Brent rose 1.2 percent this week and WTI posted a weekly gain of around 0.6 percent.Friday’s attack damaged a ship in the port, apartment buildings and an oil depot in Novorossiisk, wounding three crew members, Russian officials said.
“The hit on that Russian terminal was huge and appears to have had a greater impact than previous attacks,” said Phil Flynn, senior analyst at Price Futures Group.
Port exports 2 percent of the global supply
The Russian port city of Novorossiisk has halted oil exports equivalent to 2.2 million barrels per day, or 2 percent of global supply, and oil pipeline monopoly Transneft has suspended crude oil deliveries to the retail market, two industry sources told Reuters. “The intensity of these attacks has increased; they are becoming much more common. Ultimately, they can hit something that causes lasting disruption,” said Giovanni Staunovo, a commodities analyst at UBS. Ukraine said on Friday it had separately hit an oil refinery in Saratov, Russia. region and a fuel storage facility in nearby English.
Investors are trying to gauge the impact of the latest attacks and what they mean for Russian supply in the longer term, he said.
Investors are also looking at the impact of Western sanctions on Russian oil supplies and trade flows.
Britain on Friday issued a special permit allowing companies to continue working with two Bulgarian subsidiaries of sanctioned Russian oil company Lukoil, after the Bulgarian government took control of the assets.
The US imposed sanctions after November 21 that banned deals with Russian oil companies Lukoil and Rosneft as part of efforts to bring the Kremlin to peace talks over Ukraine.
About 1.4 million barrels per day of Russia’s oil, or nearly a third of its seaborne export potential, has been added to stockpiles on tankers as unloading slows due to U.S. sanctions on Rosneft and Lukoil, JPMorgan said Thursday.
Offloading cargoes could become much more challenging after the Nov. 21 cutoff to receive oil delivered by the companies, the bank added.
Meanwhile, the number of oil rigs in the United States rose by three to 417 in the week to November 14, data from oil services company Baker Hughes showed on Friday.
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