(New York) Oil prices jumped on Monday, in the wake of the surprise offensive by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas against Israel, with the market worried about the consequences of the war for Iran, a major crude producer.
The price of a barrel of North Sea Brent for delivery in December increased by 4.22%, to close at $88.15.
Its American equivalent, the West Texas Intermediate (WTI), with maturity in November, gained 4.33%, to 86.38 dollars.
“The attack on Israel has sent prices soaring,” Susannah Streeter of Hargreaves Lansdown responded in a note. “Investors are assessing the conflict’s propensity to disrupt (crude) supply in the Middle East, if other countries are involved. »
Hamas’ surprise offensive and Israel’s response have already left more than a thousand dead since Saturday.
However, for Eli Rubin of EBW Analytics Group, “the magnitude of the gains observed today can be explained by the fact that the market was ‘oversold’ last week”, meaning that it had fallen significantly over a tight period.
Brent notably fell by 14% over six sessions.
“Half of Monday’s movements are due to that,” insisted the analyst.
Neither Israel nor nearby Lebanon, where the Hezbollah movement, an ally of Hamas, operates, are significant producers of black gold. But Iran, which the Wall Street Journal reported helped plan the offensive, is among the top ten players in the market.
“Iran is the second country to have increased its production the most this year, behind the United States,” recalls Eli Rubin, referring to a net increase of 700,000 barrels per day.
“If they succeeded,” despite the sanctions the Islamic Republic is still subject to, “it’s mainly because the White House let it happen,” says the analyst.
The United States recently agreed to the release of six billion dollars in frozen Iranian oil revenues, which allowed the release of five Americans of Iranian origin in mid-September.
After the Hamas offensive, the American government “will undoubtedly be more attentive” to the flow of crude oil leaving Iran, according to Eli Rubin, which could reduce volumes on a global scale and further strain a market which was already deprived of 1.3 million barrels per day by Saudi Arabia and Russia.
The gas market was also hit by the fallout from the Hamas attack, after the American Chevron suspended activities at its Tamar platform, located off the Israeli coast, on instructions from the authorities.
On Monday, the benchmark European gas contract, the Dutch TTF, gained 12.4%, to 43.00 euros per megawatt hour (MWh). The gas market is much more regional than the oil market, which explains why the US futures contract only advanced 1.47%.
For Eli Rubin, “as it stands, the impact seems quite marginal” on natural gas, “unless we observe a dramatic surge (in oil prices).
