COVID-19 Bulletin: March 27

Good Afternoon,

More COVID-19 news that is relevant to the plastics industry:

Supply

• Oil prices surrendered gains from early in the week, with WTI falling nearly 8% Thursday to $22.60 and Brent down nearly 4% to $26.35.
• Saudi Arabia, which ramped up production in its price war with Russia, is struggling to find a market for cut-rate oil because of deflated global demand and a lack of storage capacity among refiners.
• Suppliers of PP and PE are experiencing robust demand.
• China has approved tariff exemptions for some U.S.-origin HDPE and LLDPE following an application process announced in early March.

Supply Chain

• As exports from China resume, container shippers are bracing for a second wave of stranded shipments, port congestion and container shortages as COVID-19 stalls economies in North America and Europe.
• We’ve seen no changes in the status of ports:

Markets

• The U.S. surpassed China in confirmed COVID-19 cases:

• Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell acknowledged that the economy could be in recession, defined as two consecutive quarters of contraction.
• The House of Representatives, after scrambling to gather a quorum of members, passed the pending $2 trillion rescue package in a voice vote.
• Cox Automotive reports that new vehicle sales fell 29% last week from the prior-year period.
• Fiat Chrysler, Honda and Toyota joined Ford in announcing resumptions of production starting in April at North American factories.
• GM extended its schedule for reopening plants beyond the original March 30 timetable.
• Our Wire & Cable clients are seeing robust demand from the telecommunications and some specialty markets (e.g., medical), while activity in the oil and gas market is anemic.
• COVID-19 has solidified the role of 3D Printing as a legitimate manufacturing process for the industry:
  • Through the digital transport of CAD files, manufacturers and service bureaus have been able to quickly make parts for safety equipment and ventilators near areas of need.
  • The design flexibility of 3D Printing is on display, with many innovative products sprouting to fight COVID-19, from fever-finding smart helmets to sanitizing robots to isolation wards.

International

• China blocked its borders to foreigners to prevent a reintroduction of COVID-19 after taming its community spread domestically.
• Fifty-two ports in India have declared force majeure after a three-week lockdown was declared in the world’s second most populous nation.
• Nearly a quarter of the global population is now on lockdown:

• Singapore, among the first countries hit by COVID-19 and the first to report first-quarter economic statistics, said its economy shrank 10.4% in the first three months of the year compared with the prior quarter.

Our Operations

• All our top 20 ship-to states are now under some level of stay-at-home restrictions.
• Our 3D Printing team is donating services to assist in part production for safety equipment and ventilators; we helped design, produced and delivered a silicon prototype for a face mask for seal testing in less than 24 hours.
• M. Holland is open for business, deemed essential and will continue to operate at full capacity. We have issued the following status statement:

In accordance with the guidance provided by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), M. Holland Company is considered a member of a critical infrastructure industry and will therefore remain operative. As such, with any necessary accommodations made to ensure the health and safety of our staff and business partners, we will continue to fully perform our normal business operations.

Thank you,

M. Holland Company

We will provide further COVID-19 bulletins as circumstances dictate. For all COVID-19 updates and notices, please refer to the M. Holland website.