Marcel Salikhov, President of the Institute for Energy and Finance, commented to the Izvestia newspaper on the situation at the global oil market.
Marcel Salikhov stated that in the last few months it seemed that oil prices did not react particularly to the growing tensions in the Middle East and were declining quite steadily, and "this is quite unusual, given the growing military confrontation."
According to Salikhov, Iran currently exports about 1.8–2 million barrels per day of crude oil and gas condensate. These flows could potentially become a target for an Israeli strike. He stressed that, theoretically, the OPEC countries have enough spare capacity to compensate for a possible reduction in Iran's exports in this case.— However, there has been a sharp jump in the last few days: Brent has risen from $70 at the end of last week to $78 currently. That is, the increase was 8-10%. The main reason is market concerns about a possible Israeli strike on Iran's oil infrastructure. It seems that the results of the OPEC+ meeting on October 2 were expected and did not have an impact on the market," the expert comments.
— However, the question arises whether they will do it. Saudi Arabia's current available production capacity is about 3 million barrels per day, which it can potentially use. Most likely, the kingdom will be ready to increase exports if supplies from Iran begin to decline. There are suggestions that Saudi Arabia is reconsidering its attitude to the strategy of limiting production. However, these are long—term considerations that are not directly related to the current tensions," the expert pointed out.

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