Paul Hickin
Associate editorial director 
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April 2, 2020 11:08 UTC 
(1)
The International Air Transport Association has warned that carriers face a near 40% collapse in passenger numbers this year. Once the skies reopen, the likelihood of a global recession and companies cutting back on business travel probably means refiners face a slow recovery to normal demand. Prices have nosedived. Jet fuel refining margins, as assessed by S&P Global Platts, have turned negative for the first time ever in Europe. |
Jonty Rushforth
Senior director, price group
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April 2, 2020 07:31 UTC
(4)
A key question for any market during times of uncertainty and volatility is what is happening to liquidity? Over recent weeks commodity prices, and particularly oil markets, have seen unprecedented volatility. Although the forward view may become clearer, there is still huge uncertainty around fundamentals in the months ahead. S&P Global Platts has a unique insight into several key commodity markets through its Market on Close (MOC) assessment process. |
Sarah Schneider
Associate editor, petrochemicals 
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April 1, 2020 09:20 UTC
(1)
The coronavirus pandemic has created a wave of complications for the recycled plastics industry and hampered short-term supply of plastic waste, with several US areas suspending recycling programs, and concerns about transmission creating problems for waste processors. Ten states in the US currently have “bottle bills”, or mandatory container buyback programs. Now, eight of these ten states – Connecticut, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Oregon, New York, and Vermont – have temporarily halted enforcements that require retailers to participate in these container redemption programs. This means that residents in these states are no longer able to redeem their used beverage bottles for deposit value. |
Yi-Jeng Huang
Senior Market Development Specialist - Asia
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March 31, 2020 13:27 UTC
(1)
The expected economic recession in the Asia-Pacific region triggered by the coronavirus pandemic will reverberate across the petrochemical supply chain as global demand grinds to a halt, even as China slowly goes back to work. “An enormous first-quarter shock in China, shutdowns across the US and Europe [due to] local [coronavirus] transmission, guarantees a recession across the Asia-Pacific,” said Shaun Roache, Asia-Pacific chief economist for S&P Global Ratings on March 30. “We now expect the hit to output for Asia-Pacific to be as large as the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997-1998,” he added. ABS, Asia-Pacific, China, coronavirus, LLDPE, PE, PET, plastics, polyester, polyethylene, polystyrene, PTA
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S&P Global Platts
News editors 
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March 30, 2020 12:01 UTC
(1)
Demand destruction from the coronavirus outbreak will be top of mind for power and gas traders this week, while the ripples in the oil market are being felt in Saudi Arabia and Vietnam, albeit in different ways. The iron ore market, which is faring better, rounds out this week’s pick of commodity charts by S&P Global Platts news editors |
Rosemary Griffin
Editor
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March 27, 2020 10:34 UTC
(0)
The first few months of 2020 saw major changes to Russia’s political and energy landscape, as President Vladimir Putin proposed amendments to the constitution, the country’s crude production agreement with OPEC dramatically collapsed, and the coronavirus pandemic caused chaos on global markets. Of these factors, the latter two are having a more immediate impact on the Russian energy sector, most evidently in the recent oil price crash. |
Claudia Carpenter
Editor, Gulf commodities news 
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March 26, 2020 10:56 UTC
(0)
Cem Saral, CEO of bunker reseller Cockett Marine Oil, talked with Claudia Carpenter about how shipping has adapted to the International Maritime Organization (IMO) 0.5% limit on sulfur in marine fuel effective January 2020, and what comes next. Cockett Marine Oil, owned by Swiss trader Vitol and South African holding company Grindrod, resold an estimated 5.5 million tons of marine fuel in 2019, versus 6.5 million tons in 2018. Saral was named Cockett CEO in September 2016, after working for Vitol and Chemoil. Cockett handles roughly 18,000 deliveries to customers annually in every single line of shipping. The company has about 185 employees, with about 60 of them in Dubai, the operating headquarters. |
Shubhlakshmi Shukla, Silvia Favasuli and Elza Turner
Editors, energy |
March 24, 2020 16:31 UTC
(3)
Russia is all set to gain a foothold in the global hydrogen sector in what looks like a bid to be a key supplier for Japan, which has ambitious targets for adoption of the fuel by 2050. Japan’s plans to quickly develop hydrogen importing facilities seems to have prompted Russia start drawing up plans for a hydrogen economy mostly geared towards global exports, recent developments at Russia’s Energy Ministry and main energy companies suggest. |
Eric Yep
Senior Editor, ASEAN Content
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March 24, 2020 08:44 UTC
(0)
China’s insatiable appetite for hoarding oil reserves and the expansive independent petroleum storage capacity from Singapore to South Korea will not be enough to absorb the incoming flood of crude and refined products that threatens to push oil prices even lower. For decades, Asia’s petroleum storage has expanded via underground salt caverns, independent tank farms, operational storage for mega refineries and even oil stored in pipelines by key companies and trading houses. |
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S&P Global Platts
News editors
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March 23, 2020 09:55 UTC
(2)
US oil exports are under pressure as WTI’s differential to Middle Eastern offers narrows, reducing its appeal in Asia. Meanwhile, the gut-punch to global demand from the coronavirus pandemic is playing out across markets, putting EU carbon prices high on traders’ watchlist after last week’s nosedive. |
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