Oil prices retreat as Saudi pipeline resumes partial operations amid Iran nuclear deal talks

Crude oil prices pulled back from session highs Monday amid reports that Saudi Arabia is ramping up its critical East-West pipeline after repairs.

Brent crude futures, the international benchmark, were up 1.3% to $105.69 after climbing as high as $108.83 earlier in the session. U.S. West Texas Intermediate futures were last seen about 1% higher at $93.31 after hitting $96.54 earlier.

Riyadh has restored flows through the pipeline to at least 3.5 million barrels per day, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg News. This is about half the pipeline's maximum capacity of 7 million bpd.

The Saudis shutdown the pipeline earlier this month after it sustained damage in a drone strike launched form Iraq.

Meanwhile, a White House official told CNN that President Donald Trump is open to sanctions relief for Iran and the release of frozen funds if concrete progress is made toward a nuclear deal. A U.S. official also told Axios that the president is open to such an arrangement.

Earlier, Trump turned down Iran's conditional offer to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and told aides he expects U.S. strikes on the country to resume after November's midterm elections, The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday, citing unnamed U.S. officials.

Trump later confirmed to reporters that he had rejected Tehran's latest proposal: "They made a proposal but I rejected it."

Separately, Yemen's Saudi-led coalition said on Saturday it had intercepted projectiles launched by Iran-backed Houthi rebels.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on Friday offered to reopen the key shipping route and restart nuclear negotiations with Washington within seven days, if the Trump administration agreed to Tehran's conditions.

"If certain conditions are met, the Strait of Hormuz will be open at the end of seven days, and talks will be restarted," Araghchi told reporters on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

Those conditions include an end to what Tehran describes as U.S. "acts of aggression," the lifting of the naval blockade and economic warfare, and the release of Iranian assets, according to Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei.

Trump said earlier this month that he expected the conflict, which began with U.S. and Israeli airstrikes on Iran on Feb. 28, to conclude soon after the midterm elections, with oil prices subsequently declining.