Vitol to Stop Business With Iran : Energy trader Vitol will stop doing business with Iran after the US re-imposes sanctions on Tehran’s oil trade from November 4, a senior company executive said on Tuesday.

“Business with Iran or anything to do with Iran has to come to an end,” said Mike Muller, who handles business development for Vitol—a global energy and commodity trading company—, on the sidelines of the Asia Pacific Petroleum Conference in Singapore.

“We have a long-standing relationship with Iran and clearly I look forward to when trade can be resumed, but for now, one needs explicit waivers from the US, and not just the US but the global banking community and everything else,” he said.

The US announced in May that it would re-impose sanctions on Iran, the third-largest producer in the OPEC, to force the country to renegotiate an agreement limiting Iran’s nuclear program, Reuters reported.

Sanctions started on August 7 with limitations on the country’s access to the global financial system and in November will be extended to Iran’s petroleum sector. Some traders are forecasting that the sanctions could remove up to 1.5 million barrels per day of crude from the market.

Global benchmark Brent crude jumped more than 3% on Monday to a four-year high above $80 a barrel after Saudi Arabia and Russia ruled out any immediate increase in production despite calls by US President Donald Trump for action to raise global supply.

Substantial additions of non-OPEC supply of up to 2 million barrels per day could flow to global markets next year, with half of that to come from the United States, Muller added.

He declined to provide an oil price forecast but his comments appear to be less bullish than commodity traders Mercuria and Trafigura who predicted $100 a barrel oil by early 2019 on Monday. Source: Financial Tribune