Oil rises on Kurdistan export halt and banking optimism (updated)

First Citizens Bancshares (Tennessee)

27/03/2023 05:08

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      First Citizens agrees to acquire failed SVB
    

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      Putin escalates geopolitical tensions with nuclear arms
talk 
    

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      Moscow close to achieving 500,000 bpd output cut
    

  
 (Updates prices)
    By Noah Browning
       LONDON, March 27 (Reuters) - Oil prices rose on Monday
after a halt to oil exports from Iraqi Kurdistan via Turkey and
moves to contain a potential banking crisis that could have hit
demand for crude.
    Brent crude futures  LCOc1  were up $1.18, or 1.6%, at
$76.17 a barrel by 1426 GMT. West Texas Intermediate U.S. crude
 CLc1  rose $1.28, or 1.9%, to $70.54.
    Brent gained 2.8% last week while WTI rebounded by 3.8% as
jitters in the banking sector eased.
    About half a percent of global oil supply, or 450,000
barrels per day (bpd), of crude exports from Kurdistan stopped
on Saturday after a victory in an arbitration case confirmed
Baghdad's consent was needed to ship the oil from Turkey.
    "Near-term oil prices are likely to remain volatile,
influenced by the current financial market turmoil, but we
retain a positive outlook," said UBS analyst Giovanni Staunovo.
    "We continue to expect rising Chinese crude imports and
demand, plus lower Russian production, to tighten up the oil
market and lift prices over the coming quarters."
    First Citizens BancShares Inc  FCNCA.O  said it will acquire
the deposits and loans of failed Silicon Valley Bank  SIVB.O ,
closing one chapter in the crisis of confidence that has ripped
through financial markets.
    There are also hopes for extra support for bank funding
after reports that U.S. authorities were in early deliberations
about expanding emergency lending facilities.
    Oil prices also drew support from Russian President Vladimir
Putin's plans to station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus. 
    The move is one of Russia's most pronounced nuclear signals
yet and a warning to NATO over its military support for Ukraine,
which has called for a meeting of the U.N. Security Council in
response. NATO slammed Putin for what it called his "dangerous
and irresponsible" nuclear rhetoric. 
    Russia's Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak has said that
Moscow is close to achieving its target of cutting crude output
by 500,000 barrels per day (bpd) to about 9.5 million bpd.
    But Russia's crude exports are expected to remain steady as
it cuts refinery output in April, data from industry sources and
Reuters calculations showed on Friday.
    Russia's oil products exports have been hit harder than its
crude exports by a recent European Union embargo, with tonnes of
diesel stuck on ships awaiting buyers.

 (Reporting by Noah Browning
Additional reporting by Mohi Narayan in New Delhi and Florence
Tan in Singapore
Editing by Jason Neely, David Goodman and Ken Ferris)
 ((Noah.browning@thomsonreuters.com))