Oil prices fall as Trump says US 'getting close' to Iran nuclear deal

Daily Mail​

15-05-2025

Oil prices fell as much as 3 percent by Thursday afternoon after President Donald Trump said the US was close to reaching a nuclear accord with Iran. The price of Brent crude, the global benchmark, was trading at $64.6 per barrel by mid-afternoon, while West Texas Intermediate Crude stood at $61.7 per barrel.
Trump told reporters in Doha, Qatar, which forms part of a three-day Middle East tour, that the US was 'getting close to having a deal' that would avoid a 'violent step'. During his first term in office, Trump withdrew from an agreement severely limiting Iran's ability to enrich uranium and slashing its nuclear fuel stockpiles.
The US instead imposed major sanctions as part of a 'maximum pressure' campaign aimed at restricting Iran's support for armed groups in the Middle East and curtailing its ballistic missile program. A new deal could see significant sanctions lifted on Iranian energy exports, flooding the international oil market with even greater supply.
OPEC+ member countries announced plans earlier this month to boost oil production in June by 411,000 barrels per day, taking the combined increases for April, May and June to 960,000 bpd. And just yesterday, the US Energy Administration revealed that US crude inventories surprisingly increased by 3.5 million barrels last week.
This sparked a drop in oil prices, which had surged early this week after the US and China revealed they would cut their reciprocal tariffs on each other for 90 days. Trump's remarks badly hit shares in oil supermajors, with BP and Shell falling 3.9 percent and 2.1 percent, respectively, while mid-cap firm Harbour Energy had a 1.8 percent decline.
The overall UK markets have performed comparatively better today than the oil giants, although the FTSE 100 was just 0.2 percent up at 8,595.8 points by 3pm and the FTSE 250 was flat at 20,816.1 points. However, Asian markets suffered from much weaker sentiment, with Hong Kong's Hang Seng index closing 0.8 percent lower at 23,453.2, Seoul's KOSPI 0.7 percent down at 23,453 and Japan's Nikkei 225 index dropping 1 percent to 37,775.51.
And in Europe, France's CAC 40 was down 0.2 percent, or 17.5 points, at 7,819.3, while Germany's DAX had flatlined at 23,553. Chris Beauchamp, chief market analyst at IG, said: 'The euphoria from Monday's US-China truce has faded, and now markets are waiting to see if further deals materialize from here.'
Having already struck a trade deal with the UK, Trump has now claimed India offered to remove all tariffs on imported US goods. He made the comments in Qatar whilst referencing Apple's intentions to manufacture the majority of iPhones in India instead of China.
Many large companies have been scaling back their forecasts in response to the unpredictability resulting from Trump's tariff policies.
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