April, 2020

• 25 April

  Production cuts buoy oil even as glut looms over market

  

  Bloomberg Oil edged lower for the week after paring losses following the dramatic collapse that saw prices in New York plunge below zero for the first time in history. West Texas Intermediate for June delivery rose 2.7%, closing the curtain on a tumultuous week of wild price swings. US operators have started to shut old wells and halt new drilling, …

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• 25 April

  China deflected blame for pandemic, says EU

  

  Bloomberg The European Union’s (EU) foreign and diplomatic wing said there’s evidence of a “coordinated push” by official Chinese sources to deflect blame for the coronavirus pandemic and promote its response to the virus. Official Chinese sources have been “publicising announcements and deliveries of bilateral assistance, with polls in certain countries showing China being perceived as more helpful in fighting …

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• 25 April

  India pays $4.8 billion to its poor to ease Covid-19 woes

  

  Bloomberg India distributed about $14 each to more than 350 million people to ease their financial stress amid a nationwide lockdown enforced to prevent the coronavirus from spreading, the government said. The assistance totaling more than 370 billion rupees ($4.84 billion) was given under a state program named “PM Garib Kalyan,” KS Dhatwalia, a spokesman for the administration said. That’s …

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• 25 April

  Trump team faces hurdles getting Fed to help battered oil companies

  

  Bloomberg The Trump administration faces significant hurdles in getting the Federal Reserve to help rescue an oil industry squeezed by plunging crude prices given the central bank’s aversion to helping specific industries and its lack of authority to help businesses that are insolvent. The Fed regards loan programmes aimed at a specific industry as credit allocation — something Chairman Jerome …

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• 25 April

  IndiGrid seeks $786 million in solar assets

  

  Bloomberg India Grid Trust, an infrastructure investment trust backed by private equity fund KKR & Co and Singapore’s GIC Pte, is looking to add as much as $786 million of solar power projects to its portfolio and expects some financially stressed assets to become available in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. The move is part of the firm’s plan …

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• 25 April

  Furious rebound in $2 billion energy ETF invites skeptics

  

  Bloomberg The rebound in oil after a historic crash drove a surge in ETFs that track energy producers amid skeptical calls from analysts. State Street’s $2 billion SPDR S&P Oil & Gas Exploration & Production ETF, or XOP, has jumped about 40% so far in April — on track for its best month on record. Meanwhile, the $8.8 billion Energy …

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• 25 April

  Invisibility cloaks and air purifiers

  

  Bloomberg Gorden Wagener has spent a good amount of his coronavirus quarantine thinking about waffles. Daimler’s head of design, who created such iconic cars as the Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren and Vision Mercedes concepts, wanted to bake bread during his pandemic free time, but soon found the bread maker he wanted was out of stock. So he ordered a waffle iron …

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• 25 April

  Facebook is taking on Zoom with new video calling feature

  

  Bloomberg Facebook Inc. is launching a new group video chat product meant to capitalise on a world now stuck indoors and offer an alternative to services that have exploded in popularity in recent months, like Zoom. Messenger Rooms, a feature that will be available on Facebook’s core social network and its Messenger app, will allow video chats among as many …

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• 25 April

  Apple, Google boost privacy protections for contact-tracing tool

  

  Bloomberg Apple Inc. and Google said they are putting stronger privacy protections in their upcoming contact-tracing tool for Covid-19 and that an early version will launch for developers next week. The companies said the system’s tracking keys — a string of characters linked to a user’s device — will be generated in more random ways, and that Bluetooth data will …

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• 23 April

  Oil refiners at breaking point over storage woes

  

  Bloomberg Oil refiners are hunting for vessels to store jet-fuel and gasoline that nobody is buying, sending freight rates sharply higher, an indication that the global refining system is fast approaching a breaking point. Until now refiners had mostly been storing unwanted product on site, but the latest indication from the tanker market suggests they are now being forced to …

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