Energy Petrochemicals and Plastics 76

Friday, August 7, 2020

Energy Petrochemicals and Plastics 76

1          Oil slips below $45 on demand concerns, set for weekly rise
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-global-oil-idUSKCN2530BI
Oil dipped below $45 a barrel on Friday on worries that a demand recovery would slow due to a resurgence of coronavirus cases, although a pledge from OPEC member Iraq to cut oil output further in August provided support.

The resurgence of infections remains a key issue for the market and demand outlook. Tallies show cases in the United States are rising in a number of states. India reported on Friday a record daily jump in infections.

Brent crude LCOc1 fell 51 cents, or 1.1%, to $44.58 by 1209 GMT. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude CLc1 also slipped 51 cents, or 1.2%, to $41.44. Both benchmarks are set for weekly gains of more than 2%.

2          Exxon: 20 Percent Of Global Oil And Gas Reserves May Be Wiped Out
https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/20-Of-Global-Oil-Gas-Reserves-Could-Be-Wiped-Out-If-Crude-Prices-Dont-Recove.html

After a grim Q2 season for Big Oil, the world’s third-most valuable energy company is warning that 20% of the world’s oil and gas reserves may no longer be viable, according to Bloomberg.

According to Exxon Mobil, one-fifth of the world’s oil and gas reserves will no longer qualify as “proved reserves” at the end of this year if oil prices fail to recover before then.

A flurry of oil and gas companies have written off billions in oil and gas assets as the value of those assets in the current oil price climate is no longer what it once used to be. Exxon was not among them.

3          Weekly Resin Report: PE Supply/Demand Balance Tightens
https://www.plasticstoday.com/resin-pricing/weekly-resin-report-pe-supplydemand-balance-tightens
In early July, as more and more US manufacturers ramped back up after being shut down because of the pandemic, they went shopping for resin to process. Whether they knew it or not, they were competing with international buyers for available US supply. Despite a price increase for export resin, super-strong demand quickly soaked up general allotments, and producers were essentially sold out of export material by mid-month, according to the PlasticsExchange. The early strong sales boost provided producers with confidence to firmly pursue their domestic July price increases. This included $0.05/lb for polyethylene (PE) and, with PGP monomer costs quickly escalating, a similar cost-push hike for polypropylene (PP). Some incredulous processors only picked away or outright passed on early-month offerings,

4          Asia shrugs off OPEC supply rise amid crippled demand
https://blogs.platts.com/2020/08/07/asia-refiners-opec-sour-crude-supply/
Middle Eastern sour crude supply is expected to increase this month after OPEC+ members on July 15 agreed to pare back their production cut commitment. But Asian consumers, who under normal circumstances would have welcomed the move, have barely taken notice.

It remains to be seen where all this excess oil will eventually end up as Asian buyers grapple with crippling demand and have to tweak refining strategies to minimize losses.

5          Russia’s SIBUR bullish on H2 despite pandemic eroding demand
https://www.icis.com/explore/resources/news/2020/08/07/10538565/russia-s-sibur-bullish-on-h2-despite-pandemic-eroding-demand

SIBUR’s outlook for its petrochemicals business is bullish for the second half of the year if a second wave of coronavirus infections is avoided, the Russian producer said this week.

“This is apparently when we hit the bottom. At the end of the second quarter, early in the third quarter we see improvements in spreads as well as demand,” said SIBUR executive director Sergey Komyshan.

“If we do not see any significant second wave of the pandemic, then we should be able to come back to levels in terms of margins that we saw before, but that will be very uneven among different regions.”

6          Iraq Commits to Deep Oil Cuts
https://www.rigzone.com/news/wire/iraq_commits_to_deep_oil_cuts-07-aug-2020-162956-article/
Iraq made its strongest commitment yet to implement deep cuts in crude production after the country’s oil minister and his Saudi counterpart held a phone call Thursday.

OPEC’s second-biggest producer — and a long-time laggard in meeting oil-output quotas — has faced mounting pressure to boost its compliance as the group’s patience wears thin. The country failed to meet its production-cut target in May and June, and removed just 11,000 barrels a day last month, according to tanker-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg.

7          Global Natural Gas Demand Set For Long-Term Growth After COVID
https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Global-Natural-Gas-Demand-Set-For-Long-Term-Growth-After-COVID.html

The world’s consumption of natural gas is set to decline by 4 percent this year, but global demand will return to growth after the pandemic, thanks to low natural gas prices and stricter environmental policies, a new report showed on Thursday.

The Global Gas Report 2020 – published by the International Gas Union (IGU), research company BloombergNEF (BNEF), and Italian gas infrastructure firm Snam – says that the trend of increased natural gas demand due to environmental concerns, which was already underway before the pandemic, will continue after COVID-19 is under control.

8          U.S. weekly LNG exports dip
https://www.offshore-energy.biz/u-s-weekly-lng-exports-dip-3/
The United States Energy Information Administration (EIA) noted that a total of five LNG cargoes have been shipped during the week ending August 5.

The five tankers had a combined LNG-carrying capacity of 18 Billion cubic feet (Bcf) of the chilled fuel. This compares to seven cargoes with a combined LNG-carrying capacity of 25 Bcf.

Cheniere’s Sabine Pass LNG facility shipped three cargoes with one cargo each added by its Corpus Christi plant and Sempra’s Cameron LNG facility.

9          COVID-19’s impact on commercial jet fuel demand has been significant and uneven
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=44676
Efforts to contain the 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) have dramatically changed global commercial passenger flight volumes. These flights averaged a little more than 70,000 flights per day in January and February, fell to an average of less than 25,000 flights per day in April, and then started to increase again in May. Commercial jet fuel consumption showed a similar pattern, falling from an average of 4.3 million barrels per day (b/d) in January and February to 1.0 million b/d in April.

10        Exclusive: BP poised to sell ‘stranded assets’ even if oil prices rally
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-bp-assets-transition-exclusive-idUSKCN2530GY
BP (BP.L) is preparing to sell a large chunk of its oil and gas assets even if crude prices bounce back from the COVID-19 crash because it wants to invest more in renewable energy, three sources familiar with BP’s thinking said.

The strategy was discussed at a BP executives meeting in July, the sources said, soon after the oil major lowered its long-term oil price forecast to $55 a barrel, meaning that $17.5 billion worth of its assets are no longer economically viable.

11        China Is Using The Pandemic As An Excuse To Not Buy U.S. Energy
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/China-Is-Using-The-Pandemic-As-An-Excuse-To-Not-Buy-US-Energy.html

Back in June, we reported that China had begun ramping up imports of U.S. LNG ostensibly in a bid to fulfill the January trade agreement with Washington and possibly avert another full-blown trade war.

According to Wood Mackenzie via NGI, China took in 10 LNG cargoes from U.S. suppliers between April and May at the expense of its traditional suppliers, including Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

But it’s now emerging that the LNG purchases could have been a mere smokescreen.

12        Oil Prices Soar After EIA Reports Large Crude Draw
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Oil-Prices-Soar-After-EIA-Reports-Large-Crude-Draw.html
A week after it reported the heftiest crude oil draw in more than six months, the Energy Information Administration once again had good news for oil bulls: the authority said crude oil inventories had shed 7.4 million barrels during the week to July 31.

A week earlier, the EIA said inventories had lost as much as 10.6 million barrels, after a build of 4.6 million barrels for the second week of July. Analysts had expected an inventory decline of 3.267 million barrels for the week to July 31.

13        End juicy deals: Mexican president sets out state-centric energy vision
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mexico-oil-idUSKCN25021W
The eight-page memorandum seen by Reuters broadly reflected what Lopez Obrador has said publicly since taking office in December 2018, but gave notice of his intention to roll back the market liberalization carried out in 2013-14 under the last government.

An official confirmed the authenticity of the document dated July 22, which said the government would “put a stop to juicy private deals at the cost of bad public business.” The document was addressed to officials at the country’s energy regulators.

14        U.S. Shale Faces Another Round Of Bankruptcies
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/US-Shale-Faces-Another-Round-Of-Bankruptcies.html
More than thirty billion dollars: this is the size of the collective debt of oil and gas companies that filed for bankruptcy protection in the first half of the year. That is 23 companies, all but five of which filed during the second quarter when Covid-19 really took hold. Now, with the resurgence of new cases and an equal resurgence in doubts about the outlook for oil demand, more filings are on the way.

“It is reasonable to expect that a substantial number of producers will continue to seek protection from creditors in bankruptcy even if oil prices recover over the next few months,” Haynes and Boone said in its June report on oil and gas bankruptcies. The reasons: lukewarm oil demand improvement and even more lukewarm economic improvement. Until economies return to normal, the law firm noted, the situation for oil and gas is unlikely to book any marked improvement.

Recycling Renewables and Sustainable Business 47

Friday, August 7, 2020

Recycling Renewables and Sustainable Business 47

1          Could climate become the weak link in your supply chain?
https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/sustainability/our-insights/could-climate-become-the-weak-link-in-your-supply-chain

Much of global economic production is organized around a complex system of interdependent supply chains. Supply chains facilitate the production of everything from computers and cars to lifesaving medicines and food, and support world trade in goods that is worth almost $20 trillion annually. End products have up to many thousands of parts, sourced from diverse geographies around the world. Over time, these supply chains have been honed to deliver maximum efficiency and speed.

2          Study to look into hydrogen use in maritime industry
https://www.offshore-energy.biz/study-to-look-into-hydrogen-use-in-maritime-industry/
OERA leads the study funded by Heritage Gas Limited, Liberty Utilities, the Nova Scotia Department of Energy & Mines and the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency.

“This study is one way we are evaluating options to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 in the Maritimes,” said OERA executive director Alisdair McLean.

“It will investigate hydrogen’s potential contribution to our region’s sustainable development goals, including creating hydrogen from local raw materials, transportation, storage and ultimate end uses both locally and in export markets,” he said.

3          Energy Giants Race For ‘Green Hydrogen’ Market Share
https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Fuel-Cells/Energy-Giants-Race-For-Green-Hydrogen-Market-Share.html
Green hydrogen is red hot. While hydrogen has long been touted as a virtually inexhaustible source of clean energy, with zero carbon emissions since this first element on the periodic table burns clean, leaving behind only water vapor. This makes hydrogen highly marketable as a promising fuel source option for a decarbonized economy of the future. The idea of a new energy order has gained a ton of attention in the wake of the novel coronavirus’ unprecedented interruption to the energy sector status quo, with such influential organizations as the World Economic Forum calling for a “great reset”. Not all hydrogen is created equal, however.

