Brent slumps 15% over the past week
The front-month ICE Brent contract has fallen by $5.95/bbl on the day, to trade at $90.59/bbl at 09.00 GMT.
IMAGE: Getty Images
Upward pressure:
Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Energy confirmed an attack on the country’s East-West oil pipeline in the Medina region on 9 November. The pipeline allows Saudi Arabia to export crude oil via the Red Sea, bypassing the Strait of Hormuz.
“Oil’s political sell-off masks a dangerous reality,” Kpler’s head of Middle East and OPEC+ insights, Amena Bakr, wrote in an opinion piece for Arabian Gulf Business Insight.
Despite the price decline, threats to the Middle East’s energy infrastructure, shipping routes and crude exports from the Gulf remain unchanged, Bakr noted.
Iran has ruled out transferring enriched uranium out of the country, state-owned news agency IRNA reported, citing Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei. His comments follow a report by Saudi-owned Al Arabiya that a Qatari-Pakistani mediation proposal had revived negotiations around Iran's nuclear program.
Downward pressure
US President Donald Trump has suggested that the US-Israel war with Iran could end soon.
"... they are talking to us. And they are talking very politely. And we'll see what happens. But there's a good chance that that could get ended,” Trump said in a media briefing following talks with Qatar’s prime minister in Washington, DC.
Prospects of de-escalation and renewed diplomatic efforts over Iran’s nuclear programme have put downward pressure on Brent’s price, which has fallen around 15% over the past week, down $15.83/bbl, from $106.42/bbl.
By Konica Bhatt
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