U.S. to Overtake Saudi Arabia, Russia as World's Top Energy Producer

Oil derricks like this one outside of Williston, North Dakota, are part of a shale oil boom that has helped put the United States on track to overtake Saudi Arabia as the world's leading oil producer.

Photograph by Gregory Bull, AP

In an indication how “fracking” is reshaping the global energy picture, the International Energy Agency today projected that the United States will overtake Saudi Arabia as the world’s largest oil producer by 2017.

And within just three years, the United States will unseat Russia as the largest producer of natural gas.

Both results would have been unthinkable even few short years ago, but the future geography of supply has shifted dramatically due to what IEA calls America’s “energy renaissance.” To credit are the sometimes controversial technologies like hydraulic fracturing of shale and deepwater production that have enabled the industry to tap into abundant, unconventional sources of oil and gas. New energy frontiers have opened in North Dakota and Pennsylvania. (Related: “ Natural Gas Stirs Hope and Fear in Pennsylvania”)

The bottom line for the United States is fulfillment of a goal that eluded seven presidents over nearly four decades: energy independence. The U.S., which imports 20 percent of its total energy now, will be come largely self-sufficient by 2035, concluded the IEA’s annual World Energy Outlook, often viewed as the Bible of the industry. Add in Canada, which has its own unconventional production boom in Alberta’s oil sands, and the continent is set to be a net oil exporter by 2030.

“North America is at the forefront of a sweeping transformation in oil and gas production that will affect all regions of the world,” said Maria van der Hoeven, executive director of the IEA, a Paris-based organization charged with maintaining global energy security.  (Related Interactive: Breaking Fuel From Rock)

Catching Saudi Arabia

U.S. imports of oil are on track to fall from 10 million to 4 million barrels per day, Fatih Birol, IEA’s chief economist and the main author of the report, told a London news conference. However, he added, increased domestic production, including biofuel, only accounts for 55 percent of huge reduction in imported oil. The other 45 percent is due to the ramping up of improving federal fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks.

According to IEA, by 2020, America’s oil production will reach 11.1 million barrels per day, up from 8.1 million in 2011. Saudi Arabia’s production, meanwhile, will decline from 11.1 million to 10.6 million barrels per day. The renewed U.S. reign at the top of world oil producers may be short-lived. By 2025, IEA projects, U.S. production will slip back to 10.9 million barrels per day, but Saudi Arabia’s will have increased only to 10.8 million barrels per day.

The picture on natural gas is even more dramatic. By 2015, the U.S. should be producing 679 billion cubic meters (bcm) of natural gas, up from 604 bcm in 2010. That will be enough to edge out Russia, where production will be increasing too, but projected only to reach 675 bcm in three years. By 2020, the spread between the two nations will widen, with U.S. production of 747 bcm, well ahead of Russia’s forecast 704 bcm. The U.S. should become a net gas exporter by 2020, the report adds.

No Country an Island

“The global energy landscape is changing rapidly, recasting the roles of countries and fuels,” van der Hoeven said. What is happening in North America will certainly affect other countries worldwide, she added. “No country is an energy island.” For example, as America’s need for imported oil declines, Asia is rapidly taking up the slack. The report estimates that by 2035, fully 90 percent of Middle East oil exports will head for Asia. That’s a shift that will require Asian countries to put more resources toward keeping strategic shipping routes of oil secure. “There is a major new trade axis building between the Middle East and Asia,” Birol said.

Indeed, Iraq alone will see its exports to Asia jump from 50 percent of output to 80 percent. (Related: “Iraq Poised to Lead World Oil Supply Growth, but Obstacles Loom”) The IEA reiterated its forecast last month that Iraq’s production of oil would jump from 3 million to 8 million barrels per day by 2035, helping the war-torn country leapfrog over Russia to become the world’s second largest exporter of oil, after Saudi Arabia.

Another effect of the altered energy landscape are large variances in natural gas prices. A few years ago, global prices of natural gas changed little from region to region. But natural gas prices in Europe are now five times higher than in the U.S., and Asia’s are eight times greater. However, van der Hoeven said, as more gas becomes available globally for exports, that should push prices down outside the United States, too.

