Three to five years of 12.8 million tons in liquified natural gas exports worth some $20 billion in annual revenue. Gone overnight.

That’s according to QatarEnergy CEO Saad al-Kaabi, who told Reuters Thursday that 17% of Qatar’s globally crucial LNG export capacity was extinguished in Iranian strikes that he couldn’t have imagined in his “wildest dreams.” Consulting firm MST Marquee warned that the escalating attacks on energy infrastructure in the Persian Gulf are pushing the world closer to a “doomsday gas crisis scenario.”

USA #1 (Exporter)

The Iranian missile strikes on Qatar’s Ras Laffan plant, the largest LNG production facility on earth, came early Thursday in retaliation for an attack by Israel on Iran’s South Pars gas facilities. Because of the “extensive damage” to QatarEnergy, al-Kaabi said the state firm will be forced to declare force majeure on long-term LNG export contracts with Belgium, China, Italy and South Korea for up to five years. That will leave major buyers in Asia and Europe searching mightily to replace a whole lot of lost volume, creating prolonged price pressure as those buyers compete for LNG elsewhere. Higher prices would, in turn, feed into inflation and weigh especially hard on the world’s biggest net importers, which are mostly in Asia and Europe. In Europe, benchmark Dutch natural gas futures jumped 11.6% to €60.99 ($70.48) per megawatt hour on Thursday.

Qatar is the world’s second-largest LNG exporter, so it stands to reason that there is upside for the producers in the country at the top of the list, the United States:

• US natural gas production hit a record 118.5 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) last year, with roughly 20% destined for export. Shares in Cheniere Energy, the largest US producer, rose 5.9% on Thursday. For consumers at home, US natural gas prices have been relatively flat since the start of the Iran conflict, in part because the US produces almost all the natural gas it consumes.
• US LNG export terminals are currently operating near capacity, according to the US Energy Information Administration, so even though American producers would benefit from higher export revenues, the country is not positioned to offset a global supply shock. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission forecasts US export capacity will expand dramatically in the coming years, adding 35 Bcf/d.

Joint Ventures and Misadventures: The next major US export facility slated to come online is the Golden Pass LNG terminal, a joint venture between ExxonMobil, which holds a 30% stake, and (ironically) QatarEnergy, which owns 70%. Exxon, as it happens, also has a stake in the facilities damaged in Qatar on Thursday.

As far as baseball surprises go, this one was a little more predictable than the all-star-stacked Team USA losing the World Baseball Classic.

On Thursday, Major League Baseball threw a curveball with a spin rate that would do Charlie Morton proud, making Polymarket the official prediction markets exchange of the American pastime. It’s the latest step toward legitimacy for the industry, though it comes amid fresh legal challenges and while MLB faces a gambling scandal of its own.

Tipping Pitches

The rapid rise of prediction markets and legalized sports betting has put integrity front and center for organized sports, and perhaps none more than professional baseball. Last season, federal prosecutors indicted Cleveland Guardians pitchers Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz in an ongoing case that alleges the pair were participating in an illegal gambling scheme.

Worse, the pair weren’t alleged to have thrown entire games, a la the infamous 1919 Chicago Black Sox, but merely to have rigged certain pitches, highlighting how hyper-specific prop bets open the door to far more discrete improper behavior.

MLB is moving forward with the Polymarket partnership anyway, in a deal that Front Office Sports reported will net the league $300 million over four years. MLB insists the deal increases integrity:

• While the arrangement gives Polymarket the rights to MLB trademarks and logos, MLB says it will now work with Polymarket to identify and restrict shady contracts that could pose integrity risks, such as bets on individual pitches or umpire decisions.
• Meanwhile, MLB also said Thursday that it a signed a “memorandum of understanding” with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the federal agency that regulates prediction contracts. MLB said it would engage in information-sharing and other integrity-protecting efforts with the CFTC.

State of the Gambling Union: In fact, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred pitched prediction markets Thursday as potentially more immune to illegal behavior than online sportsbooks: “The fact that you have a federal regulatory scheme makes our life a lot easier as opposed to … sports betting, where you’re going state by state.” Speaking of states, the state of Arizona filed criminal charges this week against prediction market Kalshi, alleging its peer-to-peer prediction contracts amount to an illegal gambling operation. One league source told ESPN that MLB could void its contract with Polymarket if courts end up ruling prediction markets violate state laws. Now, that sounds like a “one strike, you’re out” policy.

Apparently, the “quiet preferred” option isn’t enough for less chatty Uber riders. Uber said Thursday it’ll spend at least $300 million adding Rivian’s robotaxis to its fleet, with the potential to invest up to $1.25 billion.

Uber plans to add 10,000 Rivian R2 robotaxis to its fleet, revving up to as many as 50,000 by 2031. The Rivian-Uber team-up will hit the road in 2028, starting in San Francisco and Miami, with plans to expand to 25 cities globally.

While providing the unprofitable EV-maker with some cash, the deal helps Uber secure its future in a self-driving world.

The Great Robotaxi Race

Alphabet-owned Waymo has been coasting down an open road in autonomous ridesharing. But traffic’s up ahead, with Amazon, Tesla, and others starting robotaxi services. Uber doesn’t want to get left in the dust.

In addition to its Rivian deal, Uber has a $300 million partnership with EV-maker Lucid for at least 20,000 robotaxis, and Nvidia said Monday it’ll work with Uber and Lyft to get their robotaxis on the road. Uber’s push, however, could turn its old robotaxi friends into foes:

• Uber has partnerships with Waymo and other services, such as WeRide and Avride, that let riders book autonomous vehicles in the Uber app in select cities. Amazon said this month that its Zoox service will soon have a similar tie-up with Uber.
• For now, these partnerships help Uber keep robo-riders within its app. But once Uber beefs up its own autonomous armada, keeping competitors in the app could cannibalize Uber’s own robo-business.

Hands off the Wheel: Uber’s so dominant in the US rideshare market that the practice is literally called “Ubering,” not “ridesharing” and definitely not “Lyfting.” While Waymo and other autonomous rideshare services aren’t even a blip in Uber’s rearview mirror yet in terms of market share, they present a growing existential threat to Uber’s core business and, for the first time in years, competition. Uber wants to leverage its dominant position on people’s phones to beat robotaxi rivals to the road, but building an autonomous fleet won’t come cheap or fast.