Crude oil prices could leap from roughly $75 to $135 a barrel within a month if global stockpiles keep shrinking and supply fails to recover, oil market analyst Dan Dicker said in remarks to Bloomberg on Sunday, as traders digested the latest U.S. and Iran developments and a softer Monday open in crude.
The warning landed just as markets were trying to make sense of a fragile diplomatic picture. On Sunday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Washington would lift its naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz after the first round of talks in Switzerland, a move that would improve shipping flows through one of the world's most important oil transit routes. By Monday, crude was trading around $76 a barrel, down about 2.5 per cent, as investors weighed the chance of smoother supply against the reality of lean inventories.
