to dispose of. The type of deal that was outlined yesterday by Genel was of a breadth,scope and imagination the we as GKP shareholders once thought would be generated by GKP when PW were hired for their expertise in this area. That did not happen, but now the ice has been broken, surely it is time to have another look at our assets and see if value can be enhanced by a more creative regime for their monitisation. At the very least the imperative that lies with the KRG and Turkey to get the payments sorted should see all the operators share price ourselves included head north. GLA BF ===== Emirates resumes Erbil flights on Sunday ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Emirates will fly into Erbil on Sunday for the first time since Islamic State came within kilometers of the regional capital this summer, the airline announced on Thursday. The United Arab Emirates carrier, the largest in the Middle East, was one of several airlines to suspend flights to Erbil “due to increased security concerns” when the Islamic State (ISIS) came within 25 kilometers of the city in early August, causing thousands of citizens in the city to panic and leave. US-led coalition airstrikes halted the ISIS advance, and the Iraqi Peshmerga have since re-established control over key areas near the city with international help, although the militants remain in control of Mosul 90 kilometers away. Emirates continued to fly to Basra and Baghdad throughout the period, and fellow Dubai-based airline flydubai continued flights to Kurdistan’s second city, Sulaimani. The carrier will offer two flights a week between Erbil and Dubai, which hosts the region’s largest airport, and provide four flights a week starting 4 December. “We have been closely monitoring the situation in Iraq and after a thorough review of all operational factors, we have decided to resume our services,” Emirates executive Sheikh Majid Al Mualla said in a press release Thursday. “The resumed service will be of particular benefit to passengers connecting to the GCC and points to the United States and Europe.” ==== Author 7Macca View Profile Add to favourites Ignore Date posted Friday 18:54 Subject BUY THE MOST UNDERVALUED OIL COMPANY IN THE WORLD!!!!!! (re post) Votes for this Posting BUY THE MOST UNDERVALUED OIL COMPANY ON EARTH By Christian A. DeHaemer | Thursday, November 13th, 2014 There is still an oil war going on in Iraq. Here are just a few of today's headlines: "Kobani Kurdish Forces Cut ISIS Supply Route From Raqqa, Take Back Part Of Strategic Hill" — International Business Times "Sen. Tim Kaine said Wednesday there's no legal authority for the current U.S. mission against ISIS in Iraq and Syria" — CNN "Fate of ISIS leader still unknown. — CBS News Oh yes, the decades-long oil war is still running hot — it's just been rebranded a little bit. ISIS, or the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, is really the runt end of Saddam Hussein's Ba'athist army coupled with Tanzim Qaidat al-Jihad fi Bilad al-Rafidayn, known in America as Al-Qaeda. Together, they form a barbarous group of Sunni killers that are as evil as any that walked the earth. War for Oil But as usual, it's all about black gold. And this fight goes back a long way. In 1918, British troops invaded Mosul, Iraq in hopes of gaining control of the massive oil fields in the northern portion of the country. What they found was world-class reserves that could rebuild the British Empire left shattered after WWI. Oil Map of Iraq Source: BBC News The Brits created the Iraq Petroleum Company, which gave them a virtual monopoly on all oil exploration and production in Iraq. But it didn't last... In 1972, the monopoly was broken as Iraq’s oil sector was nationalized, banishing outside countries from access and giving Iraq full control of its oil rights for the first time since the early 1900s. And when Saddam Hussein rose to power in 1979, he was primed to take Iraq to the height of its oil glory. Yet, as usual, Saddam failed. Iraq could produce 12 to 16 million barrels of oil a day. Instead, on a good day, it pumps 3.5 million bpd. The reason for this is that Hussein purposely overlooked one of the largest oil fields in his OWN country — one that holds 13.7 billion barrels of oil: the SHAIKAN oil field. You can see it located up there on the map between Mosul and Kirkuk. And still, due to politics, war, or lack of funding... the massive oil resource in northern Iraq remains largely untouched. But that's all about to change, and soon... $1 Stock Corners the Wolfberry Shale A small oil company has taken over a huge swath of land in West Texas. It now has a stranglehold on a region that is producing nearly 2 million barrels per day, and it's only a matter of time before herd investors take notice. We cover all of the details — including the potential 1,000% gain — for this $1 stock right here. One Small Company There’s one tiny company that has its hands on the lion’s share of the oil in this profit-rich region of Iraq. And if that’s not enough, it also has the rights to three other prime chunks of oil-rich land in addition to the one I’ve been telling you about — and ALL of them have the very same oil-promising geography as the first. This company is already pumping 