London (awp/afp) – Oil prices were caught in headwinds on Tuesday, with an increase in the supply available on the market which still remains insufficient to meet the growing demand for crude.
Around 10:00 GMT (12:00 CET), a barrel of Brent from the North Sea for August delivery fell 0.39% to 119.04 dollars.
The barrel of American West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for delivery in July lost 0.41% to 118.01 dollars.
Oil prices hesitated between gains and losses, but remain at very high levels, close to the 120 dollar mark per barrel.
Oil companies “Eni and Repsol have been authorized by the US State Department to begin shipping Venezuelan crude to Europe from July to replace lost Russian barrels,” says Tamas Varga, an analyst at PVM Energy, from what to relax the market.
The White House announced on May 17 the easing of some of the sanctions imposed in 2019, including an oil embargo, aimed at ousting Nicolas Maduro from power after the controversial 2018 elections that led to his re-election.
On the other hand, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies (OPEC+) decided Thursday on a slight increase in production quotas, to return more quickly to its production levels of October 2018, before the cuts. made to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic.
But this increase should not however make a “significant difference” on the courses, for Carsten Fritsch, analyst at Commerzbank.
“The additional barrels provided by OPEC+ are much less important than the loss of crude oil and Russian products”, recalls Tamas Varga. “In other words, the global oil balance is unlikely to improve.”
In parallel, after a brief restart of its production on Monday, the largest oil field in Libya, the Sharara field has again interrupted its production of black gold, according to the Bloomberg agency.
The field had already been closed for six weeks following the sabotage of an oil pipeline.
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