Oil futures edged lower Tuesday, pulling back from a nearly one-month high, as traders weighed production outages and fears of rising Middle East tensions.
Price moves
-
West Texas Intermediate crude for March delivery
CL00,
-1.31%CLH24,
-1.31%
fell 66 cents, or 0.9%, to $74.10 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. -
March Brent crude
BRN00,
-1.31%BRNH24,
-1.31%,
the global benchmark, was off 69 cents, or 0.9%, at $79.38 a barrel on ICE Futures Europe.
Market drivers
Both Brent and WTI ended Monday at their highest since Dec. 26, lifted by concerns not just around the threat to supply from continued tensions in the Middle East. Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian Baltic ports, from which Russia exports oil, have also been a concern, said Carsten Fritsch, commodity analyst at Commerzbank, in a note.
Meanwhile, oil production in North Dakota has been curtailed by freezing weather that may take weeks to fully undo, he noted, with production losses last week running as high as 700,000 barrels a day.
Meanwhile, news reports said Libya’s National Oil Co. has lifted force majeure on the Sharara oil field, the nation’s largest, after a two-week shutdown due to protests. The field produces up to 300,000 barrels a day.
