Oil prices rose on Friday, reflecting traders' concerns over possible hurricane dangers in the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico to oil exports from Mexico and Venezuela.
The gains came as Emily, the second hurricane of the season, strengthened to a dangerous category 4 storm and took a slightly more northerly track.
With some forecasters predicting that Emily could make landfall on the border of Mexico and Texas in the middle of next week, traders worried about the storm's impact on production in the Gulf of Mexico and refinery operations in the region. There was also concern that Emily could affect Mexican and Venezuelan oil supplies as it makes its way to the Strait of Yucatan.
PHOTO: AFP
"The further north it goes, the more of a threat it will become to offshore oil and gas production and shipping," said Marshall Steeves, an analyst at brokerage Refco in New York.
"It is the uncertainty of what's going to happen over the weekend. You could come in Monday morning with a much higher open if the storm approaches the main part of the Gulf," Steeves said.
Light, sweet crude for August rose US$0.29 to settle at US$58.09 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Heating oil futures rose by US$0.0052 to US$1.6621 a gallon while gasoline futures declined by US$0.0052 cent to US$1.6883 per gallon.
On London's International Petroleum Exchange, Brent futures for September, the new front-month contract, rose US$0.65 to settle at US$57.61 a barrel.
Venezuelan authorities ordered several oil tankers in the key refining zone of Puerto La Cruz to remain in port, likely delaying exports.
Analysts tracking Emily's path said it could hit the Cantarell oil field in Mexico, which could immediately wipe out 2.5 percent of the world's daily oil production of around 84 million barrels.
"The market is still tightly enough balanced and the cushion of surplus capacity is narrow enough to keep a relatively high floor under prices," said Tom Wallin, an analyst with Energyintel.
Last week, tropical Storm Cindy and Hurricane Dennis halted some production in the Gulf of Mexico and disrupted operations at refinery operations along the Gulf coast.
The fear is that a bigger storm could halt production for a longer period, causing supply shortages.
Gudeng Precision Industrial Co (家登精密), the sole extreme ultraviolet pod supplier to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電), yesterday said it has trimmed its revenue growth target for this year as US tariffs are likely to depress customer demand and weigh on the whole supply chain. Gudeng’s remarks came after the US on Monday notified 14 countries, including Japan and South Korea, of new tariff rates that are set to take effect on Aug. 1. Taiwan is still negotiating for a rate lower than the 32 percent “reciprocal” tariffs announced by the US in April, which it later postponed to today. The
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said its materials management head, Vanessa Lee (李文如), had tendered her resignation for personal reasons. The personnel adjustment takes effect tomorrow, TSMC said in a statement. The latest development came one month after Lee reportedly took leave from the middle of last month. Cliff Hou (侯永清), senior vice president and deputy cochief operating officer, is to concurrently take on the role of head of the materials management division, which has been under his supervision, TSMC said. Lee, who joined TSMC in 2022, was appointed senior director of materials management and
MAJOR CONTRIBUTOR: Revenue from AI servers made up more than 50 percent of Wistron’s total server revenue in the second quarter, the company said Wistron Corp (緯創) on Tuesday reported a 135.6 percent year-on-year surge in revenue for last month, driven by strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers, with the momentum expected to extend into the third quarter. Revenue last month reached NT$209.18 billion (US$7.2 billion), a record high for June, bringing second-quarter revenue to NT$551.29 billion, a 129.47 percent annual increase, the company said. Revenue in the first half of the year totaled NT$897.77 billion, up 87.36 percent from a year earlier and also a record high for the period, it said. The company remains cautiously optimistic about AI server shipments in the third quarter,
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) on Thursday met with US President Donald Trump at the White House, days before a planned trip to China by the head of the world’s most valuable chipmaker, people familiar with the matter said. Details of what the two men discussed were not immediately available, and the people familiar with the meeting declined to elaborate on the agenda. Spokespeople for the White House had no immediate comment. Nvidia declined to comment. Nvidia’s CEO has been vocal about the need for US companies to access the world’s largest semiconductor market and is a frequent visitor to China.
RSS