LONDON: Oil prices were set for a third weekly gain on Friday as the US ramped up pressure on Venezuela and Iran, though worries over whether Washington’s tariff war could curb demand weighed on markets.
Brent crude futures were up 8 cents, 0.1 percent, at $74.11 a barrel at 12:49 p.m. Saudi time, marking the eighth straight days of gains, its longest such streak since May 2022.
US West Texas Intermediate crude futures were up 5 cents, also 0.1 percent, to $69.97 a barrel.
Both contracts have gained about 2.5 percent so far this week. They are up around 7 percent since hitting multi-month lows in early March.
The main driver of the price rally has been the shifting landscape of global oil sanctions, BMI analysts wrote in a market commentary.
US President Donald Trump on Monday announced new 25 percent tariffs on potential buyers of Venezuelan crude, days after US sanctions targeting China’s imports from Iran.
The order compounded uncertainty for buyers and saw trade of Venezuelan oil to top buyer China stall. Elsewhere, sources said India’s Reliance Industries, operator of the world’s biggest refining complex, will halt Venezuelan oil imports.
“The potential loss of Venezuelan crude exports to the market due to secondary tariffs and the possibility of the same being imposed on Iranian barrels has caused an apparent tightness in crude supply,” said June Goh, a senior oil analyst at Sparta Commodities.
Oil was also underpinned by signs of better demand in the United States, the world’s top oil consumer, as the country’s crude stocks fell more than anticipated.
Data from the Energy Information Administration showed US crude inventories fell by 3.3 million barrels to 433.6 million barrels in the week ended March 21, compared with analysts’ expectations in a Reuters poll for a 956,000-barrel draw.
Some downward pressure came as oil mirrored broader risk asset sell-offs on Friday, as the latest tariff salvo from Trump stoked investor worries of an all-out trade war.
As a result, analysts don’t expect sharp gains in oil prices to be sustained in the current environment.
“While the market is suffering under extreme uncertainties, we are holding to our forecast for Brent crude to average $76 per barrel in 2025, down from $80 per barrel in 2024,” the BMI analysts wrote.
