Oil prices advanced on Tuesday, supported by violence in the Middle East, a big oil pipeline leakage in Nigeria, and concerns over refinery shut-downs in the United States, dealers said.
New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in September, won 37 cents to 75.42 dollars per barrel in electronic deals before the official opening of the US market.
In London, Brent North Sea crude for September delivery added 41 cents to 75.02 dollars per barrel in electronic trading.
“Crude futures gained ground (on Tuesday) on concerns about conflict in the Middle East conflict, refinery outages and supply disruptions in Nigeria,” said Sucden analyst Michael Davies.
“Concerns over continued violence in the Middle East were heightened last night, after Israeli government announced there will be no ceasefire in the near future and carried on their military assault on Hezbollah guerrillas.”
Israel insisted on Tuesday that it would press on with its war on Hezbollah, effectively ruling out any chance of an early ceasefire in the bloody two-week-old Lebanon conflict despite a mission to the region by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
An entire family of seven was killed when a missile slammed into their home in southern Lebanon as Israel pressed on with its air bombardments and besieged a key border town where Hezbollah has a military headquarters.
Concerns that the violence in Israel and Lebanon could spread to major crude-producing nations, such as Iran and Syria, saw oil prices soar to all-time highs above 78 dollars earlier this month.
Meanwhile Royal Dutch Shell said that a leak in an oil pipeline in southern Nigeria last Friday had cut its output there by 180,000 barrels per day.
“A total of 180,000 barrels a day has been temporally shut in and we don’t know when it will be back,” a Shell spokeswoman told AFP.
Shell has so far failed to uncover the cause of the leak to the Sambarth-Karkrama pipeline in the oil-rich Niger Delta region.
News of the leak comes as Nigeria was already experiencing a cut of about 20.0 percent in its oil exports owing to militant unrest in the Niger Delta.
Nigeria is the biggest oil producer in Africa and the world’s sixth-biggest exporter of crude.
Crude futures had closed higher on Monday owing to fears for gasoline or petrol supplies in the United States, due to refinery outages.
Cooling towers at a ConocoPhillips refinery at Wood River, Illinois, have been temporarily shut down after suffering damage in severe storms.
And the giant Amway refinery in Venezuela, which exports fuel to the United States, is set to be shut down for up to seven months after a fire last week, trade sources said.
New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in September, won 37 cents to 75.42 dollars per barrel in electronic deals before the official opening of the US market.
In London, Brent North Sea crude for September delivery added 41 cents to 75.02 dollars per barrel in electronic trading.
“Crude futures gained ground (on Tuesday) on concerns about conflict in the Middle East conflict, refinery outages and supply disruptions in Nigeria,” said Sucden analyst Michael Davies.
“Concerns over continued violence in the Middle East were heightened last night, after Israeli government announced there will be no ceasefire in the near future and carried on their military assault on Hezbollah guerrillas.”
Israel insisted on Tuesday that it would press on with its war on Hezbollah, effectively ruling out any chance of an early ceasefire in the bloody two-week-old Lebanon conflict despite a mission to the region by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
An entire family of seven was killed when a missile slammed into their home in southern Lebanon as Israel pressed on with its air bombardments and besieged a key border town where Hezbollah has a military headquarters.
Concerns that the violence in Israel and Lebanon could spread to major crude-producing nations, such as Iran and Syria, saw oil prices soar to all-time highs above 78 dollars earlier this month.
Meanwhile Royal Dutch Shell said that a leak in an oil pipeline in southern Nigeria last Friday had cut its output there by 180,000 barrels per day.
“A total of 180,000 barrels a day has been temporally shut in and we don’t know when it will be back,” a Shell spokeswoman told AFP.
Shell has so far failed to uncover the cause of the leak to the Sambarth-Karkrama pipeline in the oil-rich Niger Delta region.
News of the leak comes as Nigeria was already experiencing a cut of about 20.0 percent in its oil exports owing to militant unrest in the Niger Delta.
Nigeria is the biggest oil producer in Africa and the world’s sixth-biggest exporter of crude.
Crude futures had closed higher on Monday owing to fears for gasoline or petrol supplies in the United States, due to refinery outages.
Cooling towers at a ConocoPhillips refinery at Wood River, Illinois, have been temporarily shut down after suffering damage in severe storms.
And the giant Amway refinery in Venezuela, which exports fuel to the United States, is set to be shut down for up to seven months after a fire last week, trade sources said.
Post a Comment