Oil prices rose to their highest levels since late-2014 on Monday, boosted by Venezuela’s deepening economic crisis and a looming decision on whether the United States will re-impose sanctions on Iran.<\/p>\n
Brent crude oil futures were at $75.63 per barrel at 0909 GMT, up 76 cents from their last close. Earlier in the session, they touched their highest since November 2014 at $75.89 a barrel.<\/p>\n
U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures rose 80 cents to $70.52 per barrel. Monday was the first time since November 2014 that WTI had climbed above $70 per barrel.<\/p>\n
China’s Shanghai crude oil futures, launched in March, broke their dollar-converted record-high, rising as far as $72.54 on Monday.<\/p>\n
The increases came despite nine U.S. oil rigs bringing the total count to 834, energy services firm Baker Hughes said on Friday.<\/p>\n
Analysts said a crisis in Venezuela, a major oil exporter, underpinned prices.<\/p>\n
“The growth in production in the U.S. is being counterbalanced by the simultaneous decline in Venezuela,” said Commerzbank analyst Carsten Fritsch.<\/p>\n
U.S. oil firm ConocoPhillips has moved to take key Caribbean assets of Venezuela’s state-run PDVSA to enforce a $2 billion arbitration award, actions that could further impair PDVSA’s declining oil production and exports.<\/p>\n
Venezuela’s output has halved since the early 2000s to 1.5 million barrels per day (bpd), as the South American country has failed to invest enough in its oil industry.<\/p>\n
Widespread expectations that U.S. President Donald Trump will withdraw from the Iranian nuclear pact added a further risk premium.<\/p>\n
Iran re-emerged as a major oil exporter in 2016 after international sanctions against it were lifted, and Trump has a May 12 deadline to determine whether to extend sanction waivers.<\/p>\n
“It seems that the bureaucratic wheels are turning in Washington to prepare for a sanctions snapback,” RBC Capital Markets analyst Helima Croft said in a note, adding that “the extraterritorial nature of U.S. sanctions, which cover energy, shipbuilding, finance, trade, insurance, etc., means that…Iran’s oil exports could credibly be curtailed by 200,000-300,000 bpd.”<\/p>\n
On Monday, Saudi Arabian Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih said he is concerned about low oil industry investment and potential shortages in the future.<\/p>\n
But U.S. output has soared by more than a quarter in the last two years, to 10.62 million bpd. It will likely rise further this year as its energy firms keep drilling for more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Oil prices rose to their highest levels since late-2014 on Monday, boosted by Venezuela’s deepening economic crisis and a looming decision on whether the United States will re-impose sanctions on Iran. Brent crude oil futures were at $75.63 per barrel at 0909 GMT, up 76 cents from their last close. Earlier in the session, they touched their highest since November 2014 at $75.89 a barrel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures rose 80 cents to $70.52 per barrel. Monday was the first time since November 2014 that WTI had climbed above $70 per barrel. China’s Shanghai crude oil futures, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[133],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-159937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-oil-gas"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/39"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159937"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159937\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}