Top Political Risks and Geopolitics News for Oil and gas this week

[jose chalhoub + 388]

This week's top global oil and gas news intersected with political risks worldwide:

1.) President Donald Trump announced U.S. decission to reimpose sanctions on Iran, exiting unilaterally the JCPOA (nuclear deal), prompting a spike on oil prices in the last days.

2.) Malaysia's opposition leader and former president legendary 92 year old Mahattir Mohammad reached a victory in recent elections in this energy powerhouse raising important expectations in the country. 

3.) U.S. oil giant CONOCO announced it was moving to take Venezuela's PDVSA assets in the Caribbean, including St. Eustaquius and BOPEC in trying to enforce a 2 blllion dollar arbitration against venezuelan oil company. 

4.) Iraqi North Oil Company has finally signed a contract with BP for the expansion of output from the oil fields around Kirkuk, in northern Iraq. The contract covers six fields, where production is planned to be boosted from around 300,000 bpd to over a million barrels daily. 

5.) Lebanon just went through parliamentary elections out of which Hezbollah and its coallition reaped an important victory, which might mean threats and disruptions over its ongoing and future contracts for offshore oil and gas blocks. 

Geopolitical and political risk continue to exert its toll and influence on global oil and gas markets this week.. 

[Marina Schwarz + 1,576]

Bad news from Iraq: nationalist Moqtada al-Sadr leads in the elections. Just when they were beginning to get it together.