Benchmark oil prices are falling on Monday morning after falling on Friday and last week.
The price of April futures for Brent on the London ICE Futures exchange at 78:11 Q4 is $81.33 per barrel, which is $0.29 (0.36%) lower than at the close of the previous session. Last Friday, these contracts fell by $2.05 to $81.62 per barrel.
Quotes for WTI futures for April in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) by this time decreased by $0.33 (0.43%) to $76.16 per barrel. At the end of the previous session, they fell by $2.12 to $76.49 per barrel.
Over the past week, both brands fell by more than 2%.
Traders are keeping an eye on the situation in the Middle East and are waiting for the OPEC+ meeting to discuss the extension of oil production restrictions for another quarter.
“We still expect OPEC+ to extend production cuts into the second quarter of 2024 and begin to gradually lift them only in the third quarter,” Goldman Sachs analysts wrote.
The bank believes that oil prices will fluctuate between $70 and $90 per barrel.
Meanwhile, data from the oilfield services company Baker Hughes showed that over the past week, the number of operating oil rigs in the United States increased by six to 503 units. Meanwhile, the number of gas rigs decreased by one to 120.
