Forexpros – Crude oil futures extended gains on Tuesday, rallying to a fresh session high amid reports the British embassy in Tehran was attacked and as investors awaited the outcome of a meeting of euro zone finance ministers.
On the New York Mercantile Exchange, light, sweet crude futures for delivery in January traded at USD99.00 a barrel during U.S. morning trade, gaining 0.8%.
It earlier rose by as much as 0.95% to trade at a daily high of USD99.30 a barrel.
Iranian protesters stormed the U.K. embassy in Tehran earlier in the day, hurling petrol bombs and throwing documents from windows during a rally to protest against sanctions imposed by Britain.
According to local media outlets, six embassy staff members were taken hostage.
The U.K. government last week banned all British financial institutions from doing business with their Iranian counterparts, including the Central Bank of Iran.
Iran is the world’s fourth largest oil producer and the second biggest exporter among OPEC members.
Meanwhile, oil traders continued to monitor developments out of the euro zone surrounding the region’s debt crisis.
Italy’s Treasury auctioned EUR7.5 billion of debt but borrowing costs surged to euro-era highs. The yield on new three-year bond was 7.89% and 10-year yields climbed to 7.56% from 6.06% at a similar auction last month.
Finance ministers from the 17 European Union member states were to meet in Brussels later in the day to discuss the region’s financial crisis and ways to boost the firepower of the European Financial Stability Facility. The ministers were also expected to sign off on Greece’s next tranche of financial aid.
Markets were also awaiting fresh weekly information on U.S. stockpiles of crude and refined products to gauge the strength of oil demand in the world’s largest oil consumer.
The American Petroleum Institute will release its inventories report later in the day, while Wednesday’s government report could show crude stockpiles rose by 1.0 million barrels last week, while gasoline supplies were forecast to increase by 1.1 million barrels.
Elsewhere, on the ICE Futures Exchange, Brent oil futures for January delivery jumped 1.02% to trade at USD110.11 a barrel, with the spread between the Brent and crude contracts standing at USD11.11 a barrel.
Libya’s state-run National Oil Corporation said Monday that the county’s oil output now exceeds 750,000 barrels a day. Libya had been producing about 1.6 million barrels a day nationally until the outbreak of civil war earlier in the year.
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