China’s Top Envoy to U.S. Breaks With Foreign Ministry on Virus www.bloomberg.com

In Mongolia, Yak Wool Is the New Cashmere www.globalpressjournal.com

A local cooperative helps herders capitalize on a common Mongolian resource: yaks. Workers can spin their soft undercoats into wool as soft as cashmere – and consumers around the world are taking notice.

ERDENEBULGAN, ARKHANGAI PROVINCE, MONGOLIA — Munkhjargal Bat-Ulzii smiles as she weaves with rhythmic precision on her manual loom.

Bayarmagnai Batsuuri stands nearby and watches stunning patterns emerge from the loom.

Bayarmagnai founded the Ar Arvijin Delgerekh cooperative, which specializes in producing and weaving yak wool. The material, according to the cooperative, rivals the quality of cashmere and has the potential to boost income opportunities for yak herders in this central Mongolian province.

Arkhangai province is home to 32% of the country’s yak population, but herders have not historically used the yak’s wool.

Wild yaks, which are long-haired bovines found throughout the Himalayan region and as far north as Mongolia and Siberia, were previously considered endangered but are now tagged as vulnerable.

Domesticated yaks thrive in Mongolia, thanks to its cold temperatures, steep ravines and rocky terrains. The yak’s long, thick hair and fine underfur help it withstand cold weather.

The cooperative has been gaining momentum since it was founded in 2010. Today, all 225 members are herders who joined to receive training on how to tease and prepare yak wool fibers.

Bayarmagnai says they’ve trained herders to collect the fur by separating it from grass, dirt and the yak’s thicker outer hair. The valuable hair is the fine underfur, known as the pure fiber, which can be used to weave yarn and quality goods.

“When we initially established the cooperative, yak fiber was a raw material without any value,” Bayarmagnai says.

Today, herders throughout the province benefit from understanding the value of their yak’s fur.

“I had been herding livestock for 40 years but never teased yak fiber,” says Dagiitserev Lkhagvasuren, a local herder. He joined the cooperative in 2018. From his 27 yaks, he says, he was able to tease about 560,000 Mongolian tugriks’ ($202.50) worth of fiber.

The average annual household income here is about 14.8 million tugriks ($5,350).

“It really helps our livelihood and is especially beneficial for families like ours, who do not earn any salary,” Dagiitserev says.

Herders who have been with the cooperative since it opened have seen tremendous increase in the demand for and value of their yaks’ wool.

Choisuren Namsraikhorol, a local herder, says when he started bringing wool to the collective, he earned about 1,500 tugriks (54 cents) for one kilogram (2.2 pounds) of wool. Today, he earns about 20,000 tugriks ($7.23) for the same amount.

The collective exports the pure fibers and makes yarn for local use, while also weaving yak wool products like shawls and clothing. Annually, they sell about 1,500 textile products at the collective’s retail outlet, Baby Yak, which opened in 2018.

Enkh-Amgalan Sumiyabat, a cooperative member who shows yak wool textiles at trade shows, says one question is more common than any other: “Is it cashmere?”

“Nobody knows that it is yak wool,” she says. “Our products are so cool and soft.”

The yak’s pure fiber, especially from young yaks, isn’t cashmere, although it does meet the microfiber classification for cashmere, says Baasanjav Choijin, head of Arkhangai province’s Herders’ Association.

“It is a luxury item, which is soft and can sustain warmth similar to goat cashmere,” he says.

Cashmere, the luxury wool made from fine goat hair, is popular and expensive thanks to the fact that it is extremely soft while being both warm and lightweight. There are three market grades of cashmere. Grade C cashmere, the lowest quality, can measure up to 30 microns, the standard unit used to grade wool. Grade B measures between 16 to 19 microns and Grade A, the finest, can measure as low as 13 microns.

The Mongolian University of Science and Technology and the accredited laboratory of the Mongolian Customs General Administration are responsible for testing the yak wool prior to export. On average, the yak fiber that the collective exports measures between 18 and 20 microns.

Local herders credit the cooperative with making a previously valueless material valuable, while creating a global market for Mongolian yak wool. The cooperative exports 1.4 tons of its washed and sorted yak wool to France, Spain, Italy, Japan and other countries annually.

