Oil prices set to test US$60 lows by end-2025 as supplies surge after Mid-East ceasefire
As oil prices fell this week, the cost of shipping Middle East crude to Asia also declined by 17 per cent to 55.50 Worldscale points. PHOTO: REUTERS
SINGAPORE – Tensions in the Middle East may linger but oil prices for the rest of the year have only one way to go – down.
Fears of a supply cut failed to materialise during the so-called 12-day war between Israel and Iran, which was deemed to have ended with a ceasefire on June 24 following an unprecedented US air strike on the Islamic Republic's nuclear facilities on June 22 .
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AsiaOne
2 hours ago
- AsiaOne
Depot Lane industrial estate and warehouses to be vacated by Q4 to make way for housing, Singapore News
SINGAPORE — An industrial estate and a row of warehouses at Depot Lane in Bukit Merah will be vacated by the fourth quarter of 2025 to make way for housing. JTC Corporation, which manages the industrial estate, said the plot will be returned to the state for future residential development, in response to queries from The Straits Times. Under the Urban Redevelopment Authority's master plan, the Depot Lane industrial estate is part of a 7.3ha site zoned for residential use. Its plot ratio, which determines the intensity of the development, is subject to detailed evaluation. The industrial estate, consisting of about 240 units across eight blocks, was built in the 1970s. Six adjacent warehouses, which make up the rest of the plot, are owned by the Singapore Land Authority (SLA). JTC said tenants were told about the redevelopment plans for the area in 2018 and were offered replacement factory spaces at JTC Space @ Ang Mo Kio or Bedok Food City. Western food stall Original Botak Jones took to social media in April to announce the closure of its outlet in the Yue Hua coffee shop at Depot Lane on June 22 due to redevelopment of the area. "We reopened this outlet during the most uncertain times — in 2021, when dining in wasn't even allowed. It's been an incredible four-year journey," it said. The coffee shop shuttered on June 23. Xu Tianmu, director of Yue Hua coffee shop, told ST that he felt reluctant to close the place as it had been at Depot Lane for around 20 years. "It's quite sad because this is the oldest coffee shop we have. Many of the stallholders have been with us for more than 15 years," said Xu, who also ran the Original Botak Jones outlet there. He took up JTC's offer of a replacement site at Bedok Food City and set up an Original Botak Jones outlet there in 2022. "Depot Lane used to be very vibrant and business used to be good," he said, adding that many businesses moved out of the industrial estate about three years ago. When ST visited the Depot Lane industrial estate on June 24, many of the tenants appeared to have moved out. Alex Lim, owner of PPF Singapore Xpel, a company that sells protection films for vehicles, said it has to move out of Depot Lane by the end of June, after about five years there. He said he had to bid for a unit at an industrial park in Ang Mo Kio, as JTC had not offered him a replacement site. When ST visited the Depot Lane industrial estate on June 24, most of the tenants appeared to have moved out. PHOTO: The Straits Times JTC said business owners who took up tenancies after the announcement of the redevelopment plans in 2018 were told not to expect replacement sites when they were asked to vacate. Although Lim was awarded the Ang Mo Kio unit, he lamented that its monthly rental of $4,500 is markedly higher than the $2,600 rent for the Depot Lane unit. In 2018, all of the Housing Board's industrial properties and land — including the Depot Lane industrial estate — were transferred to JTC. Tenants that were originally under HDB will be offered replacement units and other relocation benefits when they move out due to redevelopment, under HDB's Industrial Redevelopment Programme. The owner of a construction engineering firm, whose office has been at the Depot Lane industrial estate since 1987, said he initially wanted to take up JTC's offer of a replacement unit in Ang Mo Kio. But he could not get his preferred ground-floor unit. The owner, who declined to be named owing to the sensitivity of the matter, said he tried bidding for an industrial unit in Penjuru Close. As the tender closed with another tenderer placing the highest bid, he is unsure if he will be awarded the unit. "When we get a new place, we still need to renovate it, arrange for electrical installations and a lot of things. All this needs money," he said. The SLA-owned warehouses at Depot Lane are tenanted to a master tenant, real estate management services group LHN Group, ST understands. All sub-tenants will also have to vacate the site by the fourth quarter of 2025. Lee Sze Teck, senior director of data analytics at real estate firm Huttons Asia, said there could be pent-up demand for homes in the Depot Road area as the last public housing development there was launched in 2012. Depot Road is sandwiched between two mature estates — Redhill and Telok Blangah — and there was good demand for the four-room flats in the Depot Heights Built-To-Order (BTO) project launched in July 2012, he noted. Lee estimated that, with a gross plot ratio of three, more than 2,000 HDB flats can be built on the 7.3ha site, around the area of 10 football fields. He said BTO flats there could fall under the Standard category as it is not near any MRT stations. Standard flats, which come with a five-year minimum occupation period (MOP), form the bulk of flat supply. Plus and Prime flats, which are closer to the city centre, transport nodes and amenities, come with stricter resale conditions, such as a 10-year MOP and a subsidy clawback. [[nid:719607]] This article was first published in The Straits Times . Permission required for reproduction.
