North Korean war-talk has extended early gains for Brent Crude (driven by anxiety over the post-Kurd-referendum fallout), pushing prices to their highest since July 2015.

To the highest since July 2015...

As Bloomberg reports, Kurdish oil supplies may be in jeopardy as Turkey, Iran and the Iraqi central government in Baghdad sought to isolate the semi-autonomous Kurds as balloting began on Monday. Meanwhile, OPEC and its partners implemented more than 100 percent of their agreed cuts last month, OPEC Secretary-General Mohammad Barkindo said Friday in Vienna, providing more fuel to the oil rally.

“It’s pretty clear the Kurds are going to vote for independence and we will have yet another geopolitical hot spot in the Middle East that threatens a significant amount of oil supply,” John Kilduff, a partner at Again Capital LLC, a New York-based hedge fund, said by telephone.

At the same time, “the cooperation and the strong effort by OPEC is registering with the market.”

Brent crude oil futures curve has moved into backwardation in recent weeks, indicator of supply tightness...

And the Brent-WTI spread reaches its highest since August 2015...