June 21, 2022

BASF’s business to face downturn in second half – CEO says

Tue, 21 June 2022 at 12:24 pm·1-min read

FILE PHOTO: A logo is seen on the facade of the BASF plant in Schweizerhalle

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Chemicals group BASF will be likely to face a considerable downturn early in the second half of the year because inflation will begin to weigh on consumer demand and competitors are expected to reinstate crippled supply chains, its CEO said.

“Speaking for my business, we are able pass along higher prices because there is no arbitrage trade because supply chains don’t work,” Chief Executive Martin Bruedermueller said at a German industry event.

But inflation and, in its wake, lower consumer demand was “knocking on the front door”, he said. He added that rivals would soon be able to improve their supply chains, which are battered by the coronavirus pandemic and global shortages.

“That means no more pricing power and then we will struggle to generate margins on top of the high energy prices. That’s when it gets really difficult,” he added.

(Reporting by Ludwig Burger. Editing by Jane Merriman)

https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/basfs-business-face-downturn-second-162417650.html

June 20, 2022

Rigs Increase

North America Adds 30 Rigs Week on Week

North America added 30 rigs week on week.

North America added 30 rigs week on week, according to Baker Hughes’ latest rotary rig count, which was published on June 10.

Twenty-four of these additions came from Canada, while the remaining six came from the U.S., Baker Hughes’ count revealed. The total North America rig count now stands at 874 rigs, Baker Hughes outlined. The company’s previous rig count, which was published on June 3, showed that the total North America rig figure had jumped by 14 week on week.

Canada’s 24 weekly rig additions take the country’s total rig count up to 141, comprising 94 oil rigs and 47 gas rigs, and the U.S.’s six weekly additions take the total U.S. rig count up to 733, comprising 580 oil rigs, 151 gas rigs, and two miscellaneous rigs, Baker Hughes highlighted. Of the total U.S. rig count of 733, 715 rigs are land rigs, 15 are offshore rigs, and three are inland water rigs, Baker Hughes pointed out.

Looking at year ago figures, North America has added 320 rigs year on year, according to Baker Hughes. Of this figure, 272 rigs have come from the U.S. – comprising 215 oil rigs, 55 gas rigs, and two miscellaneous rigs – while 48 have come from Canada – comprising 35 oil rigs and 15 gas rigs – Baker Hughes revealed.

Baker Hughes, which has issued the rotary rig counts to the petroleum industry since 1944, describes the figures as an important business barometer for the drilling industry and its suppliers. The company obtains its working rig location information in part from Enverus, which produces daily rig counts using GPS tracking units.

To contact the author, email andreas.exarheas@rigzone.com

https://www.rigzone.com/news/north_america_adds_30_rigs_week_on_week-13-jun-2022-169311-article/

June 20, 2022

Rigs Increase

North America Adds 30 Rigs Week on Week

North America added 30 rigs week on week.

North America added 30 rigs week on week, according to Baker Hughes’ latest rotary rig count, which was published on June 10.

Twenty-four of these additions came from Canada, while the remaining six came from the U.S., Baker Hughes’ count revealed. The total North America rig count now stands at 874 rigs, Baker Hughes outlined. The company’s previous rig count, which was published on June 3, showed that the total North America rig figure had jumped by 14 week on week.

Canada’s 24 weekly rig additions take the country’s total rig count up to 141, comprising 94 oil rigs and 47 gas rigs, and the U.S.’s six weekly additions take the total U.S. rig count up to 733, comprising 580 oil rigs, 151 gas rigs, and two miscellaneous rigs, Baker Hughes highlighted. Of the total U.S. rig count of 733, 715 rigs are land rigs, 15 are offshore rigs, and three are inland water rigs, Baker Hughes pointed out.

Looking at year ago figures, North America has added 320 rigs year on year, according to Baker Hughes. Of this figure, 272 rigs have come from the U.S. – comprising 215 oil rigs, 55 gas rigs, and two miscellaneous rigs – while 48 have come from Canada – comprising 35 oil rigs and 15 gas rigs – Baker Hughes revealed.

Baker Hughes, which has issued the rotary rig counts to the petroleum industry since 1944, describes the figures as an important business barometer for the drilling industry and its suppliers. The company obtains its working rig location information in part from Enverus, which produces daily rig counts using GPS tracking units.

To contact the author, email andreas.exarheas@rigzone.com

https://www.rigzone.com/news/north_america_adds_30_rigs_week_on_week-13-jun-2022-169311-article/

June 20, 2022

Mattresses Make the New Yorker

How to Buy a New Mattress Without a Ph.D. in Chemistry

The disrupter economy has set its sights on your bedroom, offering gel capsules, ice fabric, green-tea memory foam, and copper-infused toppers. Will they help you get a better night’s sleep?

By Patricia MarxJune 20, 2022 Image may contain Text Label Clothing and Apparel More than forty-five per cent of mattress purchases in the U.S. are made online.Illustration by Anna Haifisch

Before we can talk about buying a new mattress, you’ll need a Ph.D. in chemistry and another in mechanical engineering. How else to make sense of the latest concepts in mattress technology—for instance, hyperelastic polymer, buckling column gel, phase-change molecule fabrics, ballistocardiograph sensors, ice fabric, and 3-D-matrix layers? A master’s degree in marketing and bullshit will also come in handy.You will have plenty of time to pursue your degree in mattress studies because you no longer have to get out of bed to buy a new bed. No more lolling on a mattress in a showroom, as if you’re in a Marina Abramović installation. More than a hundred online merchants will deliver a mattress to you, rolled up like a Drake’s Yodel in a box the size of a doghouse that a cocker spaniel would feel cramped in. I could not sample every e-commerce mattress. Some companies require a customer to live with the purchase for at least a month before sending it back, and where was I supposed to store an extra mattress, let alone a dormitory’s worth of them? I did obtain, and later un-obtain, a couple of mattresses online. Who’d have thought that I, someone who spent years fastidiously fingering duvet covers to find the right softness, would be throwing caution to the wind and ordering a mattress on my computer? Welcome, mattresses, to the weird new disrupter world, where your neighbors include prescription eyeglasses, used clothes, and pets.

While I waited for my mattresses to be delivered, I hit some mattress stores. Aside from variations in size and upholstery, all mattresses look alike. Are they?Let’s start with the basic types: innerspring coil, foam, hybrid (foam and innerspring), and adjustable air. Within each category are subcategories. There seem to be more kinds of foam mattresses than there are craft beers from Brooklyn, but don’t be fooled by proprietary terms like “Ambien-injected kosher crypto-foam.” There are actually only two types of foam: polyurethane, of which memory foam is a subset, and latex.You’re just getting started making decisions, however. What level of firmness do you like? Do you sleep on your side, back, or stomach? When your bedmate tosses and turns, how much does it disturb you (on the Richter scale)? Do you want your mattress all-natural, or will a soupçon of nature do? Do any of the following materials alarm you: soy, hemp, horsehair, mohair, coconut fibre, green tea, polylactide derived from sugarcane? Are you for or against heat-conductive copper flecks? Is the amount of “edge support” that your mattress provides a matter of life and death? How much extra are you willing to pay for latex foam that is flash-frozen before it is baked, or will mere baking suffice?“Which mattress should I get?” I asked Alex, a Saatva “sleep guide” who works in the company’s New York showroom. “It depends on your palate,” he said, like a waiter who’d been asked whether he recommends the chicken piccata or the trout amandine. Saatva is an e-commerce company, the parent of Loom & Leaf and Zenhaven, two other big names in direct-to-consumer bedding. Merchandise in the showroom is available for experiencing but not for purchasing. The lighting is subdued, the color scheme neutral; here and there, beige artificial trees are not growing. I surveyed the thirteen beds positioned throughout the space. Of the mattresses you can buy online, Saatva was named by Good Housekeeping “Best Overall.” ($1,695. Note: All prices here are for a queen, which is what forty-seven per cent of Americans sleep on.)

