A major oil discovery has been made in the Golan Heights, according to reports. The Israeli energy company Afek Oil and Gas said the firm could have potentially discovered billions of barrels in the disputed region. Yuval Bartov, the company's chief geologist, told a news station in the region the find was one of "significant quantities."
Oil gained after Russian air strikes in Syria drew condemnation from the US and its allies, increasing tension in the Middle East. Futures in New York advanced as much as 2.2 percent. Russian planes are targeting Islamic State, al-Qaeda affiliated Nusra Front and other armed groups, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Thursday. US data Friday may show the labor market is improving in the world’s biggest oil user, with 201,000 jobs added last month, according to a Bloomberg survey. “We need to start putting some geopolitical risk premium in the oil price,” Olivier Jakob, managing director at Petromatrix GmbH in Zug, Switzerland, said in a note. “There are many countries active in some way in Syria and it is not yet clear how each will react to the increasing Russian open military action.”
Islamic State suicide bombers blew up two trucks in the heart of the northeastern Syrian city of Hasaka and a fire erupted at petroleum storage tanks and a textile firm after shelling by the militants, a Syrian army source said on Monday. The army source was quoted by state television as saying the militants had targeted a major roundabout and near a mosque in the southeastern Ghwyran neighbourhood, a residential area that the militants entered since Thursday in a lighting assault to seize the government-held parts of the city.