Oil rally takes a breather after another round of 7-year highs

Oil futures pulled back Monday after a seventh straight week of gains, with traders noting signs of progress on negotiations around Iran nuclear sanctions.

Price action

• West Texas Intermediate crude for March delivery
  CL.1,
  -1.01%

  CL00,
  -1.01%

  CLH22,
  -1.01%
  fell $1.04, or 1.1%, to $91.27 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange after the U.S. benchmark on Friday logged its highest finish since September 2014.

• April Brent crude
  BRN00,
  +0.06%

  BRNJ22,
  +0.06%,
  the global benchmark, was off 38 cents, or 0.4%, at $92.89 a barrel on ICE Futures Europe, after ending Friday at its highest since early October 2014.

• March natural-gas futures
  NGH22,
  -6.98%
  fell 7.3% to $4.235 per million British thermal units.

• March gasoline futures
  RBH22,
  +0.29%
  rose 0.6% to $2.694 a gallon.

• March heating-oil futures
  HOH22,
  -0.86%
  were up 0.1% at $2.878 a gallon.

Key drivers

The Biden administration waived sanctions on some of Iran’s civilian nuclear activities as it attempts to close a deal that would see Tehran return to the 2015 nuclear pact, The Wall Street Journal reported late Friday. The U.S. will allow foreign companies and officials to work on some nonweapons Iranian nuclear facilities, reversing a decision by the Trump administration in 2020 to sanction that work, the report said.