By David Alire Garcia

(Reuters) -The U.S. is closely studying imposing new sanctions on individuals in Venezuela as well as potentially revoking licenses for oil companies working there, a senior U.S. official said on Friday, in response to what it dubs a fraudulent election result.

Brian Nichols, the top U.S. diplomat for Latin America, made the remarks during a webcast briefing with reporters, two months after Venezuela’s bitterly disputed July 28 presidential election.

“The use of either individual sanctions or the revocation of licenses related to sectoral sanctions are something that we’re studying very closely,” said Nichols, after he was asked about the possibility of imposing new visa restrictions on individuals as well as terminating existing oil licenses.

OPEC-member Venezuela is one of Latin America’s major oil producing countries, but its crude output has fallen sharply during Maduro’s more than decade in power, mostly due to under-investment as well as five years of U.S. sanctions on the industry. The country’s oil production has slightly rebounded in recent years.

Following the election, some in Venezuela’s opposition have asked that U.S. officials amend or withdraw oil licenses that provide income to Maduro’s government.

Nichols, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere affairs, emphasized that Washington will work with “our friends and allies” as it seeks a democratic transition in Venezuela.

Electoral officials and the country’s top court have proclaimed socialist President Nicolas Maduro the winner of the contest with 52% of the vote. But authorities, many with close ties to Maduro’s ruling party, have failed to disclose ballot box-level vote tallies, even though they repeatedly said they would and are required by law to do so.

Venezuelan officials have said a computer hack prevented them from disclosing the tallies.

Just days after the election, however, the country’s opposition uploaded to a website scanned copies of thousands of voting machine receipts that their observers obtained and that they say show a landslide win for their candidate, Edmundo Gonzalez.

Earlier this month, Gonzalez fled to Spain where he was granted political asylum.

The United States, like most governments in the Americas as well as the European Union, have not recognized Maduro as the winner of the July 28 election.

“The United States and our partner countries continue to refuse to accept Maduro’s claim to victory without evidence,” Nichols said, adding the U.S. government instead vouches for “the publicly-available evidence” that shows Gonzalez won.

He stressed that Caracas has not lived up to its promises.

“They’ve repeatedly said that they would provide information. They’ve never done so to prove any element of their claim that Maduro won. It’s obvious that he didn’t,” said Nichols.

The diplomat also called for the release of those “arbitrarily” detained” in the aftermath of the election and an end to political violence against the opposition.

By Georgina McCartney

HOUSTON (Reuters) – Oil prices settled higher on Friday but fell on the week as investors weighed expectations for higher global supply against fresh stimulus from top crude importer China.

futures settled up 38 cents, or 0.53%, at $71.89 per barrel. Front-month U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures settled up 51 cents, or 0.75%, at $68.18.

On a weekly basis, Brent settled down around 3%, while WTI fell by around 5%.

China’s central bank on Friday lowered interest rates and injected liquidity into the banking system, aiming to pull economic growth back toward this year’s target of roughly 5%.

More fiscal measures are expected to be announced before Chinese holidays starting on Oct. 1 after a meeting of the Communist Party’s top leaders showed an increased sense of urgency about mounting economic headwinds.

“Despite aggressive Chinese stimulus, concerns of oversupply from OPEC’s plan to bring production back have pushed prices lower,” analysts at Aegis Hedging said in a note on Friday.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies, together known as OPEC+, will go ahead with plans to increase production by 180,000 bpd each month starting from December, two OPEC+ sources said.

A Financial Times report on Wednesday said the planned increase is due to Saudi Arabia’s decision to abandon a $100 oil price target and gain market share.

Saudi Arabia has repeatedly denied targeting a certain oil price, and sources at the wider group told Reuters that the plans to raise output from December do not represent any major change from existing policy.

And more barrels can be expected to enter the global market, after rival factions staking claims for control of the Central Bank of Libya signed an agreement to end their dispute on Thursday. The row had seen crude exports fall to 400,000 barrels per day (bpd) this month from more than 1 million last.

In the U.S., some operators have begun to resume operations in the Gulf of Mexico after Hurricane Helene made landfall in Florida on Thursday night, with Chevron (NYSE:) on Friday redeploying personnel and restoring production at company-operated platforms.

Meanwhile, the destruction of the hurricane, counted as the seventh most powerful to slam into Florida, could weigh on fuel demand in the state, which is the third-largest gasoline consumer in the U.S.

“The aftermath of the hurricane is bearish really for demand, a large amount of the state got battered enough that demand should take a hit,” said John Kilduff, partner at Again Capital in New York.

Meanwhile, U.S. consumer spending edged higher in August in a sign that the world’s largest economy carried on momentum in the third quarter, as inflation pressures steady.

“U.S. inflation data opens the door for further Fed rate cuts,” UBS analyst Giovanni Staunovo said.

The U.S. Federal Reserve cut interest rates by half of a percentage point last week, kicking off what was expected to be a steady easing of monetary policy.

Putting a floor on prices, Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said Israel’s attacks on Beirut’s southern suburbs on Friday show it “does not care” about efforts to bring about a ceasefire.

Rising tensions in the Middle East could pose a threat to global crude supplies.

Investing.com – Crude oil prices have retreated of late, but the situation is likely to change soon as US oil production begins to slow, according to Wells Fargo.

After being positive for most of 2024, year-to-date crude-oil returns recently slipped into the negative. , the main global benchmark price, is down 3.5%, and the main US benchmark price (West Texas Intermediate, or WTI) is lower by 0.4% on the year.

Crude-oil prices have given back this year’s gains for a mix of demand and supply reasons, analysts at the US bank said, in a note dated Sept. 23.

“For starters, on the demand side, the global economy has been slowly softening. On the supply side of , markets have become worried that the world’s two largest producers, OPEC+4 and the U.S., will accelerate production growth,” Wells Fargo said.

The US bank understands the demand and supply fears, but suspects that they are already baked into crude-oil prices.

“While it is true that global crude-oil demand has been soft through much of 2024, the weakness does not appear to be accelerating. This is important because global liquidity has started to pick up, as evidenced by central banks beginning to cut interest rates,” Wells Fargo said.

Additionally, on the supply side, both OPEC+ and the U.S. are more likely to shrink production than grow it with crude oil prices in the $60s and $70s per barrel, the bank added, with OPEC+ already saying as much. 

A few weeks back, the group stated that it will not unwind planned production cuts that had been scheduled to begin in October 2024. 

For the U.S., the bank thinks production growth will soon slow because the average cost to open a new shale well sits near $64 per barrel.

“The bottom line is that crude oil prices have been soft in recent months, but we suspect that they will firm soon — on the supply side, the world’s largest oil producers, OPEC+ and the U.S., have little incentive to grow production at today’s prices,” Wells Fargo said.