SINGAPORE, June 5--Oil prices steadied on Tuesday with concerns over gasoline supply in the United States keeping crude above the $70 mark even as fears eased that a cyclone in the Middle East would disrupt production.
London Brent crude rose 11 cents to $70.51 a barrel by 0659 GMT, after climbing $1.33 on Monday on concerns the storm could disrupt shipping and output in the energy-rich region, Reuters said.
US light crude fell 7 cents to $66.14 a barrel.
Top exporter Saudi Arabia said its main oil producing region would not be affected by a storm nearing the Arabian Peninsula, while shipping agents said no official warnings had been issued for fellow OPEC member the United Arab Emirates.
“The cyclone will not have a bigger impact,“ said Tetsu Emori, analyst at Mitsui Bussan Futures in Tokyo.
Still, oil producer Oman put its army and police on high alert and its weather service warned of winds 185-205 km (114-128 miles) per hour causing high waves.
Oman produces 715,000 barrels per day (bpd) of oil, versus Saudia Arabia’s near 9 million bpd.
In its latest status report at 0300 GMT, the US military’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center said maximum sustained winds had eased to 135 miles per hour (mph), which would put the storm at the equivalent of a Category Four hurricane.
Forecasts also indicated the storm would skirt the northeastern corner of Oman before heading across the Gulf to make landfall in Iran, when it is expected to be far weaker.
Dealers will remain on alert for any sign of hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico after the Atlantic storm season began on June 1, although the first of the season--Tropical Storm Barry--eased by the weekend, pouring rain on Florida.
Traders were also waiting for the latest snapshot of US inventories and demand, due in government data on Wednesday, as refinery capacity is struggling to return from maintenance and glitches after the start of peak summer fuel demand.
Analysts forecast gasoline stocks to have risen 1.4 million barrels last week, the fifth consecutive rise .
“Gasoline is a big concern and problems with US refineries. Imports are going to have to pick up, then refineries around the world will go up, pushing up crude demand, with OPEC holding production steady,“ said Tony Nunan, manager of risk management at Mitsubishi Corp.

MANILA, Philippines, June 5--An “industrial revolution“ in the developing world has created a “super cycle“ of unprecedented global metals demand that could sustain the industry for up to 18 more years, an Australian industry expert said Tuesday.
The upside is huge because although developing economies now account for half the world economy and two-thirds of world economic growth, their per capita steel and copper use is only a fraction of those of the developed world, said Mitchell Hooke, chief executive of the Minerals Council of Australia, AFP reported.
“Half the world is going through an industrial revolution compared to the United States in the 1890s and Japan in the post-World War II period,“ Hooke told an Asia-Pacific mining conference in Manila.
“As incomes rise up goes the demand for industrial commodities,“ he said.
This has created global demand for metals products “like nothing“ the world has seen before in the past century, Hooke added.
The phenomenon, he said, has been coupled with the “re-industrialisation“ of the developed world, particularly Japan, that is creating even more demand.
With the engine of global growth shifting from the so-called Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development countries to the “Brics“ countries of Brazil, Russia, India and China, “increased demand will continue to swamp supply“ despite a wave of fresh mining investments, Hooke said.
And unlike before, China is “becoming more and more like the US economy, with little reliance on export sales“ and with growth driven more and more by domestic demand.
“We’re just two years into a super cycle of globalised demand,“ Hooke said. “The underlying fundamentals of demand are locked in.“
The upturn, which over the past year has seen prices of copper and nickel to record highs, should be sustained at least over a decade and could even extend to “15-20 years,“ he said.
Despite increased production, he said increased supply was still struggling to meet demand. The speed of delivering increased supplies, as well as the additional costs of producing these supplies, would be “the determining factor as to how prices will moderate.“
Hooke said the mining community’s response of “a sudden rush of investment“ to meet the surge in global demand has led to inflation, jacking up the cost of mining supplies, equipment and wages.
How economies respond to these policy issues “will determine which country will be competitive,“ he added.

