Crude oil rose to an eight-week high as a nationwide strike aimed at ousting Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez limits shipments to refineries from the world's fifth-biggest oil exporter.
The US is "deeply concerned" about the deteriorating situation in Venezuela and is calling for early elections to end the 12-day strike, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said.
Oil inventories in the US, the biggest consumer, were below year-earlier levels before the strike began. About 9 percent of the oil used by US refineries is normally supplied by Venezuela.
PHOTO: AP
"There are going to be shortages," said Craig Gile, an energy-derivatives broker at Citibank NA in New York. "This is the last thing that's needed with the relatively tight inventories that we have. In the longer term, refiners will probably find alternative supplies but that will take a while to sort out."
Crude oil for January delivery rose US$0.43, or 1.5 percent, to US$28.44 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the highest closing price since Oct. 18. Oil futures gained 5.6 percent this week, the biggest weekly rise since mid-August.
In London, the January Brent crude-oil futures contract rose US$0.34, or 1.3 percent, to US$27.21 a barrel on the International Petroleum Exchange.
The Venezuelan government and opposition groups have failed to find common ground in talks aimed at ending walkout. An international mediator, Organization of American States General Secretary Cesar Gaviria, said there's a "high risk of violence."
Chavez's term in office expires in 2006.
Tankers from the South American country take a week to reach Texas and Louisiana refineries, compared with more than a month from the Persian Gulf.
US crude-oil inventories fell 274,000 barrels to 287.1 million barrels in the week ended Dec. 6, the American Petroleum Institute said earlier this week. Supplies were down 7.8 percent from the same week last year.
Prices for US crude-oil grades that normally compete with Venezuelan oil are rising faster than futures prices. The rally signals that refineries are bidding to acquire substitute supplies to make products such as gasoline and heating oil, analysts said.
Sour MARS Blend crude oil from the Gulf of Mexico rose US$0.99, or 3.9 percent, to US$26.70 a barrel as of 12:34pm New York time, the highest price since Oct. 18, according to Bloomberg data.
MARS was priced at minus US$1.90 a barrel to West Texas Intermediate crude oil, the US benchmark, narrower than minus US$2.30 yesterday.
Poseidon crude oil, another sour grade from the Gulf of Mexico, rose US$0.99 to US$27.10 a barrel. Poseidon was trading at minus US$1.50 a barrel to the West Texas grade, narrower than minus US$1.90 yesterday.
Sour is a term indicating that the oil has a high sulfur content.
World demand for crude oil is highest during the cold-weather months in the Northern Hemisphere, when refiners boost heating-fuel production.
US refiners had expected Venezuela to be a reliable source of oil at a time when Persian Gulf supplies were at risk because of a possible US attack on Iraq.
Iraq's 12,000-page declaration of its weapons programs doesn't account for chemical and biological agents that were missing when US inspectors left the country four years ago, the New York Times said, citing American officials and UN diplomats.
The US has said it would disarm Iraq by force if President Saddam Hussein refused to cooperate with UN weapons mandates.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six