Oil prices hovered around the highest levels since April after racking up a sixth consecutive week of gains last week.
Prices are being held up by a handful of factors. Saudi Arabia and Russia, two of the world’s biggest producers, are promising to keep their output constricted. At the same time, signs that the U.S. economy is holding up and that the Federal Reserve may soon be finished raising interest rates are lifting the outlook for demand. There’s also hope that China’s economy picks up after a disappointing year so far.
West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. benchmark, slipped 0.3% to $82.55 a barrel in early Monday trading. Brent Crude, the international standard, was also 0.3% lower at $86.00. Both contracts have gained more than 10% over the past month.
On Thursday, Saudi Arabia said it would extend its voluntary production cut of 1 million barrels a day through September. That’s on top of the lower quotas agreed by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries as a whole. Russia, for its part, said it would cut exports by 300,000 barrels a day in September.
Oil prices are still considerably lower than they were in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year.
Saudi Aramco
(ticker: 2223.Saudi Arabia), the state-backed producer, on Monday said second-quarter profit had fallen by more than a third from the record levels seen in the same period of 2022.
Write to Brian Swint at [email protected]
Read the full article here
