World shares mixed as markets await news on Saudi oil plant

World shares were mixed yesterday and oil prices eased back pending updates on restoring output at a Saudi Aramco oil processing plant damaged by an attack over the weekend.
Chinese benchmarks led declines in Asia after the credit ratings agency Moody’s downgraded Hong Kong, citing its recent political turmoil.
On Wall Street, the future contracts for the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 both lost 0.1%.
The U.S. and international benchmarks for crude fell back slightly after vaulting more than 14% overnight after an attack on Saudi Arabia’s largest oil processing plant.
The weekend attack on Saudi Arabia’s biggest crude processing facility halted production of 5.7 million barrels of crude a day, more than half of the country’s global daily exports and more than 5% of the world’s daily crude oil production.
The attack raised worries about the risk of more disruptions in the supply of oil at a time when the global economic outlook is clouded by uncertainty.
Crude prices jumped 14% on Monday, comparable to a 14.5% jump on Aug. 6, 1990, following Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait.
Yesterday, benchmark U.S. crude oil was trading 54 cents lower at $62.36 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. On Monday, it soared $8.05 to settle at $62.90 a barrel. Brent crude oil, the international standard, declined 17 cents to $68.85 per barrel. It jumped $8.80 to close at $69.02 a barrel in London.
In Asia, shares were mixed.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 index recovered from early losses to edge 0.1% higher, closing at 22,001.32. South Korea’s Kospi was flat at 2,062.33 and the S&P ASX/200 in Sydney added 0.3% to 6,695.30.
Chinese benchmarks skidded after the credit ratings agency Moody’s downgraded Hong Kong, citing the city’s recent political turmoil.
The Shanghai Composite index shed 1.7% to 2,978.12 and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng slipped 1.2% to 26,790.24. AP