Demand Still Growing

The overall demand for energy worldwide should grow by a third between now and 2035, the report said, from 12,380 million tons of oil equivalent (Mtoe) in 2010 to 16,730 Mtoe in 2035, an increase driven by the rise in living standards in China, India and the Middle East. The share of demand for energy in the developing world will jump from 55 percent in 2010 to 65 percent in 2035, powered by China, which will see its demand for energy increase by 60percent over that period. (Related: “Pictures: A Rare Look Inside China’s Energy Machine”)

Demand for energy in the mostly wealthy developed countries that make up the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) will essentially be flat, IEA projects. Use of coal and oil to meet that demand should drop to just 42 percent from 57 percent today.

The IEA chided world governments for failing to do enough to improve energy efficiency, saying that two-third of the economic potential to improve efficiency is not being realized. If those efficiencies were tapped, it said, total energy demand between now and 2035 could be halved, without any decline in living standards.

Globally, demand for fossil fuels will continue to grow in absolute terms through 2035, but together their total share of the energy mix should drop from 81 percent to 75 percent. Worldwide demand for oil is forecast to grow to 99.7 million barrels per day in 2035, up from 87.4 million last year, with China alone accounting for half that amount.

By 2035, the IEA said, the price of oil is expected to be $125 per barrel in inflation-adjusted terms, though the nominal price is enough to induce sticker shock in 2012: $215.

Global natural gas demand should increase by 50 percent to 5 trillion cubic meters (tcm) in 2035. Within OECD countries, gas is overtaking coal as the fuel of choice for generating electricity. In the U.S., for instance, the amount of electricity generated by coal has fallen from 50 percent to 32 percent in just a few years. Although use of coal will continue to fall in the U.S., Europe and Japan, overall demand for coal should still grow by 21 percent through 2035, because of increasing use in China and India.

particularly Germany and Japan, are cutting back on nuclear power in the wake of the 2011 accident at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, nuclear power is still expected to account for 12 percent of global electricity generation by 2035, thanks to increased use of nuclear power in China, Korea and Russia.

Electric generation from renewables should grow from 20 percent in 2010 to 31 percent by 2035, IEA projects. Within OECD countries, most of that growth comes from increased wind energy production, while in non-OECD countries, hydro power is the main source of clean energy. Growth in demand for renewables, including biofuels, are still largely driven by government subsidies, the report said. Last year, those subsidies totaled $88 billion, a 24 percent increase from 2010.

Overall demand for electricity will skyrocket by more than 70 percent by 2035, reaching 32,000 Terrawatt hours (TWh), with almost all that increase coming from non-OECD countries, with China and India alone accounting for half of it. Prices for electricity overall should increase 15 percent by 2035, but some regions will pay much more than others. In the U.S., for instance, average household electricity prices in 2035 should be around 14 cents per kilowatt hours (kWh), while Europe’s will average closer to 25 cents per kWh. That big difference in the cost of electricity will likely give American industry a competitive advantage over European rivals, Birol said.

Amid its forecast for rising energy demand and production, the report, unsurprisingly, does not paint an optimistic picture of efforts to contain greenhouse gas emissions. IEA projects that energy-related carbon dioxide emissions will rise from an estimated 31.2 gigatonnes (Gt) last year to 37 Gt in 2035, which could cause a long-term average temperature increase of 3.6 degrees Celsius. In a nonbinding accord signed in 2009 in Copenhagen, nations agreed that the scientific view was that the temperature rise should be limited to 2 degrees Celsius, but efforts to forge a global agreement to cut fossil fuel emissions have been unsuccessful. (Related: “IEA Outlook: Time Running Out on Climate Change

This story is part of a special series that explores energy issues. For more, visit The Great Energy Challenge.

Sources: Thomas K. Grose in London  For National Geographic News

 Newscribe : get free news in real time

Related post:
South-East Asia in the frontline of US containing China rise?   

Enterprise SEO Strategies for 2013

Can you believe it’s almost 2013 already?  That means looking at the future of your marketing plan and the new elements at play.  In the world of Online Search, the impact is real and immediate.  A well planned SEO strategy and digital marketing campaign can make sure your organization remains viable against competitors and increases business margins. Investing in advertising with no distinguishable ROI is a thing of the past for most brands.