40,000 barrels of oil out of the ground on a daily basis, and that number is expected to more than quadruple within 18 months. All told, these guys are sitting on a whopping 13.7 billion barrels of oil — a true game changer for such a small company. To put that in perspective, Pioneer Natural Resources (NYSE: PXD), a company with rights in the Eagle Ford, is sitting on 11 billion barrels of oil. Pioneer has a market capitalization of $23.87 billion. For those who don't know, “market capitalization” is the value you get when you multiply the number of shares outstanding by the price per share. It gives you the total market value of a stock. Another well-known company, Marathon Oil (NYSE: MRO), has claimed 4.3 billion barrels of oil and has a market capitalization of $21.86 billion. Massive Value The company I'm talking about has a market capitalization of less than $1 billion, and yet it is sitting on 3.18 times the amount of oil Marathon has. That means this Kurdish oil company would have to go up by 2,208.34% just to equal one-third the valuation of Marathon Oil. That's absurd. Look, I'm very excited about this new profit opportunity. However, due to the time lag involved in the publishing process, my free research report won't be available until November 18, 2014 — less than one week from today. That said, if you would like to get ahead of the crowd, I've convinced my publisher to open a pre-order window that allows you to join my investment service, Crisis and Opportunity, today. Click here for access. Don't wait — yesterday, the stock jumped 11%. As ISIS fades (and this is already starting to happen), this stock will come roaring back off its five-year lows. All the best, Christian DeHaemer Since 1995, Christian DeHaemer has specialized in frontier market opportunities. He has traveled extensively and invested in places as varied as Cuba, Mongolia, and Kenya. Chris believes the best way to make money is to get there first with the most. Christian is the founder of Crisis & Opportunity and Managing Director of Wealth Daily. He is also a contributor for Energy & Capital. = No guarantees Baghdad-Erbil oil deal will stick ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iraqi and Kurdish leaders struck a deal over the contentious issue of independent Kurdish oil exports in Erbil on Thursday, but analysts are skeptical this draws either side closer to a permanent solution. The deal involved an upfront payment of $500 million by Baghdad to pay the salaries of Kurdish civil servants. In return, Kurdistan would provide the federal government 150,000 barrels of Kurdish oil a day. “This covers the month of October,” Iraqi Finance Minister told Rudaw on Thursday. “In November, there will be another payment of $1 billion and the KRG will again hand over 150,000 barrels of oil per day (bpd) to the federal government.” But until the money and oil are delivered, analysts remain cautious, remembering a similar deal that fell apart in March. “It is not a permanent solution, and it is dependent upon both sides implementing it - and this is not at all obvious that it will happen,” said Gareth Stansfield, an Iraq expert at the University of Exeter. Stansfield suggested that both sides were driven to the negotiation table by necessity. “Both sides were in appallingly weak positions,” he said. “It was this shared weakness that allowed them to find a stopgap solution – and that is just what it is.” Both the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and the Iraqi Federal Government are suffering from fiscal pressures. The KRG hasn’t received its share of the national budget since January because of the oil dispute, and both sides are grappling to fund the fight against ISIS amidst falling global oil prices, with oil the largest source of revenue for both parties. The Kurdistan Region has exported 34.5 million barrels of oil since January, but after costs it’s net revenue was only $1.7 million. Before January, the KRG received slightly over a billion dollars a month, roughly 11 percent of the national income. “KRG oil exports, while quite significant, have been nowhere near the levels needed to generate the amounts needed to fund the KRG salaries and projects, the refugee crisis, and the expansion of the Peshmerga (or even the paying of the Peshmerga at a normal level),” Stansfield told Rudaw. “They have been quickly accruing significant amounts of debt and credit lines are becoming more and more difficult to find.” “The issues Baghdad face are similarly acute,” he added. “Due to mismanagement, corruption, and chaos, Baghdad is also financially broken, with very limited reserves, and with the bottleneck of oil in Basra limiting exports.” Other factors push both sides towards a deal. Baghdad and other western powers fighting ISIS has an interest in keeping Kurds engaged in government and ensuring a strong security situation in the country’s north, where Kurdish Peshmerga are defend a 1,050 km border against militant attacks. “Remember there’s huge pressure from the Americans to try and keep the country united and to make concessions to keeping Iraq unified while they all try and tackle the problem of ISIS,” said Michael Stephens of the Royal United Service Institute, a defense think-tank. “For