Oil climbs, intensifying unrest in Iran spark supply concerns

SINGAPORE, January 12 ------ Oil prices extended gains on growing concerns that intensifying protests in Iran could disrupt supply from the OPEC producer, although efforts to quickly resume oil exports from Venezuela are limiting price gains.

Brent crude futures climbed 31 cents, or 0.49%, to $63.65 a barrel by 0006 GMT while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude was at $59.42 a barrel, up 30 cents, or 0.51%. Both contracts rose more than 3% last week to clinch their biggest weekly rise since October as Iran's clerical establishment intensified its crackdown on the biggest demonstrations since 2022.

The civil unrest has killed more than 500 people, a rights group said on Sunday. U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to intervene if force is used on protesters. The president is expected to meet senior advisers on Tuesday to discuss options for Iran, a U.S. official told Reuters on Sunday. "There have also been calls for workers in the oil industry to down tools amid the protests," ANZ analysts led by Daniel Hynes said in a note. "The situation puts at least 1.9 million barrels per day of oil exports at risk of disruption," they added.

Still, Venezuela is expected to resume oil exports soon, following the ouster of President Nicolas Maduro, as Trump said last week, the government in Caracas is set to turn over as much as 50 million barrels of sanctioned oil to the United States. That has set off a race among oil companies to find tankers and assemble operations to ship the crude safely from vessels and dilapidated Venezuelan ports, four sources familiar with the operations said. Trafigura said in a meeting with the White House on Friday that its first vessel should load in the next week.

Source: msn.com