The price of a barrel of crude could double if the unrest in the Arab world deteriorates, oil trader turned British Minister of State for International Development Alan Duncan warned yesterday.
Duncan, who has 30 years’ business experience in the Gulf, told the Times newspaper that the price of a barrel of crude could top US$200, well above the record high of US$147 reached in July 2008.
If extremists used the instability in the Arab world to bomb oil tankers, pipelines or Saudi reserves, prices could even hit US$250 a barrel, Duncan said.
Photo: Reuters
The Times said analysts fear such highs could trigger another recession in Britain.
“I’ve been saying in government for two months ... US$200 is on the cards if this goes wrong, if anyone is reckless and foments unrest. All I’m predicting is danger,” Duncan said. “It could be very serious. If crude oil doubles, you’re going to have a very serious spike [in gasoline prices]. Try living without it for a week.”
The British government is under pressure over the price at the pumps, with 63 percent of the cost going to the exchequer.
If the worst happened, current prices of US$2.10 a liter (0.26 gallons) at the pump “could look like a luxury,” Duncan said, warning of US$6.50 a liter.
“A Twittered-up generation now has massive power. All Arab countries are moving on, but they are all different,” he said.
“The powers are shifting, but you can’t do it overnight. We are asking them to do at the flick of a switch what we took centuries to do,” he said.
“The majority of these rulers are not dictators. These are -countries with their own history and cultures. Who are we to lecture? We must treat these countries with respect,” he said.
The people who want all unelected leaders to go should remember Iran, Duncan said.
“It didn’t work with the Shah, we must pray it works in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. At the moment this is secular, economic and demographic, but if it goes wrong you will see Islamic fundamentalism becoming the only vehicle for people’s grievances,” he said.
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],”
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
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained