Brent yesterday slid below US$60 a barrel for the first time since April amid speculation Greece’s rejection of austerity measures would prompt its exit from the euro area, threatening stability and economic growth in the region.
Futures dropped as much as 1.6 percent in London, falling for a second day. Sixty-one percent of voters backed Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’ rejection of further spending cuts and tax increases.
US Secretary of State John Kerry tempered expectations that a nuclear deal with Iran is imminent as diplomats meeting in Vienna work toward a deadline today.
Oil last week slumped the most since March amid speculation the Greek crisis prompted investors to eschew riskier assets. Iran, OPEC’s fourth-largest member, has estimated it could double crude exports from about 1 million barrels a day within six months of sanctions being lifted.
“We’ve seen a bit of a capitulation in oil,” Ric Spooner, chief analyst at CMC Markets in Sydney, said by telephone. “The situation in Greece has a confidence impact on demand. A nuclear agreement with Iran represents a negative risk event for oil in terms of the possible significant increase in supply.”
Brent for August settlement declined as much as U$0.97 to US$59.35 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange and was at US$59.61 at 2:33pm GMT. The contract lost 4.7 percent last week. The European benchmark traded at a premium of US$4.67 to West Texas Intermediate, the US marker grade.
WTI for August delivery dropped as much as US$2.49, or 4.4 percent, to US$54.44 a barrel from the close on Thursday in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. There was no floor trading on Friday because of the Fourth of July holiday and transactions were to be yesterday for settlement purposes.
The Greek voting result reverberated quickly across Europe’s political establishment. Within hours of the first projections, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande called for a summit of euro-area leaders today, with banks including JPMorgan Chase & Co saying a Greek departure from the euro is now the most probable scenario.
Iran remains a long way off from selling more crude, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc, Bank of America Corp and Societe Generale SA. Its goal of boosting exports by 50 percent would require an extra 500,000 barrels a day of production, which the banks predicted would take six to 12 months as the nation revives aging oil wells.
The market may see additional supplies from floating storage if a nuclear deal is reached with Iran, Morgan Stanley analysts including Adam Longson said in an e-mailed report dated yesterday.
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
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six