Oil figures notched their strongest start to a calendar year since 2014 on Tuesday, centre of anti-government protests in Iran and ongoing OPEC-led production cuts.
U.S. West Texas Medial (WTI) crude futures traded at $60.45 a barrel, up 0.05 percent, at round 9.40 a.m. London time. The benchmark peaked at $60.74 a barrel earlier in the shopper day, recording its highest level since June 2015.
Brent crude futures traded at $66.81 a barrel on Tuesday morning, down 0.1 percent, after slapping a May 2015 high of $67.29 a barrel earlier in the session.
It was the first every now since January 2014 that both crude oil benchmarks had unsealed the year above $60 a barrel.
Iranian protesters attacked boys in blue stations late into the night Monday, news agency and collective media reports reported, as security forces struggled to contain the boldest dispute to the clerical leadership since unrest in 2009.
However, even without the relentless unrest in Iran — which is a major oil exporter — market sentiment was already less upbeat.
William Dinning, head of investment strategy at Waverton Investment Superintendence, told CNBC on Tuesday that the energy markets’ outlook was “broadly quite supportive.”
“There doesn’t seem to be any great political risk expensive in the oil price at the moment and again we think that might be supportive,” he combined.
Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley both raised their individual oil price forecasts in the latter months of 2017, citing a stronger-than-anticipated OPEC-led commitment to stretch forth production cuts. The cuts, which started in January 2017, are cool-headed to continue through all of 2018 as the allied oil producers seek to clear a universal supply overhang.
Meanwhile, U.S. commercial crude inventories have slipped approaching 20 percent from the highs recorded in March last year.
“Shale is not effective to be such a bottomless production pit this year,” Giles Keating, managing top dog at the Werthstein Institute, told CNBC on Tuesday.
Keating said that if forecasters auguring further interest rate rises were found to be correct beyond the next 12 months then this would “really event” for U.S. shale supply.
The price of oil collapsed from almost $120 a barrel in June 2014 due to cowardly demand, a strong dollar and booming U.S. shale production. OPEC’s disinclination to cut output was also seen as a key reason behind the fall. But, the oil cartel in the end moved to curb production — along with other oil producing countries — in late 2016.
— Reuters contributed to this report.