Oil prices extended gains on Thursday from a larger-than-expected drop in US energy stockpiles and an intense cold snap in the US, the world’s biggest energy consumer.
New York’s main futures contract, light sweet crude for delivery in February, rose US$1.38 to US$78.05.
London’s Brent North Sea crude for February delivery gained US$0.86 to US$76.31.
The Christmas Eve market surge was largely driven by a fall in energy inventories in the US that had been far larger than expected, analysts said.
Data released by the US Department of Energy on Wednesday showed stockpiles of crude dropping by 4.9 million barrels to 327.5 million in the week ending on Friday last week, far above analyst expectations of a 1.1 million-barrel drawback.
Distillate inventories also slid 3.1 million barrels last week, against analyst forecasts of a 1.6 million barrel fall. Data for distillates, which include heating oil, is in focus as winter starts to bite in the US and Europe.
“The weather has gotten colder, there could be another large draw next week, so you’re starting to get a situation where the market could be tightening quickly,” independent analyst Ellis Eckland said.
Some analysts cautioned that despite the fall in stockpiles, inventory levels were still high.
“Crude oil stocks are still lingering near the upper end of the five-year range, thus creating doubt in our mind as to the underlying strength of the recent price rally,” MF Global analyst Tom Pawlicki said.
Oil prices have meanwhile risen for much of the week as traders bet on improving demand after OPEC decided against changing the cartel’s official crude output levels.
OPEC, as expected, held its crude output quotas unchanged at its meeting in Angola on Tuesday, warning of lingering weakness in the world economy. Tuesday’s meeting capped a year of recovery for oil prices, which have more than doubled since the cartel set strict quota cuts in the depths of the economic crisis a year ago.
In January, the cartel enforced total OPEC cuts of 4.2 million barrels a day, which helped prices recover from around US$32 one year ago.
A subsidiary of a Hong Kong-based company that has lost control of two critical ports on the Panama Canal said it is seeking US$2 billion of compensation in damages from Panama over its “illegal” takeover of the ports. Panama Ports Co, a unit of Hong Kong’s CK Hutchison Holdings (長江和記實業), on Friday said in a statement that it is demanding the sum under international arbitration proceedings that it had already started. The Panamanian government last week seized control of the Balboa and Cristobal ports on each end of the Panama Canal, after the country’s Supreme Court declared earlier that a concession allowing
DETERRENCE: With 1,000 indigenous Hsiung Feng II and III missiles and 400 Harpoon missiles, the nation would boast the highest anti-ship missile density in the world With Taiwan wrapping up mass production of Hsiung Feng II and III missiles by December and an influx of Harpoon missiles from the US, Taiwan would have the highest density of anti-ship missiles in the world, a source said yesterday. Taiwan is to wrap up mass production of the indigenous anti-ship missiles by the end of year, as the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology has been meeting production targets ahead of schedule, a defense official with knowledge of the matter said. Combined with the 400 Harpoon anti-ship missiles Taiwan expects to receive from the US by 2028, the nation would have
POSSIBILITIES EMERGE: With Taiwan’s victory and Japan’s narrow win over Australia, Taiwan now have a chance to advance if South Korea also beat the Aussies Taiwan has high hopes that the national baseball team would advance to the World Baseball Classic (WBC) quarter-finals after clinching a crucial 5-4 victory over South Korea in a nail-biting extra-inning game at the Tokyo Dome yesterday. Boosted by three home runs — two solo shots by Yu Chang (張育成) and Cheng Tsung-che (鄭宗哲) and a two-run homer by Stuart Fairchild — the triumph gave Taiwan a much-needed second victory in the five-team Pool C, where only the top two finishers would advance to the knockout stage in Miami, Florida. Entering extra innings with the game tied at four apiece, Taiwan scored
MISSION OF PEACE: The foreign minister urged Beijing to respect Taiwan’s existence as an independent nation, and work together to ensure peace and stability in the region Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) yesterday rejected Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi’s (王毅) comments about Taiwan, criticizing China as a “troublemaker” in the international community and a disruptor of cross-strait peace. Speaking at a news conference on the sidelines of the Chinese National People’s Congress, Wang said that Taiwan has always been a territory of China and that it would be impossible for it to become its own country. The “return” of Taiwan to China was the natural outcome of the Chinese people’s resistance against Japan in World War II, and that any pursuit of independence was “doomed
RSS