Oil futures rallied Friday on signs of tightening supplies, tallying a second monthly gain in a row, with global crude prices settling at another four-year high.
“Until sizable supply is offered up by OPEC and with pandemic market chatter raging about the $100 per barrel market, it’s hard not to be blatantly bullish,” said Stephen Innes, head of trading at Oanda,
Prices saw a sudden, late-morning jump to intraday highs. Phil Flynn, a senior market analyst at Price Futures Group, attributed that climb to technical trading. He also said prices seemed to find support from reports that China is cutting back on Iranian oil purchases, as well as talk that the U.S. has no plans to tap its Strategic Petroleum Reserve to make up for Iranian oil barrels lost amid U.S. sanctions.
Overall, the market has been bolstered by declining Iranian crude exports ahead of U.S. economic sanctions against the Islamic Republic’s oil industry, set to take effect Nov. 4, analysts say.
