Oil rises by $0.25
The international oil benchmark, Brent crude, rose by $0.25 to $63.94 per barrel as of 7pm Nigerian time on Tuesday. Recall that it hit a record high of $67.14 per barrel last Wednesday.
The OPEC President, Diamantino Azevedo, said on Tuesday that the global oil market was rebalancing after damage to demand wrought by the pandemic was met with curbs on output by producers from the group.
“Crude prices are relatively stable … we see a certain balance between demand and supply,” Azevedo was quoted by Reuters as saying in an interview.
“However, due to the pandemic situation the world is living through and with new waves arriving; we could have a situation of smaller demand due to confinements. Vaccination of the global population against COVID-19 will certainly increase demand,” he added.
Azevedo, Angola’s Minister of Mineral Resources and Petroleum, warned that any worsening of the pandemic could lead producers to tamp down output.
“The production levels that were desirable at the time of the latest adjustment could naturally be affected downward due to … the COVID-19 pandemic and its variants,” he added.
