Oil Prices Spike 8th Week in Row on
Fears Russia Will Invade Ukraine Soon...
Investing.com - Oil prices spiked for an eight week in a row, hitting $95 a barrel, on concerns that Russia will invade Ukraine soon and after the International Energy Agency warned that global supplies might be dangerously short of demand.
The latest developments in oil offset losses in crude prices from earlier in the week triggered by worries over excessive U.S. rate hikes to deal with inflation and worries of a legitimate return of Iranian oil to the market.
The United States believes Russian leader Vladimir Putin has decided to invade Ukraine and communicated those plans to the Russian military, the PBS news service reported, adding that two officials of the Biden administration say they expect the invasion to begin next week.
The Paris-based International Energy Agency, in a monthly report on Friday, lifted its forecast for this year’s global oil demand by 800,000 barrels a day to 3.2 million barrels.
What’s more, it estimated there could be a billion barrels shortfall by the end of last year between what the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies — known as OPEC+ — were supposed to have pumped versus actual deliveries to the market since the start of 2021.
“The oil market is incredibly tight,” Toril Bosoni, head of the IEA’s markets and industry division, said in a Bloomberg television interview on Friday. “Prices continue to surge and are now reaching levels that are uncomfortable for consumers across the world.”
The IEA warning lit a fuse under oil prices that had lost more than 3% earlier in the week, first on concerns that Iranian oil supplies could legitimately return to the market through a Tehran-West nuclear deal and fears that the Federal Reserve could impose rate hikes as much as 0.5% a month successively over several months this year to curb U.S. inflation.
Adding to the oil's climb were heightened fears of an imminent Russia-Ukraine war. Multiple sources familiar with the matter told CNN on Friday that the United States and its allies had new intelligence that suggested Moscow could launch an attack on Ukraine even before the end of the Olympic Games. Russia is a major oil producer within OPEC+ and faces stringent U.S. sanctions on its economy in the event of an invasion.
New York-traded West Texas Intermediate was up $4.49, or 5%, at $94.37 per barrel by 1:54 PM ET (18:54 GMT). For the week, WTI was up more than 2%, for an eight straight week of gains.
London-traded Brent, the global benchmark for oil, was up $3.94, or 4.3%, at $95.35 per barrel. For the week, Brent was up 2.1%, rising for an eight week in a row like WTI....
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