World’s Top Crude Trader Isn’t Ruling Out $200 Oil Just Yet

AI Summary

Vitol CEO Russell Hardy warned that oil prices could reach $200 per barrel if ship-to-ship transfers in the Gulf of Oman were disrupted. He said those transfers help sustain Gulf oil exports and that depleted Western inventories leave little buffer against a supply interruption.

Ship-to-ship transfers in the Gulf of Oman that keep oil flowing from the Middle East provide a lifeline to Gulf producers and to the oil market, according to Russell Hardy, chief executive officer at the world’s biggest independent oil trader, Vitol Group. “Without it, you do have that $200-a-barrel scenario, so it is pretty important it continues,” Hardy said at the Energy Intelligence Forum in London this week. “There aren’t any more inventories to drain in the West.” The ship-to-ship (STS) transfers, in which…