UK Moves To Ban New North Sea Oil & Gas Licenses Permanently

China To Import Record Amount Of US Ethane As Iran War Chokes Off Naphtha, LPG Supplies One year ago, in the immediate aftermath of Trump's Liberation Day tariffs, there was a flurry of discussion over who is more reliant on whom: the US on Chinese rare earth materials, or China on US ethane output (see "Chinese Plastics Factories Face Mass Closure As US Ethane Supply Evaporates" and "Who Blinks First? China May Exempt Tariffs On US Ethane & Other Goods"). Following the detente in the US-China trade war, that discussion was...

Trump Invokes Defense Production Act To Sign Energy-Related Directives Authored by Aldgra Fredly via The Epoch Times, President Donald Trump on April 20 invoked the Defense Production Act to issue a series of memorandums focused on strengthening coal supply chains, ​natural gas transmission, and ​liquefied natural gas capacity. Trump also signed memos aimed at boosting domestic petroleum production, enhancing grid infrastructure, and expanding the deployment of “large-scale energy” and related infrastructure. In a post on X, White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers said the memos would allow the Energy Department to use funding from...

FundStrat's Newton: Why Not Replace The FOMC With AI? Short of abolishing the Fed (much preferred), would automating the Fed make more sense than the current system? Should we trust Kevin Warsh, Jerome Powell, and Lisa Cook to read the tea leaves each month and decree rate changes for us commoners?  That was Fundstrat's Mark Newton’s suggestion during last night's ZeroHedge debate on his H2 market outlook. He pointed out the new chair’s plan to eliminate “forward guidance”, a term invented under the previous chair Powell in which the Fed strategically...