1427 GMT - OPEC's ample spare crude capacity provides some comfort to the market against the impact of potential supply disruptions to Iranian oil shipments, according to Capital Economics' David Oxley. The U.S. imposed sanctions on an international network facilitating the shipment of Iranian crude to China on Thursday, just days after U.S. President Trump reinstated his "maximum pressure" campaign on Tehran. Oil benchmarks rose following the news, but are still poised for weekly losses of more than 1%. "The key point is that increased enforcement on Iran's oil shipments would be a bigger deal were it not for the fact that OPEC was sitting on about 6 million barrels a day of spare capacity, some of which they will begin to bring back to the market from April," the commodities economist says. (giulia.petroni@wsj.com)
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
February 07, 2025 09:27 ET (14:27 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.