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LONDON - Oil rose on Tuesday, paring earlier losses after South Korea said it would hold a summit with North Korea for the first time in more than a decade, which investors took as a cue to sell the U.S. dollar and buy risk-sensitive assets such as commodities.

The prospect of OPEC and other producers, including Russia, maintaining crude output cuts in the face of a boom in U.S. shale production has helped to push oil back above $65 a barrel this week.

Brent crude futures LCOc1 were up 12 cents on the day at $65.66 a barrel by 1504 GMT, having risen from a session low of $65.30, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate futures CLc1 were up 3 cents at $62.60, off an earlier high of $63.28 a barrel.

The dollar fell to its lowest in more than a week against a basket of currencies after a senior delegation from South Korea returned from a visit to the north, which said there was no need to keep its nuclear program as long as there was no military threat against it and the safety of its regime was secured.

“The comments on North Korea denuclearization have caught the market a bit off-guard and so the dollar has weakened and commodities have received a boost,” said Saxo Bank senior manager Ole Hansen.

“Oil seems to be more driven by outside macro forces than what is happening within the sector.”

The price had eased closer to $65 in earlier trading, pressured by the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) warning on Monday that U.S. oil output is set to surge over the coming five years.

U.S. crude production has risen to more than 10 million barrels per day (bpd), overtaking top exporter Saudi Arabia. Output hit a record 10.057 million bpd in November, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

“If the production growth in Brazil, Canada and Norway is factored into the equation, these four countries will even exceed demand growth,” Commerzbank analysts said in a note.

“According to the IEA, the call on OPEC is therefore set to decline to 31.8 million barrels per day in 2019, thereby falling below OPEC’s current production level. It is thus an illusion for OPEC to think about abandoning the agreement to cut production.”

Weekly U.S. crude inventory data is expected to show a second consecutive weekly rise in the week to March 2, according to a Reuters poll.

The American Petroleum Institute (API) will release its weekly inventory data at 4.30 p.m. EST (2130 GMT) on Tuesday, and the U.S. Energy Department’s Energy Information Administration (EIA) reports its data at 10.30 a.m. EST (1530 GMT) on Wednesday.

BEIJING — China set its 2018 economic growth target at “around 6.5 per cent” on Monday, in line with expectations but lower than the 6.9 per cent increase registered last year.

The target, which is the same as last year, was presented by Premier Li Keqiang in a report for Monday’s opening session of the annual National People’s Congress, the rubber-stamp parliament.

The figure, along with an inflation target of 3 per cent, is “fitting given the fact that China’s economy is transitioning from a phase of rapid growth to a stage of high-quality development” and will allow the country to “achieve relatively full employment”, the report said.

China beat forecasts in 2017 as the world’s second largest economy grew by 6.9 per cent, picking up steam for the first time since 2010 despite a battle against massive debt and polluting factories.

Beijing has largely relied on debt-fuelled investment and exports to drive its tremendous economic growth of the past four decades, but it is now seeking to move to more sustainable consumption-based growth.

In its report, the country vowed to “cut overcapacity, reduce excess inventory, deleverage, lower costs and strengthen areas of weakness”.

China will cut steel capacity by 30 million tonnes and coal by 150 million tonnes in 2018, according to the report.

The country is also facing pressure to prevent a credit crisis, with local government debt growing 7.5 per cent last year to $2.56 trillion, according to figures in January.

“China’s economic and financial risks are on the whole manageable,” the report said.

But it pledged to “see that internal risk controls are tightened in financial institutions”, adding that Beijing plans to crack down on the kinds of financial shenanigans that have seen some of the country’s largest corporations teetering on the brink of collapse in recent months.

“There will be a serious crackdown on activities that violate the law like illegal fundraising and financial fraud,” it said.

China has moved aggressively over the past year to slam the brakes on companies like private insurer Anbang, which ran up gargantuan debts to fund pricey overseas acquisitions.

Late last month, Beijing took over heavily leveraged Anbang, confirming some analysts’ fears about the toxic levels of debt plaguing China’s economy.

The looming danger is just one of many strong headwinds the country faces as it attempts to achieve its GDP target this year.

The country is also facing a potential trade war with the US, which levied tariffs on steel and aluminium imports last week and has been considering taking direct measures against Chinese products.

