World oil prices dipped on Friday as traders kept a wary eye on global stock market turmoil and focused on the demand outlook for gasoline.
New York's main oil futures contract, light sweet crude for delivery in April, closed down US$0.36 at US$61.64 per barrel.
Across the Atlantic in London, the price of Brent North Sea crude for April delivery settled down a slight US$0.03 at US$62.08 per barrel.
"Fundamentally, the concern is for gasoline supply in America [and] everybody is turning attention more to the [US] driving season," said Base Commodities trader Tony Machacek, in reference to the peak-demand holiday season when many in the US hit the roads for their holidays.
The so-called US driving season starts in late May and the oil market is starting to switch its attention to gasoline and away from heating fuel, as the northern hemisphere winter winds down and energy players begin to adjust their holdings.
On Thursday, world oil prices rose to peaks for this year above US$62 as traders focused on a weekly US Department of Energy report amid global stock market jitters tied to concerns about Chinese and US economic growth.
The hefty gains came after "a larger than expected drop in US distillate and gasoline stocks," according to Sucden analyst Michael Davies. Lingering cold weather in parts of the US has lengthened demand for heating fuel.
Meanwhile, traders continued to keep a watch on the ongoing volatility sweeping global stock markets.
Machacek added that market players were "still very jittery," and that oil prices could slide further if the stock market had another tumble.
Earlier this week, crude oil prices had fallen as traders viewed the sell-off in global stock markets as a sign that fuel demand in the US and China might not grow as robustly as the market had anticipated.
Elsewhere, geopolitical concerns continued to simmer over tensions between the West and key crude producer Iran over Tehran's nuclear ambitions.
Iran's unwillingness to slow down its uranium enrichment program is stoking global supply fears, analysts said.
Traders are concerned that if Iran, a key member of the OPEC, is punished with economic sanctions by the West over its nuclear energy program, the Islamic republic might retaliate by slashing its oil exports.
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
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts