By Srinivas Chowdary Sunkara // petrobazaar // 19th April, 2022.
Brent oil futures prices for June delivery rose $1.46 or 1.31pct to close at $113.16 a barrel on London based ICE futures Europe exchange while WTI oil May futures prices climbed $1.26 or 1.18% to settle at $108.21 a barrel on NYMEX last night. In Shanghai, Crude oil main contract futures prices closed 3.8 Yuan to 697.5 Yuan/bbl where as MCX crude oil front month futures traded Rs.252 higher to close at Rs.8330 a barrel yesterday. Brent premium over WTI widened to $4.95 a barrel during the session.
The world crude oil price index curves continued to hover up, Adding to previous week's gains. Outages in Libya, Declaration of force-majeure by Libya's national oil corporation added to deepened ongoing concerns over tightening supplies amid Russia-Ukraine crisis. Russian production declined by 7.5% in the first half of April from March as per Interfax reports on Friday and EU countries moving towards phase-in ban on Russian oil that compounded supply fears. In a bearish signal for prices, China's economy slowed in March and crude through put was trimmed amid uncertainty over opening of economy following the growing number of cases. On the technical side, Money managers reduced their net-length in Brent oil futures and options by 3,277 contracts to 145,999 in the week ending April 12th. As per analysts, It seems that Putin wants higher oil prices and has a lot of leverage over OPEC. API numbers are awaited later today. Today, Asian markets opened in bearish mood and trading red at the time of reporting. Good day to all.
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