Image: Reuters Berita 24 English - On Friday, oil prices fell about 2% because people thought that supply problems in the U.S. Gulf of Mex...
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| Image: Reuters |
Berita 24 English - On Friday, oil prices fell about 2% because people thought that supply problems in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico would only last a short time and because fears of a recession made it hard to predict how much oil people would want to buy.
But futures were still on track to rise for the week.
Brent crude futures fell $1.45, or 1.5%, to $98.15 per barrel, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude fell $2.25, or 2.4%, to $92.09 per barrel. Thursday, both contracts went up by more than 2%.
Phil Flynn, an analyst at Price Futures group, said, "We are pulling back a little bit after yesterday's big rise."
Brent went up 3.4% this week after falling 14% last week because people were worried that rising inflation and interest rates would hurt economic growth and fuel demand. WTI rose 3.5%.
A Louisiana port official said that crews were planning to replace a broken oil pipeline piece by the end of the day on Friday. This would allow seven offshore oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico to start making oil again.
Shell, the biggest oil company in the Gulf of Mexico, said on Thursday that it had stopped making oil at three deepwater platforms in the area. The three platforms can make up to 410,000 barrels of oil per day when used together.
Cindy Babski, a spokesperson for Shell, said that the Amberjack pipeline, which was one of two that were shut down because of the leak, has started up again, but at a lower capacity. She said that the Mars pipeline was still not working, but that it should be back up and running later on Friday.
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and the International Energy Agency had different ideas about how much oil people would want to buy (IEA).
Ole Hansen, head of commodity strategy at Saxo Bank, said, "The economy is slowing down, but it's not clear if it's as bad as some recent forecasts have been saying." "Demand will go up and down, but supply is still the most important thing to worry about."
Later this year, European sanctions on Russian oil will get tougher. At the same time, the United States and other developed economies have agreed to coordinate the release of energy over the next six months. This plan will end at the end of the year.
Thursday, OPEC cut by 260,000 barrels per day its prediction for the growth of oil demand around the world in 2022. (bpd). It now thinks that demand will go up by 3,1 million barrels per day this year.
The IEA, on the other hand, raised its demand growth forecast to 2.1 million bpd because power plants are switching from gas to oil.
The IEA also said that Russia's oil supply would increase by 500,000 bpd in the second half of 2022, but that OPEC would have a hard time increasing production.
In the US, import prices fell for the first time in seven months in July, thanks to a strong dollar and lower prices for fuel and other things. In August, consumers' expectations for inflation in the next year also went down, which is another sign that price pressures may have reached their peak.
The number of oil rigs in the U.S. went up by three this week, to a total of 601. The number of rigs, which is a sign of future production, has been slow to grow, and oil production isn't expected to get back to where it was before the crisis until next year.