4          Cobalt Price Squeeze Could Derail The EV Boom
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Cobalt-Price-Squeeze-Could-Derail-The-EV-Boom.html
Electric vehicle investors and enthusiasts tend to obsess about a single metric–EV sales–when trying to gauge the pace of global electrification. However, they tend to ignore another equally important part of the worldwide electrification drive: The number of EV charging points.  Despite significant advances made in battery technology over the past decade, many people looking to make the switch to EVs still cite range limitation as their biggest concern, essentially meaning that they worry their EVs won’t make it to the next charging station before running out of juice.

5          Can Renewables Fully Sustain Our Current Way Of Life?
https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Renewable-Energy/Can-Renewables-Fully-Sustain-Our-Current-Way-Of-Life.html

“The reason renewables can’t power modern civilization is because they were never meant to. One interesting question is why anybody ever thought they could.”

Michael Shellenberger, Time magazine “Hero of the Environment,” wrote this commentary in an article in Forbes.

According to Shellenberger, president at Environmental Progress and an expert reviewer for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), renewables are simply incapable of sustaining our current way of life.

6          Lawrence Berkeley Lab helping advance lithium extraction from geothermal brines
https://www.thinkgeoenergy.com/lawrence-berkeley-lab-helping-advance-lithium-extraction-from-geothermal-brines/

Scientists at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory are working with two companies to evaluate and analyze their lithium extraction technologies at the planned lithium extraction from geothermal brines projects in at the Salton Sea in California.

The California Energy Commission recently awarded grants to advance lithium extraction from geothermal brines in California. Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory will be working with two of the companies that received grants to explore and develop lithium extraction at the Salton Sea in California.

7          Covid-19 lockdown will have ‘negligible’ impact on climate crisis
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/aug/07/covid-19-lockdown-will-have-negligible-impact-on-climate-crisis-study

The draconian coronavirus lockdowns across the world have led to sharp drops in carbon emissions, but this will have “negligible” impact on the climate crisis, with global heating cut by just 0.01C by 2030, a study has found.

But the analysis also shows that putting the huge sums of post-Covid-19 government funding into a green recovery and shunning fossil fuels will give the world a good chance of keeping the rise in global temperatures below 1.5C. The scientists said we are now at a “make or break” moment in keeping under the limit – as compared with pre-industrial levels – agreed by the world’s governments to avoid the worst effects of global heating.

8          Big Oil Took a Big Hit from the Coronavirus, Earnings Reports Show
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/31072020/big-oil-coronavirus-losses
The world’s leading oil and gas giants this week revealed the scale of the damage inflicted on the industry by the coronavirus pandemic, with top American companies reporting billions in losses while some European companies were able to eke out small profits.

Shell and Total, based in the Netherlands and France, respectively, said a dimming outlook on the long-term demand for oil and gas had forced them to cut the value of their assets by a collective $25 billion. The two companies attributed that lowered outlook to the effects of the pandemic, but also to an accelerating global transition to clean energy

9          More than 100 coal-fired plants have been replaced or converted to natural gas since 2011
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=44636
According to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), 121 U.S. coal-fired power plants were repurposed to burn other types of fuels between 2011 and 2019, 103 of which were converted to or replaced by natural gas-fired plants. At the end of 2010, 316.8 gigawatts (GW) of coal-fired capacity existed in the United States, but by the end of 2019, 49.2 GW of that amount was retired, 14.3 GW had the boiler converted to burn natural gas, and 15.3 GW was replaced with natural gas combined cycle. The decision for plants to switch from coal to natural gas was driven by stricter emission standards, low natural gas prices, and more efficient new natural gas turbine technology.

10        Investors launch climate plan to get to net zero emissions by 2050
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-climate-change-investors-idUSKCN2510FF
An investor group managing more than $16 trillion on Wednesday launched the world’s first step-by-step plan to help pension funds and others align their portfolios with the Paris Agreement on climate change.

Many investors have pledged high-level support to the goals of the 2015 Paris deal, but the “Net Zero Investment Framework” is the first to lay out the steps they need to take to ensure the commitment is backed up by the necessary action.

Specific targets could include increasing the percentage of assets invested in low-carbon passive indexes and ensuring the leaders of investee companies link pay to climate-related targets.

11        China poised to power huge growth in global offshore wind energy
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/aug/05/china-poised-to-power-huge-growth-in-global-offshore-wind-energy

The world’s offshore windfarm capacity could grow eightfold by the end of the decade powered by a clean energy surge led by China, according to the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC).

A new industry report has revealed stronger than expected growth for the offshore wind industry, which could reach 234GW by 2030, from a global tally of just over 29GW at the end of last year.

The council revised its forecasts up by 15GW in its latest annual report on offshore wind power after the fastest ever growth in 2019, when new wind farms around the world added an extra 6.1GW to the global tally.

12        Energy is at the heart of the solution to the climate challenge — IPCC
https://www.ipcc.ch/2020/07/31/energy-climatechallenge/
The coronavirus pandemic has brought immense disruption to our world, destroying lives and livelihoods. But it is also reminding us that there are some challenges we cannot tackle alone.

Limiting the spread of the virus has required everyone to act collectively to make life safer for all of us. This holds true for the other great crisis the world faces – untamed levels of greenhouse gas emissions that are already bringing increasingly dangerous consequences.

13        Letter from economists: to rebuild our world, we must end the carbon economy
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/aug/04/economists-letter-carbon-economy-climate-change-rebuild

From deep-rooted racism to the Covid-19 pandemic, from extreme inequality to ecological collapse, our world is facing dire and deeply interconnected emergencies. But as much as the present moment painfully underscores the weaknesses of our economic system, it also gives us the rare opportunity to reimagine it. As we seek to rebuild our world, we can and must end the carbon economy.

14        Credit Suisse earmarks more than $300 billion for sustainable finance
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-credit-suisse-gp-sustainability-idUSKCN24V1M3
Credit Suisse (CSGN.S) plans to provide at least 300 billion Swiss francs ($328.41 billion) in sustainable financing over the next decade in areas such as renewable energy and Green Bonds.

The move is the latest in a string of announcements by banks looking to display their green credentials and capture demand for cash from companies to help a shift to a low-carbon economy. Governments around the world are tightening rules on industry to try to meet the terms of the 2015 Paris climate agreement.

Business Intelligence and Analytics 76

Friday, August 7, 2020

Business Intelligence and Analytics 76

1          How long will the economic recovery take?
https://www.rbcwealthmanagement.com/ca/en/research-insights/how-long-will-the-economic-recovery-take/detail/?utm_id=wm1552134912590220&amp=1

The U.S. economy’s Q2 COVID-19 crash was about as bad as economists had expected—but that doesn’t make it feel any better. GDP plunged 32.9 percent (q/q annualized) based on preliminary data, by far the worst decline since the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) began collecting comparable quarterly data in mid-1947. The previous low was -10 percent in early 1958.

This plunge, combined with the five percent retrenchment in Q1 of this year, wiped out three years of economic growth. The size of the economy is back to what it was in Q2 2017.

2          HR says talent is crucial for performance–and the pandemic proves it
https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/our-insights/hr-says-talent-is-crucial-for-performance-and-the-pandemic-proves-it

To say that chief HR officers (CHROs) are busy in the COVID-19 era would be an understatement. Now, more than ever, they are central to how companies are reimagining their personnel practices to build organizational resilience and drive value.

In the earliest days of the crisis, CHROs kept people safe while fostering connectivity and caring in an intensely stressful time. In planning for and implementing the restart, they have been working to maintain morale and productivity for remote workforces while trying to figure out how and when to get folks back into office settings.

3          How Managers Can Enable AI Talent in Organizations
https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/how-managers-can-enable-ai-talent-in-organizations/
The AI & Machine Learning Imperative

“The AI & Machine Learning Imperative” offers new insights from leading academics and practitioners in data science and artificial intelligence. The Executive Guide, published as a series over three weeks, explores how managers and companies can overcome challenges and identify opportunities by assembling the right talent, stepping up their own leadership, and reshaping organizational strategy.

4          How search data can inform larger online business decisions
https://searchengineland.com/how-search-data-can-inform-larger-online-business-decisions-338621
As an SEO I’m constantly utilizing keyword search volume data to help make more informed decisions about clients’ online presence. But the reality is, this data has way more use cases than anyone gives it credit for. The role of a decision maker in any online business requires the ability to gather (or be presented with), understand, and forecast with all types of data. Simple yet effective methods for identifying trends in online searches can ensure you’re getting your product or services in front of the right people at the right time. This is particularly useful if you sell a variety of seasonal products online. But the same process can be leveraged for single-focus businesses, as well. This data can then trickle down to a variety of team members, from SEO and Paid Search Account Managers, to merchandisers and content strategists. How you ask? Let’s look at some use cases:

5          Data, Data and More Data
https://thoughtleadership.rbc.com/the-weather-networks-long-term-forecast-data-data-and-more-data/
Before the COVID pandemic, the International Data Corporation projected data creation to grow to 175 zettabytes by 2025, 10 times the amount of data created in 2017. That number could soon well be higher, given the lockdowns that have forced businesses to rapidly pivot to online.

Few other companies understand the importance of data as much as Pelmorex Corp, which owns the Weather Network in Canada and El Tiempo in Spain. It’s the third largest weather platform in the world, attracting 60 million users to its business each month.

6          The Rising Frugal Economy
https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/the-rising-frugal-economy/
In 2020, the world is grappling with COVID-19 along with several other major crises. The International Monetary Fund predicts that the world could experience the worst recession since the 1930s this year, with the global economy contracting by 3% as advanced economies shrink by 6.1%. The World Trade Organization expects global trade to fall by as much as 32% in 2020.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development reports that inequality in the world’s most developed economies is at its highest level in 50 years. The World Meteorological Organization recently warned that over the next five years, annual global temperatures could potentially rise more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, leading to catastrophic climate change.

7          Understanding channel capability for better digital marketing strategy
https://www.thedrum.com/opinion/2020/08/07/understanding-channel-capability-better-digital-marketing-strategy

Fundamental to creating any digital marketing strategy is a firm understanding of what it is that channels do and who they can reach.

This sounds straightforward, yet I regularly see companies that are reliant on channels that represent a race to the bottom (in terms of price/margin) or who are paying more than once to convert a customer. This is often a sign that they are mainly targeting low-value customers and/or even their own existing customers.

