MH Daily Bulletin: June 13

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Supply

Oil prices fell 2.5% Friday on news of higher-than-expected U.S. inflation, which threatens demand. 
In mid-morning trading today, WTI futures were down 2.0% at $118.30/bbl, Brent was down 2.0% at $119.60/bbl, and U.S. natural gas was down 2.6% at $8.62/MMBtu. 
The U.S. average gasoline price surpassed $5 a gallon Sunday morning. 
Active U.S. oil and gas rigs rose by six last week to 733, up 59% from the same time last year, while the nation added 4,775 oil field services jobs last month for a total of 628,793. 
The U.S. Gulf Coast has little room to manage a strong hurricane season without causing global supply disruptions that could further drive up prices. 
Political groups forced the closure of two more Libyan oil export terminals and reduced production at a major field. 
Prospects are receding for the U.S. to reach a nuclear deal with Iran and lift sanctions on the nation’s energy sector. 
TotalEnergies became the first foreign company to win a stake in a multi-billion dollar project to boost Qatar’s LNG exports. 
Comparatively cheap summer prices for natural gas are boosting Germany’s efforts to stockpile the fuel and meet new EU storage requirements for next winter. 
A British utility applied to reopen the nation’s largest natural gas storage facility after the site was closed five years ago. 
The British government will probe anti-competitive behavior in the oil industry after prices rose even as the nation cut certain fuel taxes for a year. 
The European Space Agency published research indicating that a massive methane leak occurred over 19 days in December at a Pemex well in the Gulf of Mexico.  
China will let its energy storage facilities make money from buying and selling electricity, a policy shift officials hope will attract more investment to help reduce power-sector emissions. 

Supply Chain

Heat warnings were in effect for over 75 million Americans in the southern and central U.S. Sunday, with unseasonably high temperatures expected to last to Wednesday. 
Electricity use hit an all-time high in Texas, with officials saying the state’s grid is operating normally. 
Drought in the U.S. and Mexico is hampering production of sriracha hot sauce. 
India could start seeing more blackouts as power demand surges to new records on soaring temperatures and rising industrial activity. 
South Korean petrochemical, auto and steel firms are drastically cutting operations as inventories pile up due to a trucker strike, now in its eighth day. Container activity is down to one-third of normal levels at the port of Busan, which handles 80% of South Korea’s cargo, while the nation’s exports in the first 10 days of June shrank 12.7% from a year ago. 
Union workers at five German ports, including Europe’s third-largest Port of Hamburg, began striking Friday over contract disputes. 
A strike among British rail and underground workers, scheduled for three days later this month, could push 250,000 people temporarily out of work and cost the U.K.’s economy $125 million.
International Longshore and Warehouse Union workers at the Port of Oakland, already among the worst performing container ports in the country, will stage a work stoppage June 20 to commemorate Juneteenth as the July 1 expiration of their labor contract approaches.  
U.S. ports should brace for a surge in imports in the coming months as shipments stay close to March’s record-high 2.34 million TEU equivalents, according to the National Retail Federation. 
The Port of Long Beach saw its second-busiest month on record in May, a trend likely matched by the Port of Los Angeles. On the East Coast, loaded container imports surged 18% at the Port of Charleston for its 15th consecutive month of cargo records. 
Fresh Del Monte is having more deliveries sent to “non-traditional” U.S. ports that are not fully containerized to avoid congestion on the West Coast. 
Container spot rates from Asia to North Europe could spike in the coming weeks as congestion spreads: 

DHL will raise shipping rates effective July 1, with some U.S.-bound parcel prices nearly doubling. The firm does not expect supply chains to return to pre-pandemic conditions in 2023. 
Air cargo shipments fell 11.2% in April from a year ago, outpacing slowdowns in the overall international trade in goods. 
Order lead times are down 23% since late April as companies deal with surplus inventories, shrinking the size of new orders. 
Procurement bids to suppliers in Mexico are surging while Asia-Pacific sourcing declines, according Jaggaer, a U.S. procurement specialist with over 1,700 global customers. 
China’s computer chip imports dropped 11% in the first five months of the year due to lockdown-related disruptions in manufacturing and logistics. 
Orders for PCs are forecast to shrink 8.2% this year following three straight years of growth, but will still remain above pre-pandemic levels. 
Global third-party logistics provider Neovia Logistics, based in Texas, is cutting over 100 jobs in Pennsylvania as freight activity slows and rates drop. 
Delta Air Lines will fly baby formula from the U.K. to Boston and Detroit on passenger flights this month free of charge following a similar move by United Airlines. Regulators skipped the required annual inspection of major baby food manufacturing plants in 2020 due COVID-19, including Abbott’s Michigan facility where bacteria contamination caused the current crisis.  
Some of the U.S.’s biggest food suppliers and restaurants, including Kraft Heinz and McDonald’s franchisees, announced they would continue raising prices in the months ahead to counter higher costs. 
German beer brewers are dealing with a severe shortage of glass bottles. 
Bottlenecks are slowing grain shipments on Ukraine’s newly established corridors through Poland and Romania, threatening supplies critical to the global food market. 
Soybean prices hit a record $17.69 per bushel last week. 
The U.S.’s first rare earth metal and manufacturing facility will be built in Oklahoma at a cost of $100 million. 
The International Monetary Organization’s maritime committee rejected plans for a shipping industry-backed program to boost research on alternative fuels. 

