LONDON: Brent crude prices rose on Thursday after Saudi Arabia suspended its oil shipments through a key Red Sea strait in response to an attack on two of its tankers and as data showed US inventories fell to a 3½ year low.
Brent crude futures had risen 55 cents to $74.48 a barrel by 08:32 GMT, hitting a 10-day high and extending their rally into a third day.
US West Texas Intermediate crude futures were 4 cents lower at $69.26 barrel after two days of gains.
Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil exporter, said on Thursday that it was “temporarily halting” all oil shipments through the strategic Red Sea shipping lane of Bab al-Mandeb after an attack on two big oil tankers by Yemen’s Iran-aligned Ansarullah movement.
Saudi Arabia has a major export terminal in Ras Tanura — also home to the country’s largest refinery — on its eastern coast. It exports most of its crude on tankers passing through the Strait of Hormuz.
An estimated 4.8 million barrels per day of crude oil and refined petroleum products flowed through this waterway in 2016 toward Europe, the United States and Asia, according to the US Energy Information Administration. Saudi Arabia also has another option in the Petroline, also known as the East-West Pipeline, which mainly transports crude from fields clustered in the east to the Red Sea port of Yanbu for export to Europe and North America.
The 5 million barrels per day Petroline could transport around 60 per cent of total Saudi oil exports.
Prices were also supported by official data showing US crude oil inventories last week tumbled more than expected to their lowest level since 2015 as exports jumped and stocks at the Cushing hub dropped.
Crude inventories fell 6.1 million barrels in the week to July 20, compared with analyst expectations for a decrease of 2.3 million barrels, the EIA said on Wednesday.
At 404.9 million barrels, inventories, not including the nation’s emergency petroleum reserve, were at their lowest level since February 2015. — Reuters
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