Iran deal deterioration could have ‘meaningful impact’ on oil market by next year

U.S. President Donald Trump’s announcement of a new Iran strategy will not necessarily have an immediate impact on the oil market, but that could change, experts warned Friday.

The president said on Friday he would not certify the multinational nuclear agreement with Iran. He also pledged to terminate the deal if Congress and U.S. allies do not reach a solution under a plan his administration has put forward.

Benjamin Salisbury, energy policy analyst at FBR Capital Markets, said oil investors need to be aware of potential risks down the road and not get complacent.

While there has been essentially no risk premium in the market because of excess supply, geopolitical risk will have to start being priced back in as supply and demand start to balance out in the oil market next year, he said in an interview with “Closing Bell.”

“The president has made it very clear that he wants to escalate the pressure on Iran. So sometime middle of next year you could see the deal start to deteriorate and then you could have meaningful impact on oil supplies right when the market is tightening,” Salisbury said in an interview with “Closing Bell.”

Andy Lipow, president of Lipow Oil Associates, believes Trump’s announcement introduces “a degree of geopolitical risk and uncertainty going forward that could increase oil prices.”

The 2015 deal allowed Iran to resume exporting oil. The country is currently exporting about 2.3 million barrels a day, but if there were renewed sanctions it could cut off that supply.

“The world simply can’t afford to see that lost supply because we can’t make it up from the other OPEC and non-OPEC producers,” he told “Closing Bell.”

And while there has been an oil glut, it has been getting “smaller and smaller,” Lipow pointed out.

“The last place that we have an excess supply of oil is actually in the U.S. and you saw week ago we exported record amounts of that oil and that trend’s going to continue for the rest of this year,” he said.

Source: Reuters & CNBC