TOKYO, June 5--With his ratings on the slide, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has ordered his party to put pension reforms at the heart of its platform for upcoming upper house elections, officials said Tuesday.
Pension reform is a touchstone issue in Japan, which has a rapidly ageing population, and surveys last week showed voters are more concerned about that and fighting corruption than rewriting the constitution, AFP reported.
Abe, the first Japanese premier born after World War II, has made rewriting the US-imposed 1947 pacifist constitution a top priority, but now appears to be switching focus amid anger over the bungling of millions of pension payments.
On the eve of the release later Tuesday of his Liberal Democratic Party’s election platform for the July upper house ballot, he instructed party policy chiefs and other senior lawmakers to highlight pension reform.
Referring to surveys showing ratings for his cabinet at their lowest since he took office in September, Abe acknowledged they likely reflected “anxiety“ over pensions. “As people have a very high interest in the issue of pensions, it has to be clearly positioned in the campaign manifesto,“ he was quoted saying in the meeting with LDP heavyweights late Monday.
The latest survey put his team on an approval rating of just 30 percent, and came after the suicide of his farm minister who was linked to a scandal over party funding and rigged contracts.
“We cannot win the upper house election without tackling the pension issue head-on,“ said Yoichi Masuzoe, who heads the policy-making committee for LDP upper house lawmakers.
“We’ll have the pension issue high up in our campaign programme,“ he told reporters after meeting Abe.
Lawmakers are putting the final touches on a campaign manifesto which is likely to be announced later in the day, an LDP official said.
A defeat in the July 22 election could lead to calls for Abe to quit, although the LDP would remain in power due to its majority in the lower house.

The industry needs 40 billion dollars just to cover the cost of capital.

VANCOUVER, Canada, June 5--The world airline industry raised its profit forecast for this year Monday to five billion dollars from 3.8 billion dollars, but said conditions need to improve more to help reduce heavy debts.
Giovanni Bisignani, director general of the International Air Transport Association, made the announcement in Vancouver at the opening of IATA’s annual meeting, AFP said.
“While the results are encouraging, airlines are a 470-billion-dollar industry,“ he said.
Calling a profit of five billion dollars “peanuts,“ Bisignani said the industry needed 40 billion dollars “just to cover the cost of capital.“
“The industry is moving in the right direction, but with 200 billion dollars of debt, the financial hole is deep. The challenge is to turn peanuts into sustainable profits,“ he said.
The latest financial forecasts for the sector confirmed a healthy recovery from the nosedive that followed the September 2001 attacks in the United States and soaring fuel prices, sinking the sector in more than 40 billion dollars in losses over the past six years.
IATA already had sharply revised upward its 2007 estimate in April, from 2.5 billion dollars, as a relatively robust global economy spurred tourism and airline transport.
IATA represents some 250 airlines which account for 94 percent of scheduled international air traffic.
More than 150 airline chief executives as well as top management from airports, civil aviation authorities, manufacturers and non-governmental organizations are attending the three-day event, which ends Tuesday.
Bisignani said that factors in the improving financial position of carriers were an overall 56 percent rise in productivity and a 13 percent decline in distribution costs, as well as load factors--the number of passengers filling seats--at record highs of 76 percent in 2006.
As for the high cost of jet fuel, which has dug into profits in recent years as crude oil prices surged, the sector is now in a better position to manage the cost, thanks to strategies such as hedging, in which the carrier buys future supplies at a fixed price.
“Airlines needed an oil price of less than 20 dollars per barrel in 2002 to break even. Today we are profitable at nearly 70 dollars per barrel,“ he said.

Apple Inc.'s new iPhone.

BEIJING, June 5--Apple Inc.’s new iPhone will be released June 29, according to a trio of new iPhone ads launched by Apple on Sunday night.
Each of the ads features a black background and a hand holding the iPhone for a clear demonstration, similar to the original iPod nano ad from September 2005, and focuses on key features for the new touch screen device, Xinhuanet reported.
Sunday night’s ads showed off several of the gadget’s features such as advanced media player functions along with its ability to take calls, the ability to manage Internet and media tasks, and the function of how to use Google Maps to find a restaurant.
The combination cell phone, media player and wireless Web-surfing device will retail for 499 US dollars and 599 dollars, depending on configuration. It will be offered exclusively by AT&T Inc.’s wireless division, formerly known as Cingular.

