Daily Briefing—Cascades abound

Oil woes.

2 more days of Twitter jail. Reverse AIDS Part IV near completion.

Building up on many of my Daily Briefings (any non-virus post is most likely a daily briefing), and more recently this post and this one. The aluminum shortage, which I state for over 5 months, would NOT get better, would either stay in high prices or worsen given the demand from all sides shows its true face.

The first source demonstrating what I previously covered over, and over again, among all variables, as recover, China hybrid war, I mean, Covid 0, lower production, higher demand, the main driver was, is and will be, energy.

Energy prices impact every single aspect of a nation, manufacturing being the primary one, which cascades into everything else. While the first article mention China starting smelters again, the second paints a more truthful picture.

In pursuit (and as a hybrid war tactic), China is lowering emissions by limiting the production of critical material to the entire global market, hurting its adversaries and their economies, controlling and pressuring them into favorable deals. But even if China brought the smelters online somehow, it would also need to rely on coal for energy, would not make that much difference, there is no higher output from the West for almost 2 decades.

Globalization and over reliance on China led to this, and both articles mention a word that has been up ticking lately. Demand destruction. Another uptick I previously mentioned in my last DF was the comparison with 2008 trends, per the “Using more oil than expected” article, which doesn’t bode well from a systems perspective.

Expensive oil, and it’s petro-derived products cascade into every facet of life, and it will affect even food production. It’s a feedback loop.

In the post (another Daily Briefing btw) “Real cost of a Ukraine Conflict” I mentioned Ukraine is a major exporter of grains, so is Russia. The mere chance of a real conflict in the region already sent the price of Oil up, it is affecting other commodities and grain. Conflict in the region means famine in the poorest regions in the world.

Which means civil unrest, conflict and mass immigration, which in turn compounds any internal problems First World nations are facing right now.

One of the biggest trucking and logistics company in the US was hit by a…glitch, and has yet to recover, in a similar fashion as Germany’s Mabanaft, fuel storage company that has yet to recover and be in operation, but this one they clearly spilled the beans and named it a hack. Talk about coincidences…

I recommend the reader to read this entire piece, The great climate backslide: How governments are regressing worldwide. Sometimes the pandemic feels like a disruptive blessing in disguise, with a severe, and hefty cost.

The avian flu keeps spreading through the US (and Europe, but I felt this was long enough), and the piece of news by this reader is concerning. Affecting younger poultry will severely disrupt, the already frail protein production. Governments would do well to shift fast, and hard into dealing with this, food inflation is already a worry on most governments lists. People can eat grains and bread, and survive on less meat. But low bread, no meat, and you get unbelievably violent and fast revolts.

Comment made by Wassilij.

Global Protein Insecurity Part II

For the first time in the USA highly parthenogenic avian influenza (AI) has been detected in a broiler operation in Tennessee. Up until now there had not been AI in a broiler flock in the US.

For context a broiler farm takes baby chicks, that just hatched, and raises them to a size ready for market. This takes around 40 to 70 days depending on the desired market weight of the bird. In the past, AI has been found in populations of chickens/turkeys that were older than the lifespan of a broiler chicken. But, the AI that is currently being detected is able to infect younger chickens in broiler operations.

Since poultry seems susceptible to this AI at a younger age it puts more of the meat supply in danger of being effected.

**Every flock of broiler chickens is tested for AI before they are slaughtered. If AI is detected the entire flock is destroyed to help prevent any further spread.

As sort of better news, Chinese producers are going back to producing and exporting magnesium, after the Chinese holidays, so it’s something to keep an eye on and track, because parts of the current cascade effects lie on magnesium shortages of last year. This may bring a positive change to the global market. At least, I sincerely hope so.

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Hold That Tesla! Inflation Will Be Made of Aluminum

The industry joke was that to make money in aluminum, one should sell into any price rally. Not anymore. The fight against climate change — with its rush for the light metal coupled with the shutdown of the dirty power sources that helped produce it — has turned the trade upside down. It’s crippling supply, particularly in China. The result is the hottest aluminum market in 30 years.

