Oil prices settled at their highest in over a \u200bweek on Friday after U.S. President Donald \u200dTrump ratcheted up pressure against Iran through more sanctions on vessels that transport its oil, and announced an armada was heading towards the Middle Eastern nation.<\/p>\n
Brent crude futures rose $1.82, \u200dor \u200b2.8%, to settle at $65.88 a barrel, the highest since January 14. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude gained $1.71, or 2.9%, at $61.07, also a more than one-week high.<\/p>\n
Both benchmarks notched weekly gains of over 2.5%.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s statements renewed warnings to Tehran against killing protesters or restarting its nuclear \u2060program. The escalating pressure has caused concerns of oil supply disruptions in the Middle East. Kazakhstan has been struggling to resume output from one of the world\u2019s largest oilfields.<\/p>\n
Warships, including an aircraft carrier and guided-missile destroyers, will arrive in the Middle East in the coming days, \u200ca U.S. official said. The \u200dUnited States conducted strikes on Iran last June.<\/p>\n
The U.S. on Friday also imposed sanctions on \u200cnine vessels and eight related firms involved in transporting Iranian oil \u2060and petroleum products, the U.S. Treasury said in a statement.<\/p>\n
At about 3.2 million barrels per \u200bday according to OPEC figures, Iran is OPEC\u2019s fourth-biggest crude oil producer behind Saudi Arabia, Iraq and the United Arab Emirates. It is also a major exporter to China, the world\u2019s second-largest oil consumer.<\/p>\n
Chevron said oil output at Kazakhstan\u2019s Tengiz oilfield has yet to resume after \u200bChevron-led operator Tengizchevroil announced a shutdown on Monday following a fire.<\/p>\n
The incident exacerbated problems for Kazakhstan\u2019s oil industry, already challenged by bottlenecks at its main exporting gateway on the Black Sea, which has been damaged by Ukrainian drones.<\/p>\n
JP Morgan said on Friday that Tengiz, which accounts for nearly half of Kazakhstan\u2019s production, could remain offline for the rest \u2060of the month and that Kazakhstan\u2019s crude output is likely to average only 1 \u2060million to 1.1 million bpd in January, compared with a usual level of around 1.8 million bpd.<\/p>\n
Oil \u200cprices climbed earlier in the week on Trump\u2019s moves on Greenland, but dropped by about 2% on Thursday as he backed off tariff threats against Europe and ruled out military action.<\/p>\n
Trump said on Thursday that Denmark, NATO and the U.S. had reached a deal that would allow \u201ctotal access\u201d to Greenland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oil prices settled at their highest in over a \u200bweek on Friday after U.S. President Donald \u200dTrump ratcheted…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":428926,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[901,888,902,879,877,903,45,49,48,876,895,896,891,878,875,46,549,295,894,887,914,880,881,893,889,890,884,904,885,909,910,912,907,911,905,908,882,898,899,714,897,906,865,61,900,892,886,883,913],"class_list":{"0":"post-428925","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-alberta","9":"tag-arts-news","10":"tag-bc","11":"tag-breaking-news","12":"tag-breaking-news-video","13":"tag-british-columbia","14":"tag-business","15":"tag-ca","16":"tag-canada","17":"tag-canada-news","18":"tag-canada-sports","19":"tag-canada-sports-news","20":"tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","21":"tag-canadian-breaking-news","22":"tag-canadian-news","23":"tag-economy","24":"tag-education","25":"tag-environment","26":"tag-federal-government","27":"tag-foreign-news","28":"tag-globe-and-mail","29":"tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","30":"tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","31":"tag-government","32":"tag-life-news","33":"tag-lifestyle","34":"tag-local-news","35":"tag-manitoba","36":"tag-national-news","37":"tag-new-brunswick","38":"tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","39":"tag-northwest-territories","40":"tag-nova-scotia","41":"tag-nunavut","42":"tag-ontario","43":"tag-pei","44":"tag-photos","45":"tag-political-news","46":"tag-political-opinion","47":"tag-politics","48":"tag-politics-news","49":"tag-quebec","50":"tag-sports-news","51":"tag-technology","52":"tag-travel","53":"tag-trudeau","54":"tag-us-news","55":"tag-world-news","56":"tag-yukon"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=428925"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428925\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/428926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=428925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=428925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=428925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}