Brent crude trades near $30 as Iran sanctions removal looms

Brent oil traded near $30 a barrel as Iran moved closer to boosting exports and exacerbating a global glut.

Futures fell as much as 1.9 percent in London to the biggest discount to U.S. prices in about a year. Brent slid below $30 a barrel Wednesday for the first time since April 2004 amid speculation sanctions on Iran may be lifted by Monday, paving the way for increased shipments. U.S. stockpiles gained by 234,000 barrels last week while supplies at Cushing, Oklahoma, the country’s biggest storage hub, climbed further to a record, according to government data.

Brent capped a third annual loss in 2015 as the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries effectively abandoned production limits amid a global surplus. Iran is trying to regain its lost market share and doesn’t intend to pressure prices with an export increase once sanctions are removed, officials from its petroleum ministry and national oil company said this month.

“It’s a deliberate oversupply by OPEC, which is yet to be removed,” Eugen Weinberg, head of commodities research at Commerzbank AG, said in a Bloomberg Television interview in Hong Kong. “We are likely to get the news over the weekend that Iranian sanctions are to be lifted, so next week expect continuing mounting pressure.”

Iran Output

Brent for February settlement, which expires Thursday, dropped as much as 58 cents to $29.73 a barrel on the London- based ICE Futures Europe exchange, and was at $30.19 a barrel at 1:45 p.m. Singapore time. The more-active March contract was down 10 cents to $30.18. The European benchmark crude traded at a discount of as much as 76 cents to WTI, the biggest on an intraday basis since January 2015.

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West Texas Intermediate for February delivery traded at $30.79 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, up 31 cents. The contract rose 4 cents to close at $30.48 Wednesday. Prices slid below $30 Tuesday for the first time in 12 years. Total volume traded was about 62 percent above the 100-day average.

Iran, the fifth biggest OPEC member, will increase production by 100,000 barrels a day, or 3.7 percent, a month after sanctions are lifted and by 400,000 in six months, according to the median estimate of 12 analysts and economists surveyed by Bloomberg. Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh has pledged to boost output by half a million barrels a day within weeks of the end of sanctions and by the same amount again in six months.

Crude stockpiles at Cushing, the delivery point for WTI, rose for a 10th week through Jan. 8 to 64 million barrels, according to a report Wednesday from the Energy Information Administration. Nationwide supplies ended 2015 about 100 million barrels above the five-year seasonal average, EIA data showed.

Investors should buy December 2016 WTI contracts below $40 a barrel as prices will move to $48 by the end of this year, Mark Keenan, head of commodities research for Asia at Societe Generale SA, said in a Bloomberg TV interview.