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China Lockdowns Spreading; Gas Heating Up; South Africa’s Floods
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Trucks hauling containers of health supplies unloaded from a ferry at China’s Yantia port bound for Shanghai on Wednesday. PHOTO: COSTFOTO/ZUMA PRESS
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Covid-19 lockdowns are casting a longer shadow over China’s economy. Localized lockdowns are proliferating across the country, the WSJ's Joyu Wang and Liyan Qi report, as China wrestles with growing numbers of cases and a deepening impact on regional and international supply chains. Forty-five Chinese cities have implemented full or partial lockdowns this week, and Gavekal Dragonomics says cities subject to full lockdowns accounted for more than 12% of Chinese gross domestic product. Restrictions have hit the industrial city of Kunshan and the logistics and manufacturing hub Guangzhou, and one district in the port city of Shenzhen is under a new lockdown. Gavekal says China’s truck traffic has dropped 40%
since mid-March while truck movement around Shanghai is off some 15% from its normal level, according to the South China Morning Post. The paper reported the inland port at Nanjing also shuttered much of its operations after an outbreak.
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Liquefied natural gas tankers at the Cheniere Sabine Pass Liquefaction facility in Cameron, La., on Thursday. PHOTO: MARK FELIX/BLOOMBERG NEWS
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Natural-gas markets are defying the calendar. U.S. natural-gas futures for May delivery are up 96% so far this year, the WSJ’s Julia-Ambra Verlaine reports, and have been rising lately in a break from season trends as strong overseas demand pressures inventories. Demand for natural gas usually wanes in the spring and prices slide as temperatures pick up. But Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has knocked energy markets off balance and roiled trading patterns for a range of commodities, including gas, coal and crude. Europe’s growing demand to replace Russian deliveries is pushing prices up to the highest levels since 2008 and depleting stockpiles as ships fill up for trans-Atlantic crossings. Natural-gas stockpiles
ticked up over the past week but remain some 18% below the five-year average for this time of year. Prices could go still higher this summer as energy demand for cooling rises, if seasonal patterns return.
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Here are recent developments following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine:
The flagship of Russia’s Black Sea fleet sank in a potentially crucial development in marine operations behind Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. (WSJ)
Global businesses are tallying up tens of billions in losses from their Russian operations amid asset sales, shutdowns and sanctions. (WSJ)
President Vladimir Putin acknowledged Western sanctions have stymied Russia’s energy industry and that it will need to focus oil and gas sales on Asia. (WSJ)
French beauty-products maker L'Occitane will keep its stores in Russia open. (WSJ)
Maritime classification society Bureau Veritas will downsize its Russian ocean business. (Lloyd’s List)
For the latest updates from Russia and Ukraine, click here
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Shipping containers were washed away by the flooding. PHOTO: STR/SHUTTERSTOCK
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Flooding that has killed more than 300 people in South Africa is triggering disruption in the continent's regional supply chains. The flooding has ravaged the country’s biggest port, the WSJ’s Aaisha Dadi Patel reports, backing up trucks, forcing container vessels to reroute and derailing a gateway for nearby landlocked nations like Botswana and Zimbabwe. The toll on infrastructure has been significant. A key road leading to the Port of Durban was heavily damaged and truck traffic jams more than six miles long have stretched out since then toward Johannesburg, with some drivers reporting looting along the way. Some of the port’s waterside operations resumed Wednesday after all activity across
its terminals was suspended Monday night. The impact on broader global supply chains will likely be limited, but the natural disaster will reverberate across supply chains across southern Africa and the heavy damage means recovery will take time.
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$90.4 Billion
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Seasonally adjusted U.S. sales by nonstore retailers, a category including online merchants, in March, down 6.4% from February and a 1.8% increase from March 2021, according to U.S. Census.
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