US President Donald Trump is determined to change the balance of trade between the two countries.

China’s trade surplus with the US swelled 10 per cent to $275.8 billion last year, a record high.

“China doesn’t want a trade war with the United States,” Zhang Yesui, spokesman for the National People’s Congress, told a news conference on Sunday.

“But if the US takes actions that hurt Chinese interests, China will not sit idly by,” he warned.

GENEVA — This year's Geneva Motor Show comes at a curious time for an auto world enjoying record profits; yet, also gripped by doubt midway through the grand transition from diesel to electric and self-driving vehicles.

"Geneva really ought to have been a lovely salon," says, with heavy irony, Ferdinand Dudenhoeffer, director of German-based Centre Automotive Research of Europe's first major car show of the year running from March 8 to 18.

"The luxury car makers continue to present their new models and worldwide sales set new records in 2017.” 

"But behind the glamour and the finery are plenty of worry wrinkles."

Adding to the worries is a new threat by US President Donald Trump to tax imported European cars "which freely pour into the US", if Brussels retaliates in response to his announced plans for tariffs on imported steel and aluminium. 

Number one over-riding concern, though, is the increasing slide in diesel sales, a blow for European constructors who had essentially sought to bet the house on diesel as they strove for years to cut CO2 emissions with the support of public authorities.

The emissions cheating scandal, which blew up at Volkswagen in 2015, has heaped discredit on a technology criticised for belching out nitrogen oxide and harmful particulates.

Major cities including Paris have announced their intention to ban diesel progressively while a top German court last month opened the way to banning older diesel cars from the streets on air quality grounds.

Diesel's fall from grace has pushed constructors to turn their attention to production of more-in-demand models running either on petrol, dubbed "dinosaur juice", or else make the jump to electric or at least hybrid.

 Are future friends electric? 

The top global constructors have earmarked investments worth tens of billions of euros (dollars) over the past few years to accelerate their push to electric. Yet, the commercial upshot of the strategy remains unclear.

This year's Geneva show, the 88th edition, will see the unveiling of several new electric models and concepts at Tuesday and Wednesday's media days, before opening its doors to the general public on Thursday.

Among new potential star turns are Jaguar's first all-electric model, the production version of the I-Pace, as well as Hyundai's Kona, advertised as the world's first fully electric sub-compact SUV.

Constructors also have to contend with the fact that where fuel engines are concerned, their greater emissions of CO2 will render a tough challenge compliance with future European norms.

They will have to cut CO2 emissions to an average 95 grammes per kilometre across the board by 2021 from 130 grammes in 2015, or face swinging fines.

Automakers are bound to continue investing, furthermore, to ensure improved performance of their combustion engines as these still make up the bulk of sales. Yet, they will prove progressively less of an earner as volumes inexorably fall off.

Traditional constructors also have a wary eye on sector newcomers, led by those in the electric vanguard such as Tesla, as well as high-tech giants Apple or Google and would-be Chinese rivals all seeking their slice of a "smart car" cake.

The future belongs to those whose vehicles enjoy ever more autonomy through increasing recourse to artificial intelligence and telecommunications.

Such qualities are not the preserve of the traditional automobile constructor.

Square circle 

The last few weeks have seen a slew of carmakers post record profits — but the question is the degree to which that will act as a springboard to paying for the switch to a new auto-tech world.

Eric Kirstetter of the Roland Berger consultancy told AFP that, currently, some constructors are doing "very well", yet their "future is very complicated".

They must "reduce costs in such a way as to make savings allowing them to achieve their R&D plans", said Kirstetter, adding this will involve surmounting "a problem of squaring the financial circle".

That, he says, is "an equation extremely difficult to resolve in order to make the necessary investments to develop new generations of vehicles while continuing to invest massively in improving the combustion engine" in the shorter term.

The task may be more readily surmountable for pioneers in the development of alternatives to diesel, including the Renault-Nissan alliance, with both leaders in the move towards electrification, while Toyota has an early jump on the hybrid market.

However, the future of a metamorphosing industry ultimately pans out, the 700,000 Salon visitors expected to descend on Geneva's Palexpo in the coming days will be able to cast their eyes over some 900 vehicles.

Monday will see the car of the year unveiled from seven finalists for the accolade.

