On Friday morning, world oil prices showed a strong growth as a result of the decision of OPEC+ to leave the existing agreements on reducing the production of black gold unchanged.
Thus, the price of May futures for the North Sea Brent blend increased by 1%, to $67.41 per barrel, and April futures for WTI increased by 0.99%, to $64.44.
A day earlier, WTI oil quotes closed at the highest level since 2019 – April futures reported a 4.2% rise – to $63.83 per barrel. Meanwhile, May contracts for Brent crude oil also increased by 4.2%, to $66.74 per barrel, which was the highest close since the end of February this year.
Even the release of the report of the Energy Information Administration (EIA) of the US Department of Energy for the last week could not prevent the spectacular growth of the black gold market on Wednesday. According to the document, crude oil reserves in the United States for the specified period increased by 21.6 million barrels. Meanwhile, the volumes of gasoline and distillates significantly decreased amid interruptions in the work of oil refineries caused by severe frosts in February.
Oil market participants continue to play out the results of the meeting of OPEC+ members. Yesterday, the alliance decided not to increase production in April, while Saudi Arabia pledged to maintain a unilateral reduction of 1 million barrels per day. Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman explained his decision by saying that the reduced production will be restored gradually.
Also, the OPEC+ member countries agreed to increase the production of black gold next month by 20 thousand in Kazakhstan due to the preservation of seasonal consumption patterns.
Earlier, due to falling demand amid the COVID-19 pandemic, OPEC+ reduced black gold production by 9.7 million barrels per day. As demand recovered, these figures were adjusted to reach 7.05 million barrels per day in March. At the same time, only Russia and Kazakhstan were able to slightly increase production in February-March.
As for the experts' assessment of the last OPEC+ meeting, they emphasize the caution of the oil-producing alliance's approach to analyzing the recovery in demand. At the same time, analysts predict an increase in global demand this year by 6.3 million barrels per day compared to 2020. The experts' scenario regarding the price of Brent oil in April is a permanent increase to $70-75 per barrel if OPEC+ does not increase production.