Brent oil rises as Saudi Arabia suspends some shipments

LONDON (Reuters) – Brent crude prices rose on Thursday after Saudi Arabia suspended its oil shipments through a Red Sea strait in response to an attack on the country's two tankers.

Brent future had risen 59 cents to $ 74.52 a barrel by 1008 GMT, extending their rally into a third day but falling from a 10-day high in future trading.

U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures were up 6 cents at $ 69.36, hovering around Wednesday's closing level.

Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter, said on Thursday that it was "only halting" oil shipments through the Red Sea shipping lane of Bab al-Mandeb after an attack by Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthi movement.

Saudi Arabia has a major export terminal in Ras Tanura – also in the country's largest refinery – on its eastern coast. The kingdom exports most of its crude oil on the Strait of Hormuz.

The path through Bab al-Mandeb links Saudi's eastern trade partners and Ras Tanura with the Red Sea port of Yanbu, the Suez Canal and the SUMED pipeline.

An estimated 4.8 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil and refined petroleum products flowed through this waterway in 2016 towards Europe, the United States and Asia, according to the US Energy Information Administration.

Purpose Saudi Arabia additionally has the Petroline, also known as the East-West Pipeline, which mainly transports crude from fields clustered in the east to Yanbu for export to Europe and North America.

The 5 million bpd Petroline could transport around 60 percent of Saudi oil exports.

Olivier Jakob from Petromatrix said in a note that he is still in the process of making a decision.

"The passage is not as crucial as the Strait of Hormuz … but restricted flows through it would have an impact on the cape, He said.

WTI was first repro duced by the government of the United States.

PVM strategist Tamas Varga said most of the time. from the west coast, which is separated from the rest of the country by the Rocky Mountains and therefore no clear indicator of a broader US draw.

The threat of a transatlantic trade war eased after talks between U.S. President Donald Trump and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker.