Oil Prices Extend Gains With Falling Supplies in Focus

Active pumpjacks from oil wells are pictured at the Inglewood Oil Field, the largest urban oil field in the United States, from the Baldwin Hills Scenic, Overlook in Culver City, Calif., on March 10, 2022. (Bing Guan/Reuters)

LONDON—Oil prices rose by more than 2 percent on Wednesday after Moscow said that peace talks with Ukraine had hit a dead end, fuelling supply worries, while weak economic data from China and Japan kept a lid on gains.

Brent crude rose by $2.26, or 2.2 percent, to $106.90 a barrel by 1126 GMT while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures gained $2.02, or 2 percent, to $102.62. Both benchmarks had surged by more than 6 percent on Tuesday.

“The downside for oil prices is limited,” said OANDA senior market analyst Jeffrey Halley, citing the Russian comments on peace talks and President Joe Biden accusing Russia of genocide. These “are reinforcing that the Ukraine-Russia situation will not be de-escalating any time soon.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday blamed Ukraine for derailing peace talks and said Moscow would not let up on what it calls a “special operation” to disarm its neighbor.

Crude futures are also drawing support from Russian oil and gas condensate production falling to below 10 million barrels per day (bpd) on Monday, its lowest since July 2020.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) on Tuesday said it expected Russian oil output losses to average 1.5 million bpd in April, with losses growing to close to 3 million bpd from May.

OPEC has signaled that it would not pump more crude.

Reports this week of partial easing of some of China’s tight COVID-19 lockdown measures also underpinned oil prices.

Price gains, however, were kept in check by weak data from China and Japan.

China’s crude oil imports slipped 14 percent from a year earlier, extending a two-month slide, as strict coronavirus restrictions hit demand in the world’s top crude importer.

Japan reported its biggest monthly fall in core machinery orders in nearly two years, dragged down by a steep drop in demand from IT and other service companies.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) on Tuesday cut its forecast for 2022 global oil demand growth, citing the impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, rising inflation as crude prices soar, and the resurgence of the Omicron coronavirus variant in China.

OPEC now expects global demand to grow by 3.67 million bpd in 2022, down 480,000 bpd from its previous forecast.

By Ahmad Ghaddar