Saudi Arabian Oil Co, the world’s largest oil exporter, lowered the pricing terms for Arab Light sold to Asia by the most in 10 months, as refineries grapple with falling margins and oversupply.
The state-owned company, also known as Saudi Aramco, on Sunday said it would sell cargoes of Arab Light next month at US$1.10 a barrel below Asia’s regional benchmark.
That is a pricing cut of US$1.30 from this month, the biggest drop since November last year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
The company was expected to lower the pricing by US$1 a barrel, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of eight refiners and traders.
Aramco’s pricing cut is part of a “market share battle” for Asian customers, particularly with OPEC rival Iran, which is ramping up crude exports after sanctions eased in January, John Kilduff, partner at Again Capital LLC in New York, said by phone on Sunday.
Refineries in China “bought a lot of extra crude earlier this year when prices were lower, so they’re going to have to work that off,” Kilduff said.
Refineries from Singapore to China and South Korea are cutting operating rates amid a slump in margins and rising supply from state-owned giants such as China Petroleum and Chemical Corp (中國石油化工).
In China, independent refiners are operating at less than half their capacity at a six-month low, according to data compiled from Oilchem.net.
Brent crude has climbed 17 percent since the start of the year on supply disruptions from Nigeria to Canada. Prices are still 16 percent lower in the past year. Saudi Arabia led the November 2014 decision by OPEC to maintain production levels to drive out higher-cost producers.
All other official selling prices for Asian clients were reduced. The biggest cut was by US$1.60 for Extra Light crude. Pricing for Light and Extra Light grades for US clients was cut, by US$0.20 and US$0.40 respectively, while the Medium and Heavy grades were unchanged. Aramco raised the pricing of all grades except Extra Light to northwest Europe and the Mediterranean.
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],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
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