Oil closed out its worst month since the global financial crisis a decade ago as all eyes turned to this weekend’s G20 summit for signs that Saudi Arabia and Russia can head off a worldwide supply glut.
Crude futures made up some ground on Friday after an OPEC advisory committee recommended a 1.3 million-barrel cut to the cartel’s daily output.
Still, prices finished down 22 percent last month, the deepest slide since October 2008.
That capped a volatile month beset by worries about booming production and the impact of international trade tensions.
Investors are focused on the G20 summit in Argentina, where leaders from the US, Russia and Saudi Arabia — the world’s three biggest oil producers — have gathered in a prelude to a key OPEC meeting next week in Vienna.
Russian Minister of Energy Alexander Novak earlier on Friday said that he was comfortable with prices where they currently are, adding to uncertainty about what top oil exporters can agree on.
“You’re going to have a ballet and concert of various statements that are either contradictory or reinforcing leading up to the OPEC meeting,” said Harry Tchilinguirian, head of commodity markets strategy at BNP Paribas in London. “It’s the kind of to-and-fro that creates volatility because people’s expectations can’t be anchored.”
West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for January delivery fell US$0.52, or 1 percent, to US$50.93 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange on Friday. The contract was little changed from last week’s US$50.42 per barrel.
Brent crude for February settlement dropped US$0.45 to US$59.46 on London’s ICE Futures Europe exchange. The contract rose 1.1 percent from last week.
The January contract for the global benchmark, which expired on Friday, traded at a US$7.78 premium to WTI for the same month.
Russian and Saudi officials were scheduled to meet in Moscow over the weekend, signaling that an agreement on production cuts is possible if talks between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman go well in Argentina, according to people briefed on the discussions.
“As things stand, the Russians and Saudis are still far from being on the same page over the finer details of looming output restrictions,” Stephen Brennock, an analyst at PVM Oil Associates in London, wrote in a report. “Against this backdrop, the most likely outcome of next week’s OPEC meeting is a fudge.”
Intel Corp chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) is expected to meet with Taiwanese suppliers next month in conjunction with the opening of the Computex Taipei trade show, supply chain sources said on Monday. The visit, the first for Tan to Taiwan since assuming his new post last month, would be aimed at enhancing Intel’s ties with suppliers in Taiwan as he attempts to help turn around the struggling US chipmaker, the sources said. Tan is to hold a banquet to celebrate Intel’s 40-year presence in Taiwan before Computex opens on May 20 and invite dozens of Taiwanese suppliers to exchange views
Quanta Computer Inc (廣達) chairman Barry Lam (林百里) is expected to share his views about the artificial intelligence (AI) industry’s prospects during his speech at the company’s 37th anniversary ceremony, as AI servers have become a new growth engine for the equipment manufacturing service provider. Lam’s speech is much anticipated, as Quanta has risen as one of the world’s major AI server suppliers. The company reported a 30 percent year-on-year growth in consolidated revenue to NT$1.41 trillion (US$43.35 billion) last year, thanks to fast-growing demand for servers, especially those with AI capabilities. The company told investors in November last year that
Application-specific integrated circuit designer Faraday Technology Corp (智原) yesterday said that although revenue this quarter would decline 30 percent from last quarter, it retained its full-year forecast of revenue growth of 100 percent. The company attributed the quarterly drop to a slowdown in customers’ production of chips using Faraday’s advanced packaging technology. The company is still confident about its revenue growth this year, given its strong “design-win” — or the projects it won to help customers design their chips, Faraday president Steve Wang (王國雍) told an online earnings conference. “The design-win this year is better than we expected. We believe we will win
United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電) forecast that its wafer shipments this quarter would grow up to 7 percent sequentially and the factory utilization rate would rise to 75 percent, indicating that customers did not alter their ordering behavior due to the US President Donald Trump’s capricious US tariff policies. However, the uncertainty about US tariffs has weighed on the chipmaker’s business visibility for the second half of this year, UMC chief financial officer Liu Chi-tung (劉啟東) said at an online earnings conference yesterday. “Although the escalating trade tensions and global tariff policies have increased uncertainty in the semiconductor industry, we have not
RSS