{"id":521137,"date":"2026-07-02T05:56:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-02T05:56:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/521137\/"},"modified":"2026-07-02T05:56:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-02T05:56:11","slug":"brent-oil-slips-closer-to-70-as-market-keeps-watch-on-us-iran-talks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/521137\/","title":{"rendered":"Brent oil slips closer to $70 as market keeps watch on US-Iran talks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brent oil prices slid<\/a> to nearly $70 a barrel on Thursday for the first time since the days leading up to the start of the US-Iran war, as supply worries continue to ease and the market monitors the progress in peace talks.<\/p>\n

The benchmark for two thirds of the world’s oil was down 1.29 per cent to $70.65 a barrel at 7.26am UAE time. Its price returned to prewar levels on Friday.<\/p>\n

West Texas Intermediate, the gauge that tracks US crude, was trading down 1.44 per cent to $67.59 per barrel.<\/p>\n

Brent and WTI surged during the four-month conflict, soaring as high as 70 per cent, but those gains have since been erased after Washington and Tehran agreed to a 60-day ceasefire and work to negotiate a lasting peace deal.<\/p>\n

The price of crude has been largely stable \u2013 and has been steadily going down \u2013 despite a flare-up last week between the two sides. Markets are also keeping an eye on inflation and the possibility of US Federal Reserve interest rate rises.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, indirect technical talks between the US and Iran began in Doha, with the release of frozen Iranian<\/a> assets and the Strait of Hormuz among the central issues.<\/p>\n

Traffic volume the strait \u2013 which, prewar, was the key chokepoint for about a fifth of the world’s energy exports \u2013 continues to improve, further easing supply issues.<\/p>\n

In addition, futures declined further after the US Department of Energy reported that crude inventories fell by about two million barrels, which was less than expected.<\/p>\n

“Investors and central bankers remain highly sensitive to the fast-moving developments in the Middle East – and the consequences for oil prices, inflation and bonds,” said Matthew Carter, a strategist at Swiss bank UBS.<\/p>\n

“Markets and rate-setters will be hoping that if these [oil price] levels hold, the risk of both an immediate inflation shock and aggressive central bank rate hikes will wane.”<\/p>\n

The market is also anticipating Sunday’s decision from Opec+. The oil-producing group is reportedly expected to raise output quotas by about 188,000 barrels per day in August, similar to its decision for July<\/a>, Reuters reported, citing sources.<\/p>\n

That would be a fifth consecutive month of production increases, as oil prices continue to decline and Opec+ works to balance the market.<\/p>\n

Last month, the smaller Opec bloc lowered its demand outlook for this year for the second consecutive time, while remaining confident of a \u201cresilient\u201d global economy<\/a> amid the disruption caused by the Iran war.<\/p>\n

The oil group<\/a> cut its demand view to 970,000 bpd, from a previous assessment of 1.17 million bpd, the Vienna-based Opec said in its monthly report for June<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brent oil prices slid to nearly $70 a barrel on Thursday for the first time since the days…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":521138,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2867,184,1435,42,190,43,5839,2865,789,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-521137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-business-team","tag-economy","tag-energy","tag-headlines","tag-markets","tag-news","tag-oil","tag-standard","tag-story","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=521137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521137\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/521138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=521137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=521137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=521137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}