Washington: Oil prices extended gains for the sixth day running on Tuesday amid tighter supplies and signs of growing global demand.
Benchmark Brent crude futures rose 69 cents, or 0.9 percent, to79.41 dollars a barrel, while West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures were up 80 cents, or 1.1 percent, at 76.25 dollars. Investors fear that supply disruptions from hurricanes are persisting much longer than thought as demand picks up in parts of the world, thanks to the easing of pandemic restrictions.
African oil exporters such as Nigeria and Angola may struggle to raise output to production quotas set by OPEC amid underinvestment and maintenance problems. Barclays today raised its 2022 Brent crude price forecast by 9 to 77dollars per barrel saying that continued recovery in demand could widen a ‘persistent’ supply shortfall.”OPEC+ tapering would not plug the oil supply gap through at least Q1 2022 as demand recovery is likely to continue to outpace this, due partly to limited capacity of some producers in the group to ramp up output,” the bank said in a note.
