An oil price of US$60 a barrel is “normal,” OPEC president Jose Maria Botelho de Vasconcelos said in Beijing yesterday.
It is necessary to “rebuild stability” in oil markets, de Vasconcelos said at the Global Think Tank Summit, based on a translation of his comments on the conference’s Web site.
On June 23, OPEC secretary-general Abdalla el-Badri said at a press conference in Vienna that oil prices as high as US$80 wouldn’t jeopardize a worldwide economic recovery.
In Asian trading yesterday, crude oil prices recovered from earlier losses but investors fretted over the US economy after the jobless rate surged to a 26-year high.
New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for delivery next month, firmed US$0.29 in afternoon trade to US$67.02 a barrel.
Brent North Sea crude for delivery next month gained US$0.16 to US$66.81.
Oil prices are likely to remain under pressure until economic data point to a firm turnaround in US fortunes, which will in turn lead to stronger energy demand, Merrill Lynch analysts said in a report.
“Beyond any help arising from equities ... crude oil market fundamentals look fragile. No doubt, a rally in equities or a weaker US dollar could support higher oil prices,” they said.
“But anyway you cut it, oil demand is still extremely weak ... In sum, we believe oil prices will struggle to push higher over the next three months,” they said.
OPEC, which pumps 40 percent of the world’s crude oil, “will not go for any further increase in production” as global supplies remained in surplus, Kuwaiti Oil Minister Sheikh Ahmed al-Abdullah al-Sabah said on Thursday.
The group, which kept oil production quotas unchanged at a summit on May 28, is scheduled to hold a policy meeting to discuss the issue on Sept. 9 in Vienna.
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday said that it would redesign the written portion of the driver’s license exam to make it more rigorous. “We hope that the exam can assess drivers’ understanding of traffic rules, particularly those who take the driver’s license test for the first time. In the past, drivers only needed to cram a book of test questions to pass the written exam,” Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) told a news conference at the Taoyuan Motor Vehicle Office. “In the future, they would not be able to pass the test unless they study traffic regulations
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
‘COMING MENACINGLY’: The CDC advised wearing a mask when visiting hospitals or long-term care centers, on public transportation and in crowded indoor venues Hospital visits for COVID-19 last week increased by 113 percent to 41,402, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday, as it encouraged people to wear a mask in three public settings to prevent infection. CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said weekly hospital visits for COVID-19 have been increasing for seven consecutive weeks, and 102 severe COVID-19 cases and 19 deaths were confirmed last week, both the highest weekly numbers this year. CDC physician Lee Tsung-han (李宗翰) said the youngest person hospitalized due to the disease this year was reported last week, a one-month-old baby, who does not
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