Kuwait, Iran cut price for January oil supplies to Asia
Oil rose on Tuesday, recouping some of the previous day’s hefty losses as a modest show of strength in global stocks, a slightly weaker dollar and an unplanned supply outage in Opec member Libya lent support.
Brent crude oil futures were up 45 cents on the day at $60.42 a barrel at 1230 GMT, having fallen 3 per cent the previous day, while US futures rose 56 cents to $51.56 a barrel.
A modest boost for the oil price came from a shutdown in production in Libya, where the National Oil Company (NOC) declared force majeure on Monday on exports from the El Sharara oilfield, the country’s biggest, which was seized last weekend by a militia group.
NOC said the shutdown would result in a production loss of 315,000 barrels per day (bpd), and an additional loss of 73,000 bpd at the El Feel oilfield.
In physical markets, Kuwait and Iran this week both reduced their January crude oil supply prices to Asia.
Analysts and investors are not yet convinced the supply cut will be effective in warding off a repeat of 2014, when rapidly rising global production overtook growth in demand and led to a huge overhang of unwanted fuel. – Reuters
