World oil prices faced a rollercoaster ride this week, tumbling on US demand concerns before rocketing higher on resurgent fears about the Iranian nuclear energy crisis, traders said.
Oil prices stormed higher on Friday after Washington set the weekend as a deadline for key crude producer Iran to reply to an international offer of incentives for a freeze in its nuclear drive.
“We expect a response this weekend,” Gonzalo Gallegos, a US State Department spokesman, told reporters without specifying whether it was yesterday or today.
In reaction, New York crude leapt as high as US$128.60 per barrel and London Brent oil soared as high as US$127.94.
Iran is the world’s fourth-largest crude oil producer and tension over its nuclear program helped push crude prices to record highs above US$147 a barrel on July 11.
The US and other major powers suspect Iran’s nuclear drive is aimed at making weapons, but Tehran insists its objective is energy production.
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said on Thursday there was no deadline and that his country had already replied. The US State Department had been vague about the deadline but narrowed it down on Friday.
A diplomatic source in Brussels said an Iranian response could come in the next few days but insisted that the international community wanted an answer from Iran.
Oil prices had tumbled on Thursday and earlier on Friday after weaker-than-expected US growth figures stoked fresh worries about the outlook for global energy demand.
The US Commerce Department reported the US economy grew an annualized 1.9 percent in the second quarter, missing the 2.3 percent growth expected by most forecasts.
It also revised fourth-quarter growth for last year to a 0.2 percent contraction — the first reversal for the US economy since the 2001 recession.
Oil prices began the week higher, rallying on Monday after militants attacked a Royal Dutch Shell pipeline in Nigeria, leading the Anglo-Dutch energy giant to reduce output.
The market reversed direction on Tuesday after a report that US gasoline consumption fell last week for the 14th week in a row, according to credit card firm Mastercard.
But prices rebounded by more than four dollars Wednesday on news of an unexpectedly sharp decline in US motor fuel stockpiles.
By Friday, New York’s main oil futures contract, light sweet crude for September delivery rose sharply to US$126.76 a barrel, from US$124 a week earlier.
Brent North Sea crude for September climbed to US$126.20 from US$125.02.
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The government is aiming to recruit 1,096 foreign English teachers and teaching assistants this year, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The foreign teachers would work closely with elementary and junior-high instructors to create and teach courses, ministry official Tsai Yi-ching (蔡宜靜) said. Together, they would create an immersive language environment, helping to motivate students while enhancing the skills of local teachers, she said. The ministry has since 2021 been recruiting foreign teachers through the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which offers placement, salary, housing and other benefits to eligible foreign teachers. Two centers serving northern and southern Taiwan assist in recruiting and training
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