Oil prices retreated on Thursday after climbing 4 percent in the previous session as Iran said it remained open to diplomacy to end the US-Iran war, though the two countries remain far apart on ways to do so.<\/p>\n
Brent crude futures fell 92 cents, or 0.9 percent, to $102.16 a barrel at 0400 GMT, while West Texas Intermediate futures eased 77 cents, or 0.8 percent, to $91.39.<\/p>\n
Iran and the United States remain divided over how to bring an end to their war, but diplomacy must continue, a senior Iranian official told Reuters on Wednesday, after Iran’s president told the UN General Assembly that Tehran would never surrender to US pressure.<\/p>\n
The official said Tehran was reviewing Washington’s response to its peace proposals, which prioritise lifting a US naval blockade on Iranian ports and reopening the Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n
“Oil is falling because the market is unwinding part of its geopolitical risk premium as Gulf supply recovers and hopes of a US-Iran diplomatic breakthrough grow,” said Priyanka Sachdeva, head of market insights at Phillip Nova.<\/p>\n
“Brent retains a larger geopolitical and sea-route premium because international crude is more directly exposed to Middle East and Hormuz disruption, while WTI benefits more from relatively insulated US supply,” Sachdeva added.<\/p>\n
Earlier on Wednesday, Iran’s security chief Mohsen Rezaei said the Strait of Hormuz would not be reopened while Iran’s conditions are not met.<\/p>\n
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters on Wednesday that a deal with Iran would involve hard work over a period of time, adding that President Donald Trump also had military options.<\/p>\n
Traders also evaluated possible curbs on diesel exports. Ultra-low-sulfur diesel futures were down about 5 percent in midday trading after website Politico said the Trump administration was preparing plans for a 90-day diesel ban, but the White House denied this.<\/p>\n
US Energy Secretary Chris Wright had said earlier on Wednesday that a diesel export ban would not work even though Trump said he would support it.<\/p>\n
Analysts and market watchers have warned that such a move would do little to ease high energy prices and could worsen global supplies and further disrupt economies.<\/p>\n
US distillate stockpiles including diesel and heating oil fell by 428,000 barrels to 107.4 million barrels last week, Energy Information Administration data showed.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, US crude inventories rose by 3 million barrels to 426.4 million barrels last week, though analysts polled by Reuters had expected a 641,000-barrel draw.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oil prices retreated on Thursday after climbing 4 percent in the previous session as Iran said it remained…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":625833,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[114,85,46],"class_list":["post-625832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625832","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=625832"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625832\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/625833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=625832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=625832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=625832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}