TEHRAN: Oil slid from the highest level in three weeks, snapping the longest run of gains since April as Iran repeated its goal of boosting exports after sanctions on the country are lifted.
Futures in New York lost as much as 1.3 percent, after climbing 9.7 percent last week. Iran’s priority is to boost crude shipments to pre-sanction levels, state-backed IRNA reported, citing Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh. The Persian Gulf nation plans to add 500,000 barrels a day of exports within a week after sanctions are removed, said Rokneddin Javadi, head of National Iranian Oil Co., according to Shana news agency.
The global glut that’s sent West Texas Intermediate crude toward its second yearly decline may deepen after the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries effectively abandoned output limits earlier this month. Brent, the benchmark for more than half the world’s oil, is poised to end 2015 with the lowest annual average price in 11 years, hurting oil- exporting countries and companies.
“If Iran adds as much as it plans to the already oversupplied market, there is definitely less hope for the market in the first half of next year,” said Hong Sung Ki, senior commodities analyst at Samsung Futures Inc., said by phone from Seoul. The country’s export ambitions “will become a driver for lower prices,” he said.
