Oil prices are rising on Thursday after a significant drop in the previous two sessions amid concerns about the prospects of demand.
The cost of March futures on Brent crude at London’s ICE Futures Exchange is $78.75 per barrel by 7:10 a.m. KSC on Thursday, which is $0.91 (1.17%) above the closing price of the previous session. Those contracts fell by $4.26 (5.2%) to $77.84 a barrel at the close of trading on Wednesday.
The price of WTI futures for February at electronic trades of NYMEX grew by that time by $0.87 (1.19%) up to $73.71 per barrel. By the close of previous trading the cost of those contracts fell by $4.09 (5.3%) to $72.84 a barrel.
Oil prices fell by about 9% during the last two sessions due to an increase in COVID-19 in China, which clouds short-term oil demand prospects in that country.
In addition, fears of energy shortages in the global market during the winter, which supported prices in recent months, weakened, given the milder-than-expected winter weather in the U.S. and Europe, notes Bloomberg.
The focus of traders on Thursday is the report on energy stocks in the U.S., which will be released by the U.S. Department of Energy at 18:00 ksec.
The American Petroleum Institute (API) data published a day before showed a 3.3 mln barrels increase of US reserves for the week ended December 30.
