Oil prices are rising after falling to lows in more than two weeks on reports that the US plans to sell additional barrels of oil from the strategic reserve.
The price of December futures for Brent on the London ICE Futures exchange by 8:10 am Wednesday is $90.52 per barrel, which is $0.49 (0.54%) higher than the closing price of the previous session. As a result of trading on Tuesday, these contracts fell by $1.59 (1.7%) to $90.03 per barrel.
The price of futures for WTI oil for November in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) rose by this time by $0.88 (1.06%), to $83.7 per barrel. By the close of previous trading, the value of these contracts fell by $2.64 (3.1%) to $82.82 per barrel.
US President Joe Biden will announce on Wednesday the sale of an additional 15 million barrels of oil from the country’s strategic oil reserve in response to OPEC+’s move to cut oil production by 2 million b/d since November, the Associated Press wrote, citing senior officials in the US presidential administration. .
In addition, the President is expected to announce that he may make a similar decision several times this winter. These measures are aimed at curbing the rise in oil prices in the world. The plan to sell the energy resource from the reserve was announced in March, and it was designed for six months. In total, it was planned to release 180 million barrels.
At the moment, the US strategic oil reserve is at its lowest level since 1984, which is about 400 million barrels of oil, writes Associated Press.
At the same time, upside potential in the oil market remains due to traders’ concerns about supply. “We continue to see a number of opportunities for a short-term recovery (of oil prices – IF), as the EU embargo on energy supplies from the Russian Federation comes into force in December, and the G7 countries continue to work on the price ceiling for Russian oil,” analysts at Fitch Solutions said.
