The barrel of Brent oil fell below the symbolic bar of 100 dollars on Thursday for the first time since March 16 before closing at 100.58 dollars.
Is this an effect of the announcement on the market of volumes of oil drawn from American reserves? Or the slowdown in Chinese demand, struggling with the Covid epidemic? Difficult to decide. Still, the barrel of brent oil fell below the symbolic bar of 100 dollars on Thursday for the first time since March 16 before closing at 100.58 dollars.
At $98, it has regained its value from the day before the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Fears of a break in the supply of Russian hydrocarbons had then propelled the black gold close to 140 dollars, not far from the historic record of 147 dollars in the summer of 2008. It then oscillated – like a roller coaster – according to rumors on negotiations between kyiv and Moscow and threats of more or less severe sanctions.
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On Thursday, the International Energy Agency confirmed that its member states would release 120 million barrels from their reserves. Adding the unilateral commitments of the United States, the world’s largest crude oil producer, “about 240 million barrels» coming from «emergency reserveswill be available to the global market for six months. Is “well over 1 million barrels per day“over this period of one semester, indicates the agency. In other words, about 1% of global demand, enough to relax the market a little. This appealunprecedentedin the history of the IEA, created under the American umbrella in the aftermath of the 1973 oil shock to coordinate consumer countries, “reflects the determination of member countries to protect the global economy» from the shock caused by «Russian aggression against Ukraine“, underlines the agency in a press release.
If European countries end up agreeing on an embargo on Russian oil that Paris and Warsaw, among others, are pushing, the barrel could rise again. The market remains very nervous since the outbreak of Vladimir Putin’s military offensive.