Trump signed an executive order on Monday restricting Venezuela's ability to liquidate state assets, a senior administration official told reporters.Any restriction on Venezuela's financing, logistics or power supply could further depress the country's crude output. "It's been going down for a bit, but there is an expectation that the decline will accelerate," said Jamie Webster, senior director of the Center for Energy Impact at the Boston Consulting Group. "There's increasingly a view that this could be as bad as Libya was in its worst days - that production could fall to a very small percent of what it is capable of doing."U.S. crude futures settled 96 cents, or 1.4 percent, firmer at $72.24 a barrel, after touching $72.33, the highest since November 2014. In post-settlement trade, the benchmark hit a fresh 3-1/2 year high at 72.59.Brent crude futures gained 71 cents, or 0.9 percent, to settle at $79.22 a barrel.

Source: The Star May 21, 2018 20:48 UTC