New York West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures closed higher on Thursday (March 30), supported by US crude inventories plunging to a two-year low, as well as news of Iraq suspending some oil exports from Kurdistan These factors led to investors to expect that the global oil market will face tight supply conditions.
- The WTI crude oil contract will be introduced in May. it rose $1.40, or 1.92%, to close at $74.37/barrel.
- The Brent crude oil contract (BRENT) will be introduced in May. They were up 99 cents, or 1.26%, at $79.27 a barrel.
Oil markets continued to benefit from Iraq’s ban on the export of around 450,000 barrels per day of oil from Kurdistan via Turkey. After an arbitration court confirmed that the export of oil needs to be approved by the Iraqi government, Kurdistan is an autonomous region in northern Iraq.
The market was also supported by a report from the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), which said US crude inventories fell by 7.4 million barrels last week. It hit a two-year low and gasoline inventories fell by 2.9 million barrels.
Investors are keeping an eye on the meeting of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) committee and its allies. or OPEC Plus on April 3, while the news source revealed that OPEC+ is likely to maintain its oil production policy by cutting output by 2 million barrels per day until the end of 2023 despite the recent banking crisis.
By InfoQuest News Agency (31 Mar. ’23)
Tags: WTI oil , crude oil , oil price
