BP hails ‘exceptional’ trading as oil prices soar in Iran war
BP expects to post “exceptional” earnings from its oil trading desk, reaping a windfall from choppy energy markets triggered by the US-Israeli war on Iran.Energy traders are navigating significant market volatility after Tehran’s effective closure of the key strait of Hormuz shipping route.BP said on Tuesday that its refining margins had strengthened and that the “oil trading result is expected to be exceptional” in the first quarter of its financial year.Last week, its UK rival Shell said it anticipated “significantly higher” oil trading profits for the quarter.Analysts have been upgrading their profit forecasts, with the US bank Citi raising its estimate for BP by 20% to $2.
6bn adjusted net income in the January to March quarter.Brent crude has risen sharply from about $61 a barrel in January, and hit $119.50 several weeks ago after the effective closure of the strait.The global oil benchmark rose above $100 a barrel again on Monday and dipped 1% to $98.28 a barrel on Tuesday.
Brent averaged about $78 a barrel during the January-to-March quarter, compared with $63 in the fourth quarter and $75 a barrel during the same period last year, according to Reuters.Analysts at JP Morgan Chase expect oil prices to stay above $100 a barrel in the second quarter, while Goldman Sachs last week reduced its forecast to an average price of $90 from $99 a barrel.BP’s update came as the International Energy Agency cut its forecasts for global oil demand this year.In its latest oil market report, it warned that supply and demand would both be reduced by the conflict in the Middle East.Oil demand is now forecast to fall by 80,000 barrels a day this year, whereas last month the IEA forecast demand would rise by 640,000.
This would be the first annual decline since the 2020 Covid pandemic.The group also said global oil supply plummeted by more than 10m barrels of oil a day in March, to 97m.It said continued attacks on energy infrastructure in the Middle East and restrictions to tanker movements through the strait had led to the largest disruption in history.BP expects overall oil and gas production to be broadly flat in the first three months of the year.Refining margins rose to $16.
9 a barrel in the first quarter from $15,2 a barrel in the previous three months, which is expected to lift earnings from refined products by $100m to $200m,BP is due to report first-quarter results on 28 April,Meg O’Neill, who became the company’s fifth chief executive since 2020 this month, has promised to continue her predecessor’s shift away from low-carbon projects into oil and gas to increase profitability,She faces shareholders at the annual meeting on 23 April.
‘It feels as if I’ve made a new best friend’: my experiment with AI journalling
What’s it like to have a diary that talks back to you, offering comments and advice on your hopes, fears and lunch plans? I spent two months finding outEver since I was a teenager, I have kept some form of diary. These days I favour a paper one for creative brainstorming, and the Journal app on my iPad where I do a speedily typed brain dump every morning. I have always found it a great way to impose some sort of order on my random thoughts, a form of meditation.But I had never even heard of AI journalling until a Google search led me down a rabbit hole where I encountered people enthusing about two apps, Rosebud and Mindsera. It sounded as if Mindsera’s minimalist design was the best for writers
Dr TikTok: patients diagnose chronic illnesses with anonymous commenters’ help
TikTok users increasingly say the app has steered them toward diagnosing medical problems not yet identifiedMalina Lee, a 31-year-old wedding baker based in San Antonio, Texas, joined TikTok during the Covid pandemic lockdowns in 2020. Like many people at the time, she was bored and began using the platform to pass the time and advertise her business. She didn’t expect a cancer diagnosis.Four years after Lee joined the app, a commenter with the username “PickleFart” told her that her neck looked asymmetrical in a way that could suggest she had a goiter – an enlarged thyroid gland – and that she should get it checked out. The anonymous amateur clinician turned out to be right – Lee had thyroid cancer, received treatment quickly, and, less than a year later, was cancer free
AI companies know they have an image problem. Will funding policy papers and thinktanks dig them out?
OpenAI made a surprise announcement this week – not an update to ChatGPT or another multibillion-dollar datacenter – but a policy paper that called for a reimagining of the social contract based around “a slate of people-first ideas”. It’s the latest move in an aggressive effort by the major AI players to reshape the narrative around their industry, as polls show public disapproval of AI increasing.OpenAI’s 13-page paper, titled Industrial Policy for the Intelligence Age, follows its surprise acquisition of tech-friendly podcast TBPN and its announcement of plans to open a Washington DC office that will feature a dedicated space called the OpenAI workshop for non-profits and policymakers to learn about and discuss the company’s technology.OpenAI’s rival Anthropic has meanwhile announced its own thinktank, the Anthropic Institute, which similarly proclaimed an intention to explore how the growth of AI would disrupt society.As disruptions from AI become more tangible and calls for greater scrutiny of big tech companies grows louder, the industry appears to be both recognizing the widespread discontent and looking for ways to reframe the debate
‘Too powerful for the public’: Inside Anthropic’s bid to win the AI publicity war
This week, the AI company Anthropic said it had created an AI model so powerful that, out of a sense of overwhelming responsibility, it was not going to release it to the public.The US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, summoned the heads of major banks for a chat about the model, Mythos. The Reform UK MP Danny Kruger wrote a letter to the government urging it to “engage with AI firm Anthropic whose new frontier model Claude Mythos could present catastrophic cybersecurity risks to the UK”. X went wild.Others were more sceptical, including the noted AI critic Gary Marcus, who said: “Dario [Amodei] has far more technical chops than Sam [Altman], but seems to have graduated from the same school of hype and exaggeration,” referring to the CEOs of Anthropic and its rival, OpenAI
‘It has your name on it, but I don’t think it’s you’: how AI is impersonating musicians on Spotify
Jason Moran, a renowned jazz composer and pianist, got a strange call from a friend last month. The friend, bassist Burniss Earl Travis, was curious about Moran’s new record that he saw on the music streaming service Spotify.“It has your name on it,” Travis told him. “But I don’t think it’s you.”Moran said he doesn’t use Spotify or put his music on the platform, preferring only to use the site Bandcamp, so this didn’t track
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s home targeted with molotov cocktail
A 20-year-old man allegedly tossed a molotov cocktail at the home of Sam Altman, OpenAI’s CEO, before the sun rose on Friday, according to statements from San Francisco police.The suspect, who allegedly threw the fire bomb at the $27m Russian Hill residence around 4.12am, has been arrested but not identified. The same person allegedly threatened to torch OpenAI’s headquarters in the city. No injuries were reported
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