At $63.92 per barrel, this breaks the record for the highest WTI price at which a cut has been explicitly called for.

Some 20 to 30 dollars (in the price per barrel) is pure speculation,

This may seem unreal now, but six years ago the price was $16 per barrel.

Such is the momentum and rigidity in views surrounding the Iranian issue, and such is the intensity of the attacks in Nigeria, that we would have to say that we believe the threats to supply are credible in both cases.

Weather continues to be the key short term factor determining energy price direction.

There is a strategic element to it. It's something that we've seen before. Japan was doing the same thing about 10 to 15 years ago, with a lot of its natural resource companies, including oil companies, buying into foreign projects.