M. Holland is the headline sponsor for AMI’s Thermoplastic Concentrates in Orlando on Jan. 24-26. Stop by Booth #16 to speak with our experts and attend a talk on regulatory compliance changes by Christopher Thelen, M. Holland’s Senior Regulatory Specialist, on Jan. 24 at 4:20 pm.
M. Holland will be exhibiting at MD&M West in Anaheim on Feb. 7-9. Stop by Booth #4115 to meet our Healthcare team and discuss how M. Holland’s line of medical-grade resins can help you develop safe and effective medical products and packaging.
The U.S. Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) includes nearly $500 billion in new spending and tax breaks that will catalyze the clean energy transition, increase tax revenues and reduce healthcare costs. Dwight Morgan, Executive Vice President of Corporate Development at M. Holland, recently provided insight on what the IRA includes and key considerations for the plastics industry. Click here to read the full post.
Supply
Oil fell about 8% last week, marking the biggest weekly decline to start the year since 2016.
In mid-morning trading today, WTI futures were up 3.3% at $76.17/bbl, Brent was up 2.9% at $80.87/bbl, and U.S. natural gas was up 8.3% at $4.02/MMBtu.
Active U.S. drilling rigs fell by seven last week to a total of 772, about 303 rigs lower than in 2019, according to Baker Hughes.
Saudi Aramco’s Motiva refinery, the largest crude refinery in the U.S., returned to production after shutting down during Winter Storm Elliott in late December.
Phillips 66 acquired DCP Midstream LP in an $8.7 billion deal that will help bulk up the U.S. refiner’s natural gas liquids business.
Earnings from Shell’s LNG trading operations surged in the fourth quarter despite an output drop caused by plant outages, the producer said.
At $3.09 a gallon, average U.S. gasoline prices ended 2022 about 19 cents lower than they started the year due to greater refinery production and lower demand in the second half:
Norway became Germany’s largest natural gas supplier in 2022, overtaking Russia with a 33% share of the country’s imports.
European imports of U.S. diesel and gasoil are on track to hit a two-year high this month, worsening U.S. domestic stockpiles of gasoline and distillates.
Starting in April, the U.K. is set to reduce the level of support it gives to businesses to help with soaring energy bills by 85%.
Britain’s wind farms contributed a record 26.8% of the country’s electricity in 2022, although gas-fired power plants remained the biggest source of power.
Average airfreight spot rates from Asia-Pacific to North America dropped to $5.38/kg in December, down 58% from the prior year but 87% higher than pre-pandemic levels.
The daily average for new COVID-19 cases climbed to 67,243 last week from 57,504 the week before, while average fatalities rose to 390 from 361. The number of hospital patients with COVID-19 has more than doubled in the past month.
The highly infectious XBB.1.5 strain of COVID-19 likely accounts for over 60% of infections across the U.S., the CDC says.
The U.S. added a larger-than-expected 223,000 nonfarm jobs in December, pushing the unemployment rate back to 3.5%. A record 165 million Americans were either in jobs or looking for them, signaling a long-awaited improvement in labor supply.
The Atlanta Fed says the latest U.S. jobs figures are another sign that the economy is gradually slowing, potentially allowing the central bank to step down to a quarter-percentage-point rate hike at its next policy meeting.
Average hourly earnings in the U.S. rose 0.3% in December and were up 4.6% year over year, the smallest rise in about 1.5 years.
New orders for U.S.-manufactured goods dropped a larger-than-expected 1.8% in November amid a sharp decline in bookings for aircraft.
U.S. service-sector activity contracted for the first time in 2.5 years in December amid weakening demand, with the Institute for Supply Management’s index dropping from 56.5 to 49.6. A separate survey showed input prices falling considerably for the sector, however.
Funding for U.S. startups fell by a third in 2022 from the record $344.7 billion recorded in 2021, according to data released Friday.
The number of Americans relying on credit cards to cover daily expenses jumped to 35% in December, up from just 21% a year-and-a-half ago when data collection began.
Cloud-based software firm Salesforce is looking to cut costs by up to $5 billion after rapid pandemic hiring left it with a bloated workforce amid an economic slowdown, its chief executive said.
Saturday marked the first day of the 40-day Lunar New Year travel season, considered the world’s largest annual migration of people, leaving authorities bracing for a new surge in COVID-19 infections.
German industrial orders saw the sharpest drop in more than a year in November, falling 5.3% due to weakening foreign demand, versus expectations of a 0.5% decline. Orders from euro zone countries declined 10.3% on the month.
British home prices slid by 1.5% in December, capping the largest quarterly drop since the 2008 financial crisis.
Japan reported its worst real-wage decline in more than eight years on Friday, a possible outcome of the nation’s decision to keep interest rates ultra-low at a time of rising borrowing costs across the globe.
The Japanese operator of McDonald’s announced its third price hike in less than a year, the latest sign of inflationary pressures on the nation’s consumers.
Taiwan’s exports, a bellwether of global tech demand, fell 12.1% in December for the fourth straight monthly decline.
Canadian economic activity contracted in December by one of the sharpest paces of the pandemic, with the Ivey Purchasing Managers’ Index falling from 51.4 to just 33.4. The economy added a larger-than-expected 104,000 jobs, however.
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