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OIL EXTENDS TUMBLE ON CEASEFIRE DETAILS: International and domestic oil prices continued to fall today, dipping below the $80 line for the first time since March. 

The extended decline appeared to be driven by a new report from the Wall Street Journal that the U.S. will allow Iran to immediately begin selling oil as part of the ceasefire deal. 

People familiar with the agreement told the outlet that the U.S. was preparing waivers of sanctions on oil sales, which will take effect immediately after the formal signing of the deal later in the week. The waiver also reportedly covers banking, transportation, and insurance related to the sale of Iranian crude. 

A U.S. official also confirmed to the outlet today that Iran would be receiving initial sanctions relief for the sales. However, extended relief will depend on how Tehran abides by its end of the ceasefire deal, particularly as it relates to keeping the Strait of Hormuz open. 

Just before 3 p.m. EDT, Brent crude was down 4.99% and was selling at $79.02 a barrel. West Texas Intermediate had also dropped 5.67%, priced at $76.17 a barrel. 

HOW MANY SHIPS ARE PASSING THROUGH? While President Donald Trump has insisted the Strait of Hormuz is open, vessels still appear hesitant to pass through the waterway before the formal signing of the peace deal. 

Marine Traffic data released this morning shows that there were only five confirmed crossings through the strait yesterday. Of these confirmed crossings, only three were commercial vessels carrying dirty petroleum products and steel. 

Analysts with HSBC are now estimating that traffic through the strait won’t normalize until late July or hit pre-war levels until the end of September. 

“Hurdles include mine clearance, insurance reinstatement, emptying excess Gulf oil storage, repositioning ships, and restarting idled production fields and downstream infrastructure across several Gulf producers,” HSBC said in a note obtained by WSJ. 

PENTAGON OFFERS $500 MILLION LOAN TO RARE EARTH COMPANY: Rare earth company Phoenix Tailings announced it has received a conditional $500 million loan from the Pentagon to fund its rare earth processing facility. 

Phoenix Tailings said that the longer-term debt financing would help to build its Freedom Facility, a midstream processing plant that would produce light and heavy rare earth metals necessary for defense systems, advanced manufacturing, energy infrastructure, and much more. 

The company said the facility would use large-scale separation and metallization capability to serve mines, recyclers, manufacturers, and government entities. The company has not named a location for the facility, but says it plans to begin operations in 2028.

“By creating a midstream facility like this, we are empowering virtually every part of the market and rebuilding the rare earth sector as a truly collaborative industry,” Anthony Balladon, cofounder and chief commercial officer of Phoenix Tailings, said in a press release. 

The loan commitment by the Pentagon is one of several funding initiatives the White House has made with rare earth and critical minerals companies. The administration has also provided funding to companies like MP Materials and USA Rare Earth as part of a broader effort to prop up the rare earth domestic supply chain. 

The Department of Energy earlier this month also awarded Phoenix Tailings $66 million in grant money to advance its rare earth separation technology. 

UPGRADING THE GRID COULD GIVE POWER COMPANY EXECS A MASSIVE PAYOUT: A new analysis conducted by Reuters estimates that the CEOs of the 15 largest power companies in the U.S. could wind up with a nearly $1 billion stock-based payout as the electric grid is upgraded.

Between 2026 and 2029, the top utility trade group, the Edison Electric Institute, projects that its members will invest more than $1 trillion in upgrading and modernizing the U.S. grid. Some of these investments will be focused on increased transmission capacity, allowing more energy to flow to large customers such as data centers running artificial intelligence technology. 

As their investment in this infrastructure increases, so too do the companies’ guaranteed regulated returns. In other words, the more they invest in infrastructure that is state or federally regulated, the more their capital and own earnings will grow. 

Reuters found that the CEOs of the top 15 utility companies – including Vistra, Talen Energy, Constellation, NextEra, and Entergy – are sitting on a combined $993 million in stock-based pay. The average payout for each CEO is around $66 million. 

Some pushback: There’s no denying that grid upgrades are needed to support growing electricity demands, and that those upgrades could result in short-term price hikes for consumers. There are some calls, however, to adjust how utility CEOs receive pay to better protect consumers from surging costs. 

“America’s energy affordability crisis is made worse by the misalignment of utility profits and customers’ high energy burdens,” Tyson Slocum, director of the energy program for Public Citizen, told Reuters. “Hardworking families are picking up the bill while ​utility CEOs and their investors are making guaranteed profits.” 

NEARLY HALF OF THE CHILDREN IN THE WORLD FACE AT LEAST THREE CLIMATE THREATS, UNICEF SAYS: The United Nations Children’s Fund released a report that found that nearly 1.1 billion children around the world are exposed to at least three overlapping climate hazards. 

The report says that almost every child in the world faces at least one climate hazard and more than 4 million children are exposed to as many as six climate hazards. The report describes climate threats as coastal floods, droughts, extreme heat, fires, heat waves, riverine floods, sand and dust storms, and tropical storms.

It noted that drought, extreme heat, and heat waves are the most commonly occurring combination of climate hazards, with over 296 million children being exposed to all three. The second most common combination is drought, extreme heat, and tropical storms, impacting more than 115 million children. 

ICYMI – LARGEST WIND FARM IN THE COUNTRY COMES ONLINE: The biggest wind farm in the U.S. is about to come online, marking the latest defiance from the renewable energy industry to Trump’s crackdown. 

The details: The SunZia Wind Project in New Mexico is slated to start commercial operations this month, the Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration announced late last week. The wind farm has a total summer generating capacity of 3,650 megawatts. For comparison, one megawatt can usually produce enough electricity to power 400 to 900 homes.

The massive wind farm is made up of 916 turbines and stretches across three counties. 

Construction began on the project in 2023, after it took developer Pattern Energy nearly 20 years to obtain necessary permits and planning documents. 

The wind farm was built in tandem with the SunZia Transmission Project, a 550-mile high-voltage direct current transmission line across New Mexico and Arizona. The transmission line has a capacity of 3,000 megawatts, and will export power generated by the wind farm to Arizona and Southern California. 

RUNDOWN 

Inside Climate News Months After a Jet Fuel Leak, No Agency Tested Waters Downstream of Piscataway Creek. So Community Groups Are Doing It Themselves.

Washington Post Why the stress building on California’s faults could result in a major quake

Politico ‘A bit of FOMO’: Oil companies give Venezuela a second look amid Mideast chaos