Crude oil rose to a record above US$85 a barrel as tensions on the Turkey-Iraq border increased concern that supplies may be threatened as global inventories decline.
Turkish lawmakers will vote this week on allowing military attacks within a year against Kurdish rebel bases in the north of Iraq, which has the world's third-largest oil reserves. Global fuel inventories fell below a five-year average last month, a period when they typically rise, the International Energy Agency said on Oct. 11.
"The Turkish-Iraqi dispute is adding to the bullish sentiment," said Edo Gerbrands, a trader with Fortis Bank in Brussels. "Today, we start from scratch to get it higher."
Crude oil for delivery next month climbed as much as US$1.50, or 1.8 percent, to US$85.19 in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract traded at US$84.76 at 11:43am London time.
Brent crude oil for settlement next month rose as much as US$1.38, or 1.7 percent, to a record US$81.93 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange. It traded at US$81.73 a barrel at 11:43am.
Prices rallied last week after 15 Turkish soldiers were killed by Kurdistan Workers' Party rebels. Crude also rose as the IEA said declining product inventories are sustaining high prices and after a US Energy Department report showed the nation's crude stockpiles unexpectedly fell the week before.
Citigroup Inc raised its forecast of the price of Brent and West Texas Intermediate oil by US$10 a barrel to US$70 a barrel next year and to US$65 in 2009.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
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],”