The problem with Enterprise SEO Strategy is that it can sometimes overwhelm marketing executives. Executives wear multiple hats and don’t have the time or energy to delve into the nuances of technical implementation or stay on the cutting edge of Search Engine algorithm updates and results enhancements.

In order to help large brands and marketing executives make educated decisions in prioritizing search, we have provided a list of the top 3 strategies enterprise SEO campaigns need.

1. Business Unit & Organizational Alignment – Is your marketing team setting one KPI after another?  Do they live in silos that don’t cross promote sales opportunities? Do you have a clear understanding of where you want to send visitors for particular keywords? Stop the madness!  It’s time to take a step back and really start to integrate across your own teams (whether they be internal, agencies, or both).  Set up a keyword governance strategy so that each business unit understands what their targeted keywords are, why they are targeting them, and how those differ from other business units.  The very nature of this priority alignment and the communication of KPIs allows for strategies that will drive visitors to the appropriate web pages and other digital assets. This also allows business groups to promote each other instead of diluting focus by competing for similar or identical goals.
2. Technology Changes & Implementation – For those of you operating internationally, do you struggle to manage site content across multiple country code top-level domains?  Do you know if your Content Management System is creating parameters that are causing duplicate content or auto-generating pages in an attempt to provide scalable development? You must have an understanding of how your enterprise technology systems are going to play into your SEO strategy. SEO implementation has to be prioritized in the enterprise marketing plan.  IT departments are notoriously resistant to change, an increase in workload, and being assigned tasks where they can’t see the direct value. The Search Engines change rapidly and developers need to be willing and able to adapt.  SEOs also need to do a better job at explaining why the work is important and what the outcome of the work will be to improve buy-in.  When considering your enterprise search strategy, ask yourself these questions: (1) Do you have a large e-commerce system that generates dynamic URLs that vary based on the entry path? (2) Do you have a translation management system that translates all of your content to all regions? (3) Have you updated your translation glossaries to reflect your localized keyword priorities? If you haven’t thought of these questions yet, you probably need to revisit your global search strategy.
3. Understanding The Changing Search Landscape – Search changes fast. There were over 20 major updates in 2012 and many minor adjustments. According to Google’s Matt Cutts at SES San Francisco 2012, their engineers are continually working on new updates. Google algorithm updates, like the Panda & Penguin updates, have real search engine impact and have negatively affected the bottom line revenue for many businesses due to lost rankings.  It’s not enough to mitigate risk; brands need to be forward thinking and stretch their boundaries so they aren’t outpaced by competitors.

“You can never avoid people thinking that SEO is an effort to game the system or Google. Many tricks worked in the past, but as Google tries to continuously improve the quality of search results, many tricks do not work anymore. Being successful in SEO these days involves thinking along the lines of great customer service, offering great products and services, being a thought leader, and building brand advocacy online. Eventually this all helps out in building rankings as you gain more natural links that would not be affected by the Panda and Penguin updates.”  – Benj Arriola

Businesses have an opportunity to expand their organic search footprint by getting up to speed with the new enhancements.  Consider the following areas:

• A renewed focus on thought leadership, content marketing, and social media
• Managing your Google+ brand page and Google+ Places pages for multiple locations
• Determine how your organization will use Authorship tags
• Determine how your audience can engage with your brand on a Google Hangout

If you haven’t at least begun to investigate these strategies, you’re falling behind the curve.  Start to embrace the Google+ world. It’s not going anywhere and users are beginning to adopt it.  Even more importantly your search visibility can be enhanced by rolling out a strategy that makes sense for your brand and locations.

Search will continue to drive traffic for enterprise organizations.  How much traffic really depends on the organization’s alignment, grasp of technology, and flexibility to adapt to the changing environment. 2013 is sure to be exciting, are you ready?

Brent Gleeson, Forbes Contributor

I write about entrepreneurship, leadership, and digital marketing.

Newscribe : get free news in real time

Childcare services: daycare and private nursery businesses

Working couples hit by childcare costs

PETALING JAYA: It's a double whammy for working couples with children maids are hard to find while daycare centres have increased their fees in tandem with higher operation costs.

A check with several centres in the Klang Valley showed that they have raised fees by up to 10% over the past two years.

A staff member at a centre in Bukit Damansara, who declined to be named, said that it had to increase its fees by 10% every two to three years.

The centre, which also offers pre-school education inclusive of daycare for children aged three to six years, now charges about RM1,600 per month.

Another centre in Taman Desa, which offers only daycare for children of two years and above without pre-schooling, charges RM500 a month.

“We charged RM450 last year, but had to increase our fees because food prices had gone up,” said the principal who only wanted to be known as Stacey.

A centre in Puchong has maintained its fees at RM500 per month, but expects to raise it soon.

The centre provides lunch and two snacks, a shower in the evening and assistance with school work for the children under its care.

“We will try to hold down our fees for as long as we can, but foresee having to increase it soon as everything else is going up in price,” said its operator.

Demand for childcare centres in the Klang Valley is especially acute as many families have both spouses working while living away from their parents and relatives.

The scarcity of maids has contributed to the increase in demand.

It was reported recently that agencies were asking Malaysians to pay more for maids from Indonesia even as the Philippines was phasing out the sending of its citizens abroad as domestic workers.

Association of Registered Child-care Providers P.H. Wong said the centres had been affected by the increase in living costs as the price of goods had gone up along with public expectation of the quality of service.

“Parents who want quality service must be ready to pay more. Centres have no choice but to increase their fees to survive,” she said.

She urged the Government to introduce a subsidy for parents who need to care for their children while they were at work.

The Health Ministry had announced stricter control of daycare centres, with regular inspection of nurseries to ensure that they are fit to take care of babies in the wake of deaths from choking on milk and other incidents at these establishments.

Social Welfare Department statistics this year showed that 52% of the 3,238 nurseries nationwide were unlicensed.

However, there is no record of the number of children who died while under their care.

According to news reports, at least 22 children under the age of four were believed to have died while in nursery care between 2009 and this year.

By YVONNE LIM yvonnelim@thestar.com.my

Private nurseries struggle to stay in business

PETALING JAYA: About three million children aged four and below need daycare services in this country but many private nurseries are struggling to keep their doors open.

Association of Registered Child Care Providers Malaysia vice-president P.H. Wong said the Government should extend support to private childcare centres because of high operating costs.

As of May this year, 1,086 childcare centres had been registered with the Welfare Department: 989 were privately run, 16 set up by companies at work places, 67 in government offices and 14 were community-based.

Even for community-based childcare centres, there were few takers despite the RM50,000 set-up grant and annual RM64,000 subsidy given by the Government, Wong said.

This was because the subsidy barely covered operating costs since lower income parents could only afford to pay RM200 to RM350 for each child, she added.

A former childcare centre owner, who wanted to be known only as Cheong, said she closed her centre in Sri Petaling last month after operating for more than two years because the RM600 to RM800 monthly fees she collected from 14 parents could not cover the monthly expenses.

“It was really heartbreaking. I don't want to do it (run a centre) again,” said the 36-year-old.

She could not continue paying the RM3,000 rental for a corner unit house, pay providers' salaries, food, beverage and toys for the children, and utility bills, said Chong who spent RM25,000 to set up the centre.

She also had difficulty looking for care providers because the heavy workload made people reluctant to take the job even if she offered more than the RM1,000 to RM1,600 salaries.

Social Welfare Department legal and advocacy division director Dr Zaitol Salleh said that two nurseries had surrendered their licences from January to May, and on average five cease to operate each year.

Another childcare centre operator, who only wanted to be known as Ooi, said she had to close her nursery in a condominium after operating it for seven years because she could not get baby sitters.

“Most baby sitters prefer to work on their own at home while the young people prefer other jobs,” said Ooi, who is in her 50s.

By LOH FOON FONG  foonfong@thestar.com.my

Google hit with $AUD200k defamation damages

Ad giant's own witness confessed removing dodgy search results is easy

An Australian man defamed by links on Google that associated his name with images of and articles about a criminal has been awarded $AUD200,000 damages.

Melbourne man Michael Trkulja argued that searches on his name, which brought up references to criminal Tony Mokbel, constituted defamation.

Trkulja asked for those references to be altered. Part of Google's defence suggested he had not properly completed forms that would have seen the ad giant alter its search results, but the end result was that Trkulja's name continued to appear alongside references to a nasty gangster called Tony Mokbel. A jury agreed that those results equated to defamation, and Supreme Court Justice David Beach today decided it was $AUD200,000 worth of defamation.

