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.
The Taipei MRT is open all night tonight following New Year’s Eve festivities, and is offering free rides from nearby Green Line stations. Taipei’s 2025 New Year’s Eve celebrations kick off at Taipei City Hall Square tonight, with performances from the boy band Energy, the South Korean girl group Apink, and singers Gigi Leung (梁詠琪) and Faith Yang (楊乃文). Taipei 101’s annual New Year’s firework display follows at midnight, themed around Taiwan’s Premier12 baseball championship. Estimates say there will be about 200,000 people in attendance, which is more than usual as this year’s celebrations overlap with A-mei’s (張惠妹) concert at Taipei Dome. There are
LOOKING FOR WHEELS: The military is seeking 8x8 single-chassis vehicles to test the new missile and potentially replace the nation’s existing launch vehicles, the source said Taiwan is developing a hypersonic missile based on the Ching Tien (擎天) supersonic cruise missile, and a Czech-made truck has been tentatively selected as its launch vehicle, a source said yesterday. The Ching Tien, formerly known as Yun Feng (雲峰, “Cloud Peak”), is a domestically developed missile with a range of 1,200km to 2,000km being deployed in casemate-type positions as of last month, an official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. The hypersonic missile to be derived from the Ching Tien would feature improved range and a mobile launch platform, while the latter would most likely be a 12x12 single chassis
UP AND DOWN: The route would include a 16.4km underground section from Zuoying to Fongshan and a 9.5km elevated part from Fongshan to Pingtung Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) yesterday confirmed a project to extend the high-speed rail (HSR) to Pingtung County through Kaohsiung. Cho made the announcement at a ceremony commemorating the completion of a dome at Kaohsiung Main Station. The Ministry of Transportation and Communications approved the HSR expansion in 2019 using a route that branches off a line from Zuoying Station in Kaohsiung’s Zuoying District (左營). The project was ultimately delayed due to a lack of support for the route. The Zuoying route would have trains stop at the Zuoying Station and return to a junction before traveling southward to Pingtung County’s Lioukuaicuo Township (六塊厝).
Parts of the nation, including in the south, could experience temperatures as low as 7°C early tomorrow morning, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. A strong continental cold air mass coupled with the effect of radiative cooling would bring cold weather to several northern cities and counties, and could even affect areas as far south as Tainan early tomorrow, the CWA said. Keelung, Taipei, New Taipei City and Taoyuan, and Hsinchu, Miaoli and Yilan counties would experience temperatures below 10°C until this evening, according to cold surge advisories issued by the weather agency. The weather across the nation is forecast to remain
RSS