Oil prices finished above US$63 a barrel on Friday, ending a bullish week as traders bet on blustery weather moving across the US and more production cuts from OPEC.
Light sweet crude for January delivery rose US$0.30 to settle at US$63.43 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude settled at US$64.62, up US$0.36, on London's ICE Futures exchange.
"Prices ended higher for the same reasons we've been talking about all week -- colder weather, output cuts and a report showing US inventory falling pretty steadily for the past few weeks," said Tom Bentz, a broker at BNP Paribas Commodity Futures in New York. "The market continued to hold on and closed out on a positive note."
Oil prices were down during most of the day, but bounced back in the last hours of trading.
"Overall the fundamentals near-term look pretty bullish," said Alaron Trading Corp analyst Phil Flynn.
Edmund Daukoru, Nigeria's oil minister and president of the 11-member OPEC, said the group is likely to trim production again and he expects a cut of at least 500,000 barrels a day.
"There is likely to be some further trimming, the actual amount will depend on the circumstances," Daukoru said. While the specific amount will be decided at the OPEC meeting based on data and trends.
"I don't expect anything less" than 500,000 barrels per day to be cut, he said.
That echoed comments on Thursday from Venezuelan oil minister Rafael Ramirez, who also said OPEC could cut production by half a million barrels a day when it meets on Dec. 14 in Abuja.
Also boosting oil prices was a major snowstorm that blanketed the Plains and Midwest on Thursday and Friday, dumping as much as 46cm of snow in some places. Another cold front is moving toward the Northeast this weekend, promising to blow away the unseasonably warm weather in the region.
Natural gas settled at US$8.422 per 1,000 cubic feet, down US$0.42.2. Prices were weighed down by the Institute of Supply Management's report showing that the US manufacturing sector contracted last month,the first time the sector contracted since April 2003.
BIG BUCKS: Chairman Wei is expected to receive NT$34.12 million on a proposed NT$5 cash dividend plan, while the National Development Fund would get NT$8.27 billion Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday announced that its board of directors approved US$15.25 billion in capital appropriations for long-term expansion to meet growing demand. The funds are to be used for installing advanced technology and packaging capacity, expanding mature and specialty technology, and constructing fabs with facility systems, TSMC said in a statement. The board also approved a proposal to distribute a NT$5 cash dividend per share, based on first-quarter earnings per share of NT$13.94, it said. That surpasses the NT$4.50 dividend for the fourth quarter of last year. TSMC has said that while it is eager
‘IMMENSE SWAY’: The top 50 companies, based on market cap, shape everything from technology to consumer trends, advisory firm Visual Capitalist said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) was ranked the 10th-most valuable company globally this year, market information advisory firm Visual Capitalist said. TSMC sat on a market cap of about US$915 billion as of Monday last week, making it the 10th-most valuable company in the world and No. 1 in Asia, the publisher said in its “50 Most Valuable Companies in the World” list. Visual Capitalist described TSMC as the world’s largest dedicated semiconductor foundry operator that rolls out chips for major tech names such as US consumer electronics brand Apple Inc, and artificial intelligence (AI) chip designers Nvidia Corp and Advanced
Saudi Arabian Oil Co (Aramco), the Saudi state-owned oil giant, yesterday posted first-quarter profits of US$26 billion, down 4.6 percent from the prior year as falling global oil prices undermine the kingdom’s multitrillion-dollar development plans. Aramco had revenues of US$108.1 billion over the quarter, the company reported in a filing on Riyadh’s Tadawul stock exchange. The company saw US$107.2 billion in revenues and profits of US$27.2 billion for the same period last year. Saudi Arabia has promised to invest US$600 billion in the US over the course of US President Donald Trump’s second term. Trump, who is set to touch
SKEPTICAL: An economist said it is possible US and Chinese officials would walk away from the meeting saying talks were productive, without reducing tariffs at all US President Donald Trump hailed a “total reset” in US-China trade relations, ahead of a second day of talks yesterday between top officials from Washington and Beijing aimed at de-escalating trade tensions sparked by his aggressive tariff rollout. In a Truth Social post early yesterday, Trump praised the “very good” discussions and deemed them “a total reset negotiated in a friendly, but constructive, manner.” The second day of closed-door meetings between US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng (何立峰) were due to restart yesterday morning, said a person familiar
RSS