Oil prices tumbled more than US$6 a barrel on Friday — the biggest one-day percentage plunge in nearly four years — after a rebounding dollar and a Russian troop pullback in Georgia sparked another frenzied sell-off.
Crude’s nosedive wiped out all the gains from the previous day’s big rally and reaffirmed the belief that high energy prices are still cutting into consumer demand for fossil fuels in the US and overseas.
Light, sweet crude for October delivery fell US$6.59, or 5.43 percent, to settle at US$114.59 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It was crude’s largest single-day price drop percentage-wise since Dec. 27, 2004, when prices dropped 6.47 percent.
PHOTO: BLOOMBERG
In dollar terms, it was oil’s steepest one-day slide since Jan. 17, 1991, just after the start of the Gulf War. Crude prices had risen for three straight days, including an almost US$6 rally on Thursday.
In London, October Brent crude fell US$6.24 to settle at US$113.92 a barrel.
“This is extreme volatility,” said Jim Ritterbusch, president of energy consultancy Ritterbusch and Associates in Galena, Illinois. “The fact that we erased all of yesterday’s gains so fast suggests that we’re still in a bear market. There’s just not much demand out there.”
Crude’s violent fall accelerated throughout the day on renewed bullishness in the dollar and an apparent easing of geopolitical tensions.
On Thursday, worries about Russian hostilities helped push crude prices up US$5.62 to US$121.18, crude’s highest settlement price in more than two weeks.
“Obviously, yesterday’s rally was overcooked and we’re simply taking back some of that speculative risk premium we injected into the market,” Ritterbusch said.
Russian troops began withdrawing from key Georgian positions on Friday, the day the pullback was to be completed under a US-backed ceasefire. Oil traders were still eyeing the conflict amid concerns that another flare-up of violence could sever key oil shipments bound for Western countries.
“It’s still speculative whether Russia will use oil as a weapon to punish the West,” said Victor Shum, an energy analyst with Purvin & Gertz in Singapore. “But it has certainly focused the market on that geopolitical threat.”
Meanwhile, London-based BP PLC last week shut down its Baku-Supsa oil pipeline — which runs through the center of Georgia from Baku in Azerbaijan to Supsa on Georgia’s Black Sea coast — because of security concerns.
The line, which has a 150,000-barrel-a-day capacity, had recently been pumping around 90,000 barrels a day, a BP spokeswoman said.
ENDEAVOR MANTA: The ship is programmed to automatically return to its designated home port and would self-destruct if seized by another party The Endeavor Manta, Taiwan’s first military-specification uncrewed surface vehicle (USV) tailor-made to operate in the Taiwan Strait in a bid to bolster the nation’s asymmetric combat capabilities made its first appearance at Kaohsiung’s Singda Harbor yesterday. Taking inspiration from Ukraine’s navy, which is using USVs to force Russia’s Black Sea fleet to take shelter within its own ports, CSBC Taiwan (台灣國際造船) established a research and development unit on USVs last year, CSBC chairman Huang Cheng-hung (黃正弘) said. With the exception of the satellite guidance system and the outboard motors — which were purchased from foreign companies that were not affiliated with Chinese-funded
PERMIT REVOKED: The influencer at a news conference said the National Immigration Agency was infringing on human rights and persecuting Chinese spouses Chinese influencer “Yaya in Taiwan” (亞亞在台灣) yesterday evening voluntarily left Taiwan, despite saying yesterday morning that she had “no intention” of leaving after her residence permit was revoked over her comments on Taiwan being “unified” with China by military force. The Ministry of the Interior yesterday had said that it could forcibly deport the influencer at midnight, but was considering taking a more flexible approach and beginning procedures this morning. The influencer, whose given name is Liu Zhenya (劉振亞), departed on a 8:45pm flight from Taipei International Airport (Songshan airport) to Fuzhou, China. Liu held a news conference at the airport at 7pm,
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
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 —
RSS