Oil tops 75 dollars in Asian trade

 

Oil topped 75 dollars a barrel in Asian trade Thursday, lifted by rising stock markets, analysts said.

New York's main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in August, touched an intra-day high of 75.10 dollars a barrel before easing to trade at 74.75 dollars a barrel, up 68 cents from the previous day.

Brent North Sea crude for August delivery advanced 68 cents to 74.19 dollars.

"What's really happening is that oil has been handcuffed to equities," said Victor Shum, a Singapore-based analyst with energy consultancy Purvin and Gertz.

Asian stock markets were higher Thursday, cheered by a surge on Wall Street overnight.

US stocks had rallied Wednesday on the back of solid gains chalked up by financial companies, with the Dow index ending 2.8 percent higher to close above 10,000 points.

"This rally in the US stock market followed by Asian stock markets has helped pull oil to around the midpoint of the 70 to 80-dollar range that oil producers and consuming countries are comfortable with," Shum told AFP.

"Given the state of the global economy and the expectations of a tighter oil market as the economy recovers, pricing at around 75 dollars is reasonable at this point."

A report by the American Petroleum Institute showing a large drawdown in crude inventories in the United States, the world's biggest energy consuming nation, was another factor that helped push prices higher, Shum said.

A weaker US dollar has also made dollar-priced oil cheaper to holders of strong currencies, spurring buying and helping to lift prices, he added.

The euro was up to an eight-week high against the dollar in Asia on Thursday as risk-taking sentiment grew on higher stock prices and strong Australian jobs data, dealers said.

The euro briefly rose past 1.2680 dollars to trade at the highest level since mid-May in Tokyo morning trade, up from 1.2630 dollars in New York late Wednesday.

The euro also rose to 111.27 yen from 110.99 yen.

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Singapore's Temasek Holdings says net profit down 26 percent

 

Singapore's influential state-linked investment firm Temasek Holdings said Thursday its net profit in the year ended March had fallen 26 percent due to the lingering impact of global recession.

The firm's net profit of 4.6 billion Singapore dollars (3.33 billion US) compared with 6.2 billion dollars the previous financial year, the sovereign wealth fund said.

The decline was due to "lower profit contributions from some of the portfolio companies which were impacted by the global financial crisis," it said as it released its annual report.