SINGAPORE: Brent crude slipped more than $1 on Monday as Iran agreed to resume talks with top world powers this week on the country's nuclear programme, raising hopes of a peaceful end to the standoff that has rattled oil market for months.
Prices were also under pressure on demand growth concerns after data showed US employers hired far fewer workers in March than in previous months. Job growth in the world's biggest oil consumer slowed to 120,000, the Labor Department said on Friday, the smallest increase since October.
Front-month Brent crude fell $1.07 a barrel to $122.36 by 2346 GMT, after slipping as low as $122.17. It had settled at $123.43 per barrel, up $1.09, on Thursday.
US oil traded $1.08 a barrel lower at $102.23, after slipping as low as $102.03. The benchmark settled at $103.31 a barrel on Thursday, rising 29 cents for the week and ending three successive weeks of losses.
Oil markets were closed on Friday due to Good Friday.
Iranian media and Western officials said talks over Tehran's nuclear programme, which collapsed more than a year ago, would begin on Saturday in Istanbul. A return to the table had been in doubt after Iran and the P5+1 countries - the United States, Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany - released conflicting statements about the venue.
A senior US official said that getting Iran to suspend high-level uranium enrichment and close a nuclear facility built deep under a mountain near the holy city of Qom are "near-term priorities" for the United States and its allies.
Worries that the standoff between Tehran and the West would escalate and disrupt oil exports from the Middle East have boosted Brent prices nearly $20 so far this year to a high of $128.40 touched last month.
Comments
Comments are closed for this article.