(New York) Oil prices rose again on Friday on hedge buying ahead of a long U.S. holiday weekend as the market did not rule out a European deal on the suspension of Russian imports into the United States. next hours.
Updated yesterday at 4:23 p.m.
The price of a barrel of Brent from the North Sea for delivery in July gained 1.72%, to close at 119.43 dollars, its highest level since the beginning of March.
As for the barrel of American West Texas Intermediate (WTI), also for July, it gained 0.85%, to 115.07 dollars, a height it had not reached since the beginning of March and a peak in 13 years.
“People are nervous that there might be an EU trade-off on Russian oil,” said Michael Lynch, chairman of the consultancy Strategic Energy & Economic Research (SEER). “They don’t want to find themselves short”, that is to say with a downward position, because an agreement would be likely to boost the price of black gold.
On Wednesday, the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, said he was “confident” in the conclusion of an agreement on an embargo of the EU targeting Russian oil by Monday’s meeting of the European Council, despite reluctance from Hungary.
Trading in the black gold futures market “will be much smaller (than usual) on Monday (US holiday) and we still have a war going on” in Ukraine, said Bill O’Grady, head of research at Confluence Investment Management, on the topic of uncertainty.
The operators also noted the boarding, by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, of two Greek oil tankers in the waters of the Gulf.
The operation came after renewed protests from Iran against the sequestration, since mid-April, of a Russian ship carrying Iranian oil.
“The Europeans are struggling to relaunch negotiations” on the Iranian nuclear issue, noted Bill O’Grady, “and now the Iranians are doing this”, namely intercepting Greek ships. “They’re not really helping their cause. They are tankers, they pose no danger to them. »
Iran’s participation in global black gold trade has been severely limited since 2018 and the reinstatement of US economic sanctions by Donald Trump’s government.
While the market has been under pressure for several months already, operators fear the acceleration of fuel consumption with the start of the summer season, marked by the Memorial Day holiday weekend, from Saturday in the United States .
“It will be interesting to see if gasoline prices”, currently at record highs, “have a negative effect on the movements of Americans in the coming months”, explained, in a note, Daniel Briesemann, of Commerzbank.