Saudi Pipeline Outage Sparks Surge in US Crude Prices

U.S. crude oil futures surged past $105 per barrel on Tuesday as Saudi Arabia reportedly canceled or deferred shipments to some European refiners. This move has strengthened expectations that European refiners will turn to U.S. supplies, which in turn is driving up the price of U.S. WTI crude relative to Brent.

The cancellations are attributed to a prolonged outage at Saudi Aramco's East-West crude pipeline, which was shut down following a drone and missile attack on September 10. The pipeline has a capacity of 7 million barrels per day.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright told CNBC that oil should be flowing through the key Saudi pipeline within days, although most analysts believe the outage could last several weeks.