Industrial plants of the oil refinery PCK Raffinerie are pictured on March 7, 2022 in Schwedt/Oder, Germany. The company receives crude oil from Russia through the Friendship pipeline. REUTERS/Hannibal Hanschke
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March 17 (Reuters) – Oil prices rose about 3% on Thursday after the International Energy Agency (IEA) said markets could lose three million barrels a day (bpd) of Russian crude and refined products from April.
The loss in supply would be far larger than an expected one million bpd fall in demand triggered by higher fuel prices, the IEA said in a report on Wednesday. Continue reading
Benchmark Brent crude futures were up 3.1% at $101.09 a barrel by 0844 GMT after falling for three consecutive trading sessions.
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USWest Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude was up $2.8, or 3%, to $97.84 a barrel.
Both contracts were lower the day before after US crude inventories surged stronger-than-expected and signs of progress in Russia-Ukraine peace talks.
“Market enthusiasm to trade the geopolitical fallout is fading, helping to squeeze some premium bubbles out of oil prices. It’s time to reevaluate various factors,” said Wang Xiao, senior researcher at Guotai Junan Futures Co.
Prices fell in the previous session on news that US oil inventories rose 4.3 million barrels to 415.9 million barrels in the week ended March 11, according to the US Energy Information Administration, beating expectations of analysts for a drop of 1.4 million barrels. Continue reading
“Questions about how much Russian oil will continue to falter and uncertainty about how bad the crude demand destruction will get will make energy markets nervous,” wrote Edward Moya, a senior market analyst at OANDA, in a note.
The oil market largely shrugged off a move by the US Federal Reserve to raise interest rates by a quarter of a point as expected on Wednesday.
Market sentiment was somewhat boosted after China pledged measures to boost financial markets and economic growth, while a drop in new COVID-19 cases in China raised hopes authorities could lift travel bans and allow factories to resume production in cities under lockdown record.
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Reporting by Liz Hampton and Muyu Xu; Edited by Kim Coghill and Tom Hogue
Our standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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