It will take more than $40 crude to make the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) change its mind, analysts said before the group’s December 4 meeting in Vienna.

Global oil markets won’t feel the real impact of Iran’s historic deal with world powers until 2016 as sanctions remain in place while nuclear inspectors go to work, said banks including Citigroup, Goldman Sachs Group and Commerzbank.

US CRUDE oil futures ended more than a dollar higher yesterday as analysts warned the death of Iraq’s al-Qaida leader Musab al-Zarqawi on Thursday would not end threats to Iraq’s battered oil industry.

The US is imposing a ban on arms sales to Venezuela because of what it claims is a lack of support by President Hugo Chavez’s leftist government for counterterrorism efforts, the US state department said tonight.