Oil prices trended \u200blower on Thursday on the progress in Iran-Oman talks, with investors cautiously waiting for signs of a US-Iran \u200cpeace deal and progress on reopening the Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n
Brent crude futures fell 33 cents, or 0.42%, to $79.12 a barrel. US\u00a0West Texas Intermediate futures declined 42 cents, or 0.56%, to $74.80 a barrel. Brent settled up slightly on Wednesday, while WTI edged lower.<\/p>\n
Iran and \u200bOman\u00a0have reached an understanding\u00a0on the geographic coordinates for a shipping route through the Strait of Hormuz, and \u200ba joint announcement is being finalised, provided certain third parties did not interfere, Iran’s Foreign Ministry \u2060spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
“Some selling pressure emerged following reports that talks between Iran and Oman are making progress,” \u200bsaid Yuki Takashima, economist at Nomura Securities.<\/p>\n
Prices have returned to the levels seen when the United States and Iran signed an\u00a0interim \u200bpeace agreement\u00a0on June 17, with investors closely watching whether the two sides can reach a final deal, he added.<\/p>\n
Read:\u00a0Iran peace hopes boost stocks, weaken Brent crude oil<\/p>\n
A proposed deal between Iran and Oman to help end the US-Iran conflict would\u00a0give Tehran control\u00a0over ships entering the Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz, a senior Iranian \u200bsource and two regional officials told\u00a0Reuters\u00a0on Wednesday, one of the biggest concessions yet to Iran.<\/p>\n
There was no immediate \u200bUS\u00a0comment on the proposal. While President Donald Trump has said a deal reopening the strait is imminent, US\u00a0officials have repeatedly insisted \u200cthey \u2060would never agree to Iran controlling access to one of the world’s most important trade routes for energy supplies.<\/p>\n
Iran has\u00a0warned\u00a0Gulf states that any new US\u00a0attack on its territory would trigger retaliation against critical energy infrastructure across the region, according to five sources, as Tehran seeks to raise the cost of military action by threatening Washington’s closest regional allies.<\/p>\n
“The real hinge point \u200bnow becomes the trajectory of \u200bUS\u2013Iran discussions, because meaningful progress \u2060there is essential before disrupted energy flows can realistically resume,” ING analysts said in a note on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Gulf countries’ crude oil and condensate exports were largely steady in July and remained\u00a0about 40% \u200bbelow pre-war\u00a0levels, shipping data showed.<\/p>\n
Read more:\u00a0Stocks surge 2,100 points on oil price dip<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis said on Wednesday they had launched \u200ba\u00a0missile attack\u00a0on \u2060a Saudi oil tanker off the coast of the kingdom’s Red Sea port city of Yanbu and another missile attack on a Saudi oil tanker in the Gulf of Aden. There was no confirmation from Saudi Arabia on either incident.<\/p>\n
Takashima said concerns that \u2060Houthi attacks \u200bcould hit Red Sea shipping were limiting optimism about the outlook for \u200ban end to shipping disruptions in the Middle East.<\/p>\n
Separately, US\u00a0crude stocks rose as refineries eased processing slightly and imports edged higher, data from the Energy Information \u200bAdministration showed on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Oil prices trended \u200blower on Thursday on the progress in Iran-Oman talks, with investors cautiously waiting for signs of a US-Iran \u200cpeace deal and progress on reopening the Strait of Hormuz. Brent crude futures fell 33 cents, or 0.42%, to $79.12 a barrel. US\u00a0West Texas Intermediate futures declined 42 cents, or 0.56%, to $74.80 a …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4667,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4660"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4660\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4668,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4660\/revisions\/4668"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}