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NEW YORK (Reuters) – Oil benchmark prices jumped 2 percent on Tuesday and US crude reached $ 70 for the first time in two months as Washington urged its allies to halt Iranian crude imports.
The Brent Brut LCOc1 gained $ 1.64 to trade at $ 76.37 per barrel before 12:44 pm. EDT (1644 GMT). The CFC1 light US crude increased from $ 2.39 to $ 70.47.
The United States is pushing countries to stop Iranian oil imports from November, said a senior State Department official, and will not grant any waivers to the sanctions.
"We will isolate Iranian funding flows and seek to highlight all of Iran's evil behavior in the region," the official told reporters.
US President Donald Trump said in May that his government was pulling out of an agreement reached in 2015 between Iran and six world powers aimed at reducing Tehran's nuclear capabilities in exchange for lifting some sanctions.
Protesters rallied for the second day in Tehran in protest of financial difficulties and a weakening rally.
Maritime crude oil exports from Iran fell to about 1.93 million bpd in June, from 2.38 million bpd in May and 2.58 million bpd in April, according to Thomson Reuters data. .
"This would create an additional shortage of supply, which exacerbates the reduction in supply in Libya as well as the problems we see with Syncrude Canada," said Andrew Lipow, president of Lipow Oil Associates.
Syncrude Canada's 360,000 barrels per day oil sands plant near Fort McMurray, Alberta, will remain offline until July due to a power outage. confirmed Tuesday a spokeswoman.
Traders expect the blackout to tighten Canadian supplies and reduce crude oil flows in Cushing, Oklahoma, the US crude oil futures delivery point.
Meanwhile, Libyan eastern commander Khalifa Haftar's forces have handed over control of the oil ports to another national oil company (NOC) based in the east of the country.
The official state oil company will no longer be allowed to handle this oil, in a move that the Tripoli government has said would deepen the division.
The production losses follow a move by OPEC and other oil producers last week to increase the supply of about 1 million barrels per day (bpd).
"There is concern that the agreement recently reached by OPEC producers and non-OPEC countries is not enough to meet the demand for oil," Lipow said.
Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BoAML) said that Brent could reach $ 90 a barrel in the second quarter of 2019.
Additional report by Christopher Johnson in London and Henning Gloystein in Singapore; edited by David Gregorio and David Evans
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