Oil prices edged lower on Wednesday as Saudi Arabia began restoring crude flows through a key pipeline to the Red Sea, while hopes of a diplomatic breakthrough in the US-Iran war grew ahead of talks at the United Nations in New York.

The moves came after US President Donald Trump on Tuesday warned that he could “annihilate” Iran, while also saying his envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner had held productive discussions with Iranian mediators aimed at ending the war.

Crude oil on September 23

Brent crude futures fell 7 cents, or 0.07%, to $99.18 a barrel, while West Texas Intermediate futures declined 35 cents, or 0.39%, to $90.17 a barrel.

“I think there’s a lot of momentum for them to make a deal,” Trump said. Expectations of stronger oil supply and the possibility of an end to the nearly seven-month conflict pushed Brent below $100 a barrel at Tuesday’s close for the first time since September 8. “I think that a settlement is going to be reached,” Trump said after a meeting with British Prime Minister Andy Burnham on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly ‌in ⁠New York.

Further, a sentiment boost also comes after Saudi Arabia restarted operations on its East-West Pipeline to the Red Sea on Tuesday, three sources briefed on the matter said, with signs that Middle Eastern oil flows were beginning to increase. The pipeline had been shut on September 11 after drone attacks, which Saudi Arabia blamed on Iraqi militia, halted crude loadings at the kingdom’s Yanbu port.

Before the disruption, Saudi Arabia had been using the pipeline to reroute around 4 million barrels per day, or roughly 4% of global supply, to Yanbu after the US-Israeli war on Iran disrupted oil flows from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf producers through the Strait of Hormuz.
Iraq is also raising its oil exports, Oil Minister Basim Mohammed said on Tuesday. The country is currently exporting more than 3 million bpd and expects shipments through Turkey to rise to more than 600,000 bpd.

Where are prices headed?

JPMorgan, meanwhile, has lost visibility on where oil prices are headed. For the first time since the Iran war began in February, the Wall Street bank no longer has a clear baseline scenario for the oil market, as escalating tensions add to concerns over an already worsening supply shock.

“We simply don’t know how to model the endgame,” JPMorgan analysts said, highlighting the uncertainty over how the conflict could develop. At the start of the conflict, the bank had assumed there were certain economic thresholds that the US administration would not cross. Six months into the war, however, many of those lines have been crossed, while there is still no clear exit strategy, JPMorgan said.

JPMorgan said on Thursday that it did not have a clear baseline view for oil markets for the first time since the US-Israeli war on Iran began, highlighting the uncertainty confronting the market.

The possibility of further supply disruptions has increasingly pushed the oil price outlook higher. Daan Struyven, co-head of global commodities research at Goldman Sachs, said recent attacks had shown that disruptions to shipping could spread and become more severe.

Goldman Sachs has outlined a scenario in which oil prices could climb to as much as $120 a barrel if attacks on vessels in the Middle East intensify. If exports return to normal, the bank expects oil prices to move back towards $80 a barrel.

Struyven told Bloomberg that shipping risks had become an important driver of oil prices. He said Goldman Sachs sees “meaningful upside to crude oil prices” and also expects natural gas and refined product prices to rise. He added that supply shocks in gas and fuels are larger than those in the crude market.

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US President Donald Trump says artificial intelligence (AI) makes the technology “sound fake” and wants it to be called “super intelligence” from now on.

“Welcome to the new world of super intelligence – SI,” Trump said during a wide-ranging speech to the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Tuesday.

While some people close to the president immediately started to use the term, experts have told the BBC that it is unlikely to gain widespread traction in the industry because it is typically used to refer to more advanced systems.

The announcement is Trump’s latest rebranding move after he had the names of Lake Ontario and the Gulf of Mexico changed on US maps and federal communications.

“From this point forward, all of United States’ documents, and hopefully the world’s, will be changed to use the more accurate term ‘super’ as opposed to ‘artificial’. So its ‘super intelligence’,” Trump said.

In the past week, Trump asked his followers on social media to vote on other potential new names for AI including superior intelligence, extreme intelligence and supreme intelligence.

After a series of polls on his Truth Social platform, super intelligence came out as the winner.

The purpose of renaming AI – and whether it will be adopted by the technology industry – is unclear.

AI refers to computer technology that allows machines to do tasks that usually require human thinking.

Meanwhile, super intelligence has a specific meaning within the tech community.

The term is often linked to the author and philosopher Nick Bostrom, who more than a decade ago defined the idea as an “intellect” that is superior to humans in all forms. It is still entirely hypothetical.