The judgment paints a fascinating picture of Google's response to the complaint, noting that a Google US employee, a 'Mr Madden-Woods', appeared on the stand but that the ad giant did not call anyone to the witness stand involved in handling the original complaint from Mr. Trkulja.

That became important because one piece of evidence offered by Mr. Trkulja was an email from help@google.com stating:

“At this time, Google has decided not to take action based on our policies concerning content removal. Please contact the webmaster of the page in question to have your client’s name removed from the page.”

But the existence of the mail from help@google.com, Justice Beach writes, means the jury could easily “... infer that … Google Inc was well aware of what was being requested of it” and that a more nuanced response was almost certainly a sensible option.

Making matters worse, Justice Beach writes that Madden-Woods “ … conceded the obvious (perhaps somewhat begrudgingly) that it would not take very much effort to work out, from the page of photographs supplied to Google Inc, the identity of the website that linked the plaintiff’s name to Mr Mokbel and Mr Tanner. All one had to do was click on one of the images (the text beneath each image showing that the one web page was involved). At that point it would have been open to Google Inc to block the URL of that page from Google Inc’s searches, in compliance with the plaintiff’s former solicitors’ request.”

The amount of damages awarded seems to have been calculated in two ways.

Trkulja had already succesfully sued Yahoo! over the same matter and been awarded $AUD225,000, but that search engine had published nasty links for longer and that those links stated he was “so involved with crime in Melbourne that his rivals had hired a hit man to murder him”. Google's results stated only that Trkulja “was such a significant figure in the Melbourne criminal underworld that events involving him were recorded on a website that chronicled crime in Melbourne”.

Justice Beach declares that a lesser imputation, but then tried to weigh the number of times each statement would have been read given the respective user bases of the two search engines.
His argument makes for interesting reading:

"While there was debate before me as to the relative popularity of Google and Yahoo search engines, neither side made any attempt to lead evidence of the precise number of publications brought about by a Yahoo search engine as compared to a Google search engine. That said, as was noted by counsel for the plaintiff, in support of a submission that I should find that there were more Google publications than Yahoo publications, while the word 'Googling' has entered the vernacular, there is no corresponding word in respect of Yahoo’s products.”

By Simon Sharwood, APAC Editor
Newscribe : get free news in real time

Related stories

• Google defamed Australian man with links to gangster (2 November 2012)
• Don't get sued or cuffed on Twitter: Read these top 10 pitfalls (13 August 2012)
• Australia on path to social media regulation (10 August 2012)
• Bill Gates, Harry Evans and the smearing of a computer legend (7 August 2012)
• Google in dock again over defamatory auto-complete (19 June 2012)
• NZ erupts over Dotcom corruption accusations (2 May 2012)
• Force Google to black out searches in new privacy law - MPs (27 March 2012)
• Google asked to bin autocomplete results for Japanese man's name (26 March 2012)

China and US, different but similar

The US and China are said to practise very different systems, but only if the details are excluded.

THE world’s two biggest economies exercised the selection of their next leaders just two days apart.

The international media made the usual observation that here were two systems working in ways that could not be more different. That is valid only up to a point, beyond which it only obscures the realities of the US and Chinese systems.

Externally, US democracy is said to offer citizens a choice of government every four years. If an incumbent fails to deliver as promised, voters can vote him out the next time.

China’s one-party system undertakes no regular elections for the public. Every 10 years, the Communist Party meets at a National Congress to identify the country’s next president and prime minister.

The common implication is that while the US system offers freedom of choice, China’s does not. These contrasting stereotypes become fuzzy in practice, however.

The US system sets two presidential terms of four years each as the limit for any individual. If an incumbent opts for re-election, his party is unlikely to entertain any challenger from the party’s ranks.

Thus the party’s candidate is predetermined, beyond the control of even party members. For the other party, some jostling among prospective candidates precedes the eventual candidate, over which ordinary party members may have no choice.

For both parties, money and party machinery (monetised infrastructure) are prerequisites. Any candidate, whether from one of the two main parties or any other, can have no hope of seriously running for the presidency without the vast financial backing required.

That is why in the US and many other Western democratic systems, the choice voters have is only one out of two parties. Third, fourth, fifth and other parties have no real chance, regardless of the value of their policies or the virtues of their candidates.