Asia News Network
2 hours ago
- Asia News Network
Indonesian exporters grapple with global shift to higher-grade coal
June 30, 2025 JAKARTA – Indonesia's coal industry faces mounting pressure as key export markets China and India shift to coal with higher calorific value (HCV) and ramp up production to meet domestic demand. Faced with shrinking export opportunities, Indonesian coal miners are scrambling to realign their strategy by diverting sales to the domestic market and tightening costs. They are also urging the government to roll back regulations that add financial strain in an already challenging market. In the first five months of 2025, Indonesia's thermal coal exports to China and India slumped 12.3 percent and 14.3 percent, respectively, outpacing the overall drop in the two countries' coal imports of 10 percent in China and just over 5 percent in India. Asia's two largest economies are increasingly turning to alternative suppliers, particularly those that offer higher-grade coal. In the January-May period this year, Mongolia's coal exports to China surged 44.8 percent while South Africa's coal shipments to India jumped 26.1 percent. '[HCV] coal is more expensive but yields more energy for every dollar spent,' Vasudev Pamnani, director at Indian coal trader i-Energy Natural Resources, told Reuters during an interview. 'One million tons of [HCV] coal can replace up to 1.5 million tonnes of Indonesian supply,' he said. Analysts noted that Indian coal traders had increased their purchases from Kazakhstan, Colombia and Mozambique, favoring their higher-grade offerings. At the same time, Indonesian exports of medium calorific value (MCV) and lower calorific value (LCV) coal to China are being squeezed by discounted Russian commodities of similar grades and price-competitive Mongolian coal. The pivot comes as China and India ramp up domestic coal production, with the former hitting 4.9 billion tonnes and the latter surpassing the 1-billion-tonne mark, reducing their reliance on foreign supply. Meanwhile, global trade tensions exacerbated by the United States' tariff policies have weighed on broader regional economic growth, further softening demand for the energy commodity. 'The decline in coal demand is not just regional, it is global,' Ardhi Ishak Kosen, head of industrial relations at the Association of Indonesian Mining Professionals (Perhapi), told The Jakarta Post on Thursday. 'Producers are increasingly turning to domestic markets, but the growth of local demand is limited,' he said. According to Ardhi, national coal output is projected to decline from 836 million tonnes in 2024 to below 800 million tonnes this year. Overproduction remains likely however, as domestic demand is expected to reach only between 250 million and 260 million tonnes compared to 233 million last year. 'Mining equipment is underutilized, some machines stand idle, while others run on reduced hours or not at all,' he continued, referring to the types of operational inefficiencies that could ensue. Shift to smelting Gita Mahyarani, acting executive director of the Indonesian Coal Mining Association (APBI), said local miners were increasingly turning their attention to the domestic market to cushion the blow from falling exports. They were particularly tapping into the rapidly expanding mineral smelting industry, she said, which is expected to absorb 31.2 percent of this year's domestic market obligation (DMO). Electricity remains the dominant domestic consumer sector however, accounting for 58 percent of the 2025 DMO. Domestic coal deliveries now make up 48.6 percent of the national supply, the highest share in over a decade, according to government data reviewed by Reuters. With global prices under pressure, smelters have emerged as a more lucrative market, offering better profit margins than coal sales to the local power utility sector, which is heavily regulated. Gita noted that producers were prioritizing the fulfillment of existing contracts. They were especially focusing on countries still reliant on MCV coal 'in the Southeast Asian region, where the use of coal-fired power plants remains high [and] continue to show solid demand for [MCV] coal, and their proximity offers a logistical advantage', she told the Post on Thursday. She added that cost efficiency also had become a top priority as mining firms looked to maintain competitiveness. Regulatory burdens Ardhi from Perhapi suggested that coal producers should improve operational efficiency and reduce capital expenditures to remain competitive. He also called on the government to revoke policies that increased the financial burden on producers, such as the mandatory use of B40 blended biodiesel and the requirement to keep a portion of their export foreign exchange earnings (DHE) in the country. According to a Bloomberg report on May 27, some buyers have pointed to the country's coal reference price (HBA), which remains higher than prevailing global market rates, as a contributor to the decline in Indonesian exports. In force since March 1, the use of HBA as the basis for export shipments was originally intended to prevent sales of Indonesian coal below domestic benchmark prices. Surya Herjuna, director of coal business development at the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry, has dismissed the idea, however. He noted that domestic sales had also slowed, falling to 12 million tonnes in the first quarter this year from 16 million tonnes over the same period last year, attributing the decline to geopolitical tensions. The ministry set the HBA at US$98.61 per tonne for the second half of June, down 2.33 percent from $100.97 in the first half of the month, marking a 23 percent decline from the pricing rule's implementation in March.
Business Times
3 hours ago
- Business Times
Depot Lane industrial estate and warehouses to be vacated by Q4 to make way for housing
[SINGAPORE] An industrial estate and a row of warehouses at Depot Lane in Bukit Merah will be vacated by the fourth quarter of 2025 to make way for housing. JTC Corporation, which manages the industrial estate, said the plot will be returned to the state for future residential development, in response to queries from The Straits Times (ST). Under the Urban Redevelopment Authority's master plan, the Depot Lane industrial estate is part of a 7.3ha site zoned for residential use. Its plot ratio, which determines the intensity of the development, is subject to detailed evaluation. The industrial estate, consisting of about 240 units across eight blocks, was built in the 1970s. Six adjacent warehouses, which make up the rest of the plot, are owned by the Singapore Land Authority (SLA). JTC said tenants were told about the redevelopment plans for the area in 2018 and were offered replacement factory spaces at JTC Space @ Ang Mo Kio or Bedok Food City. Western food stall Original Botak Jones took to social media in April to announce the closure of its outlet in the Yue Hua coffee shop at Depot Lane on Jun 22 due to redevelopment of the area. A NEWSLETTER FOR YOU Tuesday, 12 pm Property Insights Get an exclusive analysis of real estate and property news in Singapore and beyond. Sign Up Sign Up 'We reopened this outlet during the most uncertain times – in 2021, when dining in wasn't even allowed. It's been an incredible four-year journey,' it said. The coffee shop shuttered on Jun 23. Xu Tianmu, director of Yue Hua coffee shop, told ST that he felt reluctant to close the place as it had been at Depot Lane for around 20 years. 'It's quite sad because this is the oldest coffee shop we have. Many of the stallholders have been with us for more than 15 years,' said Xu, who also ran the Original Botak Jones outlet there. He took up JTC's offer of a replacement site at Bedok Food City and set up an Original Botak Jones outlet there in 2022. 'Depot Lane used to be very vibrant and business used to be good,' he said, adding that many businesses moved out of the industrial estate about three years ago. When ST visited the Depot Lane industrial estate on Jun 24, many of the tenants appeared to have moved out. Alex Lim, owner of PPF Singapore Xpel, a company that sells protection films for vehicles, said it has to move out of Depot Lane by the end of June, after about five years there. He said he had to bid for a unit at an industrial park in Ang Mo Kio, as JTC had not offered him a replacement site. When ST visited the Depot Lane industrial estate on June 24, most of the tenants appeared to have moved out. PHOTO: AZMI ATHNI, ST JTC said business owners who took up tenancies after the announcement of the redevelopment plans in 2018 were told not to expect replacement sites when they were asked to vacate. Although Lim was awarded the Ang Mo Kio unit, he lamented that its monthly rental of $4,500 is markedly higher than the $2,600 rent for the Depot Lane unit. In 2018, all of the Housing Board's industrial properties and land – including the Depot Lane industrial estate – were transferred to JTC. Tenants that were originally under HDB will be offered replacement units and other relocation benefits when they move out due to redevelopment, under HDB's Industrial Redevelopment Programme. The owner of a construction engineering firm, whose office has been at the Depot Lane industrial estate since 1987, said he initially wanted to take up JTC's offer of a replacement unit in Ang Mo Kio. But he could not get his preferred ground-floor unit. The owner, who declined to be named owing to the sensitivity of the matter, said he tried bidding for an industrial unit in Penjuru Close. As the tender closed with another tenderer placing the highest bid, he is unsure if he will be awarded the unit. 'When we get a new place, we still need to renovate it, arrange for electrical installations and a lot of things. All this needs money,' he said. The SLA-owned warehouses at Depot Lane are tenanted to a master tenant, real estate management services group LHN Group, ST understands. All sub-tenants will also have to vacate the site by the fourth quarter of 2025. Lee Sze Teck, senior director of data analytics at real estate firm Huttons Asia, said there could be pent-up demand for homes in the Depot Road area as the last public housing development there was launched in 2012. Depot Road is sandwiched between two mature estates – Redhill and Telok Blangah – and there was good demand for the four-room flats in the Depot Heights Built-To-Order (BTO) project launched in July 2012, he noted. Lee estimated that, with a gross plot ratio of 3, more than 2,000 HDB flats can be built on the 7.3ha site, around the area of 10 football fields. He said BTO flats there could fall under the Standard category as it is not near any MRT stations. Standard flats, which come with a five-year minimum occupation period (MOP), form the bulk of flat supply. Plus and Prime flats, which are closer to the city centre, transport nodes and amenities, come with stricter resale conditions, such as a 10-year MOP and a subsidy clawback. THE STRAITS TIMES
