WebinarsNew
Deep DiveNew
Explore Business Standard
Crude oil futures are likely to remain volatile next week as uncertainty over US-Iran negotiations and escalating tensions in West Asia keep supply risks elevated, even as hopes of a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz offer scope for a correction, analysts said. Investors will track the monthly oil market reports from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and the International Energy Agency, along with the American Petroleum Institute's weekly inventory numbers and US government data on crude inventories and imports, they added. The geopolitical situation remains fluid after US President Donald Trump said Washington was considering joining Saudi strikes against Iran-backed Houthi rebels in neighbouring Yemen, following an attack on Riyadh's international airport. "The widening conflict has heightened concerns over energy shipments through the region, including the strategic Bab el-Mandeb Strait," said Navneet Damani, Head of Research - Commodities at Motilal Oswal .
When Iran shut down the Strait of Hormuz at the start of the war, choking off sea passage for some 15 million barrels of oil a day, many feared that prices would skyrocket, cratering the world economy. Instead, nearly seven months on, oil is expensive but not exorbitant, and analysts say the supply is pretty much sufficient to meet current global needs, even as the higher prices cause political problems for US President Donald Trump and others. That's because Saudi Arabia and other Gulf producers quickly found alternative routes and reached for unused pipeline capacity. When Iran and its militant allies targeted those, the oil exporters and the US military found others - workarounds for the workarounds - in an often clandestine game of whack-a-mole. With oil now at around $100 a barrel - higher than before the war but not as bad as feared - Iran has diminished leverage, while a US naval blockade and tightened sanctions smother its own economy. But the workarounds are expensive and