[uncoosesoge]

Oil traded near the highest price in nine months in New York amid speculation Iran will disrupt supplies, while Brent crude fluctuated as European finance ministers met to discuss a bailout of Greece.

West Texas Intermediate futures climbed as much as 2.1 percent from Feb. 18. There was no floor trading in the U.S. yesterday because of the Presidents’ Day holiday. European finance ministers haggled into the night in Brussels over a second rescue for Greece to avoid a default that may roil financial markets. Iran will cut crude supplies to the U.K. and France, the oil ministry’s news website Shana reported Feb. 19.

“The situation in Iran is building some risk premium into the market,” said Ric Spooner, a chief market analyst at CMC Markets in Sydney who also said oil prices have risen as investors preempt a reasonable outcome out of Europe. “Beyond that, Greece needs to arrive at a situation where it has some means of funding its deficit on an ongoing basis. At the moment, all we’re doing is deferring the problem.”

Futures for March delivery, which expire today, advanced as much as $2.20 to $105.44 in intra-day trading, the highest price since May 5. The contract was at $104.71 at 1:27 p.m. in Sydney, while the more actively traded April future gained $1.32 to $104.92. Today’s trades will be booked with yesterday’s electronic transactions for settlement. Prices are 21 percent higher the past year.

Brent oil for April settlement was at $119.79 a barrel, down 26 cents, on the ICE Futures Europe exchange. The European benchmark contract’s premium to New York-traded West Texas Intermediate was at $14.87.

‘No Impact’
Iran’s decision to halt sales of crude oil to French and British buyers to preempt a European Union ban on imports will have “no impact on Britain’s energy security or supplies,” U.K. Foreign Secretary William Hague told lawmakers in London yesterday.

The U.K. got 1 percent of its crude from Iran in the first half of 2011 and France got 4 percent, according to the U.S. Energy Administration. The EU said yesterday that its member countries are cutting oil purchases from Iran and have sufficient reserves to deal with disruptions. The EU has agreed to stop purchases of Iranian crude from July 1 in an attempt to curb the Persian Gulf country’s nuclear program.

Japan’s government has yet to reach an agreement with the Obama administration over an exemption to a U.S. law that would punish banks doing business with Iran and is still negotiating over cutting Iranian oil imports, Foreign Minister Koichiro Gemba said today in Tokyo.

European finance ministers discussed the terms of new loans to Greece and a possible contribution by central banks, and leaned on investors to accept bigger write-offs in a bond exchange that is vital to staving off a Greek bankruptcy next month. No time was set for a press conference after the meeting, which began at 3:30 p.m. yesterday.

Hedge-funds and other money managers raised bullish bets on Brent crude by 6,818 contracts in the week ended Feb. 14, data yesterday from the ICE Futures Europe exchange showed.

[NeroASERCH]

Get ready for higher tariff in coming months.