(Bloomberg) – A senior Nigerian minister urged the country’s president to end a long-running dispute with Eni SpA and Shell Plc to allow the companies to finally develop a prized deepwater oil license.
Demand worries outweighed supply concerns this week to push down oil prices, reinforced by heightened expectations of more U.S. rate hikes that lifted the greenback.
Previously, we reported that energy agencies have been growing more bearish with their forecasts on oil demand growth with four experts including IEA and OPEC Secretariat giving divergent views. Alarmingly, the normally bullish U.S.-based Energy Information Agency (EIA) has cut its forecast in each of the past nine months.
The continuous shift in oil trade flows following the EU embargo on Russian exports is a huge win for the crude from Western Europe’s largest oilfield offshore Norway.
Crude oil prices inched lower today, after the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported an inventory draw of 4.6 million barrels for the week to April 14.
Oil prices were down in Asian trade on Thursday as the U.S. dollar strengthened on rate-hike expectations and after recent economic data from the U.S. and China did not do enough to encourage expectations that demand will improve.
Oil drifted lower on Wednesday as the market weighed potential interest rate hikes from the Federal Reserve that could slow growth and dampen oil consumption, offsetting falling US inventories and strong Chinese economic data.
The small Caribbean nation of Guyana is experiencing a colossal oil boom which keeps getting bigger and bigger.
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and fellow oil-producing allies (OPEC+) are back in the driver’s seat as U.S. shale oil is no longer the marginal fuel due to President Joe Biden’s anti-oil and gas policies.
US energy secretary Jennifer Granholm said on Wednesday that the federal government could begin buying oil to replenish an emergency stockpile later this year, “if it is advantageous to taxpayers”.