Crude Above $100 Amid Unrest In Africa

Crude oil trades above $100 a barrel for a second day supported by the continued unrest in South Sudan and Libya. Meanwhile, the in the US, the world’s largest oil consumer, data showed crude stockpiles fell more than forecast to the lowest level since September.

In the past two weeks violence has been escalating despite an offer of a truce, threatening to cut the country`s crude output further, adding to supply outages in Libya. Oil output in South Sudan had fallen by nearly a fifth to 200,000 barrel per day.

In Libya, holder of Africa’s biggest oil reserves, oil security guards have threatened to block a gas pipeline to the capital Tripoli, escalating a wave of strikes at oilfields and export terminals production that already run at a mere 250,000 barrels per day.

Crude also found support from the Energy Information Administration report on Friday which showed that crude inventories dropped by 4.73 million barrels last week to 367.6 million barrels amid an increase in refinery operations.

Gasoline supplies decreased by 614,000 barrels to 219.9 million; distillate inventories, including diesel and heating fuel, fell by 1.85 million barrels to 114.1 million. As for consumption it climbed by 2% to 4.17 million barrels a day.

In France, a deal to end a strike at Total’s Gonfreville refinery on Friday may weigh on Brent. The refinery was the last of the five sites to end a strike that began two weeks ago which affected more than half of the country`s refining capacity.

Today, experts from Iran and six world powers will resume talks on how to implement last month`s nuclear deal in Geneva, while in Yemen crude oil flows through a pipeline in its eastern Hadramout province were resumed on Sunday.

- WTI crude oil futures for February is trading around $ 100.25 a barrel after falling $0.07

- Brent futures for February settlement is trading around $ 112.58 a barrel after rising $0.40

- Natural gas is trading at $ 4.434 per cubic feet after rising 1.51%

- Gasoline is trading at $ 2.829 3 per cubic feet after rising 0.47%

- Heating oil (diesel) is trading at $ 3.1334 a gallon after rising 0.30%