China’s March auto data shows how sharply the country’s car industry is splitting into two different stories at once. At home, demand remains weak, inventories are heavy, and even the electric-vehicle segment is struggling after incentive reductions and a fragile economic recovery.

Abroad, however, Chinese carmakers are finding a much more powerful growth engine. Vehicle exports jumped 73.7% year on year to nearly 700,000 units in March, accelerating from the 54.1% pace seen in the first two months of the year. Domestic sales, by contrast, fell 15.2% to 1.67 million units, marking a sixth straight monthly decline.

A ceasefire may have taken some of the panic out of oil futures, but it has not resolved the real problem in the physical market: the Strait of Hormuz is still functioning far below normal levels, and that means the global scramble for barrels remains alive. The market’s initial relief rally reflected hope that a pause in fighting would quickly unlock trapped crude and restore Gulf exports.

Yet the hard evidence points to a much slower and more fragile normalization. Shipping traffic through Hormuz remains severely depressed, with fewer than 10% of normal vessel movements recorded on April 9, and only seven ships passing in 24 hours versus a usual level of roughly 140.

The European Commission is preparing to soften how the EU’s methane-import law is enforced, not by scrapping the regulation, but by making clear that compliance will be handled in a way that does not threaten energy security.

The planned guidance would give companies more flexibility on penalties and on how they trace imported fossil fuels, with the aim of preventing the methane rules from becoming a barrier to supply at a moment when Europe is again anxious about imported energy dependence.

The Iran war is strengthening the strategic case for electric vehicles by reminding governments and consumers that oil dependence is not just a climate problem but a security vulnerability. Even if the ceasefire holds and crude prices retreat further, the shock has already demonstrated how quickly fuel markets can seize up when a chokepoint like the Strait of Hormuz is disrupted.

The International Energy Agency has described the conflict as the largest supply disruption in history, and by April at least 28 countries had introduced emergency fuel-conservation measures.

Libya’s announcement of three new oil and gas discoveries is important less for the immediate production volumes than for what it signals about the country’s attempt to revive upstream momentum and reassert itself as a more credible energy player after years of disruption.

The National Oil Corporation said the new finds were made with Sonatrach in the Ghadames Basin, with Eni offshore western Libya, and with Repsol in the Murzuq Basin. Initial test results point to gas and condensate output in the Ghadames and offshore discoveries, and an oil flow of 763 barrels per day in the Murzuq well.

The ceasefire between the United States and Iran has lifted some of the macroeconomic anxiety weighing on industrial metal markets, but copper bulls face a challenge that no diplomatic breakthrough can resolve: China, the consumer of more than half the world’s refined copper, is demonstrating both the willingness and the growing structural capacity to resist elevated prices by curtailing imports and ramping up exports.

The country’s net draw on copper from the rest of the world in January and February combined was the weakest for any start to a year since 2006, a signal that the demand engine on which the entire copper bull thesis depends is no longer operating according to the script that Western investors have been pricing in.

Asian refined fuel prices plunged in double digits on Wednesday following the US-Iranian ceasefire announcement, but the post-selloff levels tell a far more important story than the day’s percentage decline. Jet fuel in Singapore, despite falling over fourteen percent in a single session, remains more than double its pre-conflict price. Gasoil is still fifty-nine percent above where it stood on February 27. Gasoline has risen fifty-two percent.

The ceasefire may have broken the speculative fever, but the physical market underneath remains severely stressed, and the data suggests conditions are likely to deteriorate further before they improve, regardless of the diplomatic trajectory.

The Gulf conflict may be edging toward a diplomatic resolution, but the damage it has inflicted on the global liquefied natural gas industry extends far beyond the immediate price shock and supply disruption.

The crisis has fundamentally undermined confidence in the reliability of Gulf-origin LNG supply, raised existential questions about the fuel’s viability as a transition energy source for developing Asian economies, and accelerated a strategic reassessment among importers that could permanently reshape the trajectory of global gas demand growth.