2025-11-04 21:59
LOS ANGELES, Nov 4 (Reuters) - U.S. ocean shipping company Matson (MATX.N) , opens new tab has paid $6.4 million in port fees to China since they were implemented on October 14, CEO Matt Cox said on Tuesday. President Donald Trump and President Xi Jinping last week agreed to put those tit-for-tat levies on pause for 12 months, starting on November 10. Media outlets in China had reported that Hawaii-based Matson, one of a handful of global shipping firms with U.S.-built and -flagged vessels, was the first to pay the fees in China. Sign up here. Matson expects the U.S. Trade Representative and the China Ministry of Transport to publish specific instructions, including any refund programs, regarding port entry fees shortly, Cox said on the company's quarterly earnings call. Early this year, the Trump administration announced plans to levy fees on China-linked ships to loosen the country's grip on the global maritime industry and bolster U.S. shipbuilding - a move vessel operators warned would disrupt trade flows and ultimately drive up costs for consumers. China retaliated with fees on ships with links to the United States, and started charging them on October 14 - the same day U.S. fees went into effect. "This is a welcome development," Cox said of the deal struck between the leaders of the world's largest economies, which also trimmed U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods and put China's rare earth export curbs on hold. If the levies had not been put on hold, Matson could have paid $80 million annually in port fees in both 2026 and 2027, Cox said. China's state-owned COSCO (600428.SS) , opens new tab container shipping line was most exposed to U.S. port fees, which analysts said could cost the firm $1.5 billion annually. https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/matson-has-paid-64-million-port-fees-china-since-levies-started-october-2025-11-04/
2025-11-04 21:59
Nov 4 (Reuters) - Utility Entergy's (ETR.N) , opens new tab unit and pipeline firm Energy Transfer (ET.N) , opens new tab have signed a 20-year agreement to deliver natural gas to North Louisiana, the companies said on Tuesday. The U.S. is poised to see a record surge in power demand this year and in 2026, led by data centers' outsized energy needs, the U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates. Sign up here. The companies said the pipeline would supply gas to Entergy's new plants and serve projects such as Meta's (META.O) , opens new tab data center in Richland Parish. Energy Transfer will initially provide 250,000 million British thermal units (MMBtu) per day of transportation service beginning in February 2028 and continuing through January 2048. The deal also provides an option to Entergy to expand delivery capacity in the region to meet future energy demand. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/entergy-energy-transfer-sign-long-term-natural-gas-transportation-deal-2025-11-04/
2025-11-04 21:35
Nov 4 (Reuters) - Ukraine's military said on Tuesday it struck an oil refinery in Russia's Nizhny Novgorod region east of Moscow. The General Staff of Ukraine's armed forces, in a post on Telegram, said the military had hit the Lukoil refinery in the town of Kstovo. It said the facility provided supplies for the Russian military. Sign up here. The extent of the damage was being assessed, it said. There was no official Russian acknowledgement of the attack, but the governor of Nizhny Novgorod region, Gleb Nikitin, said Russian air defence units had repelled an attack by 20 drones near Kstovo. The Ukrainian General Staff also said Ukrainian drones had caused "considerable damage" at a petrochemical plant in Bashkortostan in central Russia. Regional authorities in Bashkortostan, about 1,500 km (930 miles) from the Ukrainian border, said Ukrainian drones had damaged the Sterlitamak petrochemical plant, but it was still operating. https://www.reuters.com/world/ukrainian-military-says-it-struck-refinery-russias-nizhny-novgorod-2025-11-04/
2025-11-04 21:33
WASHINGTON, Nov 4 (Reuters) - The United States is providing $24 million in emergency assistance for Jamaica, Haiti, the Bahamas and Cuba after the countries were hit by Hurricane Melissa last week, the State Department said on Tuesday. The department deployed teams to help with the emergency response and assess humanitarian needs after the Category 5 hurricane sowed widespread devastation, cut off communities and killed at least 50 people across the Caribbean. Sign up here. The Trump administration has now authorized $12 million of assistance for Jamaica, $8.5 million for Haiti and $500,000 for the Bahamas, the State Department said in a statement. "Our teams on the ground have been assessing damage, and we're going to announce additional assistance packages over the coming days as they figure out where best to target it," a senior State Department official said, adding that they expected to announce additional aid for Jamaica and Haiti. Another $3 million was authorized for Cuba and is being distributed with the help of the Catholic Church, after Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a declaration of humanitarian need for the country and said Washington would seek to deliver aid directly to the country's people. President Donald Trump has taken a hard line toward the communist-run island. His administration said it would enforce a ban on U.S. tourism to Cuba while supporting an economic embargo of the country. The State Department is working with the church to ensure it is able to get access to U.S.-funded supplies to distribute to the people of Cuba, the official said. The Cuban government has not requested assistance from Washington, the official added. "Regardless of what the Cuban regime says, we care about the Cuban people, and we are heartened that so far the Cuban government has not interfered with the provision of assistance," the official said. Hurricane Melissa is the largest natural disaster to hit the region since President Donald Trump's administration dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development earlier this year. Disaster response is now managed by the State Department, which has sent Disaster Assistance Response Teams to several countries to coordinate the aid response and deployed specialist Urban Search and Rescue teams to Jamaica. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-provide-24-million-caribbean-countries-hit-by-hurricane-melissa-2025-11-04/
