The African Petroleum Producers Association (APPA), which represents oil and gas producers from Algeria to South Africa, called for a cut in oil output globally.
The group also includes the continent’s biggest producers Nigeria and Angola. It is starting an initiative, led by Angola and Algeria, to seek collaboration between OPEC members and other oil producers to reduce output and stabilize oil prices, which have halved since the end of June last year.
The association wants “to set up a platform of commitment at the international level from the producing countries,” Ivory Coast’s Ministry of Mines, Petroleum Resources and Energy exploration and production director Ousmane Doukoure said in a statement on Friday at the end of an APPA meeting in Abidjan, Ivory Coast’s economic capital.
African nations from Angola to Nigeria to Equatorial Guinea have had to cut their budgets and slash growth forecasts in recent months after the plunge in oil prices affected the amount of income they receive from their exports.
“We are very concerned by the drop of the price,” Equatorial Guinean Mines, Industry and Energy Minister Gabriel Lima said after the meeting. “We are revising already our budget because of the price and we have been welcoming an initiative by Angola and Algeria to study a way we can work together to stabilize the price in the future.”
Of the African producers only Algeria, Libya, Nigeria and Angola are members of OPEC. While some OPEC members have called for an output cut the biggest producer in the organization, Saudi Arabia, is opposing any reduction in output.
“The current prices are unfair and are having an impact on the economies of African countries,” Libya Dawn Oil Minister Mashallah Zwai said. “We will ensure our voice is heard about this crisis so as to emerge from it as soon as possible.”
Zwai said Africa accounts for about 8 percent of global oil production.
Libya is split with a separate government based in the eastern town of Tobruk recognized by the UN.
“It has been a drastic reduction” in the oil price, Obiang said. “What we need to do is think of new initiatives, for example the diversification of our economies, so as we don’t depend on oil.”
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to