8          A Crash in the Dollar Is Coming
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-06-08/a-crash-in-the-dollar-is-coming
Is the decline of the dollar over? The U.S. currency has been falling steadily ever since the world exited the initial stage of the Covid-19 crisis. It has done so in line with the spectacular decline in real yields. This makes perfect sense. With lower yields, there is lower “carry” to be earned by parking in the dollar, so the currency would be expected to weaken.

But last week ended with a distinct variation of the theme. The 10-year real yield dropped below minus 1% for the first time since inflation-protected Treasury bonds have been on issue. Meanwhile the popular dollar index, which compares the currency to a group of leading counterparts, suddenly enjoyed its strongest rally in months, gaining almost 1% into the close:

9          How to Leverage Marketing Automation to Generate More Leads
https://www.business2community.com/marketing-automation/how-to-leverage-marketing-automation-to-generate-more-leads-02333081

The incorporation of the internet in human lives has changed the way people live and work. The mode of advertisement for the businesses is no exception to this!

As a result, people have devised marketing automation for alluring their target audience along with the inclusion of a few promising sub-processes that collectively contribute to instigating more leads.

To exemplify, the top results from the Pepper 2014 Marketing Automation Reportrevealed that 53% of the responders were using the marketing automation back in the year 2014, which certainly was expected to rise at a higher proportion in the future.

10        Essential Data Science Tips: How to Use One-Vs-Rest and One-Vs-One for Multi-Class Classification
https://www.kdnuggets.com/2020/08/one-vs-rest-one-multi-class-classification.html
Only a few classification models aid multi-class classification. Specific algorithms, including logistic regression and perceptron, work best with binary classification and do not support more than two classes of classification tasks. The best alternative for solving multi-class classification problems is splitting the multi-class datasets into multiple binary assemblies of data that can fit the binary classification model.

Algorithms used in binary classification problems cannot work with multi-class tasks. Therefore, heuristic methods, such as one-vs-one and one-vs-rest, are used to split multi-class problems into multiple binary datasets and train the binary classification model.

11        Business stress is no excuse to spam
https://martechtoday.com/business-stress-is-no-excuse-to-spam-243077
Whenever I think I’ve seen it all after 20+ years as an email professional, a brand does something to surprise me – and often not in a good way.

As we work our way through the COVID-19 experience, companies are striving for revenue any which way they can. Most are doing it by ramping up their existing channels. Some are blowing out everything they can in a desperate attempt to make their numbers.

But today I’m going to talk about what happens when a company goes too far.

Energy Petrochemicals and Plastics 75

Friday, July 31, 2020

Energy Petrochemicals and Plastics 75

1          OPEC+ plans to pump more crude into a precarious global oil market
https://www.worldoil.com/news/2020/7/31/opecplus-plans-to-pump-more-crude-into-a-precarious-global-oil-market

From quiet skies over Europe to sparse traffic in America’s biggest cities, a recovery in global oil demand is faltering amid the resurgence in coronavirus.

That poses a particularly delicate challenge for the OPEC cartel and its partners, who next week plan to resume some of the crude output halted during the depths of the pandemic.

2          Oil Set for 3rd Monthly Gain
https://www.rigzone.com/news/wire/oil_set_for_3rd_monthly_gain-31-jul-2020-162882-article/
Oil is set for a third monthly advance in New York before OPEC+ starts returning supply to the market after historic cuts, with the pandemic still raging unabated across many major economies.

Deep production curbs by OPEC and its allies have helped oil rebound from its plunge below zero in April, but it’s a precarious time to be adding more supply to the market with the coronavirus spreading rapidly through some American states, while staging a comeback in Asia. Futures slid 3.3% on Thursday after data showed the U.S. economy suffered its sharpest downturn since at least the 1940s in the second quarter, highlighting the impact of the outbreak.

3          Oil Price Fundamental Daily Forecast – Higher for Month, but Demand Destruction Worries Cap Gains
https://www.fxempire.com/forecasts/article/oil-price-fundamental-daily-forecast-higher-for-month-but-demand-destruction-worries-cap-gains-664202

U.S. West Texas Intermediate and international-benchmark Brent crude oil futures are edging higher on Friday after a steep fall the previous session changed the main trend to down on the daily chart. Nonetheless, the markets were able to bounce back throughout the session, finishing just under four-month highs.

4          Weekly Resin Report: Polyethylene Trading Slows
https://www.plasticstoday.com/resin-pricing/weekly-resin-report-pe-trading-slows-processors-reckon-relentless-price-hikes

The spot resin markets remained fairly active, but completed volumes disappointed, as polyethylene (PE) demand struggles to keep pace with rising prices and diminishing polypropylene (PP) supplies challenge some sourcing efforts. Even so, the PlasticsExchange reports in its Market Update that this month’s volumes have already been stronger than any during the second quarter. “With a week still remaining, it should rival our first-quarter performance,” said the resin clearinghouse based in Chicago.

5          Rystad Foresees New Oil Supply Glut
https://www.rigzone.com/news/rystad_foresees_new_oil_supply_glut-29-jul-2020-162856-article/
A new four-month oil supply glut of approximately 170 million barrels should result from the partial return in August of curtailed OPEC+ production, Rystad Energy predicts in a new analysis.

The consultancy bases its prediction on the assumption that “a mild second wave” of COVID-19 in key markets will prevent oil demand from rebounding as quickly as previously thought.

6          Oil Majors Report Dismal Second Quarter Earnings
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Oil-Majors-Report-Dismal-Second-Quarter-Earnings.html
On Thursday, some quarterly figures from the oil majors started coming in – and they are mostly negative.  Royal Dutch Shell reported a staggering $18 billion quarterly loss, made worse by a $16.8 billion write-down on a range of its assets. The huge loss came after earning $3 billion in the second quarter of 2019 and reporting a profit of $2.7 billion in the first quarter of this year. When excluding the write-down and other one-off items, Shell eked out a net profit of $638 million.

7          Exxon posts second straight quarterly loss on demand, price plunge
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-exxon-mobil-results-idUSKCN24W1S2
Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM.N) reported a $1.1 billion loss for the second quarter on Friday, the first back-to-back quarterly loss for the U.S. oil giant in at least 36 years.

Exxon stood out among its supermajor peers for not taking a large writedown on the value of its assets as the industry outlook darkens on the future of oil and gas prices.

Chevron Corp, Total (TOTF.PA), Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L), and Eni (ENI.MI) wrote down billions of dollars in assets. BP (BP.L) has signaled an up to $17.5 billion hit.

8          Refiner Phillips 66 posts quarterly loss as pandemic slams fuel demand
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-phillips-66-results-idUSKCN24W1P2
U.S. refiner Phillips 66 on Friday reported a quarterly loss compared to a year-ago profit, as coronavirus-led restrictions on businesses and travel destroyed fuel demand and hurt margins.

Fuel demand has plunged as countries around the world limit travel to stem the spread of the coronavirus. This led to a plunge in crude prices, which touched historic lows in April.

9          Chevron posts $8.3 billion loss on write downs, job cuts
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-chevron-results-idUSKCN24W1N6
Chevron Corp (CVX.N) on Friday reported an $8.3 billion loss on asset writedowns from plummeting fuel prices, a forced exit from Venezuela and expenses tied to thousands of jobs cuts.

Multibillion-dollar asset writedowns have become a prominent part of second-quarter energy results, as a global oil glut emerged as the COVID-19 pandemic cut fuel demand. Chevron rivals Total (TOTF.PA), Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L), and Eni (ENI.MI) each wrote down billions of dollars in assets. BP (BP.L) has signaled an up to $17.5 billion hit.

10        Shell reports $18bn loss as global oil and gas prices collapse
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jul/30/shell-reports-18bn-financial-loss-amid-covid-19-collapse-in-global-oil-and-gas-prices

Anglo-Dutch oil giant revealed a net loss of $18.3bn for the second quarter 2020, down sharply from a net profit of $3bn over the same period last year and $2.7bn in the first three months of 2020. Photograph: Adrian Dennis/AFP via Getty Images

Royal Dutch Shell has reported a deep financial loss after a record writedown on the value of its oil and gas assets due to the collapse in global market prices triggered by coronavirus.

The Anglo-Dutch oil giant revealed a net loss of $18.3bn (£14.1bn) for the second quarter 2020, down sharply from a net profit of $3bn over the same period last year and $2.7bn in the first three months of 2020.

11        DuPont takes $2.5 billion charge tied to auto business, posts wider loss
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-dupont-de-results-idUSKCN24V1P2
DuPont (DD.N) reported a bigger second-quarter loss on Thursday and wrote down the value of its automotive business by $2.5 billion as the industrial materials giant struggles with a prolonged weakness in one of its biggest markets.

DuPont, which makes materials used in products ranging from engine covers to brake fluid, is heavily exposed to the auto industry, which has been among the hardest hit after the coronavirus lockdowns emptied roads and shuttered car showrooms.

12        Total writes off $9.3B in oilsands assets, cancels Canadian oil lobby membership
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/suncor-total-fort-hills-conocophillips-tim-mcmillan-1.5668095
French energy giant Total says it is writing off $9.3-billion worth of oilsands assets in Alberta and cancelling its membership in the Calgary-based Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.

Total now considers oil reserves with high production costs that are to be produced more than 20 years in the future to be “stranded” given its carbon reduction targets and because the resource may not be produced by 2050, the Paris-based company said Wednesday.

13        Could Rising US-China Tensions Change Global Energy Markets?
https://oilprice.com/Geopolitics/Asia/Could-Rising-US-China-Tensions-Change-Global-Energy-Markets.html
The widening rift between the world’s two largest economies – the United States and China – has had analysts and market observers using the phrase ‘Cold War’ to describe how far the two global superpowers could go in their increasingly heated dispute.    A new Iron Curtain could mean attempts to decouple the intertwined economic and trade relations between the biggest economies in the world, Reuters market analyst John Kemp argues.

14        Oilfield Services Say Goodbye To $45 Billion In Assets: Morgan Stanley
https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Oilfield-Services-Say-Goodbye-To-45-Billion-In-Assets-Morgan-Stanley.html

The Big Three in the oilfield services industry wrote down $45 billion in assets over the past year as their clients tightened their belts, according to Morgan Stanley, cited by Bloomberg.

The three largest oilfield services providers in the world are Schlumberger (NYSE: SLB), Halliburton (NYSE: HAL), and Baker Hughes (NYSE: BHGE).

Schlumberger, with a market cap of $27 billion; Halliburton, with a market cap of $13 billion; and Baker Hughes, with a market cap of $17 billion, have a combined market cap that is just $12 billion over the total amount written down.

Recycling Renewables and Sustainable Business 46

Friday, July 31, 2020

Recycling Renewables and Sustainable Business 46

1          Citi, Bank of America join Morgan Stanley in carbon-disclosure group
https://www.bankingdive.com/news/citi-bank-of-america-morgan-stanley-carbon-disclosure-group/582592/
Bank of America and Citi have joined the Partnership for Carbon Accounting Financials (PCAF), a consortium that intends to standardize the way banks measure and reduce their climate impact, the banks announced separately Wednesday.

Citi also pledged $250 billion over the next five years to finance and facilitate low-carbon solutions in the areas of renewable energy, clean technology, water quality and conservation, sustainable transportation, green buildings, energy efficiency, and sustainable agriculture and land use.

2          Deglobalization gains pace in lithium battery supply chain
https://blogs.platts.com/2020/07/30/deglobalization-lithium-battery-supply-chain/
The COVID-19 crisis has exacerbated concerns across the lithium-ion battery industry about China’s dominance of the supply chain. The pandemic has also highlighted the need for local supply chains, in order to improve sustainability and work towards net zero targets.

Despite some momentum, however, the development of regional supply chains still faces challenges that go beyond simply raising equity.

3          Is The UK’s Ambitious Plan For 30 Million EVs Feasible?
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Is-The-UKs-Ambitious-Plan-For-30-Million-EVs-Feasible.html
Seven percent – that’s the portion of electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids as a percentage of total sales as of the first quarter of this year. There were some 110,000 EVs on British roads at the end of March. And yet the country’s National Grid is planning for 30 million in just two decades. Can it be done? Some would argue that the EV single-mindedness of European governments may blind them to all the challenges associated with the large-scale electrification of transport, such as the need to build charging infrastructure that is capable of handling the expected – or rather hoped-for – surge in EV sales in the coming years.

4          What’s Holding Geothermal Energy Back?
https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Geothermal-Energy/Whats-Holding-Geothermal-Energy-Back.html
It’s abundant, and it’s emissions-free: the heat from the earth’s mantle that reaches well into the crust and gives deep drillers a headache occasionally is the new star on the renewables block. Nevertheless, oil and gas companies have been somewhat reluctant to embrace it. Let’s first clarify: geothermal energy is only “new” in terms of the media attention it has been getting. Researchers – including people from the oil and gas industry – have been working for decades on technologies to extract the heat from the earth and either use it directly or turn it into electricity. It is only gaining prominence now as these technologies advance and the world’s attention becomes increasingly focused on alternatives to fossil fuels.

5          Extra 23 million people could face coastal flooding within 30 years, even with emission cuts, study says
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/31/extra-23-million-people-could-face-coastal-flooding-within-30-years-even-with-emission-cuts-study-says

The combined impacts of human-caused sea level rise, storm surges and high tides could expose an extra 23 million people to coastal flooding within the next 30 years, even with relatively ambitious cuts to greenhouse gas emissions, a new global study has found.

In a worst-case scenario where emissions continue to rise and no efforts are made to adapt to the rising sea levels, coastal assets worth US$14.2tn – about 20% of global GDP – could be at risk by the end of the century.

6          We must not miss this glorious chance to address the climate and biodiversity crises | Jonathon Porritt
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jun/24/climate-biodiversity-crises-government-green-recovery-coronavirus

Trillions of dollars will be invested by governments in reviving their economies over the next two or three years. If those dollars are well spent, ensuringlow-carbon, nature-restoring prosperity, we have a real chance of avoiding runaway climate change and ecosystem collapse. If they’re spent on taking us back to pre-coronavirus days, we’re screwed. The climate’s screwed. The planet’s screwed. And all future generations are screwed. It’s as simple – and as binary – as that.

7          Small crustacean can fragment microplastics in four days, study finds
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/30/small-crustacean-can-fragment-microplastics-in-four-days-study-finds

Small crustaceans can fragment microplastics into pieces smaller than a cell within 96 hours, a study has shown.

Until now, plastic fragmentation has been largely attributed to slow physical processes such as sunlight and wave action, which can take years and even decades.

Environmental scientists at University College Cork (UCC) in Ireland studying the 2cm-long amphipod Gammarus duebeni found that microplastic beads were not only ingested but were also fragmented incredibly quickly into nanoplastics.

8          Transparent and Double-Sided Sun-Tracking Solar Panels Could Be the Future
https://www.altenergymag.com/article/2020/07/transparent-and-double-sided-sun-tracking-solar-panels-could-be-the-future/33513

Solar panels have been around for some time, but they still have yet to overtake traditional energy sources. A lot of people still have reservations about the technology, even if it’s become more affordable and efficient. Something needs to change for photovoltaics to become the widespread technology they need to be.

Becoming more affordable or practical are essential steps in driving the switch to renewables. Still, more innovation needs to happen for them to catch on in a broader market. The solar panel industry needs to see substantial changes, and thankfully, it looks like there are some on the horizon.

9          EU Plastic Tax Approved by European Council
https://www.plasticstoday.com/legislation-regulations/eu-plastic-tax-approved-european-council
With its latest agreement on the new Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) and coronavirus recovery fund, the European Council has also approved implementation of the so-called plastic tax, effective January 1, 2021. While the European Council believes the €0.80/kg levy on non-recycled plastic packaging waste will have a beneficial environmental impact, the European Plastics Converters (EuPC) association thinks it will have the opposite effect.

10        Portugal selects multi-billion post-coronavirus hydrogen projects
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-portugal-energy-hydrogen-idUSKCN24T1S5
Portugal’s government has selected more than 30 multi-billion euro hydrogen projects interested in building production units of so-called “green” energy in the country after the coronavirus pandemic.

The selection comes as Portugal prepares an application to Europe’s Important Project of Common European Interest (IPCEI) scheme for hydrogen, part of a strategy to speed up renewable hydrogen projects in polluting sectors.

11        China’s new green development fund raises $12 billion in phase 1
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-environment-idUSKCN24T0E0
China’s first dedicated environmental fund, which will invest in green projects and firms, has already raised 88 billion yuan ($12.59 billion) in its first phase, an environment ministry official said at a briefing on Tuesday.

The National Green Development Fund will mainly be used to invest in national strategic programmes such as the green development of the Yangtze river region, said Zou Shoumin, a director responsible for finance at China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE).

12        Hydrogen Pipeline Network Could Transform European Energy, Operators Say
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davekeating/2020/07/28/hydrogen-pipeline-network-could-transform-european-energy-operators-say/

Hydrogen is the hottest new energy source being discussed in Brussels at the moment, and a group of eleven European gas infrastructure companies have come out with a plan for how to transport this new fuel across Europe.

Hydrogen gas is produced as a byproduct of industrial processes or power generation, and can then be used as a fuel itself. Because it can be produced as a byproduct of renewable energy generation (so-called ‘green hydrogen’), it holds great promise as a zero-or-low-carbon fuel. It would also be a way to deliver more energy from traditional fossil fuel power generation (so-called ‘brown or grey hydrogen’). Its development, however, remains in very early stages as companies experiment with how to extract, transport and store it.

Business Intelligence and Analytics 75

Friday, July 31, 2020

Business Intelligence and Analytics 75

1          Covid-19 has shaken global economy but other white swan threats remain
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jul/30/covid-19-has-shaken-global-economy-but-other-white-swan-threats-remain

In February, I warned that any number of foreseeable crises – “white swans” – could trigger a massive global disturbance this year. I noted: “… the US and Iran have already had a military confrontation that will likely soon escalate; China is in the grip of a viral outbreak that could become a global pandemic; cyberwarfare is ongoing; major holders of US treasuries are pursuing diversification strategies; the Democratic presidential primary is exposing rifts in the opposition to Donald Trump and already casting doubt on vote-counting processes; rivalries between the US and four revisionist powers are escalating; and the real-world costs of climate change and other environmental trends are mounting.”

2          Buckle up! It’s time to future-proof your skill set for the decade ahead
https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/mckinsey-accelerate/our-insights/accelerate-blog/buckle-up-its-time-to-future-proof-your-skill-set-for-the-decade-ahead

June 24, 2020If there was ever a time to discard your comfort zone and embrace adaptability, it’s now. Whatever your position and industry, chances are the “critical skills” required for your role have shifted in the past few years, and will continue to do so.

Working remotely and serving customers in new and digitally enhanced ways are just the beginning: the next 10 years will see fundamental changes to our working world, and employees will need to acquire new skills to remain successful. 2020’s COVID-19 crisis has only accelerated this trend.

3          Why capabilities are key in the post-pandemic era
https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/mckinsey-accelerate/our-insights/to-lead-in-the-postcrisis-tomorrow-put-leadership-and-capabilities-in-place-today

One silver lining of the COVID-19 crisis has been to show businesses how to manage better and achieve greater speed, quality, and cost control. A wartime mindset—defined by decisive crisis management, scenario planning, and a human reflex attuned to the economic and health shocks affecting employees—has been the hallmark of leaders in the crisis so far. Now, as the world feels its way toward recovery and the new opportunities of the next normal, another risk looms. It is that inertia will set in, along with a longing for a return to the operating style of the days before COVID-19.

4          The Age of Accelerating Strategy Breakthroughs
https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/the-age-of-accelerating-strategy-breakthroughs/
Several months into a global pandemic, leading organizations are redefining expectations of what is possible. Consider how offices around the world shifted virtually overnight to digitally enabled remote work. Grocery retailers and restaurants rolled out new pickup and delivery services. Hospitals rapidly expanded telehealth options. Automakers, apparel makers, and mobile phone assemblers retooled on the fly and are now rushing out personal protective equipment and ventilators.

5          The ABCs of Data Science Algorithms
https://www.informationweek.com/big-data/the-abcs-of-data-science-algorithms/a/d-id/1338418
Data science algorithms are never a one-size-fits-all solution. Do you know what makes sense for your business?

Today, big and small companies around the world are racing to adopt the latest tools in artificial intelligence and machine learning. While data is often positioned as the blanket cure for every business malady, those who work in the field understand all too well that data science algorithms are never a one-size-fits-all solution.

6          Data, Not Digitalization, Transforms the Post-Pandemic Supply Chain
https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/data-not-digitalization-transforms-the-post-pandemic-supply-chain/
That COVID-19 dramatically accelerated digital transformations worldwide has become C-level consensus and a truism. As Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella publicly observed, “We’ve seen two years’ worth of digital transformation in two months. From remote teamwork and learning to sales and customer service, to critical cloud infrastructure and security.”

