Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323407104579038500554898652.html

PLC warned that an extended grounding of supply helicopters could have a "major impact" on energy operations in the North Sea, as producers attempted to find alternative aircraft and ships to ferry crew and equipment.

More than half the helicopter fleet used to supply oil and gas platforms in British North Sea waters remained grounded Tuesday as operators imposed a voluntary freeze on using Super Puma helicopters, following a fatal crash on Friday. U.K. air-safety authorities continued to investigate the accident off the Shetland Islands coast, which claimed the lives of four oil workers.

Super Pumas, which are made by the Eurocopter unit of European Aeronautic Defence & Space Co., EADSY +0.33% continued to fly to platforms in Norway and Australia. EADS shares closed at €43.78 ($58.53) in Paris on Tuesday, down 1.6%.

Offshore operators plan to share the remaining helicopter fleet and suspend routine work. Industry group Oil & Gas UK said the suspension would cause delays and flight backlogs, and could have adverse effects on offshore activities in the North Sea, a major oil-producing region. The area is home to Brent crude oil, the global pricing benchmark.

BP, one of the North Sea's largest operators, said there was no immediate risk to oil production from its fields, which pump 100,000 barrels of oil a day from U.K. fields. But a spokesman said a prolonged suspension of the workhorse Super Pumas could have a "major impact" on offshore activity.

The U.K. company said it was looking to use more Sikorsky S-92 helicopters to support its business in the region.

France's Total SA FP.FR -1.40% said it had chartered four ships to help transport workforce to and from offshore installations.

Royal Dutch Shell RDSA.LN -1.37% PLC said it didn't anticipate significant disruption to its operations as it primarily uses Sikorsky helicopters in the North Sea. Sikorsky is a unit of United Technologies Corp. UTX -0.36%

Brent-crude prices are unlikely to be affected as long as difficulties getting workers to platforms don't affect North Sea productivity, oil traders said. More than 56,000 staff worked offshore in the U.K. section of the North Sea last year. Brent's price rose $3.2% Tuesday, pushed by tensions in Syria to the benchmark's biggest gain since October.

The Super Puma grounding comes amid a global shortage of helicopter capacity, driven by expansion in the Gulf of Mexico and off the coasts of Brazil and West Africa.

Friday's crash involved an AS332 L2 Super Puma operated by the Scotland-based arm of CHC Helicopter Canada Inc.

Bristow Group Inc., BRS -1.29% among the biggest helicopter operators, said it had suspended flying nine of its 20 AS332 Super Pumas: seven in the U.K and two in Nigeria. The Texas-based company said it was too early to tell whether the crash probe would affect the return to service of Bristow's EC225 Super Pumas.

The EC225 was banned by regulators from flying over water for almost 10 months after two ditched in the North Sea last year. The ban was lifted in July. Bristow, which has 20 EC225s, had planned to return the model to service in the fourth quarter.

CHC already has resumed service with some EC225s.

Eurocopter said the helicopter that crashed Friday was equipped with a different gearbox than the one installed on the EC225. Eurocopter Chief Executive Guillaume Faury arrived in Aberdeen, the U.K.'s oil capital, to coordinate the company's response to the crash.

The union representing U.K. pilots said "the confidence of its members in the Super Puma family of aircraft remains unchanged."

CHC and the Bond Offshore Helicopters unit of Spain's Avincis Group SA also continued voluntarily to suspend all U.K. Super Puma operations. That followed a recommendation made Saturday by the Helicopter Safety Steering Group, which represents producers, contractors, unions and operators.

The steering group is expected to meet Wednesday, and the U.K. Air Accidents Investigation Branch in the next few days is expected to publish preliminary findings from its probe into Friday's accident.

What a very nice points you got here but you know actually financial planning is basically the practice of budgeting, management of your investments and long term plans for your assets.

(Reuters) - Spain's prime minister published his tax returns on Saturday in a bid to quell reports he and other conservative politicians received secret cash payments but the opposition said many questions remain unanswered. The government's website posted tax authority documents detailing Mariano Rajoy's income and tax payments from the past ten years. His ruling People's Party (PP) also revealed four years of financial accounts on Friday, in another attempt to put the matter to rest. The scandal, centered on ledgers supposedly made by a former party treasurer, have cut support for the PP to the lowest level on record and pushed up borrowing costs just as it seemed Spain was getting to grips with a financial crisis that had raised questions about the future of the euro zone. Former PP treasurer Luis Barcenas has described as fake handwritten ledger entries published on January 31 by El Pais newspaper purporting to show payments funded by construction firms made to PP leaders including Rajoy. Rajoy has said the payments were not made and that the party is organizing an external audit into the affair. The opposition Socialists said the published accounts of Rajoy and the PP did nothing to explain the Barcenas papers. Socialist spokeswoman Soraya Rodriguez said Spaniards wanted more than Rajoy's tax records. "Spaniards are fed up of waiting for answers that never come," she told journalists in Valladolid on Saturday. Cayo Lara of the United Left party said the publication of the accounts was meaningless as members of parliament have to declare their assets in any case. The tax returns do not cover the first half of the period of entries in the ledgers published by El Pais, which run from 1990 to 2009.

Thanks for the writeup. I definitely agree with what you are saying. I have been talking about this subject a lot lately with my father so hopefully this will get him to see my point of view.

The year 2007 brought one of the biggest scandals in memory to hit the futures community. Brokerage Sentinel Management Group collapsed in what prosecutors later said was a fraud by its chief executive and its head trader, leaving customers out hundreds of millions of dollars. That December, one of the leaders of the industry, Russell Wasendorf Sr., warned authorities that beefing up policing in response would be overkill. "The regulators missed on this one, but fraud is not easily detected," Wasendorf wrote in an editorial in Stocks, Futures and Options, or SFO, an industry magazine he published. "Those who set out to line their own pockets have ways of hiding it, at least for a while." He knew what he was talking about. Unbeknownst to regulators, Wasendorf had been stealing from his customers' accounts for years, a fact he confessed after he tried to asphyxiate himself in a car outside Peregrine's headquarters in July. The dramatic end to his career came amid the implementation of electronic monitoring by regulators of Peregrine's accounts, a step Wasendorf had resisted. Interviews with former employees, colleagues and associates, as well as an examination of court filings and company documents seen by Reuters, paint a picture of an entrepreneur who, by using relatively simple tools, was able to keep regulators off the scent for years. He did this even as his behavior grew increasingly showy and erratic. As the financial shocks of 2008 savaged his business, Wasendorf went on a multiyear shopping binge, finishing an eco-friendly $24 million headquarters, opening a gourmet Italian restaurant in Cedar Falls, breaking ground on a second kitchen nearby, and installing a wood-fired pizza oven in his backyard. Wasendorf pleaded guilty to mail fraud, embezzlement and lying to regulators last week. He remains in solitary confinement and under suicide watch inside an Iowa jail. Related Article: http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2012/09/26/How-Did-Regulators-

Nice post.