(New York) Oil prices ended higher on Tuesday, welcoming with serenity the announcement of a limited increase in production from countries bound by the OPEC + agreement.
A barrel of North Sea Brent for March delivery, the main contract traded in London, closed up 1.29% to exactly $ 80.
This is the first time since November 25, the day before the identification of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, that Brent has ended a session at $ 80 or more.
In New York, a barrel of West Texas Intermediate (WTI), for delivery in February, gained 1.19%, to register at 76.99 dollars.
After their meeting, the members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and their allies of the OPEC + agreement maintained the course set in July of a monthly increase of 400,000 barrels per day.
This moderate increase worries all the less the market as many operators expect that “the group will produce less than the 400,000 barrels more than it announces”, reacted analysts at TD Securities.
“The market has a feeling that we are not going to see a lot of additional oil,” said Michael Lynch, chairman of Strategic Energy & Economic Research (SEER).
He recalled the Libyan case, where a damaged pipeline prevents the delivery of 200,000 barrels per day, which is in addition to the 300,000 missing following the closure, at the end of December, of four oil fields by men affiliated with the Guards of the installations. oil companies (GIP).
“So people think the market is going to be a bit tighter than they imagined a week or two ago,” Lynch concluded.
Excluding OPEC, in the United States, if the number of wells in operation continues to increase, this is being done at a slow pace, analysts note.
And the publication of investment estimates for the year 2022 indicates that US production capacity should remain lower than before the pandemic.
Traders are now looking at the report on the state of oil stocks in the United States, which will be released on Wednesday.
Analysts are forecasting a sharp drop of 3.650 million barrels in the week ended December 31, according to Bloomberg news agency. This would be the sixth decline in a row.