Oil goes up in price on Tuesday after Saudi Arabia raised prices for most grades of this energy carrier for Asian buyers.
On the eve of the state company Saudi Aramco said that the cost of the main variety of Arab Light delivered to Asia in March will increase by $0.2 per barrel. As a result it will be $2 a barrel more expensive than the oil basket of Oman and Dubai.
The price of this grade has risen for the first time since September.
The price increase for Asia is a signal of higher-than-expected demand for oil in China, said Phil Flynn, chief analyst at The Price Futures Group. “This should provide significant support for the oil market, given increasing investor fears about the amount of spare production capacity in the world,” Bloomberg quotes the expert.
The cost of April futures for Brent crude oil on London’s ICE Futures exchange is $81.74 a barrel by 7:15 a.m. Tuesday, up $0.75 (0.93%) from the previous session’s closing price. Those contracts rose $1.05 (1.3%) to $80.99 a barrel at the close of trading on Monday.
The price of WTI futures for March crude oil grew by $0.74 (1%) to $74.85 per barrel at electronic trades of New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) by that time. By the close of previous trading the cost of those contracts grew by $0.72 (1%) to $74.11 a barrel.
Earlier, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. chief commodity markets analyst. Jeffrey Curry said that reserve production capacity in the oil sector, according to his estimates, is running out and this may become a serious problem for the market in 2024.
Oil prices are also boosted by fears of supply cuts from the Middle East following the earthquake in Turkey. In particular, operations at Turkey’s Ceyhan oil terminal were suspended, Bloomberg notes.
Ukraine’s largest mobile operator Kyivstar together with its partners has installed generators in 50 branded stores, in the coming months the number of standalone stores will reach 100, the operator’s press service said.
“To date, the company has already invested more than 350 million UAH to provide the network of base stations with powerful batteries, as well as stationary and mobile diesel generators. More than UAH 5.5 million were allocated to compensate our partners for purchasing generators in stores to provide our customers with constant access to services”, – the press service quotes Kyivstar head of retail sales channels Mykhailo Mykolyuk as saying.
As reported, earlier Kyivstar invested more than UAH 50 million in the purchase of uninterruptible power supplies to support “Home Internet” service to 10 thousand homes and 90 thousand subscribers to stay connected even during power outages.
The shareholder of Kyivstar is an international group VEON, which is headquartered in the Netherlands. The group’s shares are traded on the NASDAQ (New York) and Euronext (Amsterdam) stock exchanges.
Egyptian State Agency for Food Purchasing (GASC) has purchased 60 thousand tons of corn of Ukrainian origin under direct agreement, according to the website of “APK-Inform” agency on Monday.
According to its data, the agricultural products were purchased from the operator Egyptian African Co in two batches of 30 thousand tons each. The price of corn was $323/ton, including corn itself bought at $308/ton on FOB terms (delivery of goods before loading on board the ship), and the freight of the ship cost $15/ton.
Corn delivery to Egypt should take place from the second half of February to the beginning of March 2023.
Oil prices stabilized on Monday after a sharp drop last week.
The value of April futures for Brent on London’s ICE Futures Exchange stood at $80.14 a barrel by 7:15 a.m. Monday, $0.2 (0.25%) above the previous session’s closing price. Those contracts fell $2.23 (2.7%) to $79.94 a barrel at the close of trading on Friday.
The price of WTI futures for March increased by $0.09 (0.12%) to $73.48 per barrel at electronic auctions of New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX). By closing of previous trades the cost of these contracts went down by $2.49 (3.3%) to $73.39 per barrel.
Brent has fallen by 7.5% and WTI by 7.9%.
The market decline was helped by the weakening optimism of traders regarding the demand growth in China after the lifting of the anti-crisis restrictions, as well as strong data on the US labor market, which showed that the Federal Reserve (Fed) still has some room for maneuver in terms of tightening its monetary policy.
Over the weekend, however, Fatih Birol, head of the International Energy Agency, told Bloomberg that China’s economic rebound after the rejection of harsh quarantine measures may be more powerful than expected.
According to Birol’s forecast, the Chinese economy will account for about half of the growth in oil demand this year.
Another factor the market is closely watching is the EU and G7 decision to impose an embargo on oil product imports from Russia, which came into force on February 5.
Capital investments of Vodafone Ukraine in 2022 amounted to about $100 million, not less than before the full-scale Russian invasion, NEQSOL Holding Ukraine regional director Volodymyr Lavrenchuk told the Interfax-Ukraine news agency.
“As a responsible investor in 2022, NEQSOL Holding supported the strategy of capital investments made by Vodafone Ukraine Group in the most difficult conditions at the level of last year. These are investments to provide communications for millions of Ukrainians and data transmission systems for various production and service sectors”, – said Lavrenchuk.
Investments were mainly used to maintain network stability and restore communications in the de-occupied territories, as well as to buy new equipment and improve the company’s coverage, the press service of Vodafone Ukraine specified.
“If during peacetime emergency works accounted for no more than 2% of all works, since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion they have taken up more than 95% of the time. Only for 9 months of 2022 more than 1 thousand repairs to restore damaged networks were carried out,” – noted in Vodafone Ukraine.
Since the beginning of the Russian invasion in Kyiv, Sumy, Chernihiv, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, Mykolaiv and Kherson regions more than 500 Vodafone Ukraine base stations were damaged (of those that were able to survey). Operation of 577 base stations has been resumed, the company said.
According to the company, since March, Vodafone Ukraine has restored communications in more than 550 settlements, in particular in 123 towns and villages of Kherson region in the past week. Also 2.56 thousand kilometers of fiber-optic cable was renewed, the total length of unrecoverable and re-laid optics was 37 kilometers.
“Blackouts were an additional challenge. All equipment, except fiber optic, requires power supply and its absence is critical for network operation,” Vodafone Ukraine said, stressing that in order to ensure communication despite long blackouts they provide base stations with backup batteries, as well as use alternative power sources from diesel generators to solar panels.
Vodafone Ukraine in 2022 also invested in expanding coverage in the western part of the country, where most Ukrainians have moved since the war began. Since the beginning of the year, 150 base stations have been installed and a number of existing ones upgraded. In order to expand the 4G coverage 3.8 thousand base stations were installed, 250 new sites were built and 1.5 thousand 3G base stations were modernized.
Also the company continues to provide free services to Ukrainians, in particular in roaming, which has already been used by 14 million Ukrainians, the press service said.
The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine has decided that documents produced or certified on the territory of foreign states are accepted on the territory of Ukraine without an apostille if such a practice existed as of February 24, 2022 in accordance with international treaties of Ukraine.
“This step was necessary, because in December last year, in relations with Russia and Belarus, the international Convention on Legal Assistance and Legal Relations in Civil, Family and Criminal Matters was terminated. As a result, citizens of Ukraine who have documents issued on the territory of these two states should have affixed an apostille on them. That is, they would have to go to the territory of the aggressor state for this, which is unacceptable,” the press service of the Ministry of Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories said in a statement.
Thus, by the decision of the government, it was decided that during the martial law in Ukraine and six months after it, documents that were accepted without an apostille before February 24, 2022 continue to be accepted without an apostille.