Ganchimeg Gombojav, a regular customer at Baby Yak, says she likes to give the textiles to elders during the traditional Mongolian New Year holiday, Tsagaan Sar, in February.

“I like it because it is cheaper compared to cashmere and it is soft and warm,” she says.

Tsogtbaatar Jantsandorj, head of the Food and Agricultural Department’s Cattle Breed Section, agrees that yak wool products have been an asset to Mongolian markets.

“Today we are supplying something that previously had no value and blew on the market,” he says. “It is a very big advantage that people are now consuming domestically produced, eco-friendly animal products.”

Bayarmagnai says they are thrilled to see yak wool products take off locally and globally. He plans to add more looms and a larger factory space later this year. He says they will continue to work with herders and help them boost income, while creating internationally marketable products.

“Everything we make with our hands comes from our heart,” he says.

Otgoo Tsedendemberel, GPJ, translated this article from Mongolian.

China sees drop in new coronavirus cases; all new cases imported www.reuters.com

BEIJING/SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Mainland China saw a drop in its daily tally of new coronavirus cases, reversing four straight days of gains, as the capital Beijing ramped up measures to contain the number of infections arriving from abroad.

Mongolia postpones opening schools, international flights www.xinhuanet.com

Mongolia will delay the opening dates of all schools and international flights in a bid to stem the spread of COVID-19, a senior official said on Sunday.

ADB: Mongolia showing a good example in the world www.montsame.mn

April could be WORST MONTH EVER for oil www.rt.com

Oil producers are facing their worst crisis in history, but the market is not at a bottom yet, according to several analysts.
The millions of barrels of additional supply promised by Saudi Arabia will take time to reach their destination. On the demand side, major economies have only begun to slow down, and the gaping hole where the economy once stood is expected to widen. A growing number of analysts say that the global economy is already in a recession.

“Even just a week ago, it was difficult to imagine how oil market conditions could become significantly weaker,” Standard Chartered wrote in a note. “However, over the past week the restrictions placed on mobility by European and North American governments as part of their coronavirus response have significantly magnified the negative demand shock.”

Analysts say that the month of April could see the largest supply overhang in the history of the oil market.

“We now expect the y/y demand loss to peak in April at 10.4 million barrels per day (mb/d), and annual demand to fall by a record 3.39mb/d in 2020,” Standard Chartered wrote in a note.

In the short run, the oil market surplus could reach a peak of 13.7 mb/d in April, Standard Chartered said, with an average surplus of 12.9 mb/d for the second quarter. The inventory buildup could reach a gargantuan 2.1 billion barrels by the end of the year, “stretching the midstream of the industry to its limits,” the bank wrote. That figure represents an upward revision of 50 percent from the 1.4-billion-barrel inventory surplus the bank predicted…just a week ago.

Other analysts have even more dramatic scenarios. Eurasia Group says demand could fall by as much as 25 mb/d in the next few weeks and months. The historic glut means that the world could run out of storage space. “The combination of weakening demand and excess supply is hardly going to be accommodated by onshore storage,” Giovanni Serio, head of analysis at Vitol, told the FT. “At a certain point…we will need to fill all the boats.”

The downturn could lead to more than 200 bankruptcies just in the European oilfield services sector, according to Rystad Energy, or 20 percent of total firms in the sector.

Goldman Sachs said WTI could fall to shut-in price levels at between $23 and $26 per barrel, and in fact, the bank cut its forecasted second quarter price for Brent to $20 per barrel, down from $30 previously. In early trading on Wednesday, WTI plunged 11 percent to around $24 per barrel and prices collapsed during the day, falling 25 percent before recovering some lost ground.

“As front-end prices weaken under the weight of the accumulated surplus oil stockpile, we expect the contraction of activity in the US shale oil industry to accelerate,” Standard Chartered said. The bank forecasts US oil production at 11.87 mb/d in December 2020, down 1.1 mb/d from current levels. In 2021, Standard Chartered said the US may average 11.2 mb/d, exiting the year in December 2021 at 10.69 mb/d.

On Wednesday, Halliburton said it was going to furlough 3,500 workers in what will surely be the first in many, many cuts to payrolls.

