Oil steadies after Trump presses OPEC to offset Iran sanctions
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil prices steadied on Monday, after a weeks-long rally was halted on Friday when the market tumbled after U.S. President Donald Trump demanded that producer club OPEC raise output to soften the impact of U.S. sanctions against Iran.
Brent crude futures rose 5 cents, or 0.1 percent, to $72.207 a barrel by 10:49 a.m. ET (1449 GMT). U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures lost 20 cents, or 0.3 percent, to $63.10.
Both benchmarks fell by about 3 percent on Friday after Trump told reporters that he had called OPEC and told the cartel to lower oil prices, without identifying who he spoke to, or if he was speaking about previous discussions with OPEC officials.
However, analysts and market participants have downplayed the comments as details were unclear.
“No representative of OPEC or the Saudi government has come forward to acknowledge any discussion in this regard,” said Jim Ritterbusch, president of Ritterbusch and Associates.
“This obvious effort to push gasoline prices down has been attempted previously by Trump and while forcing an initial price decline, such pullbacks have been followed by fresh price highs, sometimes within a matter of days.”
Trump’s remarks initially triggered a sell-off, putting a temporary ceiling on a 40 percent price rally since the start of the year. The slide was exacerbated by technical factors including an excessive speculative long position in U.S. crude, analysts said.
Speculators raised their combined futures and options net long positions in New York and London by 24,078 contracts to 326,818 during the week to April 23, the highest level since early October. That was the ninth consecutive increase.
(GRAPHIC: Brent crude oil prices - tmsnrt.rs/2XWLBqT)
The rally in oil prices had gained momentum in April after Trump tightened sanctions against Iran by ending all exemptions previously granted to that major buyers.
U.S. sanctions on Venezuela are also working to tighten global supply as fighting in Libya threatens to curb output there as well.
“We are dealing with a market that’s not actually short of supply but is short due to politically-motivated action, and we know how quickly that can be turned around if necessary,” Saxo Bank analyst Ole Hansen told Reuters.
“Being a bear in the market is a very lonely place now.”
Traders said the market was shifting focus to the voluntary supply cuts led by OPEC, the de facto head of which is the world’s top oil exporter, Saudi Arabia.
“We are of the view that Saudi Arabia will increase output as soon as May, something they were likely to do anyway in the lead up to summer,” ING bank said.
It added that Saudi could increase its output and “still be in compliance with the OPEC+ deal for the month of May.”
“We believe that the (fall in prices) is probably due to the situation on the futures market being currently overbought,” Commerzbank wrote in a note.
“Consequently, even small levels of uncertainty can spark a more marked price response. However, because the supply situation remains tight a renewed price rise is probable.”
Additional reporting by Noah Browning and Henning Gloystein; Editing by Marguerita Choy and Louise Heavens
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