This plus other disorders on the African continent

The previous all-time record of $ 75 per barrel by oil markets a week ago seems to be already far. 78 Dollars bar has been crossed Friday, both in London and New York, and the markets anticipate now a barrel to $ 80. Because the tension between global supply and demand have been added new military operations in the Middle East.

In London, a barrel of brent from the North Sea for delivery in August (the deadline expired Friday night) received 78,03 dollars before closing at 77,27 dollars, up 58 cents. Same thrust of fever on the New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex), where the barrel of light sweet crude for delivery in August reached 78,40 dollars in exchange for the first time since his rating on this place before closing Friday rose by 33 cents from the previous day, to 77,03 $.

Certainly, if one considers the evolution of the price of oil in constant currency in 2006, such a level is not without precedent (see chart). In 1979, when the second oil shock caused by the revolution Iran, followed by the war between the Iran and the Iraq, the market has was wracked. In 2006 dollars per barrel reached in 1979 an annual average of $ 80 in New York. This leads to put into perspective the current level, average courses still apparent "than to" 68 dollars on the first six months of the year. And according to calculations by Barclays Capital, in current dollars adjusted for the effects of inflation, should courts reach 89,40 dollars to beat their highest daily at the time. It does that the situation is changing quickly, and that growing fears provide the taste of the day the spectrum of a barrel to $ 100 which had been shaken by Goldman Sachs last year before falling into oblivion.

The new outbreak of courses began Thursday with the Israeli military offensive in the Lebanon. Open war could destabilize throughout the region, with potentially serious consequences for the supply of the world market, even if neither Israel nor the Lebanon are themselves the oil countries.

Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, Korea...

In this region in the precarious balance, the record of the Iranian crisis is also not resolved and seems promised a diplomatic escalation. The Iran shows no willingness to give up its uranium enrichment program and the Israeli military offensive is not made to convince the Iranians to abandon nuclear weapons. However the Western condemnation of Iran's nuclear program should result in sanctions and embargoes to which the Iran risk logic to retaliate by reducing its oil exports. Still in the area, attacks on oil pipelines were regularly held in Iraq, which has still not recovered its level of production of prior to the American military intervention. And the sectarian war growing in the country risk of increasing acts of sabotage of oil installations, which is not, yet, to calm the market.

This plus other disorders on the African continent. The oil infrastructure in Nigeria, another large oil country, are also regularly attacked by separatist movements, exposing in particular Shell, very much present in Nigerian offshore, temporary shutdowns of production. The list of the geopolitical fears of the oil market goes at sight of eye, without even referring to the recent firing of North Korean missiles in the direction of the Japan. At the same time, global demand for oil is no sign of bending. Highly volatile market could of course calm on signs of political relaxation in the middle and the Middle East. But pessimists believe that this would be to regain its momentum... Meanwhile the hurricane season which, when it beat its full-time last year, wreaks havoc in the oil infrastructure in the Gulf of the Mexico and the East coast of the United States.