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The deal is expected to help Phillips’s per-share earnings, though its closing is subject to customary conditions

Phillips 66 PSX -0.79%decrease; red down pointing triangle said it would buy EPIC NGL for $2.2 billion in a deal to help the Houston oil refiner grow its Permian midstream business.

The agreement for EPIC—which owns various subsidiaries and long-haul natural gas liquids pipelines, fractionation facilities and distribution systems—consists of two fractionators near Corpus Christi, Texas; approximately 350 miles of purity distribution pipelines; and an approximately 885-mile natural gas liquids pipeline that links production supplies in the Delaware, Midland and Eagle Ford basins to refinery complexes, Phillips said Monday.

The deal is expected to help Phillips’s per-share earnings immediately, though its closing is subject to customary conditions.

Phillips said EPIC is in the process of increasing its pipeline capacity to 225 million barrels a day, and has sanctioned a second expansion to increase capacity to 350 million barrels a day.

Consumer prices were 0.6% higher in December than the same month in 2023, down from 0.7% in November

Switzerland’s inflation rate edged down in the final month of 2024, reinforcing the Swiss central bank’s decision to cut its key rate for the fourth-straight meeting last month.

Consumer prices were 0.6% higher in December than the same month of 2023, down from the annual inflation rate of 0.7% posted in November, the country’s statistics agency said Tuesday. December’s rate, which matched consensus expectations of economists polled by The Wall Street Journal, was the same as October’s level, which was the lowest since June 2021.

The Swiss National Bank cut its key rate in December to 0.5% from 1.0% as it hoped to rein in the recently strengthening Swiss franc. The bank has reduced borrowing costs from 1.75% at the start of 2024, having seen inflation cool from highs above 3% in early 2023.

New chairman Martin Schlegel has signaled likely rate cuts ahead, arguing that negative interest rates weren’t excluded from the SNB’s monetary policy toolbox in an effort to put a lid on the currency and protect its exports.

The Swiss franc is seen as a safe haven by investors amid international economic uncertainty, which could rise should the incoming administration of Donald Trump in the U.S. disrupt global trade flows. The Swiss franc retreated against the euro and U.S. dollar after the inflation data release.

“The fall in Swiss inflation in December suggests that the SNB’s decision to cut by a bumper 50 basis points in December was fully justified,” Capital Economics Europe economist Adrian Prettejohn said in a note to clients.

Indeed, inflation could fall further in January after an anticipated decline in electricity prices, with the SNB expecting annual inflation to average at 0.3% in 2025, down from 1.1% in 2024.

The bank will most likely cut its policy rate by a further quarter-point at its next meeting in March, and cuts after that shouldn’t be ruled out, Prettejohn added.

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Bitcoin miners stockpile coins to ride out profit squeeze

US-listed groups tap investors for cash as competition for resources intensifies

US bitcoin miners are accumulating war chests of the cryptocurrency to help them withstand tightening margins as competition for resources intensifies.

Companies including Mara Holdings, Riot Platforms and CleanSpark have used the soaring price of bitcoin, which hit $100,000 last month, to raise more than $3.7bn from investors since November, which they have then used to fund the purchases of the coins. They have often raised the funds through zero — or near zero — coupon convertible notes.

Their moves comes in the wake of Donald Trump’s election victory, with the incoming US president having promised that bitcoin would be “mined, minted and made in the USA”.

But, for many, the headlong rush to buy more of the currency they are also mining comes down to protecting themselves against further financial pressure from high energy costs.

“It’s not as simple as the price of bitcoin has gone up and everyone’s happy,” said Russell Cann, chief development officer at Core Scientific. “Complex challenges still remain around profitability and access to the grid.”

The miners’ ambitious plans, which also include expanding capacity for artificial intelligence, mark a sharp reversal of outlook for the industry, which has struggled over the past eight months after the reward they receive for mining bitcoin halved.

Miners compete with each other to validate blocks of new transactions in bitcoin, making them a crucial link in ensuring the bitcoin network is secure and reliable.

The computer programs that run the bitcoin network are designed to halve the reward available to miners every four years. The latest, in April, cut the spoils on offer for miners from 900 to just 450 coins a day.

CoinShares, the investment group, estimated that the average cost to produce one bitcoin for all US-listed miners rose to $55,950 in the third quarter, up 13 per cent on the previous quarter. Including depreciation and stock-based compensation charges, the average cost to produce a bitcoin was $106,000. On Monday the cryptocurrency was trading at about $102,175.

“If the price didn’t rise, then we would have started to see quite a few start to turn rigs off or go bust,” said James Butterfill, head of research at CoinShares.

But the soaring price of bitcoin has pushed up one gauge of mining profitability, known has the hash price, which has risen 32 per cent since Trump’s victory. That glimmer of hope has prompted many miners to return to capital markets in search of fresh funds.

Some, such as Mara and Riot, are now taking their lead from MicroStrategy, a software group turned bitcoin purchaser that has led the way in issuing long-term convertible bonds to buy bitcoin. Miners are also promising to make the cryptocurrency the reserve asset for their corporate treasuries, increasing their bitcoin reserves and retaining all the new coins they mine.

“This ‘Trump bump’ has essentially given us more impetus to continue to invest in the US,” said Fred Thiel, chief executive of Mara Holdings. Its business model now is to “accumulate as much bitcoin as [we] can”. It now has nearly 45,000 bitcoin, worth more than $4.4bn.