7          Digital twins: The next innovation for supply chains
https://www.offshore-technology.com/comment/digital-twins-supply-chains/
A digital twin is a computer programme composed of real-world data about a physical object or system that can be used to model real-world behaviour. Internet of things (IoT) sensors on a real object gather data, such as telemetry, weather, temperature, humidity, motion and other factors, and feed that through to the programme, which can then render that information into a useful format.

This information can then be used to simulate different, alternative routes to market, different packaging tolerances and different environments. Digital twins provide an unprecedented level of granularity and transparency to the supply chain, providing a company with greater cost savings through true optimisation between production and the consumer, even providing clues about what a company should do next.

8          Five Eyes alliance could expand in scope to counteract China
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jul/29/five-eyes-alliance-could-expand-in-scope-to-counteract-china

The Five Eyes intelligence alliance could be expanded to include Japan and broadened into a strategic economic relationship that pools key strategic reserves such as critical minerals and medical supplies, according to centre-right MPs working internationally to decouple the west from China.

The coronavirus crisis has revealed the west’s key strategic dependencies on China, and plans will be announced shortly under Five Eyes auspices for a major increase in production of rare and semi-rare metals from Australia, Canada, and America in order to reduce dependency on Chinese stocks.

9          Why Employee Engagement is the New Content Marketing Strategy
https://marketinginsidergroup.com/employee-activation/why-employee-engagement-is-the-new-content-marketing-strategy/

Quick Takeaways:

Employees can be the source of high-quality content that is also the most effective in connecting with your audience.

Some employees can double up as “influencers” for your brand if you groom them right.

Encourage employees to create content to voice their opinions as well as engage customers.

10        6 Skills to Become a Master Data Scientist
https://datafloq.com/read/6-skills-become-master-data-scientist/8859
Data science has grown by leaps and bounds in the past few years. According to Research & Markets, nearly 90% of business professionals say data and analytics will be a key part of their digital transformation, so it’s not surprising that there is a constant demand for data science professionals across the industry.

Not to mention, the good paycheck, promising growth, and consistently challenges at work make data science career extremely fulfilling. However, what’s challenging, is becoming a data scientist.

11        Traditional vs Deep Learning Algorithms used in BlockChain in Retail Industry
https://www.datasciencecentral.com/profiles/blogs/traditional-vs-deep-learning-algorithms-used-in-blockchain-in-3

This blog highlights different ML algorithms used in blockchain transactions with a special emphasis on bitcoins in retail payments. This blog is structured as follows:

Overview of the role of blockchain in the retail industry.

Different traditional (SecureSVM, Bagging, BoostingClustering) vs deep learning algorithms (LSTM, CNN, and GAN) used in bitcoin retail payments.

12        Building a Content-Based Book Recommendation Engine
https://www.kdnuggets.com/2020/07/building-content-based-book-recommendation-engine.html
If we plan to buy any new product, we normally ask our friends, research the product features, compare the product with similar products, read the product reviews on the internet and then we make our decision. How convenient if all this process was taken care of automatically and recommend the product efficiently? A recommendation engine or recommender system is the answer to this question.

Energy Petrochemicals and Plastics 74

Friday, July 24, 2020

Energy Petrochemicals and Plastics 74

1          Oil up on strong economic data, U.S.-China tensions cap gains
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-global-oil-idUSKCN24P04M
Oil prices rose on Friday, lifted by some supportive economic data, but tensions between the United States and China limited gains. Brent crude futures LCOc1 rose 3 cents to settle at $43.34 a barrel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude CLc1 futures rose 22 cents to settle at $41.29 a barrel.

For the week, Brent rose 0.5%, while U.S. crude rose 1.7%.

2          ‘It is going to be brutal’: What to expect as oil and gas majors unveil their second-quarter results
https://www.oilandgas360.com/it-is-going-to-be-brutal-what-to-expect-as-oil-and-gas-majors-unveil-their-second-quarter-results/

Oil and gas majors are likely to report “horrendous” second-quarter results over the next two weeks, energy analysts have told CNBC, with the three-month period through to the end of June widely expected to mark the “low point” of 2020.

“Big Oil” companies, referring to the world’s largest oil and gas majors, witnessed a historic fall in oil and gas prices during the second quarter as coronavirus lockdown restrictions coincided with an unprecedented demand shock.

3          Backwardation Is The Best Tool For OPEC
https://www.forbes.com/sites/markledain/2020/07/20/backwardation-is-the-best-tool-for-opec/
There are two trends on the supply side costing OPEC money. The first is the growth of shale over the past several years in excess of demand. Shale production proved resilient in multiple markets and technical advancements combined with cheap capital further accelerated development. The second trend is the refusal of Mexico to cut production and the commitment by Mexico to actually grow future production into a difficult market. Targeting backwardation in the price of oil, where the futures price is lower than the current price, is a tool that OPEC will likely now use against both these market participants.

4          Oil demand may climb new peaks in post-coronavirus world
https://blogs.platts.com/2020/07/21/oil-demand-coronavirus-new-peak/
While the coronavirus pandemic may have done permanent damage to oil consumption in the transport sector, strong growth in petrochemicals suggests peak oil demand could still be a couple of decades away.

Changing demand patterns also raise big questions as to how refineries and producers adapt in the post-pandemic world before demand falls from its eventual summit.

5          Commodity Resin Prices Rebound
https://www.ptonline.com/blog/post/commodity-resin-prices-rebound
Prices of four of the five major commodity resins were in various stages of an upward trajectory going into the third quarter. PET was the exception, with tabs mostly flat due to high domestic production and continued imports. Driving higher prices for the other resins were increased domestic demand (particularly for PE) and stronger export activity as North American suppliers regained their feedstock advantage once crude-oil prices jumped up to $40/bbl. Clouding the future outlook were uncertainties about the course of the COVID-19 pandemic and expectations for an active hurricane season ahead.

6          Weekly Resin Report: Strong Exports Push Spot Prices Higher
https://www.plasticstoday.com/resin-pricing/weekly-resin-report-strong-exports-push-spot-prices-higher
The spot resin market remained quite busy last week, although trading in some materials and segments dropped from the very rapid rate seen in previous weeks. Polyethylene (PE) prices continued to rise, with some grades actually accelerating their ascent. Domestic railcar offerings for both PE and polypropylene (PP) were more prevalent early in the week. As material sold, few fresh offers came back, adding to the sense of snug supplies as producers push to implement price increases, reports the PlasticsExchange in its Market Update.

7          Buyers of U.S. LNG cancel September cargoes but pace slows
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-united-states-lng-exports-idUSKCN24M1AO
Buyers of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the United States continued scrapping September loadings due to weak global gas demand but fewer cargos were cancelled than for the two previous months, industry sources said on Tuesday.

The exact number of cancellations was not immediately clear.

Two of the eight sources said as many as 25 or 26 cargoes might have been cancelled for September, while one source estimated 15 to 20 cargoes and another said it was less than 20. Some sources suggested more than 26 cargoes were scrapped.

8          Russia’s Central Bank Against Copying Mexican Oil Hedge
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Oil-Prices/Russias-Central-Bank-Against-Copying-Mexican-Oil-Hedge.html
Russia’s central bank doesn’t think that copying the Mexican oil hedge is a good idea, the Governor of Bank of Russia, Elvira Nabiullina said at a news conference on Friday, commenting on the idea that Russia could possibly insulate its budget from oil price crashes by adopting an oil hedging program.

Earlier his week, Russian news agency Interfax reported that Russia was considering whether to adopt a kind of state oil hedging program, similar to Mexico’s oil hedge, to protect government revenues from oil price crashes in the future.

9          U.S. refiners trim crude processing as recovery falters
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-global-oil-kemp-column-idUSKCN24O1LD
Refineries processed an average of 14.20 million barrels per day (bpd) last week, down from 14.34 million bpd two weeks ago, U.S. Energy Information Administration data shows.

The slowdown was barely perceptible but marks a significant change from the previous trend of strong and consistent growth since early May.

Refinery crude processing rates remain about 2.8 million bpd, or 17%, below the seasonal average over the past five years (“Weekly petroleum status report”, EIA, July 22).

10        U.S. crude, distillate stockpiles rise unexpectedly -EIA
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-oil-eia-milestones-idUSKCN24N26H
U.S. crude oil and distillate inventories rose unexpectedly and fuel demand slipped last week, the Energy Information Administration said on Wednesday, as a sharp outbreak in coronavirus cases hit U.S. consumption.

U.S. crude production ticked higher and refined products supplied, a proxy for fuel demand, declined. The market has recovered from the doldrums of April, when U.S. prices briefly dropped to more than negative-$40 a barrel, as producers trimmed supply due to a slump in demand amid lockdowns to control the pandemic.

11        Hydrocarbon gas liquids spot prices are generally bound by crude oil and natural gas – Today in Energy
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=44456
The combination of rapidly declining crude oil prices in March 2020 and relatively flat (and historically low) natural gas prices compressed hydrocarbon gas liquids (HGL) spot prices into a narrow price band from mid-March through the end of April 2020. This relatively narrow band has since widened as crude oil prices have increased and natural gas prices have remained low. Generally, HGL prices are based on their heat content and are bracketed by the prices of natural gas (the lower bound) and crude oil (the upper bound).

12        Could AMLO Cancel Mexico Energy Reform?
https://www.rigzone.com/news/wire/could_amlo_cancel_mexico_energy_reform-24-jul-2020-162822-article/
A former head of Mexico’s state oil giant Petroleos Mexicanos is testifying that lawmakers were bribed to pass a 2014 reform that opened the energy sector to private investment, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Friday.

Lopez Obrador said that Emilio Lozoya, who was extradited from Spain this month to face corruption charges in Mexico, is shining light on how money was distributed to legislators.

13        Schlumberger Job Cuts to Top 21,000
https://www.rigzone.com/news/wire/schlumberger_job_cuts_to_top_21000-24-jul-2020-162817-article/
Schlumberger Ltd. posted its weakest sales in 14 years and is cutting one-fifth of its workforce while warning that new waves of Covid-19 could derail the nascent recovery in global energy demand.

The second-quarter rout was so bad for Schlumberger that it’s spending $1 billion on job severance in a move that will shrink staffing to an 11-year low. Various restructuring and impairment charges cost it another $2.7 billion, the company said Friday in a statement.

