Bloomberg (July 26)
“Back-to-back heat waves across the US are straining electricity grids serving millions of households and businesses amid a surge in demand from data centers that require around-the-clock power.” Regional transmission operators (RTOs) are struggling to keep up and it’s no longer clear the RTOs are up to present day challenges. “Emergency alerts have been cascading across grids covering more than half of the 50 US states in recent weeks, including the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO), and the Southwest Power Pool, which manage electricity systems from the Midwest to the Rocky Mountains.”
Tags: Businesses, Challenges, Data centers, Demand, Electricity grids, Heat waves, Households, Power, Straining, Struggling, Surge, Transmission operators, U.S.
Reuters (June 24)
“The AI boom has led to the biggest upswing ever, as demand for memory created a huge bottleneck.” Micron Technologies, now worth $1.3 trillion, has benefited handsomely from this “as the company’s ballooning gross margin shows,” but the rise “is straining tech giants and investor credulity alike.” It won’t last forever. “Boom and bust cycles are built on human greed. It’s very hard to resist the urge to keep boosting production when times are good. Historical patterns suggest the memory shortage will likely end suddenly and hard.”
Tags: AI boom, Ballooning, Boom, Bottleneck, Bust, Credulity, Demand, Gross margin, Human greed, Investor, Memory, Micron, Production, Tech giants, Upswing
Financial Times (May 7)
“US fuel exports have surged to a record level as Europe and Asia lean on American energy supplies to make up for the shortfalls caused by the war in Iran.” Last week, America exported over “8.2mn barrels a day of refined fuels including gasoline, diesel and jet fuel,” a year-on-year increase exceeding 20%. Last week’s “huge demand for US energy” also transformed America into “a net exporter of crude oil for the first time since the second world war.” While this provides “a windfall” to US energy companies, “it also risks a political backlash for President Donald Trump as domestic pump prices rise.”
Tags: 20%, 8.2mn bbl, Asia, Backlash, Crude oil, Demand, Diesel, Energy, Europe, Exports, Fuel, Gasoline, Iran, Jet fuel, Record, Shortfalls, Surged, Trump, U.S., War, Windfall
Bloomberg (April 25)
“The Strait of Hormuz oil shock has yet to crash demand as the rich world borrows from its stocks and pays up to secure supply. Traders are now sounding the alarm that a harsh adjustment is coming.” The IEA believes “global oil demand is on track to slump the most in five years this month.” Things will surely get worse. “A billion barrels of supply loss is already all-but guaranteed — more than double the emergency inventories that governments released” since the conflict began. “With a stalemate between US President Donald Trump and his Iranian adversaries dragging on, the impact is increasingly shifting west — and to products that are central to consumers’ everyday lives.”
Tags: Adversaries, Alarm, Billion barrels, Conflict, Crash, Demand, Emergency inventories, Harsh, IEA, Impact, Iran, Oil shock, Rich world, Slump, Stalemate, Strait of Hormuz, Supply, Traders, Trump
The Economist (April 21)
“Three factors are pushing the world towards the cliff edge. Oil cargoes available to buy are drying up. Refineries are slashing output of fuel. And demand remains artificially high, especially in Europe. Something big must give somewhere large for energy markets to balance.”
Tags: Artificially high, Cargoes, Cliff edge, Demand, Drying up, Energy markets, Europe, Factors, Fuel, Oil, Refineries, Slashing output, World
OilPrice.com (March 11)
“The world’s top crude oil and LNG importer, China, is not as exposed and vulnerable to energy deliveries from the Middle East as one might think. China has been amassing crude volumes in storage for months, it has been working for years to diversify oil and gas supply sources and routes, and has boosted the share of transport electrification, which has reduced demand for road transportation fuels.”
Tags: China, Crude oil, Demand, Electrification, Energy, Exposed, Gas, Importer, LNG, Middle East, Storage. Diversify, Supply sources, Transport, Vulnerable
Reuters (January 7)
“U.S. job openings dropped to a 14-month low in November while hiring resumed its sluggish tone, pointing to ebbing demand for labor amid policy uncertainty related to import tariffs and the integration of artificial intelligence in some work roles.” Nevertheless, “employers remained hesitant to carry out mass layoffs, keeping the labor market in what economists and policymakers call a ‘no hire, no fire’ state.”
Tags: AI, Demand, Ebbing, Employers, Hiring, Import tariffs, Job openings, Labor market, Layoffs, Low, November, Policy uncertainty, Sluggish, U.S.
Reuters (November 16)
“China’s factory output and retail sales grew at their weakest pace in over a year in October, piling pressure on policymakers to revamp the $19 trillion export-driven economy as mounting supply and demand strains threaten to further curtail growth.” Officials may be running out of options to keep “the world’s second-largest economy humming…. even an economy of China’s size can only squeeze so much growth from building more industrial parks, power substations and dams.”
Tags: China, Dams, Demand, Economy, Export-driven, Factory output, Industrial parks, October, Officials, Policymakers, Retail sales, Substations, Supply, Weakest
Wall Street Journal (September 17)
“Industrial production in the eurozone returned to growth in July, a reflection of resilience as U.S. tariffs threaten to crimp demand.” Monthly “output edged up 0.3%… after a 0.6% slump in June.” The July “increase was driven by a strong 1.5% upswing in production in Germany.” While the tariff threat remains, “the eurozone’s industry has so far proved relatively resilient, having grown in two of the four months since President Trump’s announcement of levies on global trading partners in early April.”
Tags: 0.3%, Demand, eurozone, Germany, Growth, Industrial production, July, Levies, Resilience, Threat, Trading partners, Trump, U.S. tariffs, Upswing
Barron’s (July 19)
“This market risk is a slow-motion wreck waiting to happen.” And yet the U.S. market remains sanguine, largely tuning “out the past week’s tariff drama.” Freya Beamish, Chief Economist at TS Lombard, is “cautioning investors against complacency because multiple ‘low-grade shocks’ can take their toll like that of a frog in boiling water.” The impact of tariffs, deportations and “the series of low-grade shocks the market is struggling to digest” will eventually appear and “investors may be underestimating their impact on inflation.”
Tags: $4 to $5 billion, Carmaker, Demand, Fell, GM, Quarterly results, S&P 500, Stock, Tariff costs, Worries
