Oil prices up

LONDON. — Oil prices rose yesterday with revived US sanctions against major crude exporter Iran expected to tighten global supply.

Brent crude oil futures LCOc1 were up 75 cents to $74,50 per barrel at 1337 GMT and US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures CLc1 were up 32 cents at $69,33 a barrel.

A first batch of US sanctions against Iran, which shipped out almost 3 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude in July, officially came into effect at 12:01 a.m. US Eastern time (0401 GMT) yesterday.

The reimposed sanctions target Iran’s US dollar purchases, metals trading, coal, industrial software and its vehicle sector. US sanctions on Iran’s energy sector are set to be re-imposed after a 180day “wind-down period” ending on November 4.

“It is a reality check that this is happening and that Iran’s oil exports will be hurt when the oil sanctions hit it in November,” chief commodities analyst at Commerzbank Bjarne Schieldrop said.

President Donald Trump tweeted yesterday that the sanctions were “the most biting sanctions ever imposed”.

“Anyone doing business with Iran will NOT be doing business with the United States,” he added.

Many European countries, China and India, oppose the sanctions, but the US government said it wants as many countries as possible to stop buying Iranian oil.

“We are going to work with individual countries on a case-by-case basis, but our goal is to reduce the amount of revenue and hard currency going into Iran,” a senior US administration official said. Reuters.