Up until only recently, most analysts assumed the global pandemic would be a short-term affair. Many lockdown procedures have been billed as temporary closures, typically in the range of two to four weeks. But the pandemic may last much longer – some scientists suggest social distancing may be imperative for more than a year – and some of the economic scars could be permanent.

The US Congress is preparing helicopter money in an effort to tide millions of people over for the next few weeks, but that too will not be enough.

While April may see the worst of oil demand destruction, Standard Chartered says year-on-year demand could fall by 8.8 mb/d in May and 7.4 mb/d in June. And even after the pandemic passes, there will be an “element of persistent demand loss…driven by permanent changes in air travel behaviour and the demand implications of businesses unable to recover from the initial shock.”

Almost 1000 Mongolians evacuated from Covid-19 hit countries www.news.mn

China reports no new locally transmitted cases for a second day. But it found 39 new imported cases www.cnn.com

Mainland China reported 39 new cases of coronavirus -- all imported from overseas -- and three new deaths as of end of day Thursday, according to the country's National Health Commission.

Copper price surges over 10% after touching 2009 lows www.mining.com

Copper dropped sharply again in overnight trade on Thursday, coming close to levels last seen during the global financial crisis amid mounting uncertainty about the extent the global pandemic could hit demand and supply of the bellwether metal.

Copper trading in New York fell by more than 8% to $1.9725 a pound ($4,350 a tonne), the weakest level since early January 2016, when it traded below $2.00 for only a week. The last time it traded for a sustained period below this level was in 2008 and 2009.

In New York trade the metal fought back, rallying by 11.6% with May delivery contracts exchanging hands for $2.1990 in the mid-afternoon session. Year to date copper is still in bear territory with a 21% decline.

“In terms of understanding the short-term supply-demand dynamics, uncertainty is the highest I can recall,” Mark Hansen, chief executive officer of metals trading house Concord Resources, told Bloomberg from London.

“China responded more forcefully to the economic downturn in 2015-16 than it has now, which is both curious but also should give hope to resource demand possibly returning strongly, at some point.”

Global recession
Thanks to its widespread use in industry, transportation, construction and power grids, copper is vulnerable to slowdown in the broader economy.

Tommy Wu, lead economist, Oxford Economics
A panel of 80 economists polled by FocusEconomics, a Barcelona-based research firm, have become markedly more pessimistic about the global impact of the pandemic.

Almost two-thirds of panelists now expect a global recession in the next 12 months, up from 43% in last week’s poll, and despite the slew of fiscal and monetary stimulus measures announced in recent days says FocusEconomics.

One panelist, Tommy Wu, lead economist at Oxford Economics, said the Covid-19 crisis is unlike any other modern-day economic shock:

“The fact that the coronavirus pandemic is an exogeneously caused simultaneous supply and demand shock on the real economy leading to financial market shocks, and not initially financial market shocks spreading into the economy like in 2008, makes it unique in recent history.

“It can only be compared to wartime downturns in the twentieth century.”

South American supply
Producers across South America, where the bulk of the world’s copper is produced, have halted or cut back operations and slowed construction projects.

Hong Kong-listed MMG said on Thursday that operations at its Las Bambas mine with expected production in the 360kt range for this year had been reduced temporarily after Peru declared a state of emergency.

Anglo American earlier this week said it will slow the building of its $5 billion Quellaveco project in Peru and on Thursday the miner said it is scaling down operations at its Los Bronces copper mine in Chile.

The world’s no 2 copper producer, Chile’s state-owned Codelco, said on Wednesday it planned to reduce its operations while the world’s top miner of the metal, BHP said so far the pandemic has not affected output.

Reuters reports unionized workers at the Escondida mine in Chile operated by BHP requested on Wednesday a halt to operations unless management begins to implement stricter health and safety measures. Escondida is the largest copper mine in the world by a wide measure and was projected to produce some 1.2 million tonnes this year.

Phoenix, Arizona-based Freeport-McMoRan said this week it is suspending operations at its 350kt per year Cerro Verde mine in Peru for at least 15 days.

Hakuho chasing Japanese sumo record www.news.mn

Yokozuna Hakuho bounced back from his first loss and collected his 10th win of the Spring Grand Sumo Tournament on Wednesday to remain in a two-way tie for the lead with rank-and-filer Aoiyama.