LP:Brent oil price hovers near $124 as Iran tensions pushes crude ever higher
The price of Brent crude continues to hover around $124 a barrel on Tuesday as tensions over Iran continue to push crude oil ever higher and despite the market’s pause yesterday, few in the market see Iran tensions, which have powered the recent rally, abating anytime soon.
Latest Brent Oil Price
In London, Brent crude oil futures for April 2012 delivery was trading at $123.93 a barrel, 08.07 GMT this morning on the ICE Futures Exchange.
Traders see concerns about Iran will continue to push futures higher still.
“Obviously there is still major unrest going on the Middle East. It’s not going away anytime soon.” said Tony Rosado, a broker at GA Global Markets.
New data show that the amount of speculative investment in the oil market from money managers such as hedge funds has been rising in tandem with barrel prices, and is now nearing the all-time record level set after the outbreak of civil war in Libya last year.
Speculators increased their long position bets the market will rise by 17 percent last week according to the most recent data from the CFTC, to a notional value of $24.2 billion, Bank of America/Merrill Lynch said in a note.
“There’s a lot of speculative length in the market,” said Tom Bentz, director of BNP Paribas Prime Brokerage. “Obviously what’s driven it up is all the Iran worries primarily, and how much longer we can keep pushing it up on that we’ll see. The path of least resistance still seems to be up.”
Stock markets in Europe fell Monday after officials from the G20 over the weekend warned that the global economy was still at risk of a slowdown and said surging oil prices threatened a recovery.
