U.S. crude rose to $71 a barrel on Friday in a risk-averse mood, while futures are still losing around 3 percent over the course of the week. OPEC+ came to the middle of the weekend to discuss the cluster’s production policy in the place of the calm economic recovery from China despite the end of the Zero Kovid policy.
Market watchers expect more than one OPEC+ to keep production levels unchanged, but the cluster announced surprise cuts in April, and Saudi Arabia’s power minister recently warned speculators to “be careful”. Crude oil has dropped nearly 13 percent this year, partly due to robust crude oil exports from Russia.
Equity markets across Asia rose on Friday as fears of further rate hikes by the Fed subsided, and news that Congress had passed the clause to prevent the US from defaulting added to the positive mood.
U.S. crude inventories increased by nearly 4.5 million barrels last week, while supplies at the main storage center in Cushing, Oklahoma, increased for the sixth week, according to Energy Information Administration data released on Thursday.
Source: Bloomberg HT