The surge matters precisely because of the ubiquity of aluminum in modern life. It’s the most widely used non-ferrous metal, ahead of copper. And because it’s everywhere, the price rally will hit everywhere, too, adding to global inflationary pressures and eating at the margins of many manufacturing companies. Everything from government policy to central bank rates to what you pay for groceries will hinge to a large degree on aluminum.

It’s unlikely to be a one-off. In the past, traders used to sell when prices rallied above $2,500 a ton and buy if prices dropped below $2,000 a ton; today, they are still buying the metal after prices have surged above $3,000 a ton. What once used to be a ceiling may be now a floor.

The main culprit is electricity. Turning bauxite into pure metal is an energy-intensive process. On average, producing a ton of aluminum uses the same electricity as an average U.S. family consumes in year.

Unless China re-starts some of its domestic capacity — or a new smelter is built somewhere else in Asia — sooner or later the market will have to force demand down. Inventories simply cannot be drawn down at the current pace for much longer.

Could Aluminum Stockpiles Disappear by 2024? Trafigura Thinks So

Trading giant Trafigura Group has a stark warning for aluminum buyers: deep shortages of one of the most widely used metals mean the world will run out of stockpiles by early 2024.

Demand for aluminum — used in everything from food packaging to cars to planes — has surged as the global economy recovers from the pandemic, while an energy crisis in Europe and China has crimped supply.

While new aluminum smelters will have to be built to meet growing demand, there’s little prospect of that happening in the short term, according to Mueller.

“The deficit is now moving at such a speed that it’s unsolvable, actually,” he said.

More expensive aluminum threatens to further raise the cost of consumer goods, at a time when energy bills are jumping and food prices are near a record. Materials from copper to palm oil to crude have surged, with some Wall Street banks projecting a commodities supercycle that could last for years.

“When you look at these numbers, you would need huge demand destruction to balance the market,” he said. “It’s difficult to be short in such a market.”

What Conflict in Ukraine Would Mean for Oil, Gas and Food

Crude oil is approaching $100 a barrel and gas in Europe surged on Monday. Aluminum is heading toward a record high and palladium has risen this year, while wheat continues to gain.

The crisis “could spawn a butterfly effect, sending commodity prices spiraling higher as supply woes multiply,” analysts at Bloomberg Intelligence said in a recent report. “Sanctions could usher in shortages of food and energy, causing prices of both to soar.”

A major casualty could be even higher food prices. Ukraine and Russia together are heavyweights in global wheat, corn and sunflower oil trade, leaving buyers from Asia to Africa and the Middle East vulnerable to more expensive bread and meat if supplies are disrupted. That would add to food-commodity costs that are already the highest in a decade.

The World Has Been Using A Lot More Oil Than We Thought

Global oil stockpiles are a lot lower than previous estimates suggest.

Well, those barrels are missing no more. As I feared, it turns out they’ve already been used up — in the refineries and petrochemicals plants of China and Saudi Arabia. That means oil balances are a lot tighter than the International Energy Agency previously thought.

That the oil market is still tighter than forecasts indicate won’t come as a huge surprise to those who’ve been following the rise in prices over the past two years. In a remarkable parallel to the oil squeeze of 2007-2008, the path of Brent oil prices has almost exactly matched that of the earlier period during the post-pandemic recovery.

Without those production boosts, though, the market will have to be brought back into balance by demand destruction. High oil prices, which are helping to stoke inflation, will inevitably start to slow demand growth, but the farther prices rise, the harder they’ll fall.

Exclusive: ‘Systems issue’ knocks out Schneider National’s computer network

Sources say trucking company is unable to book or receive freight online, pay some carriers

Schneider, which posted $5.6 billion in operating revenue in 2021, said it is currently “manually accepting orders and dispatching drivers.” 

'Highly pathogenic' bird flu hits U.S. farm

A highly pathogenic strain of bird flu was detected in a commercial turkey flock in Dubois County, Indiana, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) reported on Wednesday (Feb. 9). State officials said that 29,000 turkeys have now been culled to prevent the virus's spread, Reuters reported.

Source for the image.