The rebranding is “misleading”, as super intelligence typically refers to a system that has the ability to improve by itself, said digital ethics lecturer Simon Coghlan from The University of Melbourne.

“I doubt ‘SI’ will stick, in part because it exaggerates the current capacities of AI,” he said.

“A superintelligent system, if it came about, would be regarded by experts as the most consequential technology ever made,” Coghlan said.

National University of Singapore computer science lecturer Ben Leong said: “My guess is that professionals will want to save ‘SI’ for a higher level of AI, not so much to describe AI today. It doesn’t feel like it’s at that level yet.”

But some in Trump’s circle have already started to use the new term.

“The Super Intelligence (SI) President has spoken! The United States is and will remain the global leader in SI,” US Chief Technology Officer Ethan Klein wrote on social media.

While Trump’s ambassador to the UN Michael Waltz later said: “If you didn’t see the president’s speech, it’s now super intelligence. I think he’s absolutely right.”

However, when asked for his thoughts on the new name, Canada’s minister of AI Evan Solomon said: “Canadians are not enthusiastic, at all, about renaming things,” in an apparent reference to Trump renaming Lake Ontario.

Two shopping malls in Maryland will begin enforcing a juvenile curfew next week after a string of violent incidents at the properties.

Westfield Montgomery in Bethesda and Westfield Wheaton said the new policy will take effect Monday, Sept. 28. Under the rules, anyone younger than 18 must be accompanied by an adult to enter either mall after 3 p.m., according to FOX 5 DC.

Security officers will enforce the policy through ID checks, and anyone under 18 without an accompanying adult will be required to leave the property, FOX 5 reported.

TOYS R US MAKES MAJOR COMEBACK WITH 120 NEW STORES OPENING ACROSS US THIS HOLIDAY SEASON

The policy follows multiple violent incidents at the malls over the past year.

At Westfield Wheaton, a 17-year-old allegedly shot and injured a 13-year-old boy near a children’s play area on July 31. An armed mall security officer detained the suspect until police arrived, and the teen was later charged as an adult, FOX 5 reported.

Earlier this year, nine teenagers were arrested after authorities said they stabbed another teen inside a bathroom at Westfield Wheaton, according to the outlet.

On Christmas Day last year, investigators said masked suspects — some believed to be juveniles — burglarized more than two dozen stores at the mall, FOX 5 reported.

COSTCO RAISES PRICE OF KIRKLAND MOTOR OIL AND LIMITS HOW MUCH SHOPPERS CAN BUY

Westfield Montgomery also experienced a fight involving teenagers earlier this summer after someone reportedly displayed a gun, according to the outlet.

The new policy has received mixed reactions from shoppers. Some said a 3 p.m. curfew is too early, arguing it prevents students from gathering at the mall after school while many parents are still at work. 

Others said the changes are necessary in light of the recent violence, according to FOX 5.

The move also comes amid heightened concerns over juvenile crime across the Washington metropolitan area.

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Earlier this year, a chaotic “juvenile takeover” disrupted the Navy Yard neighborhood in Washington, D.C., as hundreds of teens flooded the area, sparking fights, robberies and gunfire.

In May, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro vowed to crack down on juveniles who commit violent crimes in the nation’s capital, as well as their parents, after another violent brawl at a Chipotle restaurant in Navy Yard.

Westfield Montgomery and Westfield Wheaton could not immediately be reached by FOX Business for comment.

Peter O’Brien, head of research for photonics packaging and systems integration at Ireland’s Tyndall Research Institute, said academics and commercial companies alike have been working with photonics for years, but the technology faced multiple manufacturing challenges.

Now, O’Brien continues, the technology is ready to make the leap from the lab into widespread application.

“What’s happening now with optics and photonics is there’s kind of a reset,” he says.

It helps that AI chip giant Nvidia has thrown its weight behind the technology.

But shifting to photonics is not a straightforward swap, as it brings together different engineering traditions and different supply chains.

“We’ve really gotten good at bringing the cost down on that electrical side, how to design it, how to manufacture it, how to test it, how to deploy it,” says Andrew Wheeler, senior vice president at Hewlett Packard Labs.

But he says, the industry is still working out how to bring the cost down.

Part of the problem is that different elements of the manufacturing process are distributed across the globe. For example final assembly is done in so-called packaging houses, which are clustered in Taiwan.

Engineering challenges remain. Optical networking devices may generate far less heat but other components within a data centre are still making the local environment hot.

And that’s a problem for optical components which are very sensitive to heat, explains Wheeler. This raises reliability concerns, unless data centre operators and equipment manufacturers can keep within strict thermal limits.

