Iranian Nuclear Deal Talks Continue to Progress

The Financial Times reported that oil traders are becoming uneasy as talks progress in nuclear negotiations between Iran and the six world powers.

As quoted in the market news:

With large amounts of Iranian oil already in storage, an injection of hundreds of thousands of barrels a day into the oil market already struggling with a crude overhang could depress prices further.

The prospect of a wave of Iranian crude exports has already hit internationally traded Brent: after rebounding to $60 a barrel last month, it now hovers around $55 a barrel amid expectations of a deal by March 31.

“There is nothing that cannot be resolved,” Hassan Rouhani, Iran’s president, said on Saturday, according to the Iranian state news agency.

But as negotiators from Iran and the US, UK, France, Russia, China and Germany, the so-called P5+1 group, reconvene this week, questions remain around what any deal, full or partial, could mean for the oil market.

Western sanctions aimed at reining in Tehran’s nuclear activities have reduced crude output to about 2.8m b/d, from 3.6m b/d at the end of 2011. After foreign investment fled, the country’s oilfields, which hold 10 per cent of the world’s crude reserves, have been shut down while others are running at low levels.

Click here to read the full Financial Times report.