Investors were more dispirited about the prospects for a short-term solution to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, fueling fears of supply shortages.
While, the entry of hedge funds into the crude oil market in search of greater security, put pressure on demand, causing prices to rise.
All this occurred even though the Energy Information Agency (EIA) reported today that commercial inventories in the United States, excluding strategic reserves, had grown by 9.4 million barrels compared to the previous week.
In this way, crude oil reserves total 421.8 million barrels and are 13% below the average of the last five years for this time of year.
However, the International Energy Agency (IEA) today lowered its expectations for world demand. In a report it said that “severe new lockdown measures amid rising Covid cases in China have led to a downward revision of our expectations for global oil demand in 2Q22 and for the full year. Weaker-than-expected demand in OECD countries earlier in the year added to the drop.As a result, our estimate of global oil demand fell by 260,000 barrels per day, for the year compared to the report. last month, and demand is now expected to average 99.4 million barrels per day in 2022, 1.9 million barrels per day more than in 2021,” the IEA said.
The agency pointed out that “Russian oil supply and exports continue to fall. So far in April, approximately 700 kb/d of production were reported to have been shut down. We assume that these losses will increase to an average of 1.5 million barrels a day, for the month as Russian refiners extend production cuts, more buyers shun barrels and Russian storage fills in. As of May, about 3 million barrels a day of Russian production could be out of production online due to international sanctions and as the impact of a growing customer-driven embargo kicks in.”
Natural gas contracts registered a rise of 5.7% and were agreed at 7.06 dollars per million BTU.
Finally, gold was traded at 1,981 dollars per ounce, which represents an increase of 0.2%.
Source: Ambito
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