Market News: White House to Extend Shipping Waiver to Ease Oil Supply Crunch

BlockBeats News, April 24th. According to market sources, the White House will extend the waiver of the century-old Shipping Act, the Jones Act, to reduce the transportation costs of oil, natural gas, and other commodities within the United States, easing the tight oil supply situation. Previously, Trump had announced a temporary waiver of the Jones Act on March 18th to address the energy price surge caused by the Iran war, authorizing foreign-flagged vessels to transport a range of commodities between U.S. ports in the next 60 days.

The Jones Act stipulates that goods transported between U.S. ports must be carried by vessels flying the U.S. flag, built-in America, and U.S.-owned. The waiver exempts certain goods from these requirements, allowing foreign vessels to temporarily transport various products. The waiver scope includes coal, crude oil, refined oil products, natural gas, liquefied natural gas, fertilizers, products primarily derived from refined oil, and other energy derivatives.

According to Bitget market data, possibly affected by this, WTI and Brent crude oil prices both dropped over 2% intraday, now standing at $97.24 per barrel and $99.10 per barrel, respectively.

According to PolyBeats monitoring, on the prediction market Polymarket, the probability of "Hormuz Strait reopening by the end of this month" is only 3%, and the probability of reopening by the end of May is 35%, both lower than before.