Keep this in mind: Oil Prices

dan_s · Post by **dan_s** » Tue Oct 17, 2017 2:21 pm

When the speculative traders that set oil prices each day think there is a "glut" of oil, they don't pay much attention to "Geopolitical Risks". In my opinion, the global oil market is balanced today and I think the recent IEA reports confirm this belief. So... stuff like this may have a big impact on oil prices in the near future. - Dan

Trump’s decertification of Iran deal could impact oil prices. There won’t be any immediate effect on the oil market from the decertification of the Iran nuclear deal by the Trump administration, but if tensions rise in the coming months, it would likely occur at a time when the oil market is tightening anyway, leading to upward pressure on prices, according to FBR Capital Markets.

Goldman Sachs: return of risk premium to oil market. The decertification of the Iran nuclear deal and the military offensive by the Iraqi government has thrust the prospect of geopolitical risk back into the oil market, according to Goldman Sachs. Still, it isn’t like it used to be – years ago, oil would immediately jump by a few dollars per barrel when news would break about heightened tension. The return of geopolitical risk will be more muted due to a well-supplied market.

Iraq takes Kirkuk from Kurds. Iraqi forces unexpectedly seized control of the key oil fields around the city of Kirkuk, which had been under Kurdish control for more than three years. The move sparked concerns over civil war, and comes three weeks after the Kurdish referendum favoring independence. There were early reports that an estimated 350,000 bpd of oil production was temporarily sidelined after Iraqi government forces took control of the oil fields, and there are conflicting reports on whether the outage remains. Kurdistan has said it would not impede oil exports. The problem is that the oil flows through Kurdish pipelines as a separate pipeline system under Baghdad’s control is damaged. Oil jumped on Monday on fears of outages, although those fears will probably dissipate if exports are restored.