The White House denies being behind the Nord Stream pipeline sabotage.
Friday – 19 Rajab 1444 AH – 10 February 2023 AD Issue Number [16145]
London: «Asharq Al-Awsat»
Oil prices fell during trading yesterday, Thursday, after US crude inventories recorded the highest level in months and amid signs that the Federal Reserve (the US central bank) may continue to raise interest rates.
Brent crude futures fell 1.4 percent to $83.84 a barrel by 14:35 GMT, while US West Texas Intermediate crude futures fell 1.5 percent to $77.38. Both benchmarks have risen more than 5 percent since the beginning of the week.
said Tamas Varga, analyst at BVB. in. M, according to Reuters: “The continued rise in US commercial inventories and likely to continue inflation limits the prospects for any upside at the present time.” He added that oil prices may improve in the second half of the year as Chinese demand recovers and if inflation eases.
The US Energy Information Administration said that the country’s crude stocks rose last week to the highest level since June 2021, supported by increased production. US inventories of gasoline and distillates also rose last week.
Federal Reserve officials said further interest rate hikes are an option amid the central bank’s continued efforts to control inflation, which sends negative signals for riskier assets such as oil and stocks.
But crude prices received some support from hopes for a quick recovery in demand from China after the world’s second largest oil consumer ended its strict three-year zero Covid policy.
B announced. BP Azerbaijan declared force majeure to load Azeri crude from the Turkish port of Ceyhan on February 7, after a strong earthquake hit Turkey and Syria early on Monday. But the company said yesterday that oil flows continue through the pipeline.
Meanwhile, the White House has categorically denied a new report by prominent investigative journalist Seymour Hersh that the United States was behind last year’s sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipeline.
In his report, Hersh claimed that US Navy divers, with the help of Norway, planted explosives on the pipeline that runs between Russia and Germany last June under the waters of the Baltic Sea, only to detonate them three months later.
Adrienne Watson, spokeswoman for the National Security Council at the White House, described Hersh’s report, which he published on his account on the self-publishing platform “Substack”, as “a figment of the imagination.”
A CIA spokesman reiterated the White House’s denial, calling the report “completely and utterly false.”
Western countries blamed Moscow for the pipeline bombing in September, stoking anger against Moscow in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine. However, investigations by the Swedish, Danish and German authorities have so far failed to establish the identity of the state or the perpetrator.
Hersh said that the decision to blow up the pipeline, which was closed at the time but contained quantities of gas, was taken secretly by US President Joe Biden to prevent Moscow from reaping billions of dollars from the proceeds of gas sales to Europe.
