Today’s Key Takeaways: Crude crashes amidst trade war. Japan sees AKLNG as part of trade deal. Riding the Ambler project momentum. Cutting $9 billion from clean energy office.
OIL:
Trade War Just Crashed Crude. Demand Might Be Next
Irina Slav, OilPrice.Com, April 6, 2025
- Trump’s sweeping new tariffs have rattled markets and raised concerns over global economic growth.
- While crude oil itself was spared from direct tariffs, fears of demand destruction from slower global trade sent prices tumbling.
- Analysts say that the removal of tariffs could limit long-term damage to oil markets.
The reciprocal tariffs that the world has been holding its breath about are here, stock markets are reeling, and crude oil took a dive. The question now is whether tariffs will hurt oil demand for longer or whether the effect will be transitory, with prices rebounding before long.
For now, a majority of observers appear to agree that the tariffs that U.S. President Donald Trump imposed on all of the country’s trade partners would hurt oil demand quite seriously and continue hurting it for their duration.
GAS:
Japan Considers Backing Alaska LNG as Part of US Trade Deal
Will Wade, Bloomberg, April 6, 2025
Japan would consider investing in a long-delayed $44 billion liquefied natural gas project in Alaska as part of an effort to negotiate a trade deal with the US.
The Alaska energy project should be included in a trade package, Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba told parliament Monday, as he seeks to put together a sweeping agreement with Washington.
US President Donald Trump has touted the proposed project, though the high cost needed to build a liquefaction terminal and about 1,300 kilometers (808 miles) of pipeline has made potential participants wary. Developing a liquefied natural gas project in Alaska would take a least a decade, Mitsubishi Corp. President Katsuya Nakanishi said last week, questioning whether the project is viable.
Read More: Japan’s Ishiba Seeks Broad Tariffs Deal as Stocks Rout Deepens
Ishiba’s comments indicate that he’s willing to sign on to help win concessions in Washington’s quickly expanding trade war. Japan has been the world’s biggest LNG buyer so far this year, and the US is the world’s top supplier.
“In our negotiations with the United States, we must present a package,” Ishiba said. “It is not wise to give out individual items one by one. How should we think about LNG from Alaska? How should we think about ethanol? We must present these as a package.”
MINING:
Trilogy poised to ride Ambler momentum
Shane Lasley, North of 60 Mining News, April 2, 2025
Company has plenty of cash to fund its share of JV as Ambler Road comes back into play and federal government backs Alaska mining.
Trilogy Metals Inc. April 2 reported that it has enough cash to cover its share of the 2025 expenses at Upper Kobuk Mineral Projects (UKMP), which covers 471,800 acres of the Ambler Mining District in Northwest Alaska.
Being advanced by a 50-50 joint venture between Trilogy and South 32 Ltd., UKMP hosts the Arctic copper-zinc-lead-gold-silver mine project, the Bornite copper-silver-cobalt deposit, and more than a dozen earlier-staged mineral projects.
In 2020, the Ambler Metals JV completed a feasibility study that detailed plans for a financially robust open-pit mine at Arctic, the first UKMP deposit to be developed, that would produce 1.9 billion pounds of copper, 2.3 billion lb of zinc, 388 million lb of lead, 386,000 ounces of gold, and 40.6 million oz of silver over an initial 12-year mine life.
A preliminary economic assessment completed for Trilogy earlier outlines plans for an economically robust mine at Bornite that would produce an additional 1.9 billion lb of copper over 17 years after the completion of mining at Arctic, which lies about 16 miles (25 kilometers) to the north.
While Arctic was positioned to enter the federal permitting process in 2021, Ambler Metals put the project on hold due to a reassessment of the permits issued to build a 211-mile road needed to deliver metal concentrates produced at the proposed mine to the market.
Upon completing its review, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management reversed its decision to approve the road, leaving the Arctic mine project and other deposits in the Ambler Mining District stranded.
On his first day back in the Oval Office, President Trump signed the “Unleashing Alaska’s Extraordinary Resource Potential” executive order to encourage mining and other resource development in the state, including the reinstatement of the previously issued authorizations for the Ambler Road.
U.S. Department of the Interior Secretary Doug Burgum backed up Trump’s Alaska resource-focused executive order with a secretarial order of the same name.
“It’s time for the U.S. to embrace Alaska’s abundant and largely untapped resources as a pathway to prosperity for the nation, including Alaskans,” Burgum said during the March 20 announcement that he is taking steps to unleash Alaska’s natural resources potential.
Amongst the actions taken by the Interior Secretary was instructing BLM to eliminate land withdrawals that prevented federal lands along the Trans-Alaska Pipeline Corridor and Dalton Highway from being transferred to the state. Under the Biden administration, BLM revoked a right-of-way across this land to prevent the development of the Ambler Road.
“This action would help pave the way forward for the proposed Ambler Road and the Alaska Liquified Natural Gas Pipeline project, two projects that stand to increase job opportunities and encourage Alaska’s economic growth,” the Interior Department penned in a March 20 statement on the proposed transfer of land to Alaska.
On the same day, Trump signed the “Immediate Measures to Increase American Mineral Production” executive order to streamline permitting and provide financing options for domestic mining projects poised to produce critical minerals, copper, gold, uranium, and other mined commodities deemed essential to the nation’s economy and energy future.
The forward movement on the Ambler Road and potential federal support for mine projects like Arctic and Bornite is good news for Trilogy, which has been in a holding pattern for the past four years.
The positive news is reflected in Trilogy’s share price, which made a one-day jump from 57 cents per share to $1.02 upon Trump winning the presidency and has continued to climb to above $1.50 per share.
With $25.2 million in its Treasury, Trilogy has plenty of cash to fund its $3.1 million share of the 2025 budget for Ambler Metals as forward momentum builds for the Arctic mine project and the JV’s other projects in the Ambler Mining District.
POLITICS:
Trump Team Proposes Ending Clean Energy Office, Cutting Billions
Ari Natter, Bloomberg, April 7, 2025
The US Energy Department is proposing to shut down its Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations and cut some $9 billion in awards for programs regarding carbon capture, direct air capture, solar and hydrogen, according to documents seen by Bloomberg.
Under the plan, which isn’t final, the $27 billion agency’s staff would be reduced to 35 employees, and about $10 billion in projects, including $3 billion for so-called hydrogen hubs, would be kept “as is” and transferred to other parts of the Energy Department.
The office employed about 250 people before President Donald Trump, a climate change skeptic, returned to office.
A decision on the fate of the agency, which was created in 2021 in bipartisan infrastructure legislation, could come as soon as next week, according to Axios, which earlier reported on the proposal.
