Numlock News: April 24, 2025 • Steel, Oil, Slime

Apr 24, 2025

Steel

In Japan, steel is now cheaper than water. The average price of a 1-liter bottle of mineral water reaches 156 yen (US$1.09) while the average distribution price for 1.6 millimeter cold-rolled steel sheets comes in at 1441,500 yen per ton, which breaks down to 141.5 yen per kilogram. That is 15 yen cheaper than a kilogram of water. Iron being cheaper than water is one of those “early Pokémon gym” situations, and is only the result of the closure of a number of blast furnaces across the country.

Kosuke Iguchi, Nikkei Asia

Zyn

Philip Morris has successfully ridden out the end of tobacco, and thanks to Zyn — the nuggets of nicotine that result from the company’s acquisition of Swedish Match in 2022 — the nicotine industry is thriving. The company sold 223.4 million cans of Zyn in the first quarter of 2025, which is up 50 percent year over year. Overall, Philip Morris’s sales hit $9.3 billion.

J. Edward Moreno. Sherwood News

Conclave

Following the demise of Pope Francis, the curia of the Roman Catholic Church will soon convene in Rome to select a new Pope, in an event known as a conclave. Since 1900, the longest conclave has taken 5 days, with the median event taking a reasonable 3 days. That said, the recent performance is a somewhat new trick; from 1600 to 1900, the average conclave went on for about 2 months, with the 1740 conclave that put Benedict XIV on the Chair of Saint Peter running 182 days.

Joe Murphy, NBC News

Slime

Slime molds are fascinating entities, riding that line between fungus and animal and demanding the interest of naturalists. They reproduce with spores, which is real classic fungus material, but also grow fruiting bodies (which necessarily invite comparisons to plants). At the end of the day, they get classified as protists, put in that bin of miscellany of creatures that defy fungus, animal or plant. A single plasmodium cell can cover 10 square meters, and with 900 species worldwide, they’re just compelling beasties.

Sarah Gilman, bioGraphic

Nike

Nike, the shoe brand named in honor of the Greek goddess of victory, is giving another offering to the deity that deigned to lend her name to the company. In 2023, the current record for a woman’s mile run was set by Faith Kipyegon, who came in at 4:07:64. Because the core feature of humanity means being animal whose reach exceeds our grasp, the quest for a 4-minute-mile will come to a head June 26, with Nike and Kipyegon convening in Paris to attempt to break the record and breach Elysium once and for all.

Kim Bhasin, Bloomberg

Death Of A Friggin’ Salesman

This past week appears to have been the single best non-Christmas, non-New Year’s week in the history of Broadway, with the total gross coming in at $50,874,940. That figure — across 40 productions — is 47 percent higher than the same week of last year; most interestingly, its attendance of 357,319 is also 19 percent higher year over year. Fueling the week were 9-performance weeks for reliable staples such as The Lion King, Wicked and Aladdin, but also massive grosses for Good Night, and Good Luck, the play Glengarry Glen Ross and Othello.

Greg Evans, Deadline

Midnight Oil

While oil companies continue to extract petroleum from the ground, taking a step back, the health of the carbon extraction industry is not particularly strong. Since 2021, the 5 largest independent oil majors (Exxon, Chevron, Shell, BP and Total) have been in the habit of sending more money back to shareholders than they are developing new business. This is a sign that the corporate brass is less interested in the long-term future of the firm than in extracting value from the present. Even more interesting is the oil majors’ reserves, which in many cases are depleting to less than 10 years: BP has 7.2 years of reserves left, while Chevron has 8.03 and Shell has 9.27 years. Exxon Mobil (12.4 years) and Total (12.6 years) are the only firms that have more than a decade's worth of juice in the ground, which implies that the business is a sunset industry.

David Fickling, Bloomberg

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