Crude oil prices started the week steady, with Brent crude trading close to $85 per barrel and West Texas Intermediate at close to $80.50 per barrel as supply constraints came into focus.
Oil prices soared at the start of the week as OPEC+ shocked markets with a production cut announcement, but prices have since been capped by growing fears of demand destruction due to economic woes.
Oil prices rose on Tuesday on expectations of potential economic stimulus by China, healthy demand in the rest of Asia and a drop in U.S. crude stockpiles.
Oil prices were roughly unchanged on Monday as investors weighed the prospect of tighter supplies from OPEC+ producers from May against concerns about weakening global growth that may dampen fuel demand.
Italian oil firm Eni, with its partner PetroCi, has celebrated the sail away of the FPSO Firenze to the giant Baleine oil and gas field offshore Ivory Coast.
A former managing director of the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR), Isaac Osei has said the state refinery is currently in good shape and requires the consistent purchase of crude oil to keep it running.
Bullish sentiment appears to have taken over oil markets in the wake of the OPEC+ decision to cut production by an additional 1.6 million bpd from May through to the end of the year.
The U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) has conducted Gulf of Mexico Lease Sale 259, which resulted in $263,801,783 in high bids for 313 tracts spanning 1.6 million acres in the federal waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
A U.S. government auction of oil and gas drilling rights in the Gulf of Mexico generated $263.8 million in high bids, the most of any sale in the region for years and the first test of demand for investment since the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Fossil fuel energy companies looking to extract oil and natural gas from U.S. waters in the Gulf of Mexico got a boost on Wednesday, as they secured access to 1.6 million acres of waters offered at auction.