Global oil prices were mixed on Friday amid profit taking on a price surge this week driven by concerns about tight US gasoline supplies just ahead of peak vacation-season demand.
New York's main oil futures contract, light sweet crude for delivery in June closed US$0.08 higher at US$64.94 a barrel.
In London, Brent North Sea crude for July delivery lost US$0.85 to close at US$69.42, after shooting up to US$70.35, a high last seen more than eight months ago.
Crude futures have gained more than US$2.50 in New York and London this week as the market focused on problems at US refineries ahead of the high-demand driving season and unrest in oil producer Nigeria.
US government data showed gasoline inventories are more than 7 percent below their five-year average for mid-May.
Dealers said the market remained concerned whether US refineries could meet gasoline demand when Americans take to the highways during the holiday driving season which begins in earnest on May 26.
The Automobile Association of America (AAA) said 38.8 million drivers were expected to hit the road that weekend, 1.7 percent more than last year, putting pressure on demand.
The price of gasoline at the pump has jumped from record to record, but apparently has made little dent in Americans' desire to drive. On Friday the average price leapt to US$3.129 a gallon (3.78 liters), a new record, the AAA said.
For John Kilduff of Man Financial, the tight gasoline supply "will remain the primary influence on prices, at least for the short term."
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
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],”
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
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day