Brent Crude Tops $57 Per Barrel

BUSINESS TURKMENISTAN
Brent Crude Tops $57 Per Barrel
The price of March futures for WTI crude topped $54 per barrel. (Photo: BP)

The price of April futures for Brent crude oil rose above $57 per barrel in the early hours of Tuesday at London ICE Futures Exchange.

At the same time, the price of March futures for WTI crude topped $54 per barrel.

The crude oil prices are buoyed by falling U.S. crude inventories and rising winter fuel demand due to one of the worst snowstorms to hit the U.S. northeast in years, according to the Reuters report.

OPEC oil output rose for a seventh month in January, a Reuters survey found, after the group and its allies agreed to ease supply curbs further, although the production growth was smaller than expected.

“It looks like OPEC compliance is really pushing the complex higher, as well as the expectation that we will see U.S. inventories tighten over the next few weeks,” said Phil Flynn, an analyst at Price Futures Group in Chicago.

Goldman Sachs, an American multinational bank, said oil prices could rise to $65 by July, forecasting an oil market deficit of 900,000 barrels per day (bpd) in the first half of 2021, a higher level than its previous prediction of 500,000 bpd.

Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter, announced at the end of the January 5 OPEC+ meeting that it would voluntarily slash its February and March crude production by 1 million barrels per day.

2022