The price of a barrel in London ended on a decline of 0.06% to 88.38 dollars. Ditto for that of New York which ends at 86.90 dollars.
Oil prices stabilized on Thursday as Brent crude neared $90 a barrel once more, a seven-year high.
Despite an unexpected increase in commercial crude oil reserves in the United States, the market is still worried regarding a limited supply.
The price of a barrel of Brent from the North Sea for March maturity ended at 88.38 dollars (-0.06%).
In New York, a barrel of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for delivery in February closed at 86.90 dollars, also down very slightly by 0.06%.
Brent reached 89.50 dollars per barrel in session, a new record since October 2014. WTI meanwhile climbed to 87.82 dollars, brushing its highest for 7 years reached the day before (87.91) .
Commercial reserves of crude oil in the United States, however, increased slightly last week following seven weeks of decline.
According to figures released Wednesday by the US Energy Information Agency (EIA), crude inventories rose by 500,000 barrels, where analysts expected a drop of 1.75 million barrels. But that’s not counting the solid reduction in strategic oil reserves (-1.3 million barrels).
Faced with these figures, investors pushed prices up once more before they stabilized shortly before the close.
The White House began at the end of November to sell part of these reserves on the market in an attempt to bring down fuel prices.
With a rise of 14% for Brent and 16% for WTI since the start of the year, the market’s thirst for crude is far from being quenched.
Some OPEC+ producers (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its partners) are struggling to meet their extraction targets.
And in the United States, shale oil producers invested less during the lean months of the pandemic, recalls Edoardo Campanella, analyst at UniCredit.
But thanks to the short duration of their production cycle, the latter “will regain their role as pivotal producers, who open their taps when prices make their activity profitable and close them when this is no longer the case”, believes. -he.
