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 By early afternoon in Europe, benchmark U.S. crude for January
delivery was up 24 cents to $94.09 a barrel in electronic trading on
the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract for December, which
expired Wednesday, closed down 1 cent at $93.33.
A new round of talks on Iran began in Geneva on Wednesday, with both
sides indicating a first-step agreement was possible on a deal to
roll back the country's nuclear program in exchange for limited
sanctions relief.
On Thursday, however, talks were delayed and a senior Iranian envoy
suggested that momentum from a previous round had been slowed.
"What we are trying now is to rebuild confidence that we lost in the
previous round of negotiations," Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister
Abbas Araghchi told The Associated Press.
The U.S., Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany are offering a
gradual easing of sanctions that have crippled Iran's economy,
raising the possibility of an influx of Iranian oil into world
markets at a time of already abundant supplies.
"The marked decline in Chinese oil imports from Iran by more than 40
percent in October makes it clear that the market is not really
reliant on crude oil from Iran at present," said analysts at
Commerzbank in Frankfurt in a note to clients. "Any easing of the
sanctions would thus trigger a noticeable price slide."
Signs that the Federal Reserve may start winding down its stimulus
program also kept oil prices under pressure.
Minutes of the Fed last meeting showed members agreed they would
likely start tapering stimulus in coming months if the job market
improved further.
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The minutes "provided some strong reference to tapering and that is
bringing some participants to move their expectations for its start
from March forward to December," said Olivier Jakob of Petromatrix
in Switzerland.
Brent crude, the benchmark for an international variety of crude,
was up 22 cents to $108.28 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange in
London.
In other energy futures trading on Nymex:
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Wholesale gasoline added 0.9 cent to $2.6548 gallon.
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Heating oil rose 1.08 cents to $2.9636 a gallon.
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Natural gas advanced 1.3 cents to $3.687 per 1,000 cubic
feet.
[Associated
Press; PABLO GORONDI]
George Jahn and John
Heilprin in Geneva contributed to this report.
Copyright 2013 The Associated
Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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