July 28, 2020 • Posted in Daily Bulletin, News

COVID-19 Bulletin: July 28

Good Afternoon,

More COVID-19 news relevant to the plastics industry:

Crude prices were steady in early trading with the WTI price at $41.45/bbl and Brent at $43.51/bbl.
Rising global COVID-19 infection rates and stagnating airline fuel consumption appear to have stalled the oil demand recovery.
Permian Basin oil driller Rosehill Resources will restructure and go private under bankruptcy protection, wiping out common shareholders.
Russia overtook the U.S. as the leading supplier of Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) to China, the world’s largest importer, with month-over-month growth of 20.7% versus U.S. growth of just 2.4%. China’s LNG imports were up 29% in June on a year-over-year basis.
Forty publicly traded oil companies wrote down asset values by a combined $48 billion in the first quarter, with further impairment charges expected in the second quarter. Total impairment charges due to the pandemic and oil recession could top $300 billion, according to Deloitte.

Toy makers are being squeezed between high retail demand from homebound families and low wholesale restocking as bricks-and-mortar outlets close and online business models rely less on inventory.
We continue to experience challenges with truck deliveries, particularly LTL shipments, due to labor shortages and operational delays caused by COVID-19 protocols. Clients are advised to provide expanded lead times on orders to help assure delivery dates will be met.
Beyond the transportation challenges, our Gold Standard logistics partners and U.S. ports continue to operate without interruption.

Monday, Moderna began large-scale Phase 3 testing trials in the U.S., while Pfizer and German partner BioNTech began selecting volunteers for combined Phase 2/3 testing of their vaccine candidate.
Senate leadership unveiled its $1 trillion rescue package amid rancor within the Republican party and between parties. It includes money for testing and schools, further funding for the Paycheck Protection Program, a liability shield for employers and scaled back extended unemployment benefits.
With 55,000 new COVID-19 cases, yesterday marked the the lowest daily increase since July 7th as infection rates continue to decline. However, the total confirmed cases have risen by 69% in the past 30 days.
U.S. industrial production rose 5.4% in June from May, while manufacturing activity rose 7.2%, a month-over-month record. Second-quarter industrial production was at the lowest quarterly rate since World War II.
Tennessee, an emerging hotspot for COVID-19 with more than 2,500 new infections yesterday, is resisting CDC advice to impose social distancing restrictions.
Over 40% of U.S. adults have conditions that make them susceptible to severe consequences of COVID-19:

Nissan said it expects to lose over $6 billion this year on a 21% fall in revenues as the company eliminated its dividend to preserve cash.
Many companies are facing sticker shock over their rising cost of cloud computing in the work-at-home era.
Target will join Walmart in closing stores on Thanksgiving in gratitude to its frontline workers.
A medical paper suggests masks may protect wearers from COVID-19 and also mitigate the symptoms of those infected.
Demand is surging for transparent masks.
Eleven players and two coaches on the Miami Marlins baseball team tested positive for COVID-19, forcing cancellations of scheduled games and putting the MLB season in jeopardy.
The price of gold, buoyed by economic uncertainty and a weakening U.S. dollar, eased in early trading today after hitting a record high of $1,974.40/ounce yesterday.
Prevention will be paramount when it comes to preparing for the next pandemic:

Latin America surpassed North America for the region with the most COVID-19 infections, accounting for nearly 27% of the global total.
Fitch Ratings projects that the growth rate of 10 industrialized nations will slow by an average of 0.6% through the middle of the decade due to subdued employment and lower capital accumulations caused by the pandemic.
The European Union is close to extending its ban on travelers from high-infection nations, including the U.S., for two additional weeks.
Germany will mandate testing of arriving travelers and is urging social distancing after a COVID-19 flare-up among migrant workers in Bavaria.

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