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Oil falls below $75 per barrel for first time since start of Iran war - YAHOO FINANCE
The price of Brent (BZ=F) oil futures fell below $75 per barrel on Wednesday for the first time since the Iran war began.
The decline came after the US and Iran signed an initial agreement last week to end the conflict and reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
The Brent contract is the international benchmark for oil pricing on which almost all other oil grades are based. Brent pricing slid roughly 4.4% on Wednesday, falling below $74. Contracts on WTI crude (CL=F), the US benchmark, traded near $71 Wednesday morning on an equal 4.4% slide.
The move on Brent pricing comes after a loss of 27% over the previous month, as peace negotiations to end the conflict that has roiled the global energy market came to a head with the signing by the US and Iran of a memorandum of understanding (MOU).
The MOU, among other tenets, calls for reopening the Strait of Hormuz and for freedom of navigation for oil tankers and other vessels that have been stuck on either side of the critical waterway. Both US and Iranian leaders have promised safe passage for vessel transits, though some larger shipping lines have elected to wait longer to assess whether the tentative peace agreement holds, freight analysts told Yahoo Finance.
Why did Brent oil prices fall below $75?
Contrary to expectations in March, the International Energy Agency is now forecasting a surplus of oil in the market in 2027, and major banks have begun lowering their price targets. JPMorgan on Wednesday lowered its Brent price target for the third and fourth quarters to $86 and $80 per barrel, respectively.
Read more: You can trade oil futures. What to know before you start.
Contacts currently trade below that level, and experts have warned that drawdowns in international reserves could still force prices higher before the global oil system can begin moving crude en masse again.
In the US market, data from the Cushing, Okla., oil terminal — the key pricing center for WTI contracts — shows that volumes have fallen to around 19 million barrels, moving below 20 million for the first time since the explosion of the Permian Basin in the mid-2010s. Internationally, OECD countries have spent strategic reserves to keep prices contained, but that means global storage levels are far lower than before the war, putting pressure on the supply side of the oil pricing equation.
"If you own a contract of WTI on expiration, you receive 1,000 barrels of West Texas Intermediate Crude oil from the country's largest storage facility at Cushing, Oklahoma," Robert Yawger, Mizuho director of energy futures, said Wednesday. "If the tanks run dry, that is going to be tough to perform on."
