Oil prices were mixed in Asian trade today as investors weighed the Euro zone’s mounting debt woes with the prospect of a disruption to West Asian supplies, analysts said.
New York’s main contract, West Texas Intermediate crude for delivery in July, was up 23 cents at $91.09 per barrel while Brent North Sea crude for July shed 10 cents to $107.01 in morning trade.
“Oil prices continue to remain under pressure... with the lack of concrete measures from European policymakers to address the Greek issue weighing heavily on the market,” Barclays Capital’s analysts wrote in a commentary.
Markets also recoiled on fears that Spain — the Euro zone’s fourth largest economy — would follow Greece, Ireland and Portugal and ask for a bailout after yields on it bonds shot up yesterday.
The rise comes amid investor concerns about the state of the country’s banking sector after one of its biggest lenders, Bankia, asked for $24 billion in state aid.
But while the Prime Minister, Mr Mariano Rajoy, said the banking troubles would have no impact on efforts to trim the public deficit and denied that it had undermined confidence in Spanish sovereign debt.
Meanwhile, investors are also keeping close watch on the situation in Iran, after the Islamic republic and Western powers failed to reach an agreement on Tehran’s nuclear programme, which is thought to mask a nuclear weapons push.