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TOKYO: Oil prices slid to a two-week low on Tuesday (Mar 15) on continued ceasefire talks between Russia and Ukraine and concerns about demand in China after a surge in COVID-19 cases.
Brent futures dropped US$4.20 or 3.9 per cent to US$102.70 a barrel by 0125 GMT (9.25am, Singapore time) after falling 5.1 per cent the previous day.
US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude fell below US$100 level for the first time since Mar 1, dropping US$4.30 or 4.2 per cent to US$98.71 a barrel. That followed a 5.8 per cent tumble the previous day.
"Expectations of positive developments in the Russia-Ukraine ceasefire talks bolstered hopes to ease tightness in the global crude market," said Toshitaka Tazawa, an analyst at Fujitomi Securities.
"Fresh lockdowns to curb the COVID-19 pandemic in China also raised concerns over slower demand," he added.
Mainland China posted a steep jump in daily COVID-19 infections on Tuesday, with new symptomatic cases more than doubling from a day earlier to a two-year high as a virus outbreak expanded rapidly in the country's northeast.
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said late on Monday that negotiations with Russia, the world's second-largest crude exporter, will continue on Tuesday.
Zelenskiy also said he spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett as part of a negotiation effort to end the war with Russia "with a fair peace."
The United States warned China after "intense" talks on Monday against helping Moscow in its invasion of Ukraine.
International Energy Agency (IEA) chief Fatih Birol on Monday urged oil-producing countries to pump more to stabilise markets affected by the war in Ukraine.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is trying to persuade Saudi Arabia to increase its oil output, a senior minister said on Monday, following reports that Johnson would travel to the OPEC heavyweight this week.
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NEW YORK : Oil prices fell on Sunday at the start of the session, extending last week's decline, as a U.S. official said Russia was showing signs it might be willing to have substantive negotiations over Ukraine.
Brent crude futures fell $1.82, or 1.6per cent, to $110.85 a barrel by 6:47 p.m. ET (2247 GMT). WTI crude futures fell $2.41, or 2.2per cent, to $106.92 a barrel.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine in late February, which Moscow calls a "special operation," has roiled energy markets globally. Brent last week was down 4.8per cent after hitting $139.13 on March 7. U.S. crude recorded a weekly drop of 5.7per cent after touching a high of $130.50 on March 7. Both contracts last touched those price peaks in 2008. [O/R]
Investors have been concerned about a tighter oil market following Russia's action. Prices fell last week as traders assessed potential improvements to the supply outlook that has been disrupted by the Ukraine crisis.
Russia is showing signs it might be willing to have substantive negotiations over Ukraine, even as Moscow is intent on "destroying" its neighbor, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman said on Sunday.
Russia-Ukraine talks are not taking place right now but will continue on Monday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov was quoted as saying on Sunday by the RIA news agency.
Peskov made the comments after Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych said Ukraine and Russia were actively conducting talks on Sunday.
Russia said on Sunday it was counting on China to help it withstand the economic blow from Western sanctions over the war in Ukraine, but the United States warned Beijing not to provide that lifeline.
U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, who is due to meet with China's top diplomat Yang Jiechi in Rome on Monday, warned Beijing it would "absolutely" face consequences if it helped Moscow evade sweeping sanctions over the war in Ukraine.
(Reporting by Stephanie Kelly; Editing by Richard Chang)
HONG KONG: Hong Kong health authorities reported 32,430 new COVID-19 cases on Sunday (Mar 13), as the city's leader said her government was trying build capacity to deal with the crisis that has swept through care homes.
Although Chief Executive Carrie Lam said government efforts were improving, she said they had yet to reach everybody in isolation to see whether people needed help.
"With so many people put under isolation or quarantine, the government has been strengthening our capability to support them. However, we're still catching up," she told reporters.
Some 300,000 people were isolating at home, she said, as the Omicron variant sweeps across the heavily congested financial hub, overwhelming its health care system and sparking panic buying at some supermarkets.
Health authorities reported 32,430 new positive cases in Hong Kong on Sunday, versus 27,647 new infections on Saturday and 29,381 new infections on Friday. Authorities on Sunday also reported 248 new deaths.
Hong Kong has recorded nearly 700,000 COVID-19 infections and about 3,500 deaths since early 2020 - most of them in the past two weeks. Most of the fatalities are among unvaccinated senior citizens.
SHANGHAI: China has granted approval to five COVID-19 antigen kits made by local companies to be used for self-testing, state broadcaster CCTV said on Saturday (Mar 12), as it tweaks its testing regime that has been pressured by Omicron.
China's National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) published a notice on Friday saying Beijing Huaketai Biotechnology had been allowed to make changes to its COVID-19 antigen test kit's device certificate.
It published a similar approval for four other companies, Nanjing Vazyme Biotech, Guangzhou Wondfo Biotech, Beijing Jinwofu Bioengineering Technology and a BGI Genomics subsidiary, Shenzhen Huada Yinyuan Pharmaceutical Technology, on Saturday.
While the NMPA did not provide more information, CCTV said the NMPA approvals marked the official market launch of new COVID-19 antigen self-test kits.
The approvals come after the country's health regulator on Friday said it would allow the general public to buy COVID-19 antigen self-test kits in stores and online for the first time.
In the past two years, medical workers in many Chinese cities have swabbed hundreds of thousands of noses and throats within days after just a handful of cases emerged, using nucleic acid tests that require labs to process samples. The scale of effort has helped China keep its caseload tiny by global standards.
However, some experts said it has become increasingly challenging for that strategy to keep up with the spread of the Omicron variant. China's daily rise of domestically transmitted cases reached a two-year high this week with many asymptomatic carriers.
JAKARTA: Indonesian President Joko Widodo on Friday (Mar 11) warned the fallout from the war in Ukraine could disturb domestic price stability, and questioned how long the government could keep local fuel prices steady amid high global oil prices.
The inflation rate in Southeast Asia's largest economy has so far stayed benign, with February's headline inflation rate of 2.06 per cent at the lower end of the central bank's 2 per cent to 4 per cent target range.
However, Jokowi, as the president is known, said the government has put a lid on fuel prices to keep inflation low.
"Oil prices ... have risen twofold (since 2020). All countries have raised retail prices, but we here are still holding them. I've asked my (finance) minister, how long can we hold this amid the energy shortage?" Jokowi said at a university event in Central Java.
The government has compensated state firm PT Pertamina, Indonesia's biggest fuel distributor, to keep retail prices unchanged for its low quality fuels.
Pertamina has also offered higher octane fuels below competitors' prices.
Jokowi also noted a spike in global food prices due to the conflict, including of wheat, and a persistent shipping container shortage worldwide will make it harder to contain local price pressures.
"We must manage the economy carefully at the moment," Jokowi said.
Bank Indonesia and the government would mitigate upside risks to inflation by aiming to control volatile food inflation within a 3 per cent to 5 per cent range, the central bank said earlier this week, adding that authorities would ensure supply and distribution of foodstuff ahead of religious festivities.
Indonesian food prices typically rise ahead of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which will start in early April.
Palm oil export have been tightened to try to control domestic cooking oil prices that surged 40 per cent earlier this year.
Local media has also reported rising prices of soy-based tempeh and tofu, as well as sugar, beef, and other foodstuff.