DETROIT, USA,
June 5--When it comes to car quality, think Korean. Hyundai Motor Co. leads in five categories in the annual vehicle quality study released Tuesday by Strategic Vision Inc., a San Diego-based market research company and consultant to automakers.
Hyundai’s rise in the rankings is only the latest sign of the improved overall quality and declining number of defects in today’s cars and trucks, said David Cole, chairman of the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, AP said.
“They’re coming together to a point where the differences are almost meaningless,“ Cole said.
He said that means buyers will pay increasing attention to dealer service, new technology, fashion features, price and fuel economy.
Once known best as the maker of cheap, entry-level cars with nagging manufacturing flaws, the South Korean automaker outperformed its Japanese, European and US rivals in this year’s survey, based on interviews with 27,780 people who bought 2007 models in September-November 2006.
Last year, Hyundai had no winners. And highly regarded Toyota Motor Corp., despite improving its overall quality, went from four leaders last year to one in 2007.
“Even though Hyundai is often overlooked by the US customer, Hyundai’s success in 2007 is not surprising given its current products and ... leadership that is looking to the near and distant future with new designs from styling to powertrain,“ said Darrel Edwards, Strategic Vision’s chief executive.
Hyundai’s Azera led among large cars, and its Santa Fe led among small sport utility vehicles. Its Entourage was tied for best minivan with the Quest by Nissan Motor Co. and the Sedona by Hyundai affiliate Kia Motors Corp.
The Kia Sorento led among medium SUVs, Strategic Vision said.
BMW AG led in three individual categories plus best overall brand, and Nissan, Ford Motor Co. and DaimlerChrysler AG led in three each.
Strategic Visions asks buyers to rate all aspects of their new vehicles, from the purchase itself to the ownership and driving experience.
What’s new this year is not who’s first or second, but rather how satisfied buyers are in general, said company President Alexander Edwards.

FRANKFURT, Germany, June 5--Expansion in European service industries, the biggest part of the economy, gained pace for the first time in four months in May, supporting the case for higher European Central Bank interest rates.
Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc said today its services index rose to 57.3 from 57 in April. The index is based on a survey of purchasing managers by NTC Economics Ltd. and a reading above 50 indicates expansion. Economists expected the index to increase to 57.1, according to the median of 33 estimates in a Bloomberg survey.
ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet has indicated the Frankfurt-based central bank will raise its key rate by a quarter point to 4 percent tomorrow as the fastest economic growth since the start of the decade threatens to stoke inflation in the 13- nation euro region. Falling unemployment is supporting consumer spending, bolstering service industries such as banking and telecommunications, Bloomberg reported.
Today’s report paints ``a positive picture for growth going forwards,’’ said David Brown, chief European economist at Bear Stearns International in London. ``Business activity remains in robust expansion territory and employment prospects are improving. This should fit in with ECB plans to shuffle rates higher above this week’s likely rise to 4 percent.’’
The euro traded at $1.3510 at 11:05 a.m. in Frankfurt, little changed after the report.
Italy, Spain
The gauge of services growth in Italy rose to 56.5 from 53.9, the report showed. The index for Germany, Europe’s largest economy, eased to 57.5 from 57.8 while the gauge for France fell to 57.9 from 58.7. A measure of services growth in Spain rose to 56.2 from 54.2, a separate report from NTC showed.
In the US, service-industry expansion probably stayed close to a three-month high in May, according to a Bloomberg survey of economists. The Tempe, Arizona-based Institute for Supply Management releases its index at 4 p.m. Frankfurt time. Euro-region growth this year will be close to last year’s 2.7 percent, which was the fastest since 2000, the European Commission said June 1. The International Monetary Fund raised its forecast for euro-area growth today to around 2.5 percent from a previous estimate of 2.3 percent.