COVID-19 Bulletin: November 5

Good Afternoon,

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Supply

• Crude prices were modestly lower in early trading today, with the WTI at $38.50/bbl and Brent at $40.68/bbl. Natural gas was 1.2% lower at $3.01/MMBtu.
• Saudi Arabia, which consumes all its natural gas production domestically, plans to boost output and enter the export market. Production rose to record levels in August after new gas field discoveries.
• Using excess hydrogen capacity, CVR Energy is planning to add renewable diesel operations to its 132,000-bpd refinery in Kansas.
• The U.S. formally exited the Paris climate agreement on Wednesday, becoming the first and only country of 197 signatories to exit the pact created in 2015.

• BP is in talks to sell its London headquarters to raise cash to pay down debt.

Supply Chain

• Evacuation efforts have stepped up in Honduras after Hurricane Eta, a Category 4 storm, smashed into the country on Wednesday, causing severe rain and flooding that breached the banks of rivers and cut off several communities.
• With the highest Logistics Manager’s Index rating in more than two years, the logistics industry is showing a strong recovery boosted by increases in e-commerce activity and rising inventory levels.
• Class 1 railroads have resisted bringing back furloughed employees to address a sharp rebound in intermodal volume in the third quarter, instead opting for longer trains and precision scheduled railroading (PSR), trading efficiency at the expense of service.
• Pennsylvania is ramping up efforts to establish truck platooning, a form of long-haul driving that includes a driver in a lead truck that uses radio signals to operate in concert with trailing autonomous vehicles, which have emergency drivers.
• Blockchain distributed ledger technology can permit the creation of “demand chains” that signal real-time demand insight to downstream participants in the supply chain.
• With tight freight capacity nationwide and supply constraints with many plastic resins, clients are advised to provide expanded lead times on orders to help ensure delivery dates. 

Markets

• Overshadowed by election news, daily new COVID-19 cases in the U.S. of 102,831 set national and world records. With daily infections rising in 47 states, it was the first time any nation topped 100,000 daily infections.
• The seven-day average of new COVID-19 cases in the U.S. hit an all-time high of 86,352.
• Eighteen states registered record COVID-19 hospitalizations yesterday. On Tuesday overall U.S. hospitalizations exceeded 50,000, the highest number in three months.
• The CDC director announced the need for a national testing strategy to detect asymptomatic cases in the U.S.
• Louisiana officials are cautioning against the use of rapid-result COVID-19 antigen tests, citing missed infections in asymptomatic people and false positives in others. Costlier tests are more reliable.
• Hospitals in Vermont, New York and Oregon have been hit with ransomware attacks in recent days.
• Face masks may be in short supply in many states.
• First-time jobless claims remained stubbornly high last week at 751,000.
• The White House economic advisor indicated that officials will continue to consider further economic stimulus during the lame-duck Congress, along with providing funding to run the government.
• The U.S. Treasury Department will shift its borrowings to instruments with longer-term maturities and maintain a higher cash balance in anticipation of uncertainty and potentially large borrowing needs due to the pandemic. 
• While still significantly higher than a year earlier, the U.S. narrowed its trade deficit by about $3.2 billion from August to September, led by a 2.6% rise in exports.
• The U.S. purchasing managers index for the service sector rose to 56.9 last month, registering the biggest month-over-month increase since April 2015.
• Dentists and some other healthcare providers have resorted to charging “Covid” and “PPE” surcharges to help cover the higher cost of providing care during the pandemic. 
• The nation’s six largest airlines have suffered combined losses of $22.5 billion during the pandemic, nearly twice their losses following the 9/11 Twin Towers attack, with little significant recovery in sight for the industry.
• Pet supply chain Pet Valu is the latest retail victim of the pandemic, announcing that it will close all its 358 U.S. stores and warehouses.
• A jump in pandemic gardening led ScottsMiracle-Gro to 79% year-over-year revenue growth in the latest quarter.
• Chipmaker Qualcomm is expecting double the amount of 5G-phone shipments in 2021 compared to 2020, led in part by Apple’s recent release of the 5G-enabled iPhone 12.
• Home meal-kit company HelloFresh more than doubled its sales in the third quarter, posting record order numbers as more people eat from home. 
• The breakfast hour has turned from boom to bust for some fast-food chains as consumers work and cook at home.
• New Jersey’s governor signed legislation into law banning both plastic and paper bags and other single-use items, one of the toughest such bans in the country. 
• For some plastic products, sustainability has turned from a nice perk to an essential purchase criterion. In the case of single-serve beverages, thinner plastic and smaller caps have overcome consumer criticism about bottle frailty.

International

• On Thursday COVID-19 deaths worldwide surged by 9,763, the highest daily rate of the pandemic.
• Germany reported a record 31,480 new infections today.
• COVID-19 infections in Italy rose by 30,550 on Wednesday compared with 28,244 on Tuesday.
• U.K. lawmakers approved the prime minister’s plan to impose a second national lockdown to stem a “grievous scale” of surging cases, which caused 492 fatalities on Wednesday.
• Russia, Switzerland, Poland, Austria, Latvia and Estonia reported record COVID-19 infections in the past 24 hours.
• With 9,524 new cases Wednesday, Ukraine breached the threshold for the country’s predicted hospital capacity in the coming weeks.
• Lithuania is entering a three-week lockdown on Saturday as cases in the country rise.
• Daily infections in Austria broke 6,000 for the first time on Wednesday, a day after officials imposed tougher restrictions including a night curfew.
• Greece recorded a daily record for new COVID-19 infections for the second consecutive day as officials consider another nationwide lockdown for containment.
• Kenya’s government suspended political rallies for 60 days as part of a new set of measures to curb the spread of COVID-19. The country has 58,587 confirmed cases with just over 1,000 fatalities.
• Israel’s second round of lockdowns appears to be working, lowering the country’s 9,000 daily case rate at the start of October to around 700 on Thursday.
• New infections in Turkey are rising at a rate of 2,000 per day, prompting the country’s president to impose a 10 p.m. curfew on non-essential businesses among other measures.
• A COVID-19 spike in New Delhi interrupted India’s declining infection trend as new infections today topped 50,000. Officials have warned citizens of a potential surge during the festival season.
• Three months ago, Jordan relaxed public health restrictions after reporting no new community transmissions of COVID-19; on Monday, the country reported almost 6,000 new cases, raising its per capita rate of infections to among the highest in the world.
• European countries are turning to mass testing to help contain a strong resurgence in COVID-19, including a one-day testing of nearly half of Slovakia’s population and a planned testing of every resident in Liverpool, England.
• A COVID-19 outbreak in Denmark’s mink population has created a new strain of the virus, which some health officials say could hamper efforts to develop a vaccine.
• British officials are putting doctors on standby in the hope that one of more than 200 COVID-19 vaccines being developed around the world will be available before Christmas.
• AstraZeneca is behind schedule in producing its developmental vaccine, leaving the U.K. well short of the 30 million doses it expected by the end of September. It now expects it will have only 4 million doses by the end of the year.
• Australia will start manufacturing a COVID-19 vaccine developed by AstraZeneca next week.
• South Korea has approved a single test that detects both COVID-19 and the seasonal flu, easing the testing burden on hospitals.
• GDP in Indonesia shrank 3.5% in the third quarter, officially marking the nation’s first recession since the Asian financial crisis of the 1990s. Unemployment is at a 20-year high.
• China’s president said the country will import more than $22 trillion worth of goods over the next 10 years, citing the country’s status as the largest market in the world with a middle-income population of 400 million.
• Canada’s imports and exports showed growth in September while remaining below pre-pandemic levels. Officials said trade uncertainty with the U.S. has contributed to a widening trade deficit.
• The U.K.’s central bank will likely extend quantitative easing measures, including expanding the money supply, to help the country’s economy weather a new one-month lockdown.

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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.