By Barani Krishnan

Investing.com – Oil climbed further from last week’s hole, encouraged by potential spending on infrastructure upgrades in America as well as on Saudi Arabia’s move to hike the selling price of its crude to customers in Asia.

Oil benchmark in America, WTI settled at $81.93 a barrel, up 66cs or 0.8%. WTI reached seven-year highs of $85 in October before plummeting to $78.25 Thursday.

The global standard for oil and crude oil traded in London ended up 0.8% at $83.43, or 69 cents. Brent hit an $86.70 three-year peak late last month before plummeting to about $80 last week.

Oil’s seemingly invincible nine-week rally took a dent over the past two weeks as the White House upped the pressure on producer group OPEC+ to put more barrels on the market and ease prices that have jumped almost 70% this year.

But in recent days, it appeared that the Biden administration might have fewer bullets to fire at the cartel than thought, amid speculation that its only recourse may be to release some of the U.S. strategic supply of petroleum — a situation unlikely to help bring the market down.

“The best path forward for the White House is to negotiate an Iran nuclear deal,” Adam Button, a markets commentator on ForexLive, said, referring to the nuclear deal that could free Tehran from U.S. sanctions and put up to 2 million new barrels on the market.

On concerns that Iran may not adhere to the rules governing its nuclear program, Biden’s administration has refused to strike a deal quickly with Iran and instead continued the development of atomic weapons like the West feared. 

An Iran deal “might involve a climb down” for the administration, “but it will add barrels to the world market, so long as OPEC doesn’t respond by pumping less”, said Button.

WTI must still rise to $83.40 despite last week’s rebound, to signify another possible leg higher, he said.

Oil prices also rose Monday after Democrats aligned with Biden managed to pass with bipartisan support from Republicans an infrastructure package worth more than $1 trillion to upgrade America’s transportation, broadband and utilities. Democrats’ next challenge is to enact a $1.75 trillion deal on social safety and climate policy.

Saudi Arabia, however, increased Friday its benchmark crude oil price for Asia customers to exceed market expectations.

“Saudi Arabia also reckons that the next few weeks will be tight, this is why its official selling price to Asia was increased by $1.40 a barrel,” Tamas Varga, analyst at PVM Oil Associates, said in a commentary carried by Reuters.