Bloomberg With jets grounded and cars parked, diesel fuel for trucking is giving some relief to refiners as the coronavirus spread cuts deep into demand. The diesel revenue is sorely needed for the refining industry which has seen plants shut from South Africa to Canada and widepsread production cutbacks due to the pandemic-driven collapse in demand. In Houston, wholesale diesel ...

Bloomberg Bankrupt coal miner Murray Energy Corp could be forced to liquidate unless a federal judge lets it cut healthcare payments to retirees, according to court papers. Murray Energy, the largest private coal miner in the US, is asking the judge overseeing its Chapter 11 bankruptcy to let it shed certain health-care obligations in a bid to stave off a ...

Bloomberg Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd told operators of some independent wind-power plants that it won’t need their power at certain times of day due to lower demand amid a national shutdown. The amount of power generated from wind is at its highest when Eskom’s need is lowest, said Sikonathi Mantshantsha, a spokesman for the state-owned utility. South Africa started a ...

Bloomberg Peru is moving to fend off economic catastrophe with a record fiscal stimulus and plans for a contingency line of up to $18 billion from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to contain the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic. The government is putting together a package of economic measures totaling 90 billion soles ($26 billion), including health-care spending, tax breaks ...

Bloomberg Denmark’s central bank drastically cut its forecast for gross domestic product, and now sees a painful recession this year, after the government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic brought the economy to a near standstill. GDP will contract somewhere between 3% and 10%, the Copenhagen-based bank said on Wednesday. The bank “has listed three scenarios, illustrating how severely the Danish ...

Bloomberg Aston Martin Lagonda Global Holdings Plc said it may need to tap into high-interest notes it was trying to avoid drawing down, even after a 536 million-pound ($663 million) capital infusion from a group led by billionaire Lawrence Stroll. The UK luxury carmaker doesn’t have sufficient working capital based on European Securities and Markets Authority rules, because the coronavirus ...

Bloomberg Russia spent more than $40 billion building a war chest of bullion over the past five years. Now, it’s calling it quits. The central bank announced that it would stop buying gold starting April 1, but didn’t explain the move. Analysts say Russia already has a lot of gold stashed in reserves and likely doesn’t need more. Plus, with ...

Bloomberg Johnson & Johnson (J&J) surged after the company said it would begin a $1-billion-plus effort with the US government to develop and manufacture a vaccine against the new coronavirus. J&J will work with Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) an arm of US Department of Health and Human Services, to further develop a vaccine the company said it’s ...

Bloomberg Ford Motor Co. is speeding up plans to produce ventilators in cooperation with General Electric Co. by selecting a simpler design of the medical devices and will aim to churn out 50,000 units in the next 100 days. The automaker will convert an auto-parts plant in Michigan to make breathing machines designed by Airon Corp. and licensed by GE ...

Bloomberg A Russian military plane loaded with medical equipment took off from outside of Moscow on Wednesday after President Vladimir Putin offered Donald Trump help for the US battle with coronavirus. “The Russian side offered assistance amid the dire epidemiological situation in America,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told state-run Channel One. “Trump gratefully accepted this humanitarian aid.” After his comments, ...