Oil prices swung higher Friday, bouncing back from losses the day before as nerves set in about cool weather, the level of US crude oil inventories, and terrorism.
New York's benchmark light sweet crude contract for delivery in December surged US$0.59 to US$30.85 a barrel. Brent North Sea crude for December gained US$0.50 to US$28.91.
A forecast of a return of cold weather to the northeastern US after an unseasonably warm spell "did not hurt" prices, said AG Edwards market analyst Bill O'Grady.
Renewed terrorism fears based on rumors also unnerved oil market traders, he said.
The price rise reversed a sell-off on Thursday, which was itself a reaction to dollar-plus per barrel prices increases Wednesday when data showed relatively low US commercial crude oil inventories.
"Brent is a little bit stronger again as it got oversold on the close yesterday, exactly the opposite of what happened the day before," said GNI trader Lee Elliott in London.
"The market is very volatile and it is extremely difficult to trade at the moment. The market is very nervous and is looking for a new trend."
Meanwhile, attacks on Iraq's oil pipelines and installations are on the increase, the Middle East Economic Survey (MEES) reports in its Monday edition, blaming a reorganized Baath party.
"MEES learns from industry sources in Baghdad that the attacks on oil piplines and other installations show no signs of stopping -- and are even on the increase. Not only are the acts of sabotage targeting Iraq's main export pipeline to Turkey and preventing the resumption of exports through it, but they are also interrupting the supply of crude to the Dora and Baiji refineries," the specialist weekly says.
It adds that Iraq is being forced to import more and more petroleum products to meet the shortfall.
The industry newsletter gives credibility to a a statement purportedly issued by the Baath party and published in the Lebanese newspaper An-Nahar on Nov. 2 outlining a strategy of resistance.
Besides trying to force the withdrawal of foreign troops, the document says "the resistance will work to prevent the exploitation of Iraq's natural resources, especially oil, on the part of the occupiers," the Cyprus-based weekly notes.
An explosion caused a large fire on a pipeline near Iraq's northern oil center of Kirkuk Friday, an oil company official told reporters.
The blast ripped through a pipeline linking Kirkuk with the al-Debs oilfields, further north, at 7pm, sources said.
SECOND-RATE: Models distilled from US products do not perform the same as the original and undo measures that ensure the systems are neutral, the US’ cable said The US Department of State has ordered a global push to bring attention to what it said are widespread efforts by Chinese companies, including artificial intelligence (AI) start-up DeepSeek (深度求索), to steal intellectual property from US AI labs, according to a diplomatic cable. The cable, dated Friday and sent to diplomatic and consular posts around the world, instructs diplomatic staff to speak to their foreign counterparts about “concerns over adversaries’ extraction and distillation of US AI models.” Distillation is the process of training smaller AI models using output from larger, more expensive ones to lower the costs of training a powerful new
Singapore-based ride-hailing and delivery giant Grab Holdings’ planned acquisition of Foodpanda’s Taiwan operations has yet to enter the formal review stage, as regulators await supplementary documents, the Fair Trade Commission (FTC) said yesterday. Acting FTC Chairman Chen Chih-min (陳志民) told the legislature’s Economics Committee that although Grab submitted its application on March 27, the case has not been officially accepted because required materials remain incomplete. Once the filing is finalized, the FTC would launch a formal probe into the deal, focusing on issues such as cross-shareholding and potential restrictions on market competition, Chen told lawmakers. Grab last month announced that it would acquire
Shares of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) have repeatedly hit new highs, but an equity analyst said the stock’s valuation remains within a reasonable range and any pullback would likely be technical. The contract chipmaker’s historical price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio has ranged between 20 and 30, Cathay Futures Consultant Co (國泰證期) analyst Tsai Ming-han (蔡明翰) told Central News Agency. With market consensus projecting that TSMC would post earnings per share of about NT$100 (US$3.17) this year, supported by strong global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) applications, and the stock currently trading at a P/E ratio of below 25, Tsai said the valuation
The artificial intelligence (AI) boom has triggered a seismic reshuffling of global equity markets, with Taiwan and South Korea muscling past European nations one by one. With its stock market now valued at nearly US$4.3 trillion, Taiwan surpassed the UK, Europe’s biggest market, earlier this month, data compiled by Bloomberg showed. South Korea is about US$140 billion away from doing the same. The tech-heavy Asian markets have shot past Germany and France in the past seven months. The shift is largely down to massive gains in shares of three companies that provide essential hardware for AI: Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電),
RSS