Oil held gains above US$58 a barrel as trading resumed following the Christmas holiday and after US explorers refrained from adding rigs for a second week.
Futures were little changed in New York after gaining 2 percent last week. The number of US rigs targeting oil remained unchanged at 747, Baker Hughes data showed on Friday.
A repair of the North Sea’s Forties Pipeline System is complete and pressure testing has started, operator Ineos Group said on Monday.
The halt of the line earlier this month sent prices surging.
Oil is heading for a second yearly advance as OPEC and its allies, including Russia, prolong supply curbs through the end of this year.
Iraqi Minister of Oil Jabbar al-Luaibi on Monday said that he is optimistic prices would gain next year with global stockpiles falling, and demand rising in China and India.
“It’s a bit too early to say whether US rigs will continue to decline as we can’t ignore the fact that it’s winter and some seasonal factors could be stalling drilling activity,” Hyundai Futures Corp commodities analyst Will Yun said by telephone. “The shutdown of the Forties pipeline has kept prices higher and it will support oil’s bull run until at least the end of this year.”
West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for February delivery was at US$58.49 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, up US$0.02. Total volume traded was about 52 percent below the 100-day average. The contract on Friday added US$0.11, or 0.2 percent, to US$58.47.
Brent for February settlement lost US$0.03 to US$65.22 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange.
Prices gained US$0.35, or 0.5 percent, to US$65.25 on Friday. The global benchmark crude traded at a premium of US$6.73 to WTI.
Despite a rally in crude prices, this year’s drilling ramp-up has slowed since peaking in August as investors in the oil industry are pushing for returns over growth, a large backlog of drilled wells still needs to be fracked and technology increasingly allows producers to tap more from each hole.
Russia is keeping this year’s oil production at last year’s level of about 10.98 million barrels a day as it complies with the OPEC deal to reduce output, Russian Minister of Energy Alexander Novak said on Rossiya 24 TV.
Real estate agent and property developer JSL Construction & Development Co (愛山林) led the average compensation rankings among companies listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) last year, while contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) finished 14th. JSL Construction paid its employees total average compensation of NT$4.78 million (US$159,701), down 13.5 percent from a year earlier, but still ahead of the most profitable listed tech giants, including TSMC, TWSE data showed. Last year, the average compensation (which includes salary, overtime, bonuses and allowances) paid by TSMC rose 21.6 percent to reach about NT$3.33 million, lifting its ranking by 10 notches
SEASONAL WEAKNESS: The combined revenue of the top 10 foundries fell 5.4%, but rush orders and China’s subsidies partially offset slowing demand Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) further solidified its dominance in the global wafer foundry business in the first quarter of this year, remaining far ahead of its closest rival, Samsung Electronics Co, TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said yesterday. TSMC posted US$25.52 billion in sales in the January-to-March period, down 5 percent from the previous quarter, but its market share rose from 67.1 percent the previous quarter to 67.6 percent, TrendForce said in a report. While smartphone-related wafer shipments declined in the first quarter due to seasonal factors, solid demand for artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC) devices and urgent TV-related orders
Prices of gasoline and diesel products at domestic fuel stations are this week to rise NT$0.2 and NT$0.3 per liter respectively, after international crude oil prices increased last week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) said yesterday. International crude oil prices last week snapped a two-week losing streak as the geopolitical situation between Russia and Ukraine turned increasingly tense, CPC said in a statement. News that some oil production facilities in Alberta, Canada, were shut down due to wildfires and that US-Iran nuclear talks made no progress also helped push oil prices to a significant weekly gain, Formosa said
MINERAL DIPLOMACY: The Chinese commerce ministry said it approved applications for the export of rare earths in a move that could help ease US-China trade tensions Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng (何立峰) is today to meet a US delegation for talks in the UK, Beijing announced on Saturday amid a fragile truce in the trade dispute between the two powers. He is to visit the UK from yesterday to Friday at the invitation of the British government, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. He and US representatives are to cochair the first meeting of the US-China economic and trade consultation mechanism, it said. US President Donald Trump on Friday announced that a new round of trade talks with China would start in London beginning today,
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