Oil prices are rising on Monday amid fears of disruptions in the supply of raw materials through the Red Sea due to attacks by Yemeni Houthis on ships.
The Suez Canal Authority said it was “closely monitoring” the situation after the US reported 14 Yemeni Houthi attack drones shot down on Saturday, targeting merchant ships. A number of shipping companies, including A.P. Moeller-Maersk AS and Hapag-Lloyd, have announced that they will suspend the passage of their vessels through the Red Sea.
The Red Sea “is one of the most important routes for maritime oil supplies,” accounting for about 10% of global flows, says Manish Raj, managing director of Velandera Energy Partners.
The cost of February futures for Brent on the London ICE Futures exchange as of 7:20 a.m. on Thursday amounted to $76.88 per barrel, which is $0.33 (0.42%) higher than at the close of the previous session. As a result of previous trading, these contracts fell by $0.06 (0.1%) to $76.55 per barrel.
January futures for WTI in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) rose by $0.36 (0.5%) to $71.79 per barrel by this time. On Friday, contracts fell by $0.15 (0.2%) to $71.43 per barrel.
Over the past week, Brent rose by 0.9% and WTI by 0.3%. Both brands ended the week in the black for the first time since late October due to growing expectations of monetary policy easing by the Federal Reserve next year.
In January-November this year, Ukraine reduced exports of titanium ores and concentrate in physical terms by 96.2% year-on-year to 11.063 thousand tons.
According to statistics released by the State Customs Service, exports of titanium ores and concentrate decreased by 84.5% to $18.474 million in monetary terms.
The main exports were to Turkey (38.05% of supplies in monetary terms), Japan (17.38%) and India (6.44%).
Ukraine imported 1 ton of such ore from the Netherlands for $2 thousand in the period under review.
As reported, in 2022, Ukraine reduced exports of titanium ore and concentrate in physical terms by 41.8% compared to the previous year to 322.143 thousand tons, and in monetary terms by 19.6% to $130.144 million. At the same time, the main exports were made to the Czech Republic (47.91% of supplies in monetary terms), the United States (11.94%) and Romania (9.75%).
In 2022, Ukraine imported 196 tons of similar products from Senegal (70.41%) and Turkey (29.59%) for $115 thousand.
In Ukraine, titanium ores are currently mined mainly by the United Mining and Chemical Company (UMCC), which manages Vilnohirsk Mining and Metallurgical Plant (VGMK, Dnipro region) and Irshansk Mining and Metallurgical Plant (Irshansk, Dnipro region). ) and Irshansk Mining and Processing Plant (IGOK, Zhytomyr region), as well as Mezhirichinsky GOK and Valky Ilmenite (both based in Irshansk, Zhytomyr region). In addition, Velta (Dnipro) has built a mining and processing plant at Birzulivske deposit with a capacity of 240 thousand tons of ilmenite concentrate per year.
In addition, Velta, a Dnipro-based industrial and commercial company, has built a mining and processing plant at the Birzulivske deposit with an annual capacity of 240 thousand tons of ilmenite concentrate.
In the coming days, Ukraine will officially initiate the process of assessing Ukrainian legislation for compliance with EU law, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a video address on Sunday.
“We are preparing to work on a negotiation framework for Ukraine. We expect it in the spring. The negotiation process will not be easy, but the main thing is that historically we have determined that Ukraine will always be part of our common European home,” he said.
Zelensky thanked “everyone who helps to bring the necessary European decisions closer. To everyone who has joined, to politicians, civic leaders, and the people of different countries who equally believe in us, in Ukraine and in Europe.”
We would like to inform you about the status of Kyivstar network as of December 17, 2023. Voice communication services, including roaming, mobile data transfer, and Home Internet service are available to customers. The company has also restored virtual private network (VPN) services and started restoring access to M2M services for business customers. The company plans to launch SMS as soon as possible. The services are being restored gradually, in compliance with all security requirements. The company will inform about 100% service availability upon completion of all stabilization measures. In some localities, particularly in Kyiv, there are still local difficulties with the availability of Home Internet. The company has engaged all available staff, including those from other regions and oblasts, to restore the service as soon as possible. Also, for the period of stabilization measures, the mobile data service may operate at a reduced speed.
We remind you that if your SIM card is not registered in the network, you need to restart your phone or turn on and off the airplane mode. In addition, selecting the Kyivstar network in the phone settings helps. At the same time, the company informs that bonuses and compensations will be credited to subscribers who could not use communication services due to the hacker attack only after the network is fully stabilized and all services are launched. Please wait for official information from the company.
More than two thousand trucks are standing in line at three directions of the Ukrainian-Polish border due to the ongoing blockade organized by Polish carriers, the spokesman for the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine, Andriy Demchenko, said on a national telethon on Sunday morning.
“Three directions remain blocked: Rava-Ruska – Hrebenne, Krakovets – Korchova, Shehyni-Medyka… As of this morning, there are about 2,150 trucks in the queues in these three directions heading to Ukraine in Poland. Most of them are in front of Shehynia-Medica. There is traffic, but it is not as intense as it was before November 6 or November 23, when the blocking of Shehynia began,” the spokesman said.
At the same time, Demchenko emphasized that the Yahodyn-Dorohusk direction, which was unblocked on December 11, is experiencing heavy traffic of freight transport.
“Over the past day, about 1,500 trucks crossed this direction in both directions. Most of them were heading towards Ukraine. This is a very high rate of border crossing. Because the same number of trucks, even less, crossed the border before the blockade,” said the spokesman.
Net sales of dollars by the National Bank of Ukraine jumped to $862.5 million this week from $544.0 million a week earlier, the last time the NBU sold more in the first week of the transition to managed exchange rate flexibility in early October.
According to the central bank’s website, the hryvnia exchange rate on the interbank market weakened by almost 0.8%, or 28 kopecks, to 37.0211 UAH/$1 over the week, with the rate depreciating on Monday-Wednesday, while it was relatively stable on Thursday-Friday.
NBU Governor Andriy Pyshnyi explained the increase in demand for foreign currency and the exchange rate movement as a traditional seasonal factor at the end of the year. “Today we are witnessing the seasonality process that was already common in pre-war times, when the need for foreign currency increases at the end of the year. We are seeing the utilization of expenses that have been accumulating throughout the year. Usually, they are not realized in time,” he said during a press briefing on Thursday in Kyiv.
At the same time, compared to the fixed exchange rate of 36.5686 UAH/$1, which the National Bank maintained from the end of July 2022 to October 3 this year, the hryvnia is now only 1.2% cheaper.
This week, the exchange rate on the cash market repeated the movement on the interbank market, but not on such a large scale, which resulted in the hryvnia weakening by only about 17 kopecks to 37.55 UAH/$1, and the spread between the rates of the two markets narrowed again.
As reported, the National Bank’s net sales in November fell to $2.46 billion from $3.34 billion in October and $2.69 billion in September. However, the reduction in external financing to $2.04 billion led to a decrease in international reserves for the fourth consecutive month – by 0.5%, or $187.8 million, to $38 billion 785.2 million.
In total, since the beginning of this year, the NBU has purchased $217.9 million in the market, while selling $26 billion 958.7 million.
