Brent oil trading firm at $100, Egypt keeps prices bullish

9 February 2011 9 February 2011

BonTrade

Brent oil prices open today’s trading session firm at $100 a barrel as the continuing protests in Egypt are keeping Brent oil prices at record highs, in terms of the spread against US WTI oil futures.

Latest Brent Oil Price

In London, Brent oil futures for March 2011 delivery was trading at $100.39 a barrel, 08.30 GMT this morning on the ICE Futures Exchange.

Workers Strike at Suez Canal

Shipping on Egypt’s Suez Canal, used to carry about eight percent of global seaborne trade, is transiting on schedule after service workers linked to the waterway began striking, the Suez Canal Authority said.

Workers from Suez Canal Co. began a sit-in today, Al-Ahram newspaper reported earlier today in its online edition, without saying where it got the information. The 6,000 workers are from Suez, Port Said and Ismailia, Al-Ahram said.

The Suez Canal has the capacity to handle 2.2 million barrels of oil a day while that of the adjacent Suez Mediterranean Pipeline is 2.3 million barrels, according to Goldman Sachs.

Some OPEC member countries believe that if oil supply from the Suez Canal was to stop, it could push oil prices surging to new records, near $200 a barrel by some forecasts.