now the last thing anyone needs is Erbil and Baghdad bickering over oil, there are bigger problems to solve,” and for that reason he believes “it will hold, for now.” Iraq’s new oil minister, Adil Adbul-Mahdi has had close ties with the Kurds in the past during his term as Vice President and during his time in exile. Zebari credited his “good” relationship with Abdul-Mahdi with having facilitated the agreement. But some remain doubtful that Prime Minister Abadi is interested in finding a permanent solution. “Abdul-Mahdi clearly wanted this, but it is important to note that the people talking about this, none of them are close to Abadi,” says Kirk Sowell, who runs newsletter Inside Iraqi Politics. “I don't see any indication Abadi is prepared to compromise on the lines [former lead negotiator with the KRG over oil policy] Hussein Shahristani laid down in the spring,” namely that the KRG sell the oil through the Iraqi marketing company SOMO, sell at global prices, and accept payment at the Development Fund for Iraq account at the Federal Reserve in New York. Sowell argues that it will only make economic sense for Abadi to strike a deal if the Kurds are selling more than 300,000bpd through the federal system. Likewise the KRG will need far more than $500 million a month to cover their costs, making this agreement only a partial fix for both sides. “It is a goodwill gesture to get [Kurdish Prime Minister] Nechirvan Barzani to come to Baghdad to negotiate,” Sowell says. This does' t necessarily mean that the deal will “open the way” for a lasting solution, as Abdul-Mahdi said in a statement on Friday. Barzani is set to arrive in Baghdad in the “coming days,” according to a KRG press release, where he will negotiate with Abadi himself. Only time will tell if he can accomplish the ambitious and challenging goal of reaching a “comprehensive, fair and constitutional solution to all outstanding differences between the federal government and the KRG.” ======= Appologies if already posted 10 German MPs unfurl PKK flag in parliament, urge lifting of ban COPENHAGEN, Denmark – Ten MPs from the left wing Die Linke party unfurled the flag of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) inside the German parliament building on Friday, urging the lifting of a ban on the group. The act was also in solidarity with fellow party member Nicole Gohlke, who lost her parliamentary immunity last month after waving a PKK flag at a Munich demonstration. That protest was in support of Kobane, the Kurdish town in Syria where PKK-affiliated fighters have been resisting an Islamic State (ISIS) takeover for some two months. “Instead of lifting Nicole Gohlke’s immunity, we urge the federal government to remove the ban on the PKK,” the deputies said in a statement. The German Bundestag waived Gohlke’s parliamentary privilege a month after she waved a PKK flag at an October 18 demonstration in Munich. "The Kurdish people have fought for freedom, democracy and human rights under this flag," she had said. The PKK, which fought a three-decade war for autonomy in Turkey after beginning peace talks last year, has been banned in Germany since 1993. It is also considered a terrorist organization by the European Union, the United States and the rest of NATO. But recent events have raised the PKK’s profile: in Kobane, the PKK-affiliated People’s Protection Units (YPG) have been supplied with some Western weapons and backed by US-led air strikes in the war against ISIS. “The ban against the PKK is now outdated,” Ulla Jelpke, one of the Die Linke MPs involved in the flag protest, told Rudaw. “The PKK is now an effective force struggling against ISIS, especially in Kobane. Therefore, they should immediately be delisted from the European Union’s terrorist list,” Jelpke added. But Tobias Huch, a Liberal Party MP, told Rudaw that, although he did not support the PKK, the unfurling of the flag highlighted the need for a discussion on the issue. “We have to re-examine whether the PKK really is a terrorist organization -- such as Hamas, whose flag is not banned in Germany ,” Huch said, referring to the hardline Palestinian movement. "In the context of Kobani, numerous reports were made revealing that large weapon shipments were delivered to the heavily armed battalions of the ‪#‎ISIL‬ by Turkey for the offensive on Kobani. One journalist, Serena Shim, would pay for her life for trying to document this. ‪#‎SerenaShim‬, a Lebanese-American working for Iran’s English-language Press TV news network, would reveal that weapons were secretly being delivered to the insurgents in Syria through Turkey in trucks carrying the logo of the UN World Food Organization. SerenaShim would be killed shortly after in a mysterious car accident on October 19 after being threatened by the Turkish National Intelligence Organization (MIT) for spying for the 'Turkish opposition.'" ======== Top officials meeting in Erbil see resumption of limited exports via SOMO, October payment to KRG as step in the right direction. Perhaps when the SP is 88.8p on Monday or Tuesday next week someone will buy 888k of shares. Is it a SINO things to come? to spread more light on the 6k trades (icebergs). GKP's 'normal market size' (NMS) is 15k. The LSE have 'rules' to not let