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·         Iran warns of retaliation over oil sanctions

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Friday Iran would retaliate over Western-backed oil sanctions and any threat of attack, after U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta was cited as saying he feared a possible Israeli strike as early as April. Khamenei’s defiant speech to mark the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution was the first direct response to tighter sanctions imposed by the West in recent weeks to force Tehran to abandon a nuclear programme it says has purely peaceful ends.

·         Japan’s JX looks also to Africa for oil on Iran worries

Japan’s biggest refiner, JX Holdings is in talks with African nations in addition to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and other oil producers to replace crude oil imports from Iran, a company executive said on Friday. Japan is under pressure from the US to cut back on Iranian oil imports to secure a waiver from a U.S. law imposing sanctions on financial institutions that trade with Iran’s central bank. JX’s negotiations with Africa mostly with West African nations, Kiyonobu Sugiuchi, a senior executive officer, told Reuters after a news conference.

·         Sudan and South Sudan’s oil industry

South Sudan is locked in talks with its neighbor Sudan about the future of their oil industries after South Sudan became independent in July, putting an end to decades of civil war that ended with a peace deal in 2005. Last month, South Sudan shut down its 350 000 bpd oil production in protest after Khartoum started to seize some southern crude to compensate for what it said were unpaid fees. The row centres on the sharing of oil revenues, and particularly the rate landlocked South Sudan will pay its neighbor Sudan to pipe its oil north trough the country to the Red Sea terminal at Port Sudan.

YESTERDAY’S MARKET

U.S. crude futures fell on Thursday, dropping to a six-week low as Wednesday’s data showing rising crude oil and gasoline stockpiles and weak demand continued to generate bearish sentiment.

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