Oil Prices Keep Rising on Ukraine Worries, Cold Weather, Out
O il prices were rising sharply again Friday, hovering around eight-year highs on continued geopolitical fears, a wave of cold in the U.S. and concerns about the capacity of OPEC to keep to its production targets.
Brent crude, the international benchmark, was up to 2% to $92.89 a barrel while West Texas Intermediate, which had passed the $90 mark Thursday, was up 2.1% to $92.1 a barrel.
This was the seventh consecutive week of gain for crude oil, which is now up around 20% since the beginning of the year after jumping 40% last year.
Trade was affected by concerns about the Ukrainian situation, as an attack by Russia on its neighbor could trigger sanctions that might raise the prices of both natural gas and oil, of which Russia is a major producer. The situation in the region had JPMorgan envision a scenario where oil could reach up to $120 a barrel.
A wave of cold in the U.S.’ Texas and New Mexico Permian Basin has also affected production. Meanwhile, traders are still dubious about the capacity of OPEC to meet its goal of increasing production by 400,000 barrels a day every month, as outages or armed conflicts are affecting facilities in a number of member countries.
Finally the market is affected by the rising confidence in the world’s major economies that the Omicron variant will only slow the recovery for a few months. In the latest example, the Bank of England said Thursday that the U.K. economy would have fully recovered from the latest wave by the end of the second quarter of the year.
O il prices were rising sharply again Friday, hovering around eight-year highs on continued geopolitical fears, a wave of cold in the U.S. and concerns about the capacity of OPEC to keep to its production targets.
B rent crude, the international benchmark, was up to 2% to $92.89 a barrel while West Texas Intermediate, which had passed the $90 mark Thursday, was up 2.1% to $92.1 a barrel.
This was the seventh consecutive week of gain for crude oil, which is now up around 20% since the beginning of the year after jumping 40% last year.
Trade was affected by concerns about the Ukrainian situation, as an attack by Russia on its neighbor could trigger sanctions that might raise the prices of both natural gas and oil, of which Russia is a major producer. The situation in the region had JPMorgan envision a scenario where oil could reach up to $120 a barrel.
A wave of cold in the U.S.’ Texas and New Mexico Permian Basin has also affected production. Meanwhile, traders are still dubious about the capacity of OPEC to meet its goal of increasing production by 400,000 barrels a day every month, as outages or armed conflicts are affecting facilities in a number of member countries.
Finally the market is affected by the rising confidence in the world’s major economies that the Omicron variant will only slow the recovery for a few months. In the latest example, the Bank of England said Thursday that the U.K. economy would have fully recovered from the latest wave by the end of the second quarter of the year.