Hong Kong, Shanghai, Sydney, Seoul, Singapore, Mumbai, Taipei, Jakarta, Bangkok and Wellington were all up. Tokyo was closed for a holiday.
London, Paris and Frankfurt rallied in the morning.
CHINA LOCKDOWN FEARS
However, uncertainty remains rife on trading floors, with a new spike in COVID-19 cases in China causing concern that officials will impose fresh lockdowns in major cities including Shanghai and Beijing.
A two-month shutdown in Shanghai earlier this year hammered the world’s second-biggest economy and severely hit global supply chains.
Lanzhou, the capital of northwestern Gansu province, has ordered its 4.4 million residents to stay home, while a county in Anhui province went into lockdown from Friday.
Beihai in the southern Guangxi region on Saturday also announced lockdowns in parts of two districts that are home to more than 800,000 people.
Crude prices extended gains, with both main contracts up more than two percent.
Speculation that Saudi Arabia will lift production after US President Joe Biden’s visit to the country had little impact on the market.
Biden had called on the kingdom to help ease the price pressure that has sent inflation rocketing.
However, SPI’s Innes added that with a deal between OPEC and other major producers ending soon, output could see a big rise.
“As long as the agreement is in effect, Saudi Arabia has made it transparent that individual producers with spare capacity should not exceed their quota to offset underproduction elsewhere within the group.
“From October, however, this changes.”
Meanwhile, Libya is set to see a boost to output as months of outages come to an end, while the lifting of US sanctions on Venezuela could lead to a return of capacity from the South American country.
