沙特东西向管道遇袭关闭，布伦特原油涨至108美元

Good morning. This is horizons, Middle East and Africa. Our top stories this morning. Energy crunch deepens. Oil jumps after Saudi Arabia shuts a key pipeline following attacks. The closure disrupts a crucial route used to bypass the Strait of Hormuz. OpenAI and anthropic promised new measures to rein in developments of cutting edge models. After a series of security breaches, the move puts billions in eye investments in America's race, with China in focus.

And central banks take center stage. The fed, Boe and BOE will all deliver decisions this week. The fed faces a nail biter with policymakers under pressure to raise rates as elevated inflation persists. It's just gone 8 a.m. across the Emirates. I might be a Walmart in Dubai. Take a look at what the screen is showing us. It is a risk of day when it comes to the equity picture. At the very least, 5/10 of a percent lower for S&P futures.

They did have a positive performance on Friday, snapping four days in the red. But now we're back in the red. And this is a couple of stories. Of course I the I scare is the I trade over. We'll discuss that more on the show. But these big leaders coming in and asking to rein in developments in artificial intelligence, how that will fare with Wall Street and with President Trump is going to be key to answer that question.

But that weakness is seeping into Asian equities this morning, 6/10 of a percent lower the cost be of course the bellwether for the eye trade is dropping. But it's not just eye of course it is oil prices that are gaining about 3% this morning. And this is also a couple of things, a delay in that meeting between GCC nations and Iran that was set to take place today in Oman, but also Saudi Arabia shutting down its east west pipeline as a precautionary measure after attacks on Thursday.

That route, of course, that Saudi Arabia had resorted to in the midst of the Hermes closure that is now shut, and it's having a marked impact on Brent crude prices, about $108 on the barrel and, of course, the story of the month. The yield on the ten year notes is very, very close to 5% again this morning. It is not doing very much less than a basis point higher, but it's still a story to watch out for, especially ahead of Wednesday's Fed rate decision.

Swaps are now factoring in a 90% chance for the fed to high rates. But that, of course, remains to be seen. Now, let's talk about some of the weaknesses that we're seeing across Asia this morning. And to tell us just that is Averil Hong. In Singapore for us. Averil, what are you looking at? Well I very it's exactly as you highlight the selling we've been seeing in tech stocks this morning. Following on of course from this commentary from AI CEOs of a slowdown, tapping the brakes on the development of the technology, raising concerns that we could see a decline in AI spending today.

The hardest hit markets Japan, South Korea cost me the bellwether. If I, as you highlight a decline as much as 3.7% at one point. And it's also interesting, we're seeing a bit of a paring of those losses for the moment. Maybe this speaks to the sense from some analysts that actually this ie hardware weakness is short lived. Do you think about when it comes to demand it still outstrip supply for chips, for computing needs?

And then also the idea that when it comes to artificial intelligence, the industry overall, the slowdown might actually give some of these companies more time to extract returns from the infrastructure that they are already building out. Now, this is all coming against the backdrop of the pricing surrounding the Federal Reserve and a potential rate hike this week, of course. And also not helping is that climb in oil prices up year.

April. Thank you as always for these market updates. Now we have to return to the geopolitical story and the impact on oil prices that are climbing. After Saudi Arabia shut a critical pipeline that has helped its crude bypass the Strait of Hormuz, the East-West pipeline, which can carry about 7 million barrels a day to the Red sea, was halted after drone attacks launched from inside of Iraq. At the same time, a planned meeting between Iran and several Gulf nations on creating a temporary shipping lane through the Strait of Hormuz has been postponed, adding to concerns about how long the disruption to Middle East energy flows could last.

So to unpack all of this, we're now joined by Stuart Livingstone Wallace, Bloomberg's executive editor for the Middle East, North Africa and Russia. Stuart, that pipeline in Saudi Arabia that we've talked about multiple times as their strategy to bypass Hormuz, that's now been shut as a precautionary measure. What is the impact of that? I mean, in theory, it's 7 million barrels a day, which in this market is enormous.

Um, not quite whether it's going to be that is a different matter. We presume they have a certain amount in stockpile sitting at Yanbu. That is that that sort of port on the Red sea. So that can keep going. The second thing is, we don't know exactly what's been damaged and how long it's going to take to repair. So really depends on what the time frame is. If we're talking about a few days where they can get at least some of the capacity back up on there, maybe it's not so bad if it's weeks and weeks and weeks, and if it really is completely shut for that period, then it becomes much more drastic.

And you do wonder in that scenario. We had comments, for instance, from the US over the weekend that maybe the market was tight, but not that tight because it's quite a lot of balance we're getting out. They're going to have to rethink that stance entirely if east West stays down for a prolonged period of time. Yeah. And it's just about what is a prolonged period of time in the midst of this wider war. Now let's talk about Saudi's second options here, because we've already seen their exports at about 3 million barrels a day in August.

That is the lowest since 2017. What secondary options could they resort to in the midst of this secondary option already being shut down? Extremely good question. I mean, I was sitting here this morning thinking about what exactly are the options here. I mean, I suppose in theory you could get a certain amount onto, you know, tanker trucks that isn't a ship and that's not realistic. I mean, we're talking about tiny volumes.

You can't fill up a supertanker, but you could eventually. But it's going to take you weeks to do it. So realistically, there aren't a lot of good options here. You know, the East West pipeline was plan B. It was operating very, very successfully. Uh, you know, relative to what it was supposed to be doing. Uh, now that is down, at least temporarily. Hard to see what else they have. There are some barrels getting out through the whole news, but again, nothing like the volume that you would normally see.

Yeah, quite, quite dire. And this is, of course, all happening in the midst of overnight, the news about that meeting between Duke nations and Iran taking place in Rome on getting postponed. We've heard from the foreign minister as well. Do we know any reasons behind the postponement? We've had no official reasons, but I think we can take an educated guess that whatever was on that bit of paper was not particularly palatable to at least some of the more powerful countries on this side of the Persian Gulf.

Um, again, it comes down to time frame. How much longer is this going to be postponed? Because if you recall, it's been weeks that they've been saying we're on the cusp of a deal. Nothing's materialized. We seem to be back. I mean, you can't say we're back to square one, but we're definitely in a precarious position again. And there's no obvious exit for either side on this. Yeah of course. And they mentioned that consensus saying also saying ahead of time that it wasn't going to join that meeting.

So a lot of moving parts set against it. Thank you, as always for updating us on those. As Stuar