Oil leapt to a record high for a third day yesterday, surpassing US$93 as Mexico briefly halted one-fifth of its production and the US dollar struck new lows.
US crude, which hit a high of US$93.20 a barrel earlier, was up US$0.0102 at US$92.88 by 12:07 GMT. London Brent, which hit a record high US$90, was up US$0.89 at US$89.58.
Oil prices have soared by more than a third since mid-August as a stand-off between Turkey and Kurdish rebels, dollar weakness, easing interest rates and winter supply fears attracted a fresh wave of investment capital.
Prices were also partly driven up by a new tropical storm, dubbed Noel, in the Caribbean which investors fear may make its way to the US gulf coast where many of the country's energy facilities are located, dealers said.
Given the current situation, prices are likely to rise further and US$100 a barrel for oil cannot be ruled out, said David Moore, a commodity strategist with the Commonwealth Bank of Australia in Sydney.
"It is certainly possible they will move higher ... I personally don't believe we will see oil prices at a 100 dollars but it is not impossible given the situation," he said.
Prices rose yesterday after Mexico's state-owned oil company Pemex said it was shutting about 600,000 barrels per day of oil output owing to bad weather in the Gulf of Mexico.
A spokesman said Pemex should be able to resume output immediately once the cold weather passed in two days. Mexico's three main export terminals were shut on Sunday.
OPEC has shrugged off calls from importer nations to raise output, saying politics and speculation -- not a supply shortfall -- are to blame.
"I haven't any signal that there is any shortage of crude ... I believe a big portion of the oil price today is related to geopolitics and fear factors, and we cannot solve it," Qatari Oil Minister Abdullah al-Attiyah told reporters in Doha.
South Korea has adjusted its electronic arrival card system to no longer list Taiwan as a part of China, a move that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said would help facilitate exchanges between the two sides. South Korea previously listed “Taiwan” as “Taiwan (China)” in the drop-down menus of its online arrival card system, where people had to fill out where they came from and their next destination. The ministry had requested South Korea make a revision and said it would change South Korea’s name on Taiwan’s online immigration system from “Republic of Korea” to “Korea (South),” should the issue not be
The Legislative Yuan’s Finance Committee yesterday approved proposed amendments to the Amusement Tax Act (娛樂稅法) that would abolish taxes on films, cultural activities and competitive sporting events, retaining the fee only for dance halls and golf courses. The proposed changes would set the maximum tax rate for dance halls and golf courses at 50 and 20 percent respectively, with local governments authorized to suspend the levies. Article 2 of the act says that “amusement tax shall be levied on tickets sold or fees charged by amusement places, facilities or activities” in six categories: “Cinema; professional singing, story-telling, dancing, circus, magic show, acrobatics
Tainan, Taipei and New Taipei City recorded the highest fines nationwide for illegal accommodations in the first quarter of this year, with fines issued in the three cities each exceeding NT$7 million (US$220,639), Tourism Administration data showed. Among them, Taipei had the highest number of illegal short-term rental units, with 410. There were 3,280 legally registered hotels nationwide in the first quarter, down by 14 properties, or 0.43 percent, from a year earlier, likely indicating operators exiting the market, the agency said. However, the number of unregistered properties rose to 1,174, including 314 illegal hotels and 860 illegal short-term rental
INFLATION UP? The IMF said CPI would increase to 1.5 percent this year, while the DGBAS projected it would rise to 1.68 percent, with GDP per capita of US$44,181 The IMF projected Taiwan’s real GDP would grow 5.2 percent this year, up from its 2.1 percent outlook in January, despite fears of global economic disruptions sparked by the US-Iran conflict. Taiwan’s consumer price index (CPI) is projected to increase to 1.5 percent, while unemployment would be 3.4 percent, roughly in line with estimates for Asia as a whole, the international body wrote in its Global Economic Outlook Report published in the US on Monday. The figures are comparatively better than the IMF outlook for the rest of the world, which pegged real GDP growth at 3.1 percent, down from 3.3 percent
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