Oil prices jumped to a nine-month high, above $105 a barrel, on Monday after Iran said it had halted crude exports to Britain and France in an escalation of a dispute over the Middle Eastern country's nuclear program.
By Monday afternoon, benchmark crude for March was up $2.02 a barrel to $105.26 in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the highest since May. The contract rose 93 cents to settle at $103.24 a barrel in New York on Friday.
Iran's announcement likely will have minimal impact on supplies, analysts said, because only about 3 percent of France's oil consumption is from Iran. Britain had not imported oil from the Islamic republic in six months.
"The price rise is more a reflection of concerns about the further escalation in tensions between Iran and the West," said commodity analyst Caroline Bain of the Economist Intelligence Unit.
Markets in the United States were closed Monday for Presidents Day.
Iran's oil ministry said Sunday it stopped crude shipments to British and French companies in an apparent pre-emptive blow against the European Union after the bloc imposed sanctions on Iran's crucial fuel exports. They include a freeze of the country's central bank assets and an oil embargo set to begin in July.
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