Oil prices rose yesterday after the foiled weekend attempts to bomb Iraq's key Basra crude export terminal revived fears of more attacks on the country's oil infrastructure.
Iraqi Oil Minister Mohammad Bahr al-Uloum said yesterday exports resumed on Sunday from the terminal in southern Iraq, which handles about 85 percent of the country's daily exports of some 1.9 million barrels.
US light crude hit an early peak at US$36.89 a barrel, but eased to US$36.68 by 0636 GMT, a rise of US$0.22. London's Brent crude climbed US$0.27 to US$33.36 a barrel.
Suicide bombers launched three boat attacks on Saturday on the Basra oil terminal but were stopped by US-led coalition forces without damaging the facilities, which are about 10km offshore.
"Iraqi teams restored operations at 1700 GMT on Sunday. The damage was limited and exports are flowing back at the same rates," Uloum said.
He said living quarters, several electrical generators and minor installations sustained damage in the attempted bombings.
"This is a significant development in Iraq, the terminal is well guarded but the next targets will probably be the pipelines or tankers. There will be persistent attempts to disrupt Iraqi oil supplies in the next four weeks," said an oil broker.
Oil traders are nervous that any escalation in violence in the Middle East may disrupt oil supplies from the region, which holds two-thirds of global reserves.
"Security concerns look set to remain high, not helped by recent events in Madrid and in the Middle East itself," Standard Chartered Bank said in an overview this month of the oil markets referring to the bombings of four commuter trains in Madrid last month that killed almost 200 people.
Kuwait, also a major oil exporter, said at the weekend it had increased security across the country following a suicide bombing in the Saudi capital Riyadh last week and the surge in violence in Iraq between US-led forces and insurgents.
Security has also been beefed up in the oil-producing Niger delta in Nigeria after two US oil workers and at least four Nigerians were killed by armed militants in a botched robbery attempt.
CHAMPIONS: President Lai congratulated the players’ outstanding performance, cheering them for marking a new milestone in the nation’s baseball history Taiwan on Sunday won their first Little League Baseball World Series (LLBWS) title in 29 years, as Taipei’s Dong Yuan Elementary School defeated a team from Las Vegas 7-0 in the championship game in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania. It was Taiwan’s first championship in the annual tournament since 1996, ending a nearly three-decade drought. “It has been a very long time ... and we finally made it,” Taiwan manager Lai Min-nan (賴敏男) said after the game. Lai said he last managed a Dong Yuan team in at the South Williamsport in 2015, when they were eliminated after four games. “There is
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers have declared they survived recall votes to remove them from office today, although official results are still pending as the vote counting continues. Although final tallies from the Central Election Commission (CEC) are still pending, preliminary results indicate that the recall campaigns against all seven KMT lawmakers have fallen short. As of 6:10 pm, Taichung Legislators Yen Kuan-heng (顏寬恒) and Yang Chiung-ying (楊瓊瓔), Hsinchu County Legislator Lin Szu-ming (林思銘), Nantou County Legislator Ma Wen-chun (馬文君) and New Taipei City Legislator Lo Ming-tsai (羅明才) had all announced they
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) yesterday visited Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), as the chipmaker prepares for volume production of Nvidia’s next-generation artificial intelligence (AI) chips. It was Huang’s third trip to Taiwan this year, indicating that Nvidia’s supply chain is deeply connected to Taiwan. Its partners also include packager Siliconware Precision Industries Co (矽品精密) and server makers Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) and Quanta Computer Inc (廣達). “My main purpose is to visit TSMC,” Huang said yesterday. “As you know, we have next-generation architecture called Rubin. Rubin is very advanced. We have now taped out six brand new
POWER PLANT POLL: The TPP said the number of ‘yes’ votes showed that the energy policy should be corrected, and the KMT said the result was a win for the people’s voice The government does not rule out advanced nuclear energy generation if it meets the government’s three prerequisites, President William Lai (賴清德) said last night after the number of votes in favor of restarting a nuclear power plant outnumbered the “no” votes in a referendum yesterday. The referendum failed to pass, despite getting more “yes” votes, as the Referendum Act (公民投票法) states that the vote would only pass if the votes in favor account for more than one-fourth of the total number of eligible voters and outnumber the opposing votes. Yesterday’s referendum question was: “Do you agree that the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant