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Oil Holds Gain as Israeli Claims Stoke Concern Over Iran Exports

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Oil Holds Gain as Israeli Claims Stoke Concern Over Iran Exports


    • Netanyahu says Iran had secret program to build nuclear bombs
    • WTI trades above $68 a barrel after rising 0.7% on Monday
Oil held gains above $68 a barrel as Israel’s accusations that Iran pursued nuclear weapons stoked speculation U.S. President Donald Trump may reimpose sanctions on OPEC’s third-biggest producer.

Futures in New York rose as much as 0.5 percent, after Monday’s 0.7 percent advance. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his country has documents that prove Iran had a program to build atomic bombs. That’s raising concern Trump may pull the U.S. out of a nuclear accord between Iran and world powers, a move that energy consultant FGE says could cut the Persian Gulf nation’s 2019 oil exports by 700,000 barrels a day.

Oil rallied last month to the highest level in more than three years amid concern that a U.S. withdrawal from the nuclear deal would result in fresh export curbs, as well as issues including the conflict in Syria and tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran-backed rebels in Yemen. At the same time, production cuts led by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries have continued to tighten global markets, despite record-setting U.S. output.

“Speculation that Iran’s production may fall, and that may make OPEC’s production cuts more successful, is psychologically making it easy to buy oil,” Satoru Yoshida, a commodity analyst at Rakuten Securities Inc., said by phone from Tokyo.

Rising Prices
West Texas Intermediate crude for June delivery traded at $68.59 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, up 2 cents, as of 3:58 p.m. in Tokyo. Total volume traded was about 32 percent below the 100-day average. Prices rose 47 cents to $68.57 a barrel on Monday.

Brent crude for July settlement rose 1 cent to $74.70 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange. The June contract expired Monday up 53 cents, or 0.7 percent, at $75.17. The global benchmark crude traded a $6.22 premium to July WTI.

Trading on the Shanghai International Energy Exchange is closed for a Chinese public holiday.

Netanyahu said Israel uncovered 55,000 pages of material on a weapons program that operated between 1999 and 2003, and that the nuclear program continued after it was subsumed under a different guise. Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, called Netanyahu’s allegations lies “already dealt with” by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The Decision
Netanyahu spoke less than two weeks before Trump is to decide whether the U.S. will pull out of the international agreement between Iran and six world powers that curbed Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.

The European Union’s foreign minister, Federica Mogherini, said the evidence so far fails to show non-compliance with the nuclear agreement. In remarks in Washington, the American president left open the possibility of negotiating a new accord but hinted the U.S. would quit the deal by May 12, the deadline he’s set for a decision.

FGE chairman Fereidun Fesharaki said Trump is likely to restore sanctions on Iran in May, meaning buyers would have to cut their crude purchases from the country in 180 days. Iran’s exports could drop by 200,000 to 500,000 barrels a day this year, leading to higher oil prices, he said.

In the U.S., crude stockpiles were forecast to have added 900,000 barrels last week, according to Bloomberg survey. If confirmed by government data on Wednesday, that will be the second consecutive weekly gain in inventories.

Other oil-market news:

  • U.S. imports of crude from OPEC countries fell 9.8 percent in February to 2.43 million barrels a day, the lowest volume since January 2015, according to the Energy Information Administration.
  • Oil production in Texas jumped almost 21 percent from a year earlier to a record 4.01 million barrels a day in February, according to the EIA.
  • U.S. imports of gasoline from Europe last week jumped to the highest since at least December 2016.
  • Pierre Andurand, one of oil’s most prominent hedge fund managers, said the current reluctance of energy companies to invest in new production means $300 a barrel is “not impossible” within a few years.


https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...iran-weapon-claims-seen-threatening-nuke-deal
 
Iran sells 2.5 million barrels oil per day
Saudi Arabia and co ( Kuwait + UAE + Bahrain and ... ) they sell about 20 million barrels oil per day :rolleyes: .


Saudi Arabia Foreign Exchange Reserves

Saudi Arabia's Foreign Exchange Reserves was measured at 477.2 USD bn in Feb 2018, compared with 484.4 USD bn in the previous month. Saudi Arabia's Foreign Exchange Reserves: USD mn data is updated monthly, available from Jan 2001 to Feb 2018. The data reached an all-time high of 731.2 USD bn in Aug 2014 and a record low of 37.4 USD bn in Sep 2002 .


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From Saudi Arabia with love to dear PM Netanyahu :tup: :smitten:
 
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