The global market of crude oil started a rally after Press TV, an Iranian English-speaking TV channel, announced that it had supplying 6 European countries with crude oil. Those countries are Netherlands, France, Spain , Italy, Greece and Portugal . Greece used to be especially dependent on the Iranian oil. On Wednesday oil prices hit the 6-month high ($120/b) as the market was increasingly concerned about the bad news.
The price of Brent oil reached $199,99/b, the highest level since August 2011. The IEA decided to unfreeze is reserves to make up for the lack of oil supplies from Libya.
Later on, the Iranian authorities disproved the news, thus making the prices retrace down to $118.75/b.
It is unclear whether it was a just a mistake or Iran’s tricky attempt to check the market reaction and its ability to manipulate the global market of crude oil. Analysts doubt that it was a mistake.
