Oil prices rose yesterday in Asia on concerns that Tropical Storm Fay may disrupt oil operations in the Gulf of Mexico.
Light, sweet crude for September delivery rose US$1.19 to US$114.96 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange by midday in Singapore. The contract fell US$1.24 on Friday to settle at US$113.77 a barrel.
“There could be some supply disruption issues there, so the market is watching this closely,” said Mark Pervan, senior commodity strategist at ANZ Bank in Melbourne.
Fay, the sixth storm of the Atlantic season this year, was slowing down early on Monday and moving erratically, but forecasters still expected it to strengthen slowly to a hurricane. Fay has already killed at least five people after battering Haiti and the Dominican Republic with weekend torrential rains and floods.
Oil giant Royal Dutch Shell had evacuated about 360 staff from the Gulf of Mexico over the past two days.
A weaker dollar also supported oil prices. The euro strengthened to US$1.4752 on Monday and the US dollar was steady above ¥110.
A falling US dollar typically pushes oil prices higher as investors buy crude and other commodities as hedges against inflation.
A forecast from OPEC on Friday of lower global oil demand growth helped to keep prices from rising higher.
In its monthly oil report, the organization forecast world appetite for oil this year would grow by 1 million barrels a day, a reduction of 30,000 barrels a day from its previous forecast for demand growth for the year. It also said growth for next year would be 900,000 barrels a day, which it said would be the lowest growth in world demand since 2002.
Demand growth from the major industrialized countries will actually decline, OPEC said, with non-OECD countries accounting for all oil demand growth next year.
In other NYMEX trading, heating oil futures rose US$0.0253 to US$3.1444 a gallon (3.8 liters), while gasoline prices gained US$0.0212 to US$2.8814 a gallon. Natural gas futures fell US$0.18 to US$7.912 per 1,000 cubic feet.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats