New York (Platts)--18Jun2012/434 pm EDT/2034 GMT

Crude futures settled lower Monday after euphoria that led to a short-lived bounce from weekend Greek elections faded as investors resumed concerns regarding eurozone debt.

NYMEX July crude futures settled 76 cents lower at $83.27/barrel after popping to a $85.60/b session high in early trade. ICE August Brent settled down $1.56 at $96.05/b.

NYMEX July heating oil settled 2.88 cents lower at $2.6177/gal and July RBOB settled down 4.08 cents at $2.6609/gal.

"Along with a range of other markets, oil prices saw only a limited bounce after Greek voters gave the conservative New Democracy party enough votes to make a functional coalition government possible, with the focus quickly shifting toward the difficult economic prospects still ahead," said Tim Evans, energy analyst at Citi Futures Perspective, in a note. "The election result may not have been the worst case scenario as far as the markets are concerned, but the best case was still not reassuring."

Analyst John Kilduff of Again Capital said the Greek electorate vote, which effectively kept the debt-ridden country in the eurozone, led to the small pop in crude futures. But the gains in crude "vanished because the election did not erase the challenges of Greece, or those of Spain or Italy," he said.

The ongoing uncertainty over the future of the European economy led the declines throughout the oil complex, said Addison Armstrong of Tradition Energy in a note.

"This is being expressed in the bond markets, where the yield on 10-year Spanish debt rose to a record 7.13%," he said.

Armstrong said a string of poor US economic data from Friday might bolster the argument that the US Federal Reserve may announce fresh stimulus policies on Wednesday, but that view did not hold much water with the S&P 500 Index and Dow Jones Industrial Average lower on the day.

Investors are also eyeing Iranian nuclear talks with the P5+1 in Moscow.

According to an AFP report, Iran and world powers on Monday failed to move any closer to a breakthrough regarding the Iranian nuclear program.

During several hours of tense talks, the West sought signs that Iran could show willingness to scale down the intensity of its uranium enrichment activities, but Iran appeared to have refused to give major concessions on its right to uranium enrichment, AFP reported.

"Expectations are not very high for a breakthrough at this meeting, and a negative result will likely re-inject some geopolitical risk premium into the oil markets," Armstrong said.

--Alison Ciaccio, alison_ciaccio@platts.com
--Edited by Richard Rubin, richard_rubin@platts.com

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