Commodity prices traded mixed this week amid caution over future demand for raw materials despite positive economic data from the US and Europe, where recession ended for some countries.
Sugar prices reached a 28-year peak, however, pushed higher by tight supplies of the commodity.
OIL: Crude prices fell from a week earlier as the market focused on the outlook for crude demand, which analysts said was not rosy despite improving economic data from around the globe.
“Brent should slip back to US$72 and eventually US$70, once the euphoria subsides,” VTB Capital commodities analyst Andrey Kryuchenkov said in London.
By Friday on London’s InterContinental Exchange, Brent North Sea crude for delivery in September dropped to US$73.74 a barrel from US$74.33 a week earlier.
On the New York Mercantile Exchange, light sweet crude for September slipped to US$70.01 a barrel from US$71.43 one week earlier.
PRECIOUS METALS: Gold prices edged lower. By late Friday on the London Bullion Market, gold fell to US$953.50 an ounce from US$956 a week earlier.
Silver gained to US$14.98 an ounce from US$14.65.
On the London Platinum and Palladium Market, platinum grew to US$1,267 an ounce at the late fixing on Friday from US$1,260.
Palladium rose to US$277.50 an ounce from US$271.
BASE METALS: Copper, nickel and zinc struck multi-month highs.
By Friday on the London Metal Exchange, copper for delivery in three months jumped to US$6,373 a tonne from US$5,969 last week.
SUGAR: Sugar prices hit a 28-year high of £589.90 a tonne in London and they also reached the highest point since 1983 in New York.
Global sugar prices are likely to stay high in the coming year as India, the world’s largest consumer of the commodity, reels from poor monsoon rains that will force it to rely on imports.
By Friday on London’s futures exchange, the price of a tonne of white sugar for delivery in October gained to £589.40 from £536 a week earlier. On the New York Board of Trade, the price of unrefined sugar for October climbed to US$0.2218 a pound (0.45kg) from US$0.2046.
An Emirates flight from Dubai arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport yesterday afternoon, the first service of the airline since the US and Israel launched strikes against Iran on Saturday. Flight EK366 took off from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) at 3:51am yesterday and landed at 4:02pm before taxiing to the airport’s D6 gate at Terminal 2 at 4:08pm, data from the airport and FlightAware, a global flight tracking site, showed. Of the 501 passengers on the flight, 275 were Taiwanese, including 96 group tour travelers, the data showed. Tourism Administration Deputy Director-General Huang He-ting (黃荷婷) greeted Taiwanese passengers at the airport and
POSSIBILITIES EMERGE: With Taiwan’s victory and Japan’s narrow win over Australia, Taiwan now have a chance to advance if South Korea also beat the Aussies Taiwan has high hopes that the national baseball team would advance to the World Baseball Classic (WBC) quarter-finals after clinching a crucial 5-4 victory over South Korea in a nail-biting extra-inning game at the Tokyo Dome yesterday. Boosted by three home runs — two solo shots by Yu Chang (張育成) and Cheng Tsung-che (鄭宗哲) and a two-run homer by Stuart Fairchild — the triumph gave Taiwan a much-needed second victory in the five-team Pool C, where only the top two finishers would advance to the knockout stage in Miami, Florida. Entering extra innings with the game tied at four apiece, Taiwan scored
STRAIT OF HORMUZ: In the case of a prolonged blockade by Iran, Taiwan would look to sources of LNG outside the Middle East, including Australia and the US Taiwan would not have to ration power due to a shortage of natural gas, Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) said yesterday, after reports that the Strait of Hormuz was closed amid the conflict in the Middle East. The government has secured liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplies for this month and contingency measures are in place if the conflict extends into next month, Kung told lawmakers. Saying that 25 percent of Taiwan’s natural gas supplies are from Qatar, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus secretary-general Lin Pei-hsiang (林沛祥) asked about the situation in light of the conflict. There would be “no problems” with
MISSION OF PEACE: The foreign minister urged Beijing to respect Taiwan’s existence as an independent nation, and work together to ensure peace and stability in the region Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) yesterday rejected Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi’s (王毅) comments about Taiwan, criticizing China as a “troublemaker” in the international community and a disruptor of cross-strait peace. Speaking at a news conference on the sidelines of the Chinese National People’s Congress, Wang said that Taiwan has always been a territory of China and that it would be impossible for it to become its own country. The “return” of Taiwan to China was the natural outcome of the Chinese people’s resistance against Japan in World War II, and that any pursuit of independence was “doomed
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