Oil stabilized near the highest level in 5 weeks today, Tuesday, as it dispelled the impact of threats from US President Donald Trump to impose secondary customs duties on Russian crude and to attack Iran with concerns about the impact of the trade war on global economic growth.
Brent crude futures increased 0.17% to $ 74.89% a barrel, in the latest transactions, after exceeding $ 75 a barrel earlier in the session.
US West Texas Intermediate crude futures increased 0.18% to $ 71.61 a barrel.
Yesterday, the two contracts were registered at the settlement of the highest level in 5 weeks.
More penalties
“At a time when more severe sanctions on Iran, Venezuela and Russia can reduce global supplies, US customs duties are likely to decline in global demand for energy and slow economic growth, which will negatively affect the demand for oil,” said the SEB analyst, Olet Havalbe, said.
He added: “As a result, betting on a clear orientation of the market remains a challenge.”
And the imposition of customs duties on buyers of Russia’s oil, the second largest oil exporter in the world after Saudi Arabia, would cause universal supplies and negatively affect the largest buyers of Moscow, China and India.
The markets will wait for a meeting of the OPEC Ministerial Committee on Saturday that will review the policies, and sources said that OPEC Plus is a way to implement production by 135 thousand barrels per day in May, and OPEC Plus has already agreed to a similar lifting of April.
One of the sources said that the meeting will review the plans of some members to make additional production cuts to compensate for increases over their shares, and two other sources said that the group’s plan is expected to continue to cancel the latest segment of a reduction in oil production unchanged for the month of May.
Russian support
Prices received some support after Russia ordered a major oil export station in Kazakhstan to close two of its three storms in light of a crisis between Kazakhstan and OPEC Plus due to the production of the prescribed share.
The markets are currently awaiting the issuance of weekly stock data from the American Petroleum Institute later today, Tuesday, before official statistics were issued by the Energy Information Administration tomorrow, Wednesday.
5 analysts, Reuters, expected their opinions that the average US crude stocks would land by approximately 2.1 million barrels in the week ending March 28.