The contenders are the Alfa Romeo Stelvio, Audi A8, BMW series 5, Citroen C3 Aircross, Kia Stinger, Seat Ibiza and Volvo XC40.

TRIPOLI/BENGHAZI, Libya - Libya’s giant El Sharara oilfield has been shut down because a landlord closed a valve in protest against pollution near a pipeline crossing his land, he told Reuters.

The closure, which was confirmed by an oilfield engineer and a separate Libyan oil source, is a major blow to the North African country a little more than a week after the nearby El Feel oilfield was closed by a protest.

“I closed the pipeline that crosses my land. The land is six hectares and it has become wasteland,” said Hassan Mohamed al-Hadi, the landowner in the western Zintan area.

“We closed the pipeline last year for the same reason. A number of mediators had intervened to persuade me to reopen it within 20 days for cleaning the land, but unfortunately the same thing has returned.”

Flows from El Sharara in the south of the country were not getting through to the Mediterranean port of Zawiya, an oilfield engineer said, confirming the closure.

The El Sharara field has closed several times because of protests by security guards over pay, as well as protests by other groups, part of turmoil gripping Libya since the toppling of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011

The field has capacity of 340,000 barrels per day (bpd) but an oil source had put output at 308,000 bpd last week. National Oil Corporation (NOC) operates Sharara in partnership with Repsol, Total, OMV and Statoil.

Repeated and long shutdowns cause pressure in the oilfield’s wells to drop, reducing production capacity.

Boosting capacity at the field requires much-needed investment that NOC has been struggling to secure.

In addition, NOC and the state in general have cut back on many services as oil revenues have dropped.

“The National Oil Corporation does not stand to its responsibility and clean the land as happened before 2011,” said Hadi, the landowner.

In addition to being one of Libya’s main export grades, Sharara also feeds the 120,000 bpd Zawiya oil refinery in the west of the country, currently the largest operating refinery.

A week ago NOC declared force majeure on the 70,000 bpd El Feel after a protest by guards closed the field, which is operated by a joint venture between state-owned NOC and Italy’s Eni.

Crude from El Feel is blended with condensate from the Wafa field to form the Mellitah blend, which is exported from the Mellitah terminal.

NEW YORK — The S&P 500 ended another turbulent week on an upbeat note on Friday, but major indexes posted their worst week of losses since early February as President Donald Trump's threat to impose import tariffs on steel and aluminum rattled investors. 

The gains on Friday came as investors who had been spooked by the prospect of a global trade war backed off those concerns and noted a trade war was far from certain at this point.

Trump on Thursday threatened a 25 per cent tariff on steel imports and 10 per cent on aluminum without exemptions for any countries, igniting a sell-off in a market already on edge over rising US interest rates and bond yields.

Trump struck a defiant tone on Friday, saying trade wars were "good, and easy to win", and US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, appearing on CNBC, said tariffs would have a "trivial effect".

Phil Orlando, chief equity strategist at Federated Investors in New York, said Trump's announcement was made to call everyone's attention to the US trade deficit but investors decided that a full-blown global trade was not going to happen. 

"For a real estate guy like that, you pound the podium, you rattle some sabers, you get everybody's attention and then you negotiate back to some reasonable midpoint."

The tariffs could dampen profits for everything from car makers to beer companies and result in higher prices for consumers.

Shares of big US steel companies and manufacturers were under pressure on uncertainty over the effects of tariffs.

Shares in Caterpillar, a buyer of raw materials and a big exporter of construction machinery products, were down 2.6 per cent after falling 2.8 per cent in the previous day's session. General Motors was down 1 per cent.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 70.92 points, or 0.29 per cent, to 24,538.06, the S&P 500 gained 13.58 points, or 0.51 per cent, to 2,691.25 and the Nasdaq Composite added 77.31 points, or 1.08 per cent, to 7,257.87.

For the week, the S&P 500 dropped 2 per cent, while the Dow was down 3 per cent and the Nasdaq fell 1 per cent. Wall Street had posted gains in the previous two weeks as it recovered from its steep early-February sell-off.

Those losses in early February pushed the S&P 500 down more than 10 per cent from a January 26 record high, confirming the market was in a correction.

The tariffs are unlikely to significantly hurt Corporate America's overall earnings, according to stock market strategists, who were not immediately adjusting their profit estimates following Trump's announcement.

"The impact on total corporate earnings first would be driven by the impact on the economy," said Keith Parker, US equity strategist for UBS in New York.

McDonald's dropped 4.8 per cent after RBC lowered its price target on the stock and cut its 2018 earnings estimate, citing a disappointing early sales impact from McDonald's value menu. The stock was the biggest drag on the S&P and the Dow. 

J.C. Penney Co. Inc. shares fell 5.4 per cent after the department store chain missed same-store sales estimates.

Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a 1.69-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 2.99-to-1 ratio favored advancers.

The S&P 500 posted one new 52-week high and 25 new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 59 new highs and 65 new lows.

About 7.7 billion shares changed hands on US exchanges. That compares with the 8.4 billion daily average for the past 20 trading days, according to Thomson Reuters data. 

LONDON  — Sterling slipped to a seven-week low against the dollar on Thursday, as investors sold the pound on worries a Brexit transition deal might not be reached this month.

British Prime Minister Theresa May will lay out her views on how to keep trade open between all of the United Kingdom and the European Union in a key speech on Friday, just two days after the EU's chief negotiator Michel Barnier struck a downbeat tone on the progress of Brexit talks so far, weakening sterling. 

Sterling has struggled to build on a rally earlier this year amid a resurgence in political risk centred on Brexit, and a broad rebound in the dollar. It suffered its worst month since October 2016 in February, as the greenback strengthened across the board. 

Warnings by Barnier that a transition deal — designed to give Britain and the EU more time to agree the terms of their future relations — was not guaranteed have rattled investors. 

On Thursday, the pound slipped 0.4 per cent to as low as $1.3712, its weakest since January 12. 

"This is mostly about the rebound in the dollar, which is benefiting from more risk-averse trading conditions on the back of more hawkish comments from Powell," said MUFG currency strategist Lee Hardman, referring to a testimony from new Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.

"But there are [also] pound-specific negative factors — the Brexit risk has picked up in the past week or so, and the comments yesterday from Barnier don't give you much confidence that a transition deal will be reached this month," he added. 

Against the euro, sterling traded down 0.2 per cent at 88.77 pence per euro. 

A closely watched gauge of British factory activity slipped to its lowest in eight months in February as output expanded more slowly, a survey also showed on Thursday.

But politics remains front and centre for sterling. "The pound is weakening basically at the moment on politics," said Michael Hewson, chief market strategist at CMC Markets.

Hewson said he believed sterling remained in an uptrend that it began early last year, but that it could fall to as low as below $1.34 as investors book profits and political risk overshadows any positive economic developments.

The market is pricing in a May interest rate hike by the Bank of England, although the central bank has said its monetary outlook is dependent on smooth negotiations with the EU over Brexit and a healthy economy.

AMMAN — Jordan Phosphate Mining Company (JPMC) and the Arab Potash Company (APC) signed a memorandum of understanding (MoUs) on Wednesday with Indian companies to bring up their exports to the Indian market, according to the Jordan News Agency, Petra. 

The MoUs were signed in the Indian capital, New Delhi, as His Majesty King Abdullah is visiting India in a bid to boost Jordanian-Indian business cooperation.

Petra said JPMC signed six agreements with different Indian companies to export phosphate to India. Under the deals, that will be implemented this year, it will initially provide the Indian market with around 3 million tonnes of phosphate. Exported quantities are expected to go up to 10 million tonnes of “raw phosphate” over the coming three years, Petra indicated. The value was not disclosed.  

The JPMC, which exports around 60 per cent of its production to the Indian market, also signed an agreement with an Indian company to acquire 250,000 tonnes of “phosphate fertilisers”, Petra reported.

Founded in 1949, the Amman Stock Exchange listed company, JPMC, operates three mining facilities in Jordan and a chemical manufacturing complex in Aqaba.

Moreover, on the sidelines of the India-Jordan Business Forum, which convened in New Delhi on Wednesday, the APC and Indian Potash Ltd. signed an MoU under which the APC will provide the Indian company with 375,000 metric tonnes of product, in addition to other quantities over five years. The two sides are to agree on prices on annual basis, in accordance with the prices at global markets.

The APC also signed a three-year MoU with Zuari Agro Chemicals Ltd. to provide it with different quantities, Petra reported.