Oil Prices Up After Two Week Decline

April 12, 2022

Oil prices have settled up 2% after a second straight week of decline and mark another week of benchmarks that have been the most volatile since June of 2020. 

April 11, 2022—Oil prices rose 2% on Friday. This follows a second straight week of decline after countries began to announce their plans for crude oil release from strategic stocks, according to Reuters.

Brent crude features are up at $2.20, or $2.19 at $102.78 a barrel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures rose $2.23 to $98.26. Brent dropped 1.5% and WTI dropped 1%.

Nations that are a member of the International Energy Agency are set to release 60 million barrels of oil over the course of the next six months. The United States will match that amount as a part of the 180 million barrel release plan announced by the country back in March.

"There's some concern that by artificially lowering prices, you are only going to increase demand and that's going to burn off that supply pretty quickly," Said Phil Flynn, an analyst with Price Futures Group. 

On the other hand, JPMorgan anticipates that the reserves release will be beneficial in the short term, offsetting 1 million barrels of oil per day of Russian oil supply that remains offline, and may do so indefinitely. 

"However, looking forward to 2023 and beyond, global producers will likely need to ramp up investment to both fill the Russia-sized gap in supply and restock IEA strategic reserves," JPMorgan said in a note. 

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