14        Baker Hughes posts second quarterly loss as oil slump slams demand
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-baker-hughes-results-idUSKCN24N1IF
Baker Hughes Co (BKR.N) posted its second consecutive quarterly loss on Wednesday and said it would continue reining in costs to prepare for a longer period of oil price volatility.

Oil producers stopped drilling new wells and drastically cut their budgets following a collapse in crude oil prices this year that clipped demand for services offered by Baker Hughes and rivals Schlumberger (SLB.N) and Halliburton (HAL.N).

15        Dow signals choppy recovery from pandemic blow, plans cost cuts
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-dow-results-idUSKCN24O189
Dow Inc chief executive officer said on Thursday it would probably take a couple of years for the chemical maker’s volumes and margins to rebound to pre-coronavirus levels, and laid out additional cost-cutting plans to cope with its fallout.

The company posted its first quarterly loss since its separation from the erstwhile DowDuPont conglomerate and forecast third-quarter sales below estimates, sending its shares down 4%.

16        Chevron picks Noble in biggest U.S. energy deal since oil crash
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-noble-energy-m-a-chevron-corp-idUSKCN24L143
Chevron Corp (CVX.N) said on Monday it would buy Noble Energy Inc (NBL.O) in a $5 billion all-stock deal, bolstering its shale presence as a plunge in crude prices have made assets cheaper.

The deal, the largest in the U.S. energy sector this year, comes more than a year after Chevron abandoned its offer for Anadarko Petroleum Corp, outmaneuvered by Occidental Petroleum Corp’s (OXY.N) higher bid.

17        Severe floods in China aggravate oversupply of some petrochemicals
https://www.icis.com/explore/resources/news/2020/07/23/10533124/severe-floods-in-china-aggravate-oversupply-of-some-petrochemicals

Heavy rains in various parts of China have caused severe flooding that has been disrupting logistics operations, thereby exacerbating oversupply of some petrochemicals, as well as oil products.

Flooding has hit twenty-seven provinces mainly in the central and western regions of the country since June, including the petrochemical hubs of Shandong, Jiangsu and Hubei.

18        Banks Backing Away from US Shale
https://www.rigzone.com/news/wire/banks_backing_away_from_us_shale-23-jul-2020-162806-article/
One of the key sources of funding for American shale is evaporating, just as the the sector needs it more than ever.

Banks lending against the oil and natural gas reserves of hundreds of independent U.S. drilling companies have pulled back from the sector at an unprecedented rate this year after energy prices slumped. There’s every indication they’re not done: Many in the industry expect further reductions to credit facilities in the fall, with higher costs and more stringent protections for lenders.

19        Saudi AC Demand May Curb OPEC Plan Impact
https://www.rigzone.com/news/wire/saudi_ac_demand_may_curb_opec_plan_impact-21-jul-2020-162780-article/

As the Middle East enters the hottest days of summer, Saudi Arabia is set to burn potentially record amounts of crude oil to run its power plants and keep its citizens comfortably air-conditioned.

Electricity consumption always soars around July and August, when temperatures in the kingdom can rise above 122 degrees Fahrenheit (50 degrees celsius). That compels the government to use crude or fuel oil in addition to the much cleaner natural gas that normally fires the plants. But this year the urge to drain oil is even stronger because of higher demand, with the coronavirus pandemic forcing many Saudis to cancel their summer holidays abroad.

20        Trial of ex-Pemex boss threatens to lift lid on Mexico’s ‘cash box’
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mexico-corruption-analysis-idUSKCN24M0LQ
The trial of a former boss of Petroleos Mexicanos threatens to expose years of alleged malpractice at the state oil company and provide a canvas for Mexico’s leftist president to depict rot at the heart of government that he has vowed to clean up.

Once a symbol of Mexican self-reliance and ingenuity, the firm known as Pemex became increasingly beset by graft accusations and financial problems, crushed under a mountain of debt and taxes.

Recycling Renewables and Sustainable Business 45

Friday, July 24, 2020

Recycling Renewables and Sustainable Business 45

1          Chemists make tough plastics recyclable
http://news.mit.edu/2020/tough-thermoset-plastics-recyclable-0722
Thermosets, which include epoxies, polyurethanes, and rubber used for tires, are found in many products that have to be durable and heat-resistant, such as cars or electrical appliances. One drawback to these materials is that they typically cannot be easily recycled or broken down after use, because the chemical bonds holding them together are stronger than those found in other materials such as thermoplastics.

2          Strong efforts to reduce plastic could still leave 710 million tons in the environment by 2040, study suggests
https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/plastic-reduction-1.5659383
Plastic pollution is ubiquitous, seemingly found in every nook and cranny around the world, from some of the deepest parts of the oceans, to the Arctic, to drinking water.

But a new paper published in the journal Science on Thursday suggests that, with global efforts, we can drastically reduce the amount of plastic waste found on land and in our oceans, though eliminating it entirely isn’t likely.

3          How climate change is leading to ‘a redistribution of life on Earth’
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/whatonearth/how-climate-change-is-leading-to-a-redistribution-of-life-on-earth-1.5661871

Pacific salmon used to be so unfamiliar in Arctic waters that many communities don’t have local words for the fish, and there are stories of harvesters feeding them to their dogs.

But in recent years, chum, pink and sockeye salmon have been showing up in so many fishing nets that Fisheries and Oceans Canada has been keeping track.

4          First active leak of sea-bed methane discovered in Antarctica
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/22/first-active-leak-of-sea-bed-methane-discovered-in-antarctica

The first active leak of methane from the sea floor in Antarctica has been revealed by scientists.

The researchers also found microbes that normally consume the potent greenhouse gas before it reaches the atmosphere had only arrived in small numbers after five years, allowing the gas to escape.

Vast quantities of methane are thought to be stored under the sea floor around Antarctica. The gas could start to leak as the climate crisis warms the oceans, a prospect the researchers said was “incredibly concerning”.

5          Hydrogen Is A Top Contender In The Race To Zero Carbon
https://www.forbes.com/sites/uhenergy/2020/07/23/hydrogen-is-a-top-contender-in-the-race-to-zero-carbon/

The goals of 100% renewable energy and zero carbon emissions are at the forefront of all energy transition/transformation conversations. However, the prospect of fully electrifying certain sectors of the transportation industry is daunting because of electricity’s limited capabilities regarding heavy-vehicle transportation. Tesla says its electric-powered Semi model will be available later this year, but the reality is electric power coupled with battery storage is not yet powerful enough to realistically and sustainably power things like trains, ships and big-rig trucks.

6          Uptake of electric vehicles (EVs) in Europe
https://www.argusmedia.com/pages/NewsBody.aspx?id=2125912&menu=yes
Incentives by national governments across Europe have led to an increase in the uptake of electric vehicles (EVs) in the region in recent months, while general auto sales worldwide have fallen.

French auto giant Renault disclosed record sales in June for its flagship EV the Renault Zoe, in the latest of a series of indications about EV uptake in Europe. Sales of the Zoe in Europe were above 11,000 units last month, according to Jean-Paul Drei, product development manager at Renault.

7          Tesla big battery at Hornsdale delivers world record output of 150MW
https://reneweconomy.com.au/tesla-big-battery-at-hornsdale-delivers-world-record-output-of-150mw-26392/
The Hornsdale Power Reserve – more commonly known as the Tesla big battery – has set a new record for itself, and the world, in terms of output from a lithium-ion battery, feeding 150MW into the South Australia grid as it continues its complex series of tests.

The injection of 150MW occurred in the 2.25pm trading interval on Tuesday, July 21. It represents the maximum output from the upgraded battery, whose capacity and storage is being expanded from the already world leading 100MW/129MWh to a total of 150MW/194MWh.

8          More than 60% of energy used for electricity generation is lost in conversion
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=44436
In 2019, U.S. utility-scale generation facilities consumed 38 quadrillion British thermal units (quads) of energy to provide 14 quads of electricity. Most of the difference between these values was lost as an inherent result of the energy conversion process. The U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) U.S. electricity flow diagram visualizes U.S. electricity flow from energy sources consumed to generate electricity and electricity net imports to disposition (conversion and other losses, plant use, and end-use consumption).

9          Renewables topped fossil fuels in EU electricity generation for first time through June 2020
https://ieefa.org/renewables-topped-fossil-fuels-in-eu-electricity-generation-for-first-time-through-june-2020/
Europe’s long goodbye to coal is speeding up, in a transition smoothed by the rise of wind and solar power and energy policy that has priced the fossil fuel out of many markets, according to data released on Wednesday.

Renewable sources of power have taken over for the first time in 2020, generating 40% of European Union electricity, while fossil fuels generated 34%, independent think-tank Ember said in a half-yearly report.

10        IEEFA: Despite the talk, Shell and Total are still investing much more in fossil fuels than renewables
https://ieefa.org/ieefa-despite-the-talk-shell-and-total-are-still-investing-much-more-in-fossil-fuels-than-renewables/

While Shell and Total are shifting towards renewable energy technologies, around 90% of their capital continues to be spent on fossil fuels, finds a new report from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA).

To reach their own stated targets, IEEFA estimates that Shell and Total each needs to shift at least $10bn per annum (or 50% of total capital expenditure) from oil and gas exploration and invest into accelerating their renewable strategies.

11        World’s Largest Green Hydrogen Project Unveiled in Saudi Arabia
https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/us-firm-unveils-worlds-largest-green-hydrogen-project
Air Products & Chemicals, the U.S. industrial gas giant, announced plans on Tuesday to build a green hydrogen plant in Saudi Arabia powered by 4 gigawatts of wind and solar power, the world’s largest such project announced so far.

The $5 billion plant will be jointly owned by Air Products, Saudi Arabia’s ACWA Power and Neom, a new mega-city planned near Saudi Arabia’s borders with Egypt and Jordan.

12        European paper recycling rate reaches 72% in 2019
https://www.packagingnews.co.uk/news/materials/paper/european-recycling-rate-reaches-72-2019-20-07-2020

The EPRC said this rate was achieved due to a stable utilisation of Paper for Recycling (PfR) in the European paper industry.

The council said that a good signal towards more sustainability is the fact that the collection of Paper for Recycling was maintained at high levels in Europe despite a decrease in paper and board consumption in Europe.

The sharp and continued decline in Chinese demand for European Paper for Recycling was balanced by increased demand from other countries such as Turkey and India.

