Oil prices fell around 2 percent on Thursday because talks to revive nuclear agreements with Iran entered their final stages, which could open more crude oil inventories, but losses were limited by increased tensions between energy exporters over Russia and West over Ukraine.
“(The) oil market is locked in the pull of the war between the assistance of Iranian sanctions and Russian-Ukrainian tensions,” said Stephen Brennock on the PVM oil broker.
Brent Futures fell $ 1.80, or 1.9 percent, to $ 93.01 per US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) raw car fell $ 1.76, to $ 91.90.
Both benchmarks rose to the highest level since September 2014 in the previous week and both continued to face extreme accurst in the coming months, market structures where contracts were quickly more expensive than those later, showing a strict supply.
Futures for Brent and WTI until August are in what Robert Yawger, the executive director of the energy futures in Mizuho, has been called “Super Backwardation” with every month trading at least $ 1 per barrel below the previous month.
The United States is in the “middle of the last stage” of indirect talks with Iran, which aims to save the 2015 agreement which limits Tehran’s nuclear activities, said the Ned Foreign Ministry spokesman, Wednesday.
The agreement can return more than 1 million barrels per day (BPD) Iran oil to the market, increasing global supply of around 1%.
The decision to save the nuclear agreement was said by France on Wednesday to be only a few more days and it was up to Tehran to make political choices, even though Iran asked for Western forces to be “realistic.”
With a new agreement maybe on the horizon, South Korea said on Wednesday, it has held talks about continuing Iran crude oil imports and Iranian funds that do not take pictures. South Korea was one of the leading oil buyers in Asia.
However, the tension continues on the possibility of Russian invasion to Ukraine continues to support the oil market because of the potential disruption to energy supply.
US President Joe Biden said now every indication of Russia plans to attack Ukraine, including signs Moscow is carrying out a counterfeit flag surgery to justify it, after the pro-Moscow forces and pro-Moscow rebels are traded.
Russian-supported rebels and Ukrainian troops exchanged the charges, each of them were fired across the ceasefire line in East Ukraine.
Moscow’s announcement about several decline troops near Ukraine this week was resisted by the Western government who warned that Russia built a military presence near the Ukrainian border.