COVID-19 Bulletin: April 2

Good Afternoon,

More COVID-19 news relevant to the plastics industry:

Supply

• Oil prices jumped more than 10% early today on hopes that a truce might be near in the Russia-Saudi price war.
• The heads of major oil companies will meet on Friday with the White House to discuss the oversupply and pricing crisis in the oil industry, which was left out of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act. Among discussion topics will be leasing space in the federal strategic petroleum reserve to relieve saturated storage facilities.
• Saudi Arabia continues to operate at capacity, with vessels serving as storage facilities due to a lack of both markets and alternative storage capacity.

Supply Chain

• Our domestic transportation partners continue to operate effectively.
• Ports continue to operate steadily:

Markets

• COVID-19 continues to spread, with confirmed cases approaching one million people globally.
• Manufacturing activity is contracting across Asia, Europe and North America, with indices falling into contraction territory in most countries.
• First-time unemployment claims in the U.S. soared to 6.6 million this week, double last-week’s record filings. Nearly 10 million people have been displaced from their jobs in the past two weeks.
• Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Nevada and Pennsylvania adopted or expanded stay-at-home orders yesterday:

• U.S. automobile sales fell 35% in March, with GM reporting first quarter sales fell 7%, Toyota suffering a 9% decline, and Fiat, Ford, Hyundai and Nissan registering double-digit quarterly declines.
• Forty-two of forty-four car assembly plants in the U.S. are idle, putting many parts suppliers in jeopardy.
• The automotive shutdowns are affecting tangential markets, including wire and cable, where we have seen clients curtail transportation-related production.
• Our healthcare clients are rapidly shifting production to help fill the need for personal protective equipment, medical supplies and ventilators.
• More places are banning the use of reusable grocery bags as part of enhanced social distancing protocols.
• Stay-at-home mandates have increased demand for many products:

International

• Yesterday, the U.S. State Department evacuated 400 citizens from Peru, bringing total evacuations from that country to more than 4,000.
• The U.S. State Department issued a warning that it will not evacuate citizens from Chile after that country imposed stricter testing and quarantine restrictions.
• Braskem has set up a $200 million credit line to assist strained clients in Brazil purchase materials.
• Cash-strapped companies in LATAM, including petrochemicals firms, are drawing down credit lines at record rates.

Our Operations

• NOTICE TO CLIENTS: M. Holland Company will be closed on Good Friday, April 10.
• We formally updated our travel policy to comply with governmental social-distancing mandates.
• 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.