Oil bull rolls on despite possible China reserves release, gains over 5% in the week

• Financial

On Friday, both US and UK crude oil futures’ prices had snowballed, largely driven by a supply crunch alongside frets over Russia-Ukraine row which could have had long-running repercussion, despite growing evidences that China might release its crude oil reserves during Lunar New Year in a bid to put the kibosh on a soaring energy price.

On top of that, as of Friday’s global commodity market wind-down, both UK and US crude futures’ prices had entered into an overbought territory, signifying a possible downward trend ahead. Meanwhile, addressing to an utterly tense geo-political landscape with the United States, the highest contributor of troops in the NATO alliance, fretting that Kremlin might seek to revitalize its dominance on Europe amid a plausible worn-out US Congress with Government budget deficits soaring to a record high, which would unlikely to bear the expenses of its NATO troops just months after beating a hasty retreat from Kabul, a partner at Again Capital Management said, “There has been a bump up in the geopolitical risk factor that is boosting prices”.

US officials voiced frets on Friday saying that Russia had been prepping an attack on Kiev in case if diplomacy had botched to bear fruit. Adding further impetus, Libya’s National Oil Corp Chair Mustafa Sanallah was quoted saying “oil prices were "expected to continue to rise unless the market fundamentals change and global investment ...

increases”.

Oil jumps amid growing geo-political risk; OPEC+ failure to reach output quota

Citing statistics, in the day’s global commodity market wind-down, UK crude futures’ prices ended 1.9 per cent higher to $86.06 per barrel, spiking to a fresh 2-1/2-month peak, while US WTI (West Texas Intermediate) crude oil futures’ prices had gained 2.1 per cent to $83.82 a barrel.

In the week, US crude futures’ prices climbed 6.3 per cent, while UK crude added 5.4 per cent, scoring fourth straight weekly percentage gain.