13        Morgan Stanley Becomes First U.S. Bank To Measure Carbon Footprint Of Its Loans
https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Morgan-Stanley-Becomes-First-US-Bank-To-Measure-Carbon-Footprint-Of-Its-Loans.html

Morgan Stanley has become the first U.S. bank to start measuring the emissions generated by the businesses it lends to and invests in, the bank said in a press release.

The bank will do this as a member of the Partnership for Carbon Accounting Financials—an organization set up last year to pursue the standardization of so-called carbon accounting in the banking and financial services sector in a bid to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions of the businesses banks lend to and invest in.

14        Long-Term Value of Grid Storage Is All About Capacity, Study Finds
https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/long-term-value-of-grid-storage-is-all-about-capacity-study-finds

The grid is heading in the direction of more renewables, with or without overarching policies to guide it. There’s general agreement that the ability to store electricity will become more valuable as this happens, but the exact value of energy storage in a dynamically evolving electrical system is hard to pin down.

A new study from current and former MIT energy system modelers attempts to quantify this. Rather than looking at the value of a single battery project, or the role of energy storage in a fully decarbonized grid, as previous studies have contemplated, the researchers tested the value of energy storage as the grid’s wind and solar penetration increases to 50 percent and beyond, and as energy storage deployment grows. These dynamics will play out in many parts of the grid over the next 15 or 20 years.

15        The Key To Better Batteries Is Soft Solid Electrolytes, Say Researchers
https://cleantechnica.com/2020/07/22/the-key-to-better-batteries-is-soft-solid-electrolytes-say-researchers/
The bane of battery scientists are little things called dendrites — little spikes of lithium that can pierce battery cells and lead to fires or explosions. Like the stalagmites and stalactites found in underground caves, those dendrites grow larger and stronger over time, particularly during charging cycles.

16        EU needs to increase offshore energy production twenty times
https://www.neweurope.eu/article/eu-needs-to-increase-offshore-energy-production-twenty-times/
The European Commission launched on July 22 a public consultation on its future EU Offshore Renewable Energy Strategy, which will be adopted later this year.

“To achieve climate neutrality by 2050, we need to increase EU’s offshore energy production twenty times,” EU Energy Commissioner Kadri Simson said. “This means making it easier to build large-scale offshore wind parks in an environmentally sustainable way. We must also use the potential of other renewable sources such as offshore solar energy as well as new opportunities of tidal and ocean energy.”

17        Tesla boss Musk’s desire for more nickel could be a non-starter
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-metals-nickel-ahome-column-idUSKCN24P1PJ
Elon Musk faces something of a reality check after his call this week for more nickel mines to feed the batteries that Tesla and other carmakers need to power their electric vehicles.

The market’s fortunes remain beholden not to the battery supply chain but to the much larger stainless steel sector, and nickel prices are hovering around levels that are more likely to force out existing operators than entice new ones.

And it is concern about the state of the stainless steel market that is dampening nickel’s prospects.

Business intelligence and analytics 74

Friday, July 24, 2020

Business intelligence and analytics 74

1          A commercial recovery for B2B companies during coronavirus
https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/advanced-electronics/our-insights/a-post-covid-19-commercial-recovery-strategy-for-b2b-companies

Leaders of B2B companies that primarily serve customers in sectors such as automotive, energy, mining, and telecommunications are trying to mitigate COVID-19’s economic fallout and human toll by ensuring workplace safety, increasing liquidity, and keeping supply chains moving. The pressures have been so intense that few are looking ahead to the return to work, when production lines will ramp up to full capacity. Those forward-thinking executives who do contemplate the recovery may have difficulty creating a solid plan, because COVID-19 has introduced unprecedented complexity into their operations.

2          Overcoming the Innovator’s Paradox
https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/overcoming-the-innovators-paradox/
Having a great idea is essential to innovation, but that’s only half of what’s needed. Securing the resources to implement the idea is just as important — and potentially more difficult. The inventor Nikola Tesla, for example, came up with several transformative ideas — for electric induction motors, wireless telegraphy, radios, and remote control — but he died penniless because he couldn’t line up the resources to commercialize them. In contrast, Thomas Edison, arguably less brilliant, died wealthy and famous because he was good at both coming up with ideas and winning the necessary support to turn them into reality.

3          US push for global alliance against China hampered by years of ‘America first’
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jul/24/us-china-mike-pompeo-america-first
The confrontation between the US and China is gathering pace with each passing week. In the past few days, the Chinese consulate in Houston has been shuttered amid allegations it was a spy hub, and the US mission in the south-western city of Chengdu was closed in retaliation, on similar grounds.

The FBI has started arresting Chinese researchers at US universities with suspected links to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), one of whom temporarily took refugein the consulate in San Francisco, before surrendering.

4          What New Normal Should We Create?
https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/what-new-normal-should-we-create/
We currently exist within a world that is unfrozen from the constraints of routine, habits, and norms. By leveraging this moment to explore, experiment, and learn, organizations and their community stakeholders have a unique opportunity to redefine the scope of their priorities and collective actions.

I use the word unfrozen deliberately. In 1947, behavioral psychologist Kurt Lewin proposed a process model of change that denoted three stages: unfreezing, change, and refreezing.

5          Antipatterns that are derailing technology transformations
https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/mckinsey-digital/our-insights/ten-antipatterns-that-are-derailing-technology-transformations

Most major organizations today have embarked on transformation programs in response to changes in customer, competitive, and regulatory landscapes. Whether the transformations are labeled agile, digital, or DevOps, their fundamental premise is to build value by establishing short, iterative, and continuous feedback loops between product and customers that dramatically improve both the product and its time to market.

6          COVID-19 is the asteroid that struck American small business
https://searchengineland.com/covid-19-is-the-asteroid-that-struck-american-small-business-338136
Small businesses (SMBs) are now in a Darwinian struggle for survival. The fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic is completely disrupting and reconfiguring the market, with some SMBs adapting and others calling it quits. This will have big implications for marketing and advertising as well.

In its Q2 economic report, Yelp paints a picture of increased consumer activity in late May and early June driving the growth of infections in states such as Florida and California. The report also quantifies the number of local businesses that are permanently closing.

7          How to Use Big Data to Perfect a Marketing Plan
https://datafloq.com/read/how-use-big-data-perfect-marketing-plan/8830
Ask any sports executive, and they’ll tell you that the biggest and most important shift in recent years is from using gut instinct to data for making important decisions. With so much information flowing around during the current digital age, you need to use this approach when it comes to your marketing strategy. Marketers in every industry and sector are using analytics and information to glean insights on client behavior and habits. This information will help you get a leg up on the competition. Here’s how you can use big data to perfect your marketing plan going forward.

8          Analyze-then-Store: The Journey to Continuous Intelligence
https://insidebigdata.com/2020/07/20/analyze-then-store-the-journey-to-continuous-intelligence/
This multi-part article series is intended for data architects and anyone else interested in learning how to design modern real-time data analytics solutions. It explores key principles and implications of event streaming and streaming analytics, and concludes that the biggest opportunity to derive meaningful value from data – and gain continuous intelligence about the state of things – lies in the ability to analyze, learn and predict from real-time events in concert with contextual, static and dynamic data. This article series places continuous intelligence in an architectural context, with reference to established technologies and use cases in place today.

9          Easy Guide To Data Preprocessing In Python
https://www.kdnuggets.com/2020/07/easy-guide-data-preprocessing-python.html
Machine Learning is 80% preprocessing and 20% model making.

You must have heard this phrase if you have ever encountered a senior Kaggle data scientist or machine learning engineer. The fact is that this is a true phrase. In a real-world data science project, data preprocessing is one of the most important things, and it is one of the common factors of success of a model, i.e., if there is correct data preprocessing and feature engineering, that model is more likely to produce noticeably better results as compared to a model for which data is not well preprocessed.

10        Recommender Systems in a Nutshell
https://www.kdnuggets.com/2020/07/recommender-systems-nutshell.html
When you search for a product on Amazon, the algorithm suggests other items with the note “Recommended for you, Kevin” or “Customers who bought this item also bought…”

Recommender systems predict the preference of the user for these items, which could be in form of a rating or response. When more data becomes available for a customer profile, the recommendations become more accurate.

11        The UK’s Huawei decision is emblematic of the new tech cold war
https://www.pharmaceutical-technology.com/tech/the-uks-huawei-decision-is-emblematic-of-the-new-tech-cold-war/

After months of prevaricating, the UK recently made the decision to lock Chinese telecoms company Huawei out of its 5G network. In January, the UK had decided to limit the company’s share of the network to 35% and keep it out of the sensitive ‘core’, but this decision was overturned after the US imposed new sanctions on the company, meaning it could no longer use US-made chips.

12        What I learned from looking at 200 machine learning tools
https://www.kdnuggets.com/2020/07/200-machine-learning-tools.html
To better understand the landscape of available tools for machine learning production, I decided to look up every AI/ML tool I could find. The resources I used include:

Full-stack deep learning

LF AI Foundation landscape

AI Data Landscape

Various lists of top AI startups by the media

Responses to my tweet and LinkedIn post

People (friends, strangers, VCs) share with me their lists

13        4 Ways to Excel as a Female Data Scientist
https://www.informationweek.com/big-data/4-ways-to-excel-as-a-female-data-scientist/a/d-id/1338373
Glassdoor has ranked data science as one of the top 10 best jobs in the US every year since 2015. Here’s how you can stand out in this field.

From analyzing large volumes of data to building contact tracing applications or using machine learning algorithms to discover effective treatments for COVID-19 quickly, the demand for data scientists with diverse skill sets and backgrounds has soared.

14        Data Mining and Machine Learning: Fundamental Concepts and Algorithms: The Free eBook
https://www.kdnuggets.com/2020/07/data-mining-machine-learning-free-ebook.html
The fundamental algorithms in data mining and machine learning form the basis of data science, utilizing automated methods to analyze patterns and models for all kinds of data in applications ranging from scientific discovery to business analytics. This textbook for senior undergraduate and graduate courses provides a comprehensive, in-depth overview of data mining, machine learning and statistics, offering solid guidance for students, researchers, and practitioners. The book lays the foundations of data analysis, pattern mining, clustering, classification and regression.

15        The Bitter Lesson of Machine Learning
https://www.kdnuggets.com/2020/07/bitter-lesson-machine-learning.html
The biggest lesson that can be read from 70 years of AI research is that general methods that leverage computation are ultimately the most effective, and by a large margin. The ultimate reason for this is Moore’s law, or rather its generalization of continued exponentially falling cost per unit of computation. Most AI research has been conducted as if the computation available to the agent were constant (in which case leveraging human knowledge would be one of the only ways to improve performance) but, over a slightly longer time than a typical research project, massively more computation inevitably becomes available.

