Oil price increases, hits one-year high at $53

Global oil benchmark, Brent, jumped to a one-year high on Monday, after Russia said it was ready to join the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries in curbing crude output.

The oil price has risen from $45 on September 28 when OPEC decided to cut output for the first time in eight years.

Brent, against which half of the world’s oil is priced, on Monday hit its highest level since October 12, 2015, reaching $53.73 per barrel, before paring gains to trade at $53.18 by 7.10 pm Nigerian time.

The Russian President, Vladimir Putin, said an output freeze or even a production cut was likely the only right decision to maintain energy sector stability.

“Russia is ready to join the joint measures to cap production and is calling on other oil exporters to join,” Putin said at an energy congress in Istanbul, Turkey.

OPEC aims to agree on cutting about 700,000 barrels per day, bringing its output to 32.5-33.0 million bpd by the time it meets in Vienna for its policy meeting on November 30.

OPEC has also asked Russia and other non-members to join in making cuts.

Brent crude traded above $52 per barrel last Wednesday for the first time since June, as data showed a fifth straight weekly decline in the United States crude inventories.

But Goldman Sachs Group Incorporated had said oil’s rally would stall at $55 per barrel as the US shale drillers got back to work and a “wall of supply” from investments made over the past decade hit the market.

The Head of Commodities Research, Goldman Sachs, Jeff Currie, said in a Bloomberg television interview that global oil markets were set to remain ‘oversupplied’ in 2017 amid the return of disrupted output in Nigeria and Libya, resilient US shale production and the start of major projects inaugurated over the past 10 years.

Brent had on August 18 hit a high of $50.69 per barrel amid expectations of a possible freeze in production levels, but later dropped below $50.

It had on June 9 jumped to $52.86 per barrel, the highest level since last October.

But it later fell to as low as $43 on July 27 after official US energy data showed an unexpected glut of oil in storage.

PUNCH