Bloomberg The coronavirus and cheap oil are hitting the fuel business so hard that ethanol plants are shutting down. Some may never come back. The entire biofuel industry is facing a reckoning. Long before the pandemic emptied roads and exacerbated oil price war, producers were battling chronic oversupply and trade upheaval. Now slumping demand and prices mean smaller producers and ...

Bloomberg US retail gasoline dropped below $2 a gallon for the first time since March 2016, before President Trump was elected. The average pump price fell to $1.99 per gallon on March 27, retail tracker GasBuddy said. The nation followed Texas and upper-Midwest states that went under the $2 threshold earlier in March. The decline comes as coronavirus-related lockdowns halt ...

Bloomberg The closures of schools, factories and offices to prevent spread of the coronavirus will “profoundly impact” the US power sector, according to BloombergNEF. Already in New York, electricity use dropped about 7% during the week ending on March 25, and prices are down about 10% as the state has ordered nonessential businesses to close, BNEF said in a report. ...

Bloomberg Cnooc Ltd, one of China’s three state-owned oil giants, said it will cut capital expenditure target this year, a signal that the government’s push to boost domestic production can’t withstand the collapse in crude prices. The 2020 plan is under review and the company didn’t give a new spending estimate. It will provide an update to investors at a ...

Bloomberg India’s renewables installations are set to slow after the country enforced a three-week lockdown to curb the spread of coronavirus, according to BloombergNEF. Wind power installations in 2020 by independent power producers could decline almost 18% from the prior year to 1.95 gigawatts, according to BNEF, which cut its estimate for the year by 24%. Solar power installations are ...

Bloomberg The International Monetary Fund (IMF) will provide $50 billion in emergency facilities to low-income and emerging-market countries to mitigate the economic shocks of the coronavirus, including $10 billion in concessional loans. “Our member countries need us more than ever,” the IMF said on its website Wednesday. “Discussions between IMF teams and country officials are advancing quickly.” The IMF has received ...

Bloomberg They’d just bet millions on a hotel makeover, were waiting tables while pursuing their dream, or toiling in an already tough oil market. Canadians have seen their world upended in a matter of days as the coronavirus shuts down huge swaths of the economy. Now, they’re trying to figure out how to make ends meet and negotiate a maze ...

Bloomberg Media companies including AT&T Inc. and ViacomCBS Inc. are pressing the pause button on asset sales worth more than $5 billion because of the global coronavirus pandemic. AT&T’s auction of four regional sports networks, ViacomCBS’s offloading of its publishing arm and closely-held Ion Media Networks Inc.’s $3.5 billion sale process have been held up amid a downturn in financing ...

Bloomberg The shutting of European borders in a bid to contain the coronavirus pandemic is about to derail a 200 billion-zloty ($47 billion) industry. The Polish construction sector, which employs 400,000 people and accounts for 8% of gross domestic product, faces unprecedented trouble amid concerns over the Ukrainian workforce it depends on. The builders are gradually heading back to their ...

Bloomberg A Trump administration effort to blame China for spawning the coronavirus has stalled for now at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), with other countries focused exclusively on urging joint global action to fight the pandemic. UN members Indonesia, Ghana, Singapore, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland are proposing that the 193-member General Assembly adopt a text calling for “international cooperation ...