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Shell (world’s biggest fuel retailer) indicator suggests fuel demand recovery has remained slow

An ICYMI on the still-slow recovery from coronavirus impacts across much of the globe:

  • Shell expects its fuel sales to fall or at best be broadly steady for the first quarter
  • said it saw refined oil product sales at 3.7-4.7 million barrels per day (bpd) for the first quarter compared with just under 4.8 million bpd in the last quarter of 2020. It had previously forecast sales of 4-5 million bpd.
Info via Reuters, was posted overnight ICYMI.
An ICYMI on the still-slow recovery from coronavirus impacts across much of the globe:

Moderna says its coronavirus vaccine will not be ready until 2021

Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel statements on Wednesday, carried in the Financial Times overnight ICYMI.

  • will not seek emergency authorization for Food and Drug Administration approval for its vaccine to use in frontline medical workers and at-risk individuals until Nov. 25 at the earliest.
  • company would not seek FDA approval for use in the general population until late January
  • If the vaccine is proven safe and effective, approval is unlikely to come until at least late March or early April
Link to FT, may be gated.

US storms – Oil producers on Saturday shut 13% of crude oil production ahead of Laura and Marco

Weekend news on industry response to approach of Gulf storms, posting ICYMI:

Via Reuters:
  • Producers halted 240,785 barrels per day of oil production and 119 million cubic feet per day of natural gas output before noon on Saturday, said regulator U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement.
  • Crews were evacuated from six production and four drilling rigs. Another seven drilling vessels were moved out of the storms’ paths

India, Japan and Australia have begun discussions on reducing reliance on China

An ICYMI from this week on the three countries set to discuss a trilateral Supply Chain Resilience Initiative (SCRI) to reduce dependency on China

  • No date has yet been set for initial negotiations but could come as soon as next week
  • initiative first proposed by Japan
  •  Japan is said to be in favour of launching SCRI by November

ECB meet this week (preview) but they are already driving the higher euro

As was noted during the US time zone, EUR/USD pierced 1.14. A factor that appears to have flown under the radar is this sign of (continued) aggressive policy support from the ECB, that is:
  • ECB corporate bond-buying was up 3.3bn EUR last week, which is around 400m higher than the previous record high over the past 4 years operation of the Bank’s corporate bond purchasing program
ps, ICYMI, the EU Recovery Fund will be the discussion point of note for markets in the ECB meeting Thursday
  • financing totalling up to EUR750 bn, split between grants of EUR500 billion and loans of EUR250 billion
  • Netherlands, Austria Denmark and Sweden want to reduce the amount of funds distributed as grants