Asher Genoot, chief executive of Hut 8, considers his company an “energy infrastructure” group with bitcoin as the financial base of its balance sheet.

In two months the industry has ploughed some $1.8bn of what it has raised into buying bitcoin.

However, the pressure on the miners has not abated. The collective amount of computing power required to secure the network, known as the hash rate, has continued to climb as new entrants come into the market. It hit an all-time high on Friday. The rising rate threatens to counteract the benefits of bitcoin’s price increase, further squeezing corporate profits.

“We are seeing a stratospheric rise in the bitcoin hash rate, highlighting a massive amount of new hardware coming online, making those at the higher end of cost of production much more vulnerable if we see a price correction,” Butterfill said.

The US industry is also facing fierce competition for resources at home. It has long been under pressure to justify its energy usage. The US Energy Information Agency estimates mining may already use 2.3 per cent of the country’s grid, although, with limited access to data, predictions vary. 

The Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index estimates that bitcoin trading at around $100,000 uses the same annualised energy as Poland.

Utility regulators in Texas demanded in November that all data centre facilities that consume more than 75MW provide annual energy data. The state is the largest in the US for crypto mining and authorities are predicting that demand for energy from large users will jump 60 per cent in 2025.

Executives say the bigger challenge comes from large-scale AI developers who have greater financial resources than miners.

“Artificial intelligence demand in the US is going to greatly affect how much bitcoin mining can be added to the grid,” said Core Scientific’s Cann, who predicted that the majority of computing power for bitcoin in coming years would be outside the US.

“It’s just math to say: is [the grid]’s best use as a bitcoin mining facility, or as an AI data centre? And right now, from an economics perspective, it’s going to be AI,” said Cann.

Mara aims to offshore half of its mines by 2028, expanding in places that have surplus energy such as Kenya, the United Arab Emirates and Paraguay.

But others are trying to finder faster routes to profits by riding the AI wave. The Nvidia graphic processing units used for cryptocurrency mining also lend themselves to handle the vast quantities of data for AI. Hut 8, Core Scientific and Hive have all pivoted to leasing their data centre capacity to artificial intelligence hyperscalers.

“Yes, bitcoin’s up, and it really helps, but if energy prices were to spike tomorrow, it’s still a tough day to be a bitcoin miner,” said Zach Bradford, chief executive of CleanSpark, a US-listed cryptocurrency miner.

Nippon Steel chief warns Trump that tariffs alone will not strengthen US industry

Eiji Hashimoto says legal action against blocking of takeover aimed at winning another review under new administration

The chief executive of Nippon Steel has warned that tariffs alone would not create a stronger American steel industry, as he pursued legal action aimed at persuading Donald Trump’s incoming administration to launch another review of his proposed $15bn deal to buy US Steel.

In his first public appearance since President Joe Biden blocked the takeover last week, Eiji Hashimoto told reporters in Tokyo that the combination would enhance US national security by creating a stronger company.

“We don’t think there is any other route that can strengthen the US steel industry more than this deal,” he said. “We never think that industry can become stronger through tariffs alone.”

The comments came after the Tokyo- and Pittsburgh-based companies filed a pair of legal cases in the US on Monday, alleging Biden’s decision to block the deal amounted to “wrongful interference”.

Hashimoto’s remarks were aimed at Trump, who has argued against a sale of US Steel as he gears up to introduce protectionist measures for the sector.

Trump posted on the Truth Social platform on Monday: “Why would they want to sell US Steel now when Tariffs will make it a much more profitable and valuable company?”

At the heart of the debate is whether an acquisition of US Steel by a company based in Japan, a crucial Washington ally, would weaken the American steel industry and threaten production levels, or whether a capital and technology injection would enhance national security.

Under Biden’s order, the two companies have 30 days to “fully and permanently abandon” the proposed transaction, unless the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US (Cfius), grants an extension.

The two companies may seek injunctive relief to push back that deadline, according to lawyers.

Hashimoto urged Cfius, the inter-agency body that screens overseas investment, to reopen a national security review under the Trump administration, after it had failed to reach consensus on whether the deal posed a security risk.

“This trial is to get them to accept my claims and to gain the right to another Cfius review under a new administration,” he said. “This differs from usual court cases.”

Biden nixing the deal has shaken faith in Washington’s support for “friendshoring” — working with allies and partners to build alternative supply chains to China and Russia within US borders and elsewhere.

“The court case is important because it tests the outer bounds of the Executive Branch’s authority to review foreign investments,” said Anthony Rapa, co-chair of international trade at Blank Rome, a law firm.

Nippon Steel and US Steel’s first legal case demanded that Biden’s order be set aside due to “unlawful political interference” in the Cfius process. The second legal case was against rival steel producer Cleveland-Cliffs, its chief executive Lourenco Goncalves and the United Steelworkers union’s president David McCall, alleging “illegal and co-ordinated actions” to prevent the deal from going ahead.

David Plotinsky, partner at the Morgan Lewis law firm, said Nippon Steel and US Steel’s litigation challenge to the Cfius process would be an “uphill battle” due to the expansive scope of what can constitute national security.

But “the government is faced with some genuinely bad facts in this case”, he added.