Read the entire article here: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/06/27/how-to-buy-a-new-mattress-without-a-phd-in-chemistry

June 20, 2022

Mattresses Make the New Yorker

How to Buy a New Mattress Without a Ph.D. in Chemistry

The disrupter economy has set its sights on your bedroom, offering gel capsules, ice fabric, green-tea memory foam, and copper-infused toppers. Will they help you get a better night’s sleep?

By Patricia MarxJune 20, 2022 Image may contain Text Label Clothing and Apparel More than forty-five per cent of mattress purchases in the U.S. are made online.Illustration by Anna Haifisch

Before we can talk about buying a new mattress, you’ll need a Ph.D. in chemistry and another in mechanical engineering. How else to make sense of the latest concepts in mattress technology—for instance, hyperelastic polymer, buckling column gel, phase-change molecule fabrics, ballistocardiograph sensors, ice fabric, and 3-D-matrix layers? A master’s degree in marketing and bullshit will also come in handy.You will have plenty of time to pursue your degree in mattress studies because you no longer have to get out of bed to buy a new bed. No more lolling on a mattress in a showroom, as if you’re in a Marina Abramović installation. More than a hundred online merchants will deliver a mattress to you, rolled up like a Drake’s Yodel in a box the size of a doghouse that a cocker spaniel would feel cramped in. I could not sample every e-commerce mattress. Some companies require a customer to live with the purchase for at least a month before sending it back, and where was I supposed to store an extra mattress, let alone a dormitory’s worth of them? I did obtain, and later un-obtain, a couple of mattresses online. Who’d have thought that I, someone who spent years fastidiously fingering duvet covers to find the right softness, would be throwing caution to the wind and ordering a mattress on my computer? Welcome, mattresses, to the weird new disrupter world, where your neighbors include prescription eyeglasses, used clothes, and pets.

While I waited for my mattresses to be delivered, I hit some mattress stores. Aside from variations in size and upholstery, all mattresses look alike. Are they?Let’s start with the basic types: innerspring coil, foam, hybrid (foam and innerspring), and adjustable air. Within each category are subcategories. There seem to be more kinds of foam mattresses than there are craft beers from Brooklyn, but don’t be fooled by proprietary terms like “Ambien-injected kosher crypto-foam.” There are actually only two types of foam: polyurethane, of which memory foam is a subset, and latex.You’re just getting started making decisions, however. What level of firmness do you like? Do you sleep on your side, back, or stomach? When your bedmate tosses and turns, how much does it disturb you (on the Richter scale)? Do you want your mattress all-natural, or will a soupçon of nature do? Do any of the following materials alarm you: soy, hemp, horsehair, mohair, coconut fibre, green tea, polylactide derived from sugarcane? Are you for or against heat-conductive copper flecks? Is the amount of “edge support” that your mattress provides a matter of life and death? How much extra are you willing to pay for latex foam that is flash-frozen before it is baked, or will mere baking suffice?“Which mattress should I get?” I asked Alex, a Saatva “sleep guide” who works in the company’s New York showroom. “It depends on your palate,” he said, like a waiter who’d been asked whether he recommends the chicken piccata or the trout amandine. Saatva is an e-commerce company, the parent of Loom & Leaf and Zenhaven, two other big names in direct-to-consumer bedding. Merchandise in the showroom is available for experiencing but not for purchasing. The lighting is subdued, the color scheme neutral; here and there, beige artificial trees are not growing. I surveyed the thirteen beds positioned throughout the space. Of the mattresses you can buy online, Saatva was named by Good Housekeeping “Best Overall.” ($1,695. Note: All prices here are for a queen, which is what forty-seven per cent of Americans sleep on.)

Read the entire article here: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/06/27/how-to-buy-a-new-mattress-without-a-phd-in-chemistry

The Urethane Blog

Everchem Updates

BASF’s business to face downturn in second half – CEO says

North America Adds 30 Rigs Week on Week

North America Adds 30 Rigs Week on Week

How to Buy a New Mattress Without a Ph.D. in Chemistry

How to Buy a New Mattress Without a Ph.D. in Chemistry

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