Domestic Markets

The U.S. reported 14,819 new COVID-19 infections and 15 virus fatalities Sunday. 
Las Vegas health officials are urging people to wear masks indoors again amid a spike in local COVID-19 cases. 
Florida recorded 262 COVID-19-related fatalities for the week ending June 3, the most of any U.S. state, while average daily case counts rose to more than 10,000 for the week ending June 10, a 4% increase from previous week. 
The CDC ended its requirement for travelers to test negative for COVID-19 before entering the U.S. 
The FDA found Pfizer’s smaller COVID-19 vaccine doses for children under age 5 to be safe and effective, setting the stage for full approval this week. Meanwhile, the agency will take longer to evaluate Novavax’s vaccine bid due to the firm’s recent change in manufacturing. 
New York City is ending its mask mandate for schoolchildren under age 5 starting today. 
Economists expect the Federal Reserve to hike its key interest rate by 50 basis points in June and July following last week’s news of four-decade-high inflation. 
U.S. consumer sentiment plunged in early June to its lowest on record, with the University of Michigan’s index falling from 58.4 to 50.2. Consumers’ long-term inflation expectations rose to a 14-year high.

Electricity prices in the U.S. jumped 12% in May, adding an extra $540 to the average American utility cost between June and August, up $90 from last year.
Average hourly earnings for U.S. employees declined an annual 3% in May after factoring in inflation, the Labor Department said. 
The S&P 500 is down 18% in 2022, its worst start to a year since 1962. 
The median U.S. rent rose 15% in May from a year ago, surpassing $2,000 for the first time. 
U.S. household wealth fell for the first time in two years in Q1, dropping $500 billion as stock market losses outweighed gains in home values. 
U.S. luxury home sales plunged 17.8% in the first quarter compared to a year ago, according to Redfin. 
The tight labor market in the U.S. could be a windfall for M.B.A students, with some employers offering interns full-time jobs even before they start taking their final year of classes. 
Pilot shortages, high fuel prices and surging demand will cause major disruptions to airlines this summer. A shortage of airport parking is also causing headaches for flyers. 
A major shift is occurring in the $155 billion U.S. database industry, with Oracle’s four-decade dominance slipping as a spate of new low-cost offerings enter the market. 
“Jurassic World Dominion” delivered the third $100+ million opening weekend in six weeks, a promising sign for the U.S. theater industry. 
The U.S. government will foot the full bill for New Mexico’s wildfire response, officials said. 
U.S. commercial electric truck maker Electric Last Mile Solutions announced it would file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, just one year after the company went public. 

International Markets

China’s commercial hub of Shanghai locked down millions more people for mass COVID-19 testing over the weekend, just 10 days after lifting its two-month lockdown. 
An “explosive” COVID-19 outbreak is growing by the dozens in Beijing, prompting officials to tighten restrictions in several districts and delay a reopening of schools.
Taiwan is cutting mandatory quarantine for all incoming travelers to three days from seven despite surging COVID-19 cases. 
The majority of people in West Africa have contracted COVID-19, surveys show, even as official records show extremely low infection counts. 
China’s factory inflation cooled to its slowest pace in 14 months in May, depressed by weak demand for steel, aluminum and other key industrial commodities. 
The U.S. dollar is up 22% versus the yen over the past year, the lowest valuation of Japan’s currency since 1982.  
GDP in the U.K. slid 0.3% in April, the second consecutive monthly decline.  
Mexico’s shift to an industrial policy with greater state intervention is costing the nation billions of dollars in foreign investment, reducing competitiveness and slowing gains in energy production, economists say. 
New data shows Canadian employers added more jobs than expected in May as the nation’s jobless rate fell to 5.1%, the lowest in data going back to 1976. 
Russian officials predict car sales will fall by half this year as the industry deals with fallout from Western sanctions. 
A Dutch firm will start deliveries of the world’s first production-ready solar car later this year, with the technology promising months of charge-less driving in summer conditions. 
India’s top solar glass maker plans to raise production fivefold on expectations that soaring fuel prices will quicken a shift to renewables. 
Corporate plans to slash greenhouse gas emissions fall well short of what is needed to combat climate change, according to a new global study of net-zero efforts in the public and private sector.