Oil prices lower in Asian trade
Oil prices continued lower in Asian trade on Monday after reports of progress in last-ditch talks on Iran's nuclear program helped ease some concerns about the possible imposition of sanctions, dealers said.
By Agencies |
SINGAPORE: Oil prices continued lower in Asian trade on Monday after reports of progress in last-ditch talks on Iran's nuclear program helped ease some concerns about the possible imposition of sanctions, dealers said.
At New York's main contract, light sweet crude for October delivery, was down 35 cents to $65.90 a barrel from $66.25 in late US trades on Friday when it lost more than a dollar.
Brent North Sea crude for October shed 37 cents to $64.96. Iran, the fourth-biggest producer of crude, defied an August 31 deadline set by the United Nations Security Council to suspend its uranium enrichment programme work or face United Nations sanctions.
Over the weekend, the top Iranian nuclear negotiator and the European Union foreign policy chief said they would hold another meeting this week after having made progress in their talks over Tehran's uranium enrichment.
At the same time, another Iranian official denied reports Sunday that negotiator Ali Larijani had proposed suspending uranium enrichment for up to two months in his talks with EU foreign policy representative Javier Solana.
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Tony Nunan, the manager for energy risk management at Mitsubishi Corp in Tokyo said talk of possible suspension of uranium enrichment was "the key reason to the fall in oil prices. "It could just be small talk but it means the absence of (price supportive) news," he said, referring to possible United Nations sanctions. Prices were also easier in view of a mild US hurricane season and an announcement by British energy giant BP that production at the Alaskan Prudhoe Bay facility could be fully restored by the end of October, dealers said.
An August pipeline leak forced BP to shut down much of its production at the vast Prudhoe Bay oil field in Alaska, sparking a temporary oil price rally.
Meanwhile, ministers of the 11-member Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), which provides about a third of global oil supplies, was going into a Monday meeting in Vienna signalling they would maintain the cartel's official output ceiling 28 million barrels a day against the backdrop of falling oil prices.
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Nunan said OPEC's position was expected, as some of the member countries are already producing at maximum capacity and "prices were still too high for OPEC to cut production."Start a SIP with as low as ₹500 with ET Money App!
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