Crude futures jumped more than US$1 a barrel yesterday, driven up by concerns that a tropical depression brewing in the Caribbean may grow into a hurricane and could threaten the US Gulf of Mexico and oil facilities there.
Light, sweet crude for delivery next month rose US$1.18 to US$63.81 a barrel in Asian electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. On Friday, the contract slipped US$0.45 to US$62.63 a barrel.
December Brent futures on the International Petroleum Exchange in London rose US$1.10 to US$60.58 a barrel.
Heating oil gained US$0.0455 to US$1.9955 a gallon (3.8 liters) while gasoline climbed US$0.0569 to US$1.8055. Natural gas rose US$0.662 to US$13.881 per 1,000 cubic feet.
Storm warning
Tropical Depression 24, a slow-moving system that formed on Saturday, was expected to become Tropical Storm Wilma, which would make it the 21st named storm of the season, tying the 1933 record for the most storms in an Atlantic season, the US' National Hurricane Center in Miami said on Sunday.
The depression, now centered about 245km southeast of Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands, could grow into a hurricane by today and move into the southeastern Gulf, with winds over 161kph by Friday, the center said.
Most US oil production and refineries are in the central and western Gulf. Forecasting the storm's direction is extremely difficult at this early stage, but traders are nervous about yet more damage to oil facilities after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
"The tropical depression is certainly within the radar screens of traders, though it seems to be too early to tell whether it would develop into a storm, and its direction," Victor Shum, energy analyst at Texas-headquartered Purvin & Gertz in Singapore, said.
Winter demand
After surging above US$70 a barrel in late August, oil prices have fallen in recent weeks, although there are plenty of concerns about the pace of recovery following Rita, and whether supplies will be adequate as winter begins in the Northern Hemisphere, when demand for heating oil peaks.
"The market is on edge; it's looking for directions. There's a lot of volatility now, which is characteristic of a tight supply situation," Shum said.
The US federal Minerals Management Service reported on Friday a slight uptick in Gulf of Mexico oil production, putting the amount of shut-in output at about 1 million barrels a day, or 67.3 percent of total daily output, down slightly from the 68.8 percent seen on Thursday.
There was virtually no improvement in natural gas output, with some 5.65 billion cubic feet a day of output off line, or 56.5 percent of the total, the minerals service said in a daily update.
Taiwan has arranged for about 8 million barrels of crude oil, or about one-third of its monthly needs, to be shipped from the Red Sea this month to bypass the Strait of Hormuz and ease domestic supply pressures, CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) said yesterday. The state-run oil company has worked with Middle Eastern suppliers to secure routes other than the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas typically passes, CPC chairman Fang Jeng-zen (方振仁) said at a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee in Taipei. Suppliers in Saudi Arabia have indicated they
A global survey showed that 60 percent of Taiwanese had attained higher education, second only to Canada, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan easily surpassed the global average of 43 percent and ranked ahead of major economies, including Japan, South Korea and the US, data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for 2024 showed. Taiwan has a high literacy rate, data released by the ministry showed. As of the end of last year, Taiwan had 20.617 million people aged 15 or older, accounting for 88.5 percent of the total population, with a literacy rate of 99.4 percent, the data
CCP ‘PAWN’? Beijing could use the KMT chairwoman’s visit to signal to the world that many people in Taiwan support the ‘one China’ principle, an academic said Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) yesterday arrived in China for a “peace” mission and potential meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), while a Taiwanese minister detailed the number of Chinese warships currently deployed around the nation. Cheng is visiting at a time of increased Chinese military pressure on Taiwan, as the opposition-dominated Legislative Yuan stalls a government plan for US$40 billion in extra defense spending. Speaking to reporters before going to the airport, Cheng said she was going on a “historic journey for peace,” but added that some people felt uneasy about her trip. “If you truly love Taiwan,
NEW LOW: The council in 2024 based predictions on a pessimistic estimate for the nation’s total fertility rate of 0.84, but last year that rate was 0.69, 17 percent lower An expected National Development Council (NDC) report expects the nation’s population to drop below 12 million by 2065, with the old-age dependency ratio to top 100 percent sooner than 2070, sources said yesterday. The council is slated to release its latest population projections in August, using an ultra-low fertility model, the sources said. The previous report projected that Taiwan’s population would fall to 14.37 million by 2070, but based on a new estimate of the total fertility rate (TFR) — the average number of children born to a woman over her lifetime — the population is expected to reach 12 million by
RSS