Oil prices rebounded higher on Friday, with prices in New York closing above US$50 a barrel for the first time, as traders fretted about Nigerian oil production amid a threatened rebel uprising.
The light sweet crude November futures contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange closed up US$0.48 at US$50.12 a barrel, posting a record close, on the latest Nigerian worries.
In London, the price of reference Brent North Sea crude oil for delivery in November rose US$0.24 to close at US$46.62 a barrel.
Oil prices hit all-time peaks of US$50.47 in out-of-hours deals in New York on Tuesday and US$46.80 in London on Tuesday amid unrest in Nigeria.
"There are still concerns about Nigeria," said New York-based Refco oil analyst Marshall Steeves, referring to Friday's closing price spike.
Unrest in Iraq and disruption to Gulf of Mexico oil output, caused by recent hurricanes that have struck Florida, have also stoked oil prices in recent weeks, tightening US domestic stocks.
"Concern about Nigeria, because a lot of Nigerian oil goes to making gasoline," said Mike Fitzpatrick, an oil trader with Fimat in New York.
"I don't know if worries about gasoline inventories are justified, [there] appears to be plenty of gasoline in stockpiles," Fitzpatrick said, adding traders often worry about supplies on Fridays as they depart for the weekend.
Traders are holding their breath that the Nigerian government, in peace talks with rebels, will be able to stave off a threatened uprising by the rebels, who said they would mount an all-out war on the government if their demands were not met. The country is a key supplier to the US and Africa's biggest oil exporter.
Asari's Niger Delta People's Volunteer Force has threatened oil installations and asked foreign oil workers to quit the region. It is one of the militias fighting for supremacy over control of the west African country's illegal oil traffic.
The group claims to be fighting for the rights of the ethnic Ijaws living around the center of Nigeria's Niger delta oil industry, which turns out about 2.3 million barrels per day.
However, just after the New York market closed, two other militias in the delta, the People's Volunteer Force and the Niger Delta Vigilante, reportedly promised they would stop fighting government forces and hand in their weapons.
DAMAGE REPORT: Global central banks are assessing war-driven inflation risks as the law of unintended consequences careens around the world, spiking oil prices Central banks from Washington to London and from Jakarta to Taipei are about to make their first assessments of economic damage after more than two weeks of conflict between the US and Iran. Decisions this week encompassing every member of the G7 and eight of the world’s 10 most-traded currency jurisdictions are likely to confirm to investors that the specter of a new inflation shock is already worrying enough to prompt heightened caution. The US Federal Reserve is widely expected to do exactly what everyone anticipated weeks ahead of its March 17-18 policy gathering: hold rates steady. The narrative surrounding that
At a massive shipyard in North Vancouver, Canadian workers grind metal beams for a powerful new icebreaker crucial to cementing the country’s presence in the increasingly contested arctic. Icebreakers are specialized, expensive vessels able to navigate in the frozen far north. And “this is the crown jewel,” said Eddie Schehr, vice president of production at the Seaspan shipyard. For Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who heads to Norway next Friday to observe arctic defense drills involving troops from 14 NATO states, Canada’s extreme north has emerged as a strategic priority. “Canada is and forever will be an Arctic nation,” he said ahead of
Chinese entrepreneur Frank Gao used to spend long hours running his social media accounts but now outsources the chore to artificial intelligence (AI) agent tool OpenClaw, which is taking China by storm despite official warnings over cybersecurity. OpenClaw, created in November by an Austrian coder, differs from bots such as ChatGPT because it can execute real-life tasks such as sending e-mails, organizing files or even booking flight tickets. “Since January, I’ve spent hours on the lobster every day,” Gao said in an interview, referring to OpenClaw’s red crustacean mascot. “We’re family.” After downloading OpenClaw, users connect it to artificial intelligence models of their
PRICE HIKES: The war in the Middle East would not significantly disrupt supply in the short term, but semiconductor companies are facing price surges for materials Taiwan’s semiconductor companies are not facing imminent supply disruptions of essential chemicals or raw materials due to the war in the Middle East, but surges in material costs loom large, industry association SEMI Taiwan said yesterday. The association’s comments came amid growing concerns that supplies of helium and other key raw materials used in semiconductor production could become a choke point after Qatar shut down its liquefied natural gas (LNG) production and helium output earlier this month due to the conflict. Qatar is the second-largest LNG supplier in the world and accounts for about 33 percent of global helium output. Helium is
RSS