Crude oil gains as supply frets loom after OPEC+ output plan

• Financial

On Friday, both US and UK crude oil futures’ prices had rounded off the day with robust gains, largely driven by an OPEC+ decision to cling on to a monthly output of 400,000 barrels per day despite calls from US President Joe Biden to ramp up outputs to rebalance the global crude oil market.

In point of fact, late on Thursday, Saudi-led OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries), the 14-member group of oil producing nations, alongside its Russia-backed allies had held on to a previous plan to raise output by 400,000 bpd (barrels per day) per month, starting from December, eventually adding a bullish wing to investors’ morale amid an upsurge in oil demands across the globe.

Apart from that, a sheer lack of initiative from the US President Joe Biden to counter the OPEC+ decision to continue to maintain a leaner oil output, had added to further momentum on crude oil futures’ prices. Nonetheless, the White House had said in a statement shortly after the OPEC+ decision that it would contemplate all tools what it could instrument to guarantee an affordable energy price adding the Biden Administration also had been brewing off an option to release oil from its strategic petroleum reserves, though, a steep lag in coordinated efforts from a clutch of G20 economies including China, the world’s largest oil importer, had failed to put the kibosh on a soaring crude oil price.

Crude oil gains on Friday, but falls in the week

Citing statistics, in the day’s commodity market wind-down, US WTI (West Texas Intermediate) crude oil futures’ prices jumped 2.50 per cent to $81.34 a barrel, while Brent crude added 1.73 per cent to $82.32 per barrel.

In the week, Brent crude fell 2 per cent, while US WTI crude oil prices pummeled 2.7 per cent. Meanwhile, addressing to the United States’ lack of initiative to counter an OPEC+ plan to a sustenance in low crude output, a Rystad Energy head of oil markets Bjornar Tonhaugen said in a client note, “Markets know that the release of strategic reserves can only have a temporary bearish effect on prompt prices and is not a lasting solution for an imbalance between supply and demand”.