2025-11-04 21:19
Nov 4 (Reuters) - A U.S. District Court judge ruled on Tuesday that U.S. President Donald Trump's Interior Department may reconsider the Biden administration's approval of the SouthCoast Wind project planned off the coast of Massachusetts. The order is a victory for the Trump administration, which argued that it had identified issues with the project's environmental analysis and that a review could result in a withdrawal of the SouthCoast permit. Sign up here. U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has said that offshore wind farms have no future under Trump, who has repeatedly called them ugly, expensive and harmful to wildlife. The order sends the matter back to Interior's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to revisit its decision as part of Trump's broad review of U.S. offshore wind leasing and permitting. Judge Tanya Chutkan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued the ruling in a lawsuit brought by the island town of Nantucket, Massachusetts, earlier this year, challenging the agency's approval of the project. SouthCoast Wind's developer, Ocean Winds, is a joint venture between Portugal's EDP Renewables(EDPR.LS) , opens new tab and France's ENGIE(ENGIE.PA) , opens new tab. In court documents, the company said it had invested $600 million in the project. It argued that a review of its permit would cause delays and jeopardize contracts for equipment and services that are necessary well in advance of construction. In the order, Chutkan wrote that the court was not convinced that the developer was likely to suffer immediate and significant hardship as a result of the reconsideration. Ocean Winds was not immediately available for comment. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/trump-administration-may-reconsider-southcoast-wind-project-approval-judge-rules-2025-11-04/
2025-11-04 21:03
43 people confirmed dead in Haiti, 32 in Jamaica Jamaica PM sees $6-7 billion economic hit in early estimate Melissa was among the Atlantic's strongest storms Climate change fuels stronger storms across Caribbean KINGSTON, Nov 4 (Reuters) - Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness on Tuesday said that last week's Hurricane Melissa, the strongest-ever storm to hit its shores, caused damage to homes and key infrastructure roughly equivalent to 28% to 32% of last year's gross domestic product. Holness told the Caribbean nation's lower house the $6 billion to $7 billion estimate was conservative, based on damages assessed so far, and short-term economic output could decline by 8% to 13%. Sign up here. Holness warned that costs would push up Jamaica's debt-to-GDP ratio and that his government would activate emergency provisions to temporarily suspend the country's fiscal rules. Holness, whose government set out credit and insurance provisions for a storm similar to last year's Hurricane Beryl, said he was seeking financial support from regional allies, development agencies and the private sector. "Experts describe Melissa to be on the very edge of what is physically possible in the Atlantic Ocean, a storm powered by record sea temperatures," he said. "Its force was so immense that seismographs hundreds of miles away registered its passage," he added. "Hurricane Melissa wasn't only a tragedy: It was a warning." Scientists say storms are intensifying faster as a result of greenhouse gas emissions warming ocean surfaces, piling up fuel for seasonal storms. Caribbean leaders have long called for reparations from wealthy heavy-polluting nations in the form of aid or debt relief. Holness pledged to rebuild infrastructure to withstand the worsening impacts of climate change, including moving parts of the electric grid underground. He also waived import taxes for some relief products such as solar panels and Starlink kits. "Every repaired bridge, re-roofed home and rebuilt road must be designed for the storms of tomorrow, not the storms of yesterday," he said. AT LEAST 75 KILLED By Tuesday, Melissa's confirmed death toll climbed to 75, as Haiti's official count climbed to 43 with 13 more missing, adding to the 32 confirmed deaths in Jamaica. Haiti was not directly hit but lashed with days of rain that flooded rivers. In one Haitian town, 25 died including 10 children. Nearly 12,000 homes were flooded, roads left impassible and communities lost access to drinking water. Both countries expect the number to climb as more bodies are recovered. Holness said more than 30 Jamaican communities likely remained cut off by damages to roads and bridges. He said response efforts were hampered by shortages in helicopters, social workers, doctors and engineers, and that this underlined the need to carefully plan ahead for future storms. Cuban authorities evacuated hundreds of thousands of people last week as Melissa landed near its second-largest city, Santiago. They reported no deaths, but extensive damage to homes, crops and infrastructure. Experts at U.S. forecaster AccuWeather estimated damages across the Caribbean of $48 to $52 billion. Data analytics firm Verisk estimated $2.2 billion to $4.2 billion in insured losses in Jamaica, a nation roughly the size of Connecticut. Melissa slammed into Jamaica's agricultural heartlands already battered by last year's Hurricane Beryl, which lawmakers said could push up the prices of food. It also tore through parts of the nation's key tourism corridor. Lawmakers said thousands of tourism workers were out of a job. https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/hurricane-melissa-cost-jamaica-around-30-gdp-pm-estimates-2025-11-04/