any 'icebergs' be less than 40% of the NMS. Hence, 40% of 15k is 6k. Now we all know there is plenty icebergs at sizes less than 6k, these orders are more complex orders where the trade is executed via high frequency algorithm's where as soon as an order is filled it will immediately replace itself (a more complicated iceberg), typically institutional, or generally speaking 'complex' market orders. But, as a general basic rule, for basic orders, the LSE does not let you put an iceberg on the book at anything less than 40% of the NMS. Hope this helps. Have a great weekend one and all! ========= Halliburton can stump up $30 bln for Baker Hughes That’s if the $46 bln U.S. oil services giant finds cost cuts worth 5 pct of its rival’s sales, in line with past deals in the sector. Banding together makes sense in an industry downturn. And Halliburton could offset the risk of paying a potential 40 pct premium by using shares. Tax code, not bankers, deserves Congress's ire Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren reckons working on inversions rules Lazard’s top dealmaker Antonio Weiss out of a Treasury job. Such transactions may be dumb, but were neither unlawful nor unethical. It’s skewed rules that Washington needs to banish, not all of Wall Street. Review: Through a distorting mirror, darkly William Gibson’s novel “The Peripheral” paints future worlds that are built of present fears writ large. Algorithms not only roil financial markets, they travel in time. Nanotech eats people. Money corrupts and spies surveil (To keep under surveillance.), even more than now. Yet human decency has a chance. Breakingviews TV: NY's modern art bonanza Antony Currie and Richard Beales discuss this week's record $853 mln auction of contemporary works by Christie's – and explain how EU rules have helped shift the market to the Big Apple. Watch the view Follow Breakingviews on Facebook | Follow Breakingviews on Twitter Introductions If you have received this email from a Breakingviews user and would like to trial our service free, please click here Help If you are having problems with story links or for general help please contact us: EMEA/UK: +800 738 837 70 or +44 20 7542 5565 Americas: +1-800-738-8377 Asia: +612 9321 8140 Client Support: +800 8727 8326, rm.clientsupport@thomsonreuters.com ==== Capricorn-Sagittarius cusps (those born from December 22 to December 28) are considered to be slightly different from the typical Capricorn, being more outgoing, jovial and less ambitious and money orientated than the Capricorn who is not born on a cusp.[ In astrology, Capricorn is considered an earth sign. Modern astrological figure for Capricorn as a fish-tailed goat derives from the depictions of the Sumerian god of water Enki, who was associated with semen and amniotic fluid, and hence with fertility, and commonly represented as a half-goat, half-fish creature. Due to the precession of the equinoxes the December solstice no longer takes place while the sun is in the constellation Capricornus, as it did until 130 BCE, but the astrological sign called Capricorn begins with the solstice. The solstice now takes place when the Sun is in Sagittarius. The sun's most southerly position, which is attained at the northern hemisphere's winter solstice, is now called the Tropic of Capricorn, a term which also applies to the line on the Earth at which the sun is directly overhead at noon on that solstice. The Sun is now in Capricorn from late January through mid-February.[3]Precessional movement of the Earth – the Earth rotates (white arrows) once a day about its axis of rotation (red); this axis itself rotates slowly (white circle), completing a rotation in approximately 26,000 years. The relationship between the apses, seasons and precession of Earth's axis, as viewed from the north. The seasons indicated pertain to the Northern Hemisphere and are reversed for the Southern Hemisphere. The tilt of Earth's axis and the eccentricity of its orbit are exaggerated. The precession of Earth's axis as viewed from above north pole. The Equinox seasons pertain to the Northern Hemisphere and are reversed for the Southern. The tilt of Earth's axis and the eccentricity of its orbit are exaggerated but apisides of Earth's orbit are not. consequence of the precession is a changing pole star. Currently Polaris is extremely well suited to mark the position of the north celestial pole, as Polaris is a moderately bright star with a visual magnitude of 2.1 (variable), and it is located about one degree from the pole.[16] On the other hand, Thuban in the constellation Draco, which was the pole star in 3000 BC, is much less conspicuous at magnitude 3.67 (one-fifth as bright as Polaris); today it is invisible in light-polluted urban skies. The brilliant Vega in the constellation Lyra is often touted as the best north star (it fulfilled that role around 12,000 BC and will do so again around the year 14,000); however, it never comes closer than 5° to the pole. When Polaris becomes the north star again around 27,800, due to its proper motion it then will be farther away from the pole than it is now, while in 23,600 BC it came closer to the pole. Precession of Earth's rotational axis due to the tidal force raised on Earth by the gravity of the Moon and Sun. As a Cardinal sign, you are one of the leaders of the zodiac. It's your level head and wisdom that makes you that. Your ability to work consistently towards any goal also helps. driven and seems to have it together, who can keep their cool in the middle of mayhem, who's reserved but hot, odds are they are Capricorn. This doesn't mean that you are 100% bound to be a teacher yourself. But it does indicate that you are someone who can teach others lessons and also someone who learns by the lessons life A setback doesn't seem like the end of the world to you and even bad news is something you can deal with. It's far better to work with the truth than to live in some airy-fairy floaty world - for Capricorns. Some say you're a tad cold, but as far as you can see, there's enough mushy stuff in the world without you blathering as well! You are also the sign that relates most to the passage of time. You are aware and respectful of the past and you welcome change because you know it's progress. Some would see your ability to let the past go as cool bordering on cold. That's their lookout. You know better that the past is indeed over and the present and future is what counts. You are down to earth and an Earth sign for that matter and you are not at all afraid of taking on responsibilities. But it's not all work and building and constructive growth. Capricorns are as soft and mushy inside as the next human being, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise! November sees you all fired up about... pretty much anything and everything. This could make you into the person you've been trying so hard not to be – that angry one who stomps around when things go awry! OR you could use the energies to make some amazing changes in your life. Harness the good by breathing through any anger and/or releasing it via meditation or sport. Also release someone or something you've outgrown. See yourself as the amazing and powerful person you are, and you'll achieve big things. = The Capricorn Star Sign in Short Capricorns are lucky. They are the ones who look younger as they get older. They are very attractive and neat and once they get over their shyness they are quite aggressive. They can be trusted to keep a secret and are really great in emergencies. Sometimes they are a little bit impulsive but as their intuition is pretty strong, they usually make the right decisions. They’re creative, sensitive and patient. On a bad day they can be jealous, selfish and moody. They are very close to their family and are usually the last ones to leave home. More About Capricorn Capricorns are patient, realistic and responsible and they take life seriously. They need security but they may find this difficult to achieve. Many live on a treadmill of work, simply to pay the bills and feed the kids. They will never shun family responsibilities, even caring for distant relatives if this becomes necessary. However, they can play the martyr while doing so. These people hate coarseness, they are easily embarrassed and they hate to annoy anyone. Capricorns believe fervently in keeping the peace in their families. This doesn’t mean that they cannot stand up for themselves, indeed they know how to get their own way and they won’t be bullied. They are adept at using charm to get around prickly people. Capricorns are ambitious, hard working, patient and status-conscious and they will work their way steadily towards the top in any organisation. If they run their own businesses, they need a partner with more pizzazz to deal with sales and marketing for them while they keep an eye on the books. Their nit-picking habits can infuriate others and some have a tendency to ‘know best’ and not to listen. These people work at their hobbies with the same kind of dedication that they put into everything else. They are faithful and reliable in relationships and it takes a great deal to make them stray. If a relationship breaks up, they take a long time to get over it. They may marry very early or delay it until middle age when they are less shy. As an earth sign, Capricorns are highly sexed but they need to be in a relationship where they can relax and gain confidence. Their best attribute is their genuine kindness and their wonderfully dry, witty sense of humour. Capricorn at Work There won’t be any upset customers or partners as long as you are in charge of keeping relationships on solid ground. You are an expert at playing the diplomat and can turn an angry client into your greatest advocate within minutes of talking with them. Being as level-headed as you are has benefited your business in more ways than you realise. It allows you to consistently make the right decisions and if one of them doesn’t work out, you’ll learn from it and won’t ever make that mistake again. You are ambitious and hard working, though you do need to let someone else with a bit more pizzazz drive your sales and marketing strategies for you. Try not to get too caught up with the mundane day-to-day tasks that you tend to burden yourself with. It’s time to revive your interest by introducing some of those activities you’ve thought of doing for the past year and you should also try to bring out more of that wonderfully dry and witty sense of humour. =