Ed Ballard

What we're really talking about is really long lines of trucks barreling across the desert.

Before the war, there were about 100 trucks a day.

Now there are 7,000.

What we're really talking about is really long lines of trucks barreling across the desert.

The UAE has ports on both sides of the Strait of Hormuz.

And the ones on the outside, we write about Khor Fakhan in our story, has gone from being relatively sleepy and quiet to an extremely important conduit for goods coming in and out.

So a container traffic at that port has exploded from 2,000 to 50,000 a week.

And that's been enabled by these huge lines of trucks.

Before the war, there were about 100 trucks a day.

Now there are 7,000.

It's never going to be as cheap as moving stuff by sea, and you won't be able to compensate for all the volumes.

And of course, there are lots of energy products that can't be moved over land.

But I think it's quite likely these countries will move to shore up these arrangements, maybe strengthen them with new rail links, new infrastructure, so they have this option in the future.

To critics of the administration, it looks pretty strange to be paying companies not to develop projects at a time when bills are going up, lots of data centers are being built that require lots of energy, and electricity is in short supply.

An important thing to know about these arrangements is that the companies will get their money back contingent on investing in oil and gas infrastructure.

The Trump administration consistently views oil and gas and coal as the most reliable, low-cost form of energy.

However, it's not quite that simple because one of these companies has agreed to put the money into an LNG export terminal.

And of course, that's not a like for like thing.

It's not like that is going to generate electrons for the grid.

That's more about exporting American oil and gas.