Off the wire
• Roundup: Lithuania assured of U.S. military, economic and energy support  • Roundup: Italian media react positively to financial transparency accord with Vatican City  • 1st LD Writethru: Gold down on Iran talks, positive U.S. data  • 1st LD: Obama says "historic" preliminary deal will prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear bomb  • Urgent: U.S. dollar mixed ahead of nonfarm payrolls  • Feature: Greece commemorates filmmaker Angelopoulos with screenings  • Cold, fickle weather forecast in Austria over Easter  • Terror threat influences holiday choice of one third of Austrians: survey  • 5th LD: World powers, Iran reach common solutions in nuke talks  • Urgent: Gold down on Iran talks, positive U.S. data  
You are here: 　 Home

1st LD Writethru: Oil prices retreat on Iran accord

Xinhua, April 3, 2015 Adjust font size:

After prior day's heavy gains, crude prices took a pounding Thursday on news of a tentative agreement on Iran's nuclear program.

The Iranian nuclear talks ended in Lausanne, Switzerland with all sides reaching a agreement that the Iran's enrichment capacity, enrichment level and stockpile will be limited for specific duration and there will be no other enrichment facility than the country's Natanz nuclear plant.

EU will terminate the implementation of all nuclear related secondary economic and financial sanctions. The possibility of increasing crude exports from Iran as diplomats worked out a deal weighted on crude market.

U.S. crude output is at a historic high level. Last week, U.S. crude production decreased 36,000 barrels to 9.386 million barrels a day last week, according to Energy Information Administration.

U.S. crude supplies of the week ended March 27 increased 4.8 million barrels to 471.4 million, 91.4 million barrels more than a year earlier.

Meanwhile, inventories at Cushing, Oklahoma, the delivery point for the contract, gained 2.6 million barrels to 58.9 million barrels.

Light, sweet crude for May delivery lost 95 cents to settle at 49.14 dollars a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange,while Brent crude for May delivery moved down 2.15 dollars to close at 54.95 dollars a barrel. Endite