Brent a barrel 39 cents more expensive than Tuesday. Broad outages in production and refineries.
A sharp onset of winter in the US gave oil prices another boost on Wednesday. The prices rose at times to annual highs. Oil prices lost even more significant gains over the course of the day.
A barrel (159 liters) of the North Sea Brent cost 63.74 US dollars (52.49 euros). That was 39 cents more than on Tuesday. At times, the Brent price had risen to $ 64.75, the highest level since the beginning of 2020. The price of a barrel of the US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) rose by 25 cents to $ 60.30. The WTI hit an annual high of $ 61.26.
Production losses and delivery problems
“The cold spell in the American Midwest still has the oil market firmly under control,” said Commerzbank commodity expert Carsten Fritsch, commenting on the oil market. Oil prices were again supported by a strong onset of winter in the USA. Freezing temperatures caused extensive production downtimes and delivery problems in the American oil industry.
Experts now assume that a significant part of all American production has failed. “However, the effects on refinery operations seem to be even greater,” said Fritsch. The Commerzbank expert referred to estimates that assume failures in a volume of around three million barrels per day.
In European afternoon trading, oil prices gave up some of their gains. Dealers referred to media reports that Saudi Arabia wants to expand its production. This would mean that the important oil producing country would reverse its previous voluntary production cuts.