Energy Petrochemicals and Plastics 73

Friday, July 17, 2020

Energy Petrochemicals and Plastics 73

1          OPEC+ hits the refinery wall
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-global-oil-kemp-idUSKCN24I1UD
Fuel traders and refiners are becoming more pessimistic about the outlook for the global economy and transportation for the rest of this year, even as the crude producers in OPEC+ try to push oil prices higher.

OPEC+ is anxious to see higher crude prices as soon as possible but its ambition is likely to be thwarted in the short term by the renewed softness in fuel consumption.

Price premiums for gasoline and diesel over crude have been flat or falling for almost four weeks since June 23 amid growing anxiety about a resurgence in the coronavirus and a new round of lockdowns.

2          Oil Retreats from High on OPEC+ Taper
https://www.rigzone.com/news/wire/oil_retreats_from_high_on_opec_taper-16-jul-2020-162736-article/

Oil retreated from a four-month high after the OPEC+ alliance confirmed it would start tapering output cuts from next month.

Futures in New York dropped below $41 a barrel after jumping 2.3% on Wednesday. Saudi Arabia and Russia said the producer bloc would proceed with its plan to add more supply next month and were confident that it wouldn’t hurt oil’s rally. The tapering will be partially offset by reduced production from some countries that didn’t meet their targets in previous months.

3          Weekly Resin Report: PE, PP prices continue to tick higher
https://www.plasticstoday.com/resin-pricing/weekly-resin-report-pe-pp-prices-continue-tick-higher
Spot resin trading maintained a swift pace last week. Demand was very good and supply remained constrained, yet available, reports the PlasticsExchange in its Market Update. Prices continued to tick higher, as all commodity polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP) grades added another $0.005/lb last week. Processors absorbed the June $0.04/lb PE increase in stride and the upward momentum has been sustained into July, which now brings the next $0.05/lb increase currently on the table into focus.

4          Russia’s Sibur to cut Baltic LPG exports to five-year lows: traders, data
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-sibur-lpg-exports-idUSKCN24H2IU
Russia’s Sibur is set to reduce liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) shipments from its main Baltic Sea export hub to their lowest in five years this month as global oil output curbs led to shortages at its plants at home, traders said and data showed.

Moscow has cut its oil output by nearly 2 million barrels per day to 17-year lows as part of a supply pact agreed with the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to bolster the market.

5          Reliance’s $15 billion stake sale deal with Aramco delayed
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-reliance-agm-energy-idUSKCN24G1W6
Reliance, operator of the world’s biggest refining complex, last year announced a $15 billion deal with the world’s top oil exporter Aramco as part of the Indian company’s efforts to cut its debts.

“Due to unforeseen circumstances in the energy market and the Covid-19 situation, the deal (with Saudi Aramco) has not progressed as per the original timeline,” Mukesh Ambani told shareholders on Wednesday.

6          Canada’s oil production drops to its lowest level since 2016 wildfires
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=44396
Canada was the world’s fourth-largest producer of petroleum and other liquids in 2019, but in the first half of 2020, Canada’s production declined 20% from its 2019 average of 5.5 million barrels per day (b/d). Canada’s production of petroleum and other liquids declined as a result of low global crude oil prices, reduced demand for crude oil for refined petroleum products in Canada and the United States, and continued production curtailments imposed by the government of Alberta—the province where more than 80% of Canada’s 2019 crude oil production was located.

7          Oil and gas drilling set for at least a 20-year low in 2020, unlikely to recover to 2019 levels soon
https://www.rystadenergy.com/newsevents/news/press-releases/oil-and-gas-drilling-set-for-at-least-a-20-year-low-in-2020-unlikely-to-recover-to-2019-levels-soon/

The COVID-19 pandemic has stymied oil and gas activity, a phenomena which has now affected the drilling market both in terms of wells drilled and in terms of related demand for drilling equipment. A Rystad Energy analysis shows the number of drilled wells globally is expected to reach around 55,350 this year, the lowest since at least the beginning of the century.

The decline is a staggering 23% fall from 2019’s number of 71,946 wells.

8          Beyond COVID-19: The next normal for packaging design
https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/paper-forest-products-and-packaging/our-insights/beyond-covid-19-the-next-normal-for-packaging-design

The COVID-19 pandemic has reshaped the megatrends buffeting the $900 billion-a-year packaging industry. As the world manages through—and begins to emerge from—the great public-health and economic crisis, we expect these megatrend shifts to change packaging design in fundamental ways.

To prepare for these changes and the move to the next normal, packaging companies must rethink packaging design beyond “must-haves,” such as reasonable costs, convenience, and performance. Three major requirements must be addressed: first, a good sustainability narrative; second, design with hygiene in mind, given recent heightened consumer-safety concerns; and third, design for e-commerce, ship-ready design, and direct-to-consumer models.

9          Shaping the new normal for packaging beyond COVID-19
https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/paper-forest-products-and-packaging/our-insights/shaping-the-next-normal-of-packaging-beyond-covid-19

While people were adjusting their lives in response to the coronavirus pandemic, the crisis was triggering multiple market disruptions. These disruptions will have both short- and long-term ramifications for the global packaging industry, which generates $900 billion a year. The biggest changes include dramatic shifts in consumer channels, new or heightened hygiene and consumer-safety concerns, highly volatile raw-materials prices, lifted single-use packaging bans, and the disruption of several end markets (such as hospitality and restaurants) by stay-at-home orders. What’s more, we expect the current crisis to reshape existing megatrends in the packaging industry.

10        India bent on seeking alternative to China for petrochemical imports
https://www.icis.com/explore/resources/news/2020/07/16/10530588/india-bent-on-seeking-alternative-to-china-for-petrochemical-imports

Indian customs then relented after implementing the checks not sanctioned by the central government for about 10 days from 22 June, industry sources said.

Nonetheless, government efforts have recently heightened to wean India away from huge Chinese imports following the deadly border clash between the two Asian giants’ troops in Ladakh.

Anti-dumping investigations are underway on more than 100 Chinese products being imported by India.

11        Buffett Sees NatGas Sticking Around for Long Time
https://www.rigzone.com/news/wire/buffett_sees_natgas_sticking_around_for_long_time-16-jul-2020-162740-article/

Warren Buffett’s $9.7 billion bet on natural gas looks even more contrarian today.

As Democrat Joe Biden unveils a staggering $2 trillion clean-energy plan—the most ambitious climate package ever offered by a presumptive presidential nominee—Buffett’s recent deal to buy Dominion Energy Inc.’s natural gas assets is a stark sign he’s expecting that the market’s shift away from fossil fuels won’t happen overnight.

12        OPEC Projects 2021 Surge in Crude Demand
https://www.rigzone.com/news/wire/opec_projects_2021_surge_in_crude_demand-14-jul-2020-162715-article/

OPEC expects demand for its crude oil to rebound sharply next year, surpassing levels seen before the coronavirus crisis, as rival producers struggle to revive output.

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries forecasts the need for its crude will surge by 25% in 2021 to average 29.8 million barrels a day, higher than the level required in 2019, according to a monthly report.

13        Dirty tanker markets face reality check after boom busts
https://blogs.platts.com/2020/07/14/dirty-tanker-markets-oil-freight-volatile/
The tanker markets experienced an extremely volatile second quarter as the coronavirus pandemic threw all oil-related markets off-kilter, with rates on some routes swiveling from record-highs to record-lows in just a matter of months.

But with the oil market gradually rebalancing and the summer lull kicking in, freight rates are likely to stay largely steady and soft in the coming months. And according to S&P Global Platts Analytics, freight rates on the dirty tankers’ market will likely remain under pressure until OPEC+ cuts are reversed.

14        U.S. crude oil and natural gas production in April had biggest monthly decreases in years
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=44356
Production of crude oil and natural gas decreased in the United States in April 2020 by 670,000 barrels per day (b/d) and 2.6 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d), respectively, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) Monthly Crude Oil and Natural Gas Production Report. Production declines of that magnitude usually arise only in natural disasters such as hurricanes: the drop in U.S. crude oil production in April was the largest since September 2008 when Hurricanes Gustav and Ike caused production to fall by 1.03 million b/d. The April 2020 decline in natural gas production was the largest monthly decrease since Hurricane Isaac-related shut-ins in August 2012.

15        Canadian firms warn over Mexico energy policy at dawn of trade deal
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-canada-mexico-exclusive-idUSKCN24E2OR
s Mexico celebrated a new trade deal with the United States and Canada on July 1, a group of Canadian energy investors warned their government that Mexico could already be violating the agreement for failing to respect contracts.

In a letter to Canada’s Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, Finance Minister Bill Morneau, Foreign Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne and other officials, four companies voiced concern their Mexican investments were under threat and urged the government to press Mexico on the matter.

16        Oil diplomacy and the U.S. presidential election
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-global-oil-kemp-idUSKCN24F1SN
Slower growth in petroleum consumption has intensified competition among the major oil producers and contributed to periodic volume wars and price slumps as they have fought for market share.

For now, the big three producers, Russia, the United States and Saudi Arabia, have reached a truce to stabilise prices during the COVID-19 pandemic and the deepest slump in oil consumption in the industry’s history.

17        When Saudi Arabia Says ‘Jump!’ OPEC Responds ‘How High?’
https://www.forbes.com/sites/thebakersinstitute/2020/07/13/when-saudi-arabia-says-jump-opec-responds-how-high/

Since the disastrous Saudi-Russia price war was called off after five weeks, the cartel has not only righted its own ship, defying yet another round of commentary about its demise, but seems to have fixed global oil markets in the midst of an unprecedented demand collapse – just in time for OPEC’s 60th birthday.

Once recalcitrant OPEC members have suddenly found religion. Not only are they not cheating on quotas, but they are over-complying for good measure, or promising to do so. Led by Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies producing a million barrels per day less than their quotas, compliance by the two dozen OPEC+ countries with the 9.7mbd in pledged cuts was reportedly 108% in June.

18        Former Pemex boss arrives back in Mexico for graft trial, enters hospital
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mexico-corruption-idUSKCN24I0MP
A former boss of Mexico’s state oil company Petroleos Mexicanos facing corruption charges that could envelop leaders of the last government was taken to a hospital early on Friday shortly after his overnight extradition to Mexico from Spain.