Volatile oil prices: Just five days after oil prices saw a 1 per cent fall to 11-week low owing to a weaker demand forecast for 2024 by International Energy Agency (IEA), global crude oil market witnessed volatility after Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian were among the officials killed in a helicopter crash near the Azerbaijan border, as stated  by officials and Iranian state media on Monday. The Asian markets, including China, Hong Kong, Singapore, and even Australian stock markets on Monday saw a rise in oil prices as a fallout of the Iran President’s death. 

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Notably, the International Energy Agency (IEA) on May 15 revised its forecast for 2024 oil demand growth, stating there would be lesser demand for oil from Europe and other developed nations. Even as the IEA projection has widened the gap with the oil producer group Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) when it comes to the expectations for global oil demand outlook of 2024. 
The IEA cut its forecast for 2024 oil demand growth by 140,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 1.1 million bpd, majorly underlining weak demand in Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) nations. OECD consists of a group of primarily cash-rich nations. The demand for oil in those countries has witnessed a contraction in the first quarter of this year, the IEA further said.

Analysts have reaffirmed that the situation prevailing in Iran and the subsequent geopolitical uncertainty can see an increased demand for safe-haven assets like gold. This led to higher prices of the yellow metal as gold surged to an all-time high on Monday. 

In the United States, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) has recently said that energy firms pulled a higher-than-anticipated 2.5 million barrels of crude from stockpiles during the week ended May 10. That compares with the 0.5-million barrel withdrawal analysts forecast in a Reuters poll and the 3.1-million barrel decline shown in data from the American Petroleum Institute (API), an industry group.

 Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its allies such as Russia, a group known as OPEC+, is likely to hold its June 1 oil policy meeting for a future course of action. The OPEC is expected to decide whether to extend voluntary oil output cuts into the second half of the current year.