PETROLEUM
Oil prices may drop: Kudrin
Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said oil prices might drop as low as US$70 a barrel, reducing investment into the world’s largest crude producer. The price of oil, Russia’s biggest export earner, might fall to within US$70 to US$90 a barrel in the next few years, slowing flows of capital into the country, which derives about a quarter of its economic output from energy sales, Kudrin said on Saturday at an economic forum in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk. As oil prices fall, “capital won’t be coming in so quickly,” he said. “We will need to look for investments through an improved investment climate and through ensuring the stability of our macroeconomic policy.” Brent, the oil blend that underpins prices for Russia’s Urals crude, has climbed 1.5 percent this month to a two-year high of US$104.52 a barrel last week as unrest in the Middle East stokes concern oil-supply routes would be disrupted.
UNITED KINGDOM
Osborne supports BOE
Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne said the Bank of England (BOE) is right to look beyond accelerating inflation and maintain interest rates at historic lows to bolster the recovery. The Treasury’s effort to reduce the deficit in part by increasing value added tax has added to consumer prices and the central bank should focus on price stability further in the future, Osborne said. The bank last week said inflation, already at a two-year high, will quicken further to about 4.4 percent before easing by the middle of next year. “Any monetary authority and, certainly one with the competence and capability of the Bank of England, can see through temporary increases in price levels and look to permanent threats to inflation,” Osborne told reporters in Paris following talks with G20 finance ministers yesterday.
MINING
BHP Billiton eyes takeovers
BHP Billiton Ltd CEO Marius Kloppers yesterday said takeovers are on his agenda even after pledging to spend US$80 billion on BHP’s own projects. Regulatory concerns are impeding iron-ore takeovers by the world’s largest mining company, though BHP’s potash, copper and oil and gas businesses aren’t constrained in the same way, Kloppers told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. Reporting record first-half profit, Kloppers last week unveiled a program to develop BHP’s mines and oil fields after three investments worth a total of more than US$100 billion were knocked back in the past four years. Still, he said, while surging commodity prices have led to some “very high” asset valuations, those conditions may not last. “Cycles change,” Kloppers said on the Inside Business program.
AIRLINES
Haneda Airport adds routes
Tokyo’s Haneda Airport boosted its international connections yesterday as three new routes were launched linking it to London, New York and Detroit. British Airways PLC started operating five flights a week between Haneda and London Heathrow Airport, while an American Airlines Inc plane left for New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport on the return leg of the inaugural daily round-trip flight. Delta Air Lines Inc also launched its regular Haneda-Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport service. Haneda is just 15km from Tokyo’ city center, but has been used mainly for domestic flights since the 1978 opening of Narita International Airport. Delta was due to start up another route between Haneda and Los Angeles International Airport early today, taking the total number of foreign connections to 16.
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],”