China's Snowstorms

Weather reports have confirmed China's heaviest snowstorms in five decades...these storms crushed homes, grounded flights, disrupted electricity and left hundreds of thousands of travelers stranded, a week before millions take to the roads for Lunar New Year holidays.
As many as 5 percent of China's coal-fired power plants, which generate 78 percent of electricity were shut because snow hampered coal shipments Zhuzhou Smelter Group Co., China's largest zinc refiner, said shortages forced it to cut production.

More than a foot (34 centimeters) of snow fell yesterday in Nanjing in the east, the city's heaviest in 50 years, halting air and rail service, in turn delaying a third of ensuing flights in Beijing and Shanghai and throwing national train service into chaos. Military police kept order at the Beijing railway station today, where 400,000 passengers were stranded.
China faces a very severe situation in ensuring supplies of coal, electricity, oil and transportation,the inventory of thermal coal fell due to a combination of energy demand, massive snowstorms and the annual peak Lunar New Year traffic. Early holidays at some coal mines also contributed to the shortage of the fuel.

The Chinese Lunar New Year holiday runs Feb. 6 to Feb. 12 this year. Travelers will probably make a record 2.17 billion journeys during the period, according to the government. Energy shortages and transportation bottlenecks are likely to aggravate inflation pressures in China in the short term.
The shortage is close to 39.9 million kilowatt hours, The main cause is the shortage of coal.
Also power lines linking the Three Gorges hydroelectric dam in central China's Hubei province to Shanghai were damaged in snowstorms.Snow delayed as many as 35 percent of flights from two airports in Shanghai, China's financial hub.

Due to this we will probaly face another crude increase as SPECULATION will use this Chinese internal energy problem to inflate the
crude prices...or maybe not..