March, 2020

• 22 March

  Critics cry foul at miners for using Covid-19 to bend rules

  

  Bloomberg Coal companies want to suspend payments for mine cleanups. The trucking industry wants to waive rules that limit drivers’ daily hours. And oil producers want to put off a June 1 deadline to shift to summer-grade gasoline. A wide range of industries are pleading with federal agencies to waive environmental requirements and ease regulatory deadlines, arguing that the global ...

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• 22 March

  Tens of thousands are getting laid off in US shale patch

  

  Bloomberg One of the most painful busts in the history of crude oil happened just six years ago when a sharp price drop cost 200,000 roughnecks, almost half the entire workforce, their jobs. And now, the spread of the coronavirus coupled with an oil-price war between Russia and Saudi Arabia threatens to devastate the oil services industry and its workers ...

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• 22 March

  Oil-sands workers brace for ‘hellish’ outbreak

  

  Bloomberg As if the market crash threating their jobs wasn’t stressful enough, workers in Canada’s oil-sands are bracing for the coronavirus to upend life in the remote camps where they’re lodged. One suspected case among them is already haunting roughnecks who fly in from across Canada and live for weeks on end in barracks-like facilities built in the boreal forests ...

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• 22 March

  Zimbabwe cuts debt to Eskom to $4 million

  Bloomberg Zimbabwe has slashed its debt to South African power provider Eskom Holdings to $4 million from $33 million, the state-owned Sunday Mail newspaper reported, citing Energy Minister Fortune Chasi. “We are making payments religiously,” Chasi was quoted as saying. “We have reduced the debt to $4 million or thereabouts. We are also working on further reducing our indebtedness to ...

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• 22 March

  European Union sees a risk of recession as deep as 2009

  

  Bloomberg The European Union’s (EU) executive arm said this year’s recession may be much worse than previously anticipated, proposing a suspension of the bloc’s draconian fiscal rules to cushion the fallout from a deadly viral outbreak that has brought its economy to a halt. “Assuming an extension of the health crisis up to the beginning of June or beyond, the ...

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• 22 March

  Bridgewater says, US GDP to see 6% drop sans ‘meaningful’ aid

  

  Bloomberg The US risks losing $4 trillion in corporate revenue on the back of the novel coronavirus without “meaningful fiscal or monetary intervention,” according to the world’s biggest hedge fund. The loss would shrink the economy by more than 6%, executives at Bridgewater Associates wrote in a report. “We see the most extreme decline occurring in the second quarter, where ...

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• 22 March

  London papers slash costs as virus scares off readers, ads

  

  Bloomberg The cries of London’s iconic newspaper vendors are being silenced because the coronavirus is forcing millions of commuters to stay home and advertisers are snapping shut their wallets. The Evening Standard newspaper, which distributes about 800,000 free copies a day in the capital, said it will pivot to home delivery to reach workers who would normally pick up the ...

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• 22 March

  Fintechs seeking funds to help make business loans

  

  Bloomberg Financial-technology firms including PayPal Holdings Inc. are lining up to help speed lending to small businesses during the coronavirus crisis — and are pushing for a slice of emergency US government funding. Industry group Financial Innovation Now urged Congress to provide capital to online lenders including PayPal and Square Inc., and to permit firms to disperse Small Businesses Administration ...

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• 22 March

  Restaurant suppliers stuck with tons of unsold food

  

  Bloomberg Franco Fubini, who founded fruit and vegetables seller Natoora Ltd., is used to charging celebrity chefs a premium price for carefully tended produce, like white peaches from Italy, Sicilian pomegranate and Essex heirloom tomatoes. But in the past week, sales have evaporated. As shoppers empty supermarket shelves of pasta and dried beans, wholesalers like Natoora, which buys from more ...

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• 22 March

  BMW to idle its biggest plant in US

  Bloomberg BMW AG’s South Carolina SUV factory, one of the last US auto assembly plants still operating, will be idled early next month. The factory, which makes the brand’s lucrative X3, X5 and X7 sport utility vehicles, will shut down starting April 3 for more than two weeks, the German company said in a statement, confirming an earlier Bloomberg News ...

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