Oil Toys With $62 Amid Iranian Friction, U.S. Drilling Pullback

(Bloomberg) -- Oil rose, clinging to last week's gains as political tensions in Iran and declining exploration work in the U.S. threatened output growth.

Futures advanced 0.5 percent on Monday, settling near $62-a-barrel in New York. A simmering power struggle in Iran has raised anxieties over the stability of OPEC's third-largest crude producer. Meanwhile, U.S. explorers cut the number of rigs searching for oil last week by the biggest margin in two months.

The Iran situation “has the market a bit on edge,” said John Kilduff, a partner at Again Capital LLC, a New York-based hedge fund.

Oil has held above $60 a barrel since late December in New York with U.S. crude stockpiles contracting and American oil drilling stalling out. Output curbs by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and allied suppliers have buoyed prices, with producers promising to continue the curbs for all of 2018.

“The risk at this point is somewhat to the upside, particularly if we continue to see weak drilling numbers in the United States,” Bart Melek, head of global commodity strategy at TD Securities in Toronto, said by telephone. Yet at current prices levels, “a significant portion of shale production is viable and profitable.”

West Texas Intermediate for February delivery added 29 cents to settle at $61.73 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Total volume traded was about 8 percent below the 100-day average.

See also: Key oil ETF sees biggest weekly outflow since November

Brent for March settlement climbed 16 cents to end the session at $67.78 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange. The global benchmark crude traded at a premium of $6.06 to March WTI.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said the anger that led to a week of anti-government protests exposed the need for the greater freedoms he has long championed, as well as a stronger economy.

In the U.S., drillers reduced the oil rig count last week by 5 to 742 rigs. In the midst of investor pressure, explorers are seeking to do more with less in a bid to boost profits, including opening already-drilled wells by fracking them rather than deploying more rigs to start new ones.

Oil-market news:

• Crude inventories at the key pipeline hub in Cushing, Oklahoma, decreased by 1.5 million barrels in the week ended Jan. 5, according to a forecast compiled by Bloomberg.
• Saudi Arabian Oil Co. is set to appoint banks including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Citigroup Inc. to help manage its initial public offering, people familiar with the matter said, as the state-owned crude producer pushes ahead with what could be the world's largest share sale.
• Libyan oil production rose to about 1 million barrels a day from 950,000 following a disruption, according to a person familiar with the situation.

--With assistance from Heesu Lee and Grant Smith

To contact the reporter on this story: Jessica Summers in New York at jsummers24@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Reg Gale at rgale5@bloomberg.net, Joe Carroll

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