Warsaw Acts
Polish state refiner PKN Orlen switched to production of hand sanitizers at its lube blending plant in Jedlicze, as part of a government initiative to fight the spread of coronavirus, a company official told Lubes’n’Greases.
At the time of publication, the country had more than 750 confirmed cases of the disease. To prevent the virus from infecting more people, the Polish Ministry of Health engaged Orlen Oil, PKN Orlen’s lube division, to make sanitizer after local media reported shortages of such products in a number of shops.
“Orlen Oil immediately took action to launch this production. Our laboratories have been working on it for several days,” said Daniel Obajtek, president of the management board of PKN Orlen, said in a news release.
Orlen aimed to churn out about 1 million liters, with governmental institutions receiving the sanitizer first. The product would also be made available in Orlen Oil’s 1,800 gasoline filling stations throughout Poland, the company said.
Headquartered in Krakow, Orlen operates lubricant blending plants in the Polish cities of Plock, Trzebinia and Jedlicze. Orlen may be the first lube maker in Europe that repurposed its facilities for production of hand sanitizers.
Poland’s Development Minister said that impact of coronavirus on the Polish economy would be 0.3 percent of GDP.
The global outbreak of Covid-19 novel coronavirus, which started in Wuhan, China, at the beginning of the year, has caused severe disruptions not only to everyday life in many countries, but also precipitated a crude oil price crash, hammered stock markets and disrupted base oil trading around Southeast Asia.
Investors pulled money away from commodities and anything reliant on the global supply chain. This lead stock markets around the world to suffer large losses. The Dow Jones in New York and the FTSE in London sank in value rapidly. Asian markets also took a beating. Shares in oil majors such as BP and Shell lost about 20 percent of their value on the London Stock Exchange, with smaller companies losing up to 50 percent, according to the Financial Times.
Global oil demand had dwindled from the number-one consumer China and put downward pressure on prices. But the coup de grace was a spat between Saudi Arabia – the world’s largest exporter of crude oil and de facto leader of the Opec cartel – and non-Opec member Russia. Moscow rejected an Opec plan to cut production by 1.5 million barrels per day to shore up prices, and in response the Saudis slashed the cost of its crude.
Brent and WTI tumbled to about $30 per barrel, down 30 percent. With fewer planes flying, ships sailing and factories producing globally, some analysts predicted oil could go even lower to the $20s. The price of base oil, which was also already under pressure from overcapacity and falling demand, followed suit.
Meanwhile, sales of hand sanitizer skyrocketed. According to market research firm Kantar, sales in the United Kingdom grew year-on-year by 255 percent in February, leading unscrupulous third-party on Amazon and ebay to charge $143.72 for Defendol, which normally costs $4.46 in stores.