West Texas Intermediate headed for the biggest weekly gain this year as violence escalated across northern and central Iraq, OPEC's second-biggest oil producer.
Futures rose for a third day in New York after advancing 2 percent yesterday, the most in two months. Militants linked to al-Qaeda extended control over Mosul, the nation's second-largest city, and moved south toward Baghdad as Oil Minister Abdul Kareem al-Luaibi said U.S. planes may bomb northern Iraq. The OPEC member produced 3.3 million barrels a day last month, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
WTI for July delivery climbed as much as 0.4 percent to $106.98 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange and was at $106.95 at 8:56 a.m. Sydney time. The contract rose $2.13 to $106.53 yesterday, the highest close since Sept. 18. The volume of all futures traded was about 63 percent below the 100-day average. Prices are up 4.2 percent this week, the most since December.
Brent for July settlement surged $3.07, or 2.8 percent, to $113.02 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange yesterday. The European benchmark crude was at a premium of $6.49 to WTI.
Militants seized Mosul on June 11 and halted repairs to the main pipeline from the Kirkuk oil field to the Mediterranean port of Ceyhan in Turkey. They advanced on Tikrit and there were conflicting reports about whether the 310,000 barrel-a-day Baiji refinery had been captured.
To contact the reporter on this story: Ben Sharples in Melbourne at bsharples@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Pratish Narayanan at pnarayanan9@bloomberg.net Alexander Kwiatkowski, Ovais Subhani
Source : http://www.businessweek.com/news/2014-06-12/wti-heads-for-biggest-weekly-gain-this-year-amid-iraq-conflict
