Iran's Light Crude Soars Above $65

EghtesadOnline:Iran's light crude crossed $65 a barrel in the week to Dec. 30, topping off a year that saw global crude benchmarks rising to their highest levels in more than two years.

News ID: ۷۸۱۲۷۷

14 January 2018

The Iranian light oil grade settled at $65.77 a barrel in the week, up 23.37% from the end of 2016, Oil Ministry's official news agency Shana reported on Sunday.

It averaged $53.31 per barrel in 2017 and $41 in 2016.

Iran Heavy, one of the country's main oil export grades, settled up $10.14 or 19.19% at $52.84 per barrel year-on-year, averaging $51.73 a barrel last year from below $40 in 2016, according to Financial Tribune.

The rally comes on the back of an agreement between the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and some non-members, including top producer Russia, to cut back output by 1.8 million barrels per day to lift prices and clear a global supply overhang.

The deal, initially due to run during the first half of 2017, has been extended to the end of this year.

Brent, the international benchmark for crude prices, is trading around $68 a barrel, its highest level since mid-2015.

Prices were buoyed in 2017 from strong adherence of producers to the deal, outages in the United States, Venezuela, Nigeria and Libya, political unrests in the Middle East and most recently, the shutdown of the Forties Pipeline system in the North Sea that lasted three weeks.

The price of OPEC basket of 14 crudes stood at $66.13 a barrel on Thursday, compared with $65.12 the previous day, according to the latest OPEC calculations.

A Reuters survey this week showed OPEC's compliance with the curbs rose to 128% from 125% in November.

Experts say surging US production could offset some of the cuts from OPEC producers, as it rose to 9.78 million barrels per day in the week to Dec. 29.