Oil markets tense amid outages, OPEC policy and trade rows

Oil markets were tense on Tuesday, rising on a Canadian production outage and uncertainty over Libyan crude exports, but weighed down by climbing OPEC supplies and the intensifying trade conflict between the US and other major economies including China.

Benchmark Brent crude was up 35 cents at $75.08 a barrel.

US West Texas Intermediate crude futures was 35 cents higher at $68.43 a barrel.

Brent was driven up by uncertainty around oil exports by Libya, a member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

Eastern Libyan commander Khalifa Haftar’s forces have given control of oil ports to a separate National Oil Corporation (NOC) based in the country’s east.

The official state-owned oil company from the capital Tripoli will no longer be allowed to handle that oil, he said.

“The move increases the risk that Libyan oil output will be shut in as the NOC in Tripoli is the only legal entity with the right to sell oil,” said Sukrit Vijayakar, director of energy consultancy Trifecta.

In North America, production trouble at Canada’s largest oil sands facilities at Syncrude in Alberta was pushing up prices.

Higher feedstock crude oil prices, as well as surging fuel exports from China, have pulled down Asian refinery product margins to two-year lows.

The uncertainty over Libya’s oil exports comes after OPEC together with a group of non-OPEC partners announced a supply rise of around 1 million barrels per day (bpd) aimed at cooling oil markets.