And while optical networks can carry data at – almost – the speed of light, installing and maintaining them will still proceed at human speed. Network designers, field support engineers, installers, all need to learn new skills around installation and servicing.

For example, says Sharp, with fibre, “You can’t take tight turns. There are little nuances on how to structure that.”

Thailand is confronting a renewed energy-security challenge as the crisis around the Strait of Hormuz pushes global LNG prices to about US$28 per million British thermal units, close to levels seen during the Russia-Ukraine energy shock. Bangkok is responding by accelerating domestic gas exploration, reviewing LNG procurement strategy and seeking to diversify away from spot-market exposure.

Key points

• Global LNG prices have reached about US$28/MMBtu, close to Russia-Ukraine crisis levels.
• LNG accounts for around 30% of Thailand’s electricity-generation gas supply, with domestic Gulf production declining.
• Thailand is diversifying through long-term contracts, new suppliers and accelerated Andaman Sea exploration.

The pressure is particularly significant for Thailand because imported LNG already supplies roughly 30% of gas used for electricity generation, while domestic production from mature Gulf of Thailand fields is declining. PTTEP has warned that every US$3/MMBtu increase in LNG prices could raise Thai electricity prices by around 5%, leaving manufacturers, households and power generators exposed to prolonged international price volatility.

The Energy Ministry is therefore looking to secure more long-term LNG contracts and diversify suppliers. PTT is examining sources in Oman, North America and West Africa, while its trading arm has signed a long-term supply agreement with Norway’s Equinor. Thailand is also accelerating plans for new domestic petroleum exploration, including prospective resources in the Andaman Sea.

The immediate objective is to reduce Thailand’s dependence on volatile spot cargoes and create greater flexibility in the national gas portfolio. But new domestic resources will take years to develop, meaning imported LNG will remain critical in the near term. The crisis therefore increases the importance of power-sector reforms, renewable generation, energy storage and demand management alongside conventional gas investment.

Why it matters: Energy costs are becoming a direct constraint on Thailand’s industrial competitiveness. A prolonged LNG shock could raise electricity prices and production costs just as Bangkok is trying to attract data centres, electronics and other energy-intensive investment.

Oil prices drifted lower on Wednesday as Saudi Arabia began restoring crude supply on a critical pipeline to the Red Sea and on hopes for a diplomatic solution to the US-Iran war through talks at the UN in New York.

Brent crude futures fell 7 cents, or 0.07%, to $99.18 a barrel as of 0119 GMT while West Texas Intermediate futures fell 35 cents, or 0.39%, to $90.17 per barrel.

While US President Donald Trump warned on Tuesday that he could “annihilate” Iran, he also said his envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner had held productive talks with mediators of Iran to end the war.

“I think there’s a lot of momentum for them to make a deal,” Trump said.

Optimism around improved supply and a push to end the nearly seven-month conflict drove benchmark Brent down to close below $100 a barrel on Tuesday for the first time since September 8.

“The market is currently feeling more constructive about the global oil supply picture than it was a few weeks ago,” said Tim Waterer, chief analyst at KCM Trade.
“The meeting of US and Iranian delegations in New York has given traders a glimmer of hope … Despite the continued tough rhetoric, including threats of ‘annihilation,’ the market is choosing to price in the possibility of talks.”On Tuesday, Saudi Arabia restarted operations on its East-West Pipeline to the Red Sea, three sources briefed on the matter said, with signs of an increase in Middle Eastern oil flows.

Drone attacks, which Saudi Arabia has blamed on Iraqi militia, forced the kingdom to shut the pipeline on September 11, halting crude loadings at the kingdom’s Yanbu port.

Since the US-Israeli war on Iran disrupted oil flows from Saudi Arabia and its Gulf neighbours through the Strait of Hormuz, Riyadh has been using the pipeline to reroute around 4 million barrels per day – around 4% of global supply – to Yanbu.

Iraq, too, is increasing oil exports, its oil minister, Basim Mohammed, said on Tuesday. The country is exporting more than 3 million bpd, he said, and expects to boost exports via Turkey to more than 600,000 bpd.

Provisional data from shiptracking firms Vortexa and Kpler pegged Iraqi crude exports in August at 2.3 million and 2.17 million bpd, respectively, up from July’s level but below February’s pre-war level of 3.7 million and 3.362 million bpd.

Adding to downward pressure on oil prices, industry data showed US crude inventories rose by 1.8 million barrels in the week to September 18, while analysts polled by Reuters had expected a decline.

Official weekly inventory figures from the US Energy Information Administration are due at 10:30 a.m. ET (1430 GMT).

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