The supposedly free mainstream news media is also an accessory to this limitation. They give alternative parties scant print space or air time, on the premise that they have little clout, which ensures that they continue to have little clout.

The result is that when either the Republi­can or the Democratic Party wins the presidency, they differ little in the flesh. With hardly any alternative ideas penetrating this political establishment, Republicans and Democrats tend to become more conservative.

As far-right neo-conservatives entered the fray in the 2000 election, both parties moved further to the right. Critics describe the two main parties as merely two wings of the same party, or as being two right wings of the Republican Party.

The US presidency is also the choice of the system rather than of the people. The eventual winner is “elected” by the electoral vote of the Electoral College, rather than the popular vote of ordinary voters.

There are currently only 538 members of the Electoral College who decide on the next president and vice-president out of a choice of two teams. The candidacy that can secure 270 votes wins the White House.

In China, 2,270 delegates of the Communist Party meet at the National Congress every five years to elect the party’s highest decision-making body, the Central Committee (CC). Some 350 members of the CC then decide on the party’s General Secretary and members of the Politburo, Standing Committee and Central Military Commission.

The CC is said to experience high turnovers at election time. In each of the past half-dozen national congresses, more than 60% of committee members have been replaced.

There has also been no shortage of candidates, particularly for this year’s 18th National Congress. It was the first time that nominees for the 2,270 party delegates had been assessed, with candidates continuing to outnumber the available slots.

At this latest National Congress, both a new CC and a new Central Commission for Discipline Inspection were elected. The Communist Party’s Constitution is also being amended, with the main themes being intra-party democracy and fighting corruption.

The governing party’s Standing Committee has also sought the views of other political parties in China on the draft report for the 18th National Congress. President Hu Jintao, as party General Secretary, pledged to strengthen cooperation with the other parties.

Beijing has thus become a magnet for journalists during the week more than for previous National Congresses. More than 1,000 international journalists gained accreditation, with another 400 from Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau.

If more of Beijing’s proceedings were in English, they would enjoy wider global coverage. That day may soon come as China’s prospect grows.

In 1997, China granted the Carter Center in the US the role of observing village-level elections around the country. The next level of governance, the provincial level, has also experimented with elections for the general public, with only the national level still to do so.

Since 2002, the Carter Center has also played a significant part in voter education in China, on issues like improved governance and political reform. In both rural and urban areas, the Carter Center works with China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs and with NGOs
.
Meanwhile during the week’s 18th National Congress in Beijing, a multitude of issues surfaced for the government to consider. Among these are challenges from growing income disparities, corruption, inadequate market access for local businesses, environmental degradation and moral decay from public indifference to private suffering.

As elsewhere, the responsibility of government is to ensure fulfilment of public welfare without neglecting private business needs. Whereas in the US critics of the government accuse Washington of adopting socialist policies, critics of Beijing accuse the government of abandoning them.

The world’s two largest economies are often compared to see how different they are, while neglecting how much they are similar and how exactly they actually differ. Economically they have become so interdependent within a single global system as to become mutually complementary.

By implication, they are also not as different politically as is so often presumed. While classical ideologists may persist, the reality is that the political business of government has largely become managing national economies competently in a single globalised world.

Kenichi Ohmae is wrong; countries are in no danger of being replaced by corporations in the present or the foreseeable future, no matter how much some corporate budgets dwarf some national incomes. Rather, countries will remain unitary entities, albeit essentially as political economies increasingly governed by national economic needs and supranational economic parameters.

A symptom of this is how economic ideo­logies have replaced political ideologies between the world’s leading major powers. The Washington Consensus of supposedly antagonistic public and private sectors is under serious challenge by the Beijing Consensus of a harmonious complementary relationship between state and industry.

The latter model in Asia originated in Japan, and was soon adopted by the Newly Industrialising Economies (NIEs) of Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea and Singapore. Now China is the main player of this game, with its size of play earning it the “Beijing Consensus” as the name of the game.

But some of it had already been seen before in Europe, particularly Germany. It had also been evident in the US itself, in a different time and under a different name.

All of which serves to confirm the unitary nature of the global economy, with time, circumstance and level of development being the real differentials.

BEHIND THE HEADLINES By BUNN NAGARA

Related post:
America's problem: Money politics seldom supports reforms