Oil prices rose on Monday after Officials announced that the United States had intercepted a tanker in international waters off the Venezuelan coast.

The price of Brent crude oil increased by 57 percent cents, or 0.9%, to reach $61.04 per barrel at 7:51am GMT, while That the price of American crude oil (West Texas Intermediate) has soared by 55% cents, or 1.0%, to reach $57.07.

June Goh, Senior Oil Market Analyst at Sparta Commodities indicated that the market is waking up to the fact that the administration Trump is taking a hard line on the Venezuelan oil trade.” For He, “oil prices were therefore supported by this news geopolitics, combined with persistent Russian-Ukrainian tensions on the web basically, in a market that is also fundamentally very bearish.”

Brent and WTI fell by around 1% the last week, after losing around 4% in the week of December 8.