ENERGY: Oil prices settle after extraordinarily turbulent week

ENERGY: Oil prices settle after extraordinarily turbulent week By: Newsdesk Team City of London Newsroom The price of Brent crude firmed slightly up 8 cents to $63.68 a barrel while U.S. WTI (West Texas Intermediate) rose by 12 cents to $58.23 after the market responded favorably to Saudi Arabia’s´s pledge to restore full production by end-September at facilities knocked out in drone and missile attacks last weekend.

“Analysts believe that the Saudi´s lost output of nearly 3.4 million barrels (bpd) after crude oil stock levels plunged by an estimated 10 million barrels.”

The steadying of nerves, after a 2% drop on Wednesday and a 14% plunge on Monday, came after Saudi Arabia set out the timeline to full operation and also said it had managed to restore supplies to customers at levels prior to the attacks by drawing from its oil inventories. Saudi Arabia, the world’s leading oil exporter, has said the crippling attack on its oil sites was “unquestionably sponsored” by bitter regional rival Iran. U.S. President Donald Trump said there were many options short of war with Iran and added that he had ordered the U.S. Treasury to “substantially increase sanctions” on Tehran Editors Comment: Saudis couldn’t stop oil attack, even with top US Defences Despite investing billions of dollars in state of the art US defence systems to protect the kingdom and its infrastructure the Saudi´s still couldn’t stop the now agreed “Iranian” drone and missile attack, exposing serious flaws in even the best American defence tech systems! MC