Oil prices rose in London on Friday in thin trading as analysts gauged the impact on key markets of a possible dearth of US heating oil stockpiles during the northern winter.
In London, Brent North Sea crude oil for January rose US$0.20 to US$44.86 a barrel in late deals.
Trading in New York's main oil contract, light sweet crude for January delivery, remained suspended because of the Thanksgiving holiday in the US on Thursday.
New York oil closed up US$0.50 at US$49.44 a barrel on Wednesday from the price on Tuesday.
After much volatility in recent weeks, oil prices were finding a more stable footing, said Richard Slape, analyst at Seymour Pierce.
"We always anticipated that it [Brent] would stabilize somewhere in the US$40-US$45 levels," he added.
Markets are worried, however, that a cold winter in the northern hemisphere will push up demand at a time when US heating oil stocks are 14 percent lower than a year earlier.
"The key thing at this time of year is clearly the fuel oil stocks and they are much, much lower than they were 12 months ago," Slape said.
Supply concerns linger despite US government inventory data showing a build in distillate stockpiles, the first for 10 weeks.
The US Department of Energy on Wednesday reported that distillate stockpiles, including crucial heating oil inventories, rose by 1 million barrels to 115.6 million barrels in the week ending Nov. 19, breaking a nine-week streak of declines.
The American Petroleum Institute, a private trade association, reported an even larger build-up of 1.82 million barrels to 117.6 million barrels.
Traders were meanwhile keeping a close watch over Iraq, where a key pipeline linking Iraq's northern oil fields to a major refinery had been attacked on Thursday, a local oil official said, although the national guard denied this.
The reported attack came two days after the Iraqi national guard deployed some 2,000 men to take over responsibility from private security firms and tribal organizations for the protection of the pipeline.
Meanwhile, crude production from southern Iraq was cut by half owing to maintenance work carried out by the US firm Halliburton, a source from the South Oil Company said late on Thursday.
Production fell from 1.8 million barrels per day to 950,000 barrels per day, the source added.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last