(New York) Oil prices continued to rise on Friday, supported by the announcement of job creations in the United States that were well above expectations, which reassured the market about the health of demand.
Posted yesterday at 3:54 p.m.
Brent crude from the North Sea, for September delivery, gained 2.26%, to close at 107.02 dollars.
The barrel of West Texas Intermediate (WTI), with maturity in August, rose 2.00% to 104.79 dollars.
“Prices rose after the jobs report showed the (US) economy was strong,” Edward Moya of Oanda said in a note. “Growth concerns may have been a bit overdone as the oil market will remain tight until further notice. »
According to the Department of Labor, the US economy added 374,000 jobs in June, much better than the 250,000 expected, although the figures were revised down from 74,000 for the previous two months.
“There is a correlation with the maintenance of a strong demand for gasoline”, underlined John Kilduff, of Again Capital, people with jobs using, on average, their vehicle more, their wages also ensuring power. ‘purchase.
The weekly report from the US Energy Information Agency (EIA) on Thursday showed declining gasoline inventories and rising demand in the United States.
Faced with demand that shows no signs of abating, supply remains constrained, under the effect of the war in Ukraine and the sanctions that have targeted Russia.
Operators continue to question the fate of the CPC pipeline, which carries the bulk of Kazakh crude to the Russian port of Novorossiysk.
The consortium was ordered Tuesday to suspend its activities for 30 days by a Russian court, which invoked a violation of environmental standards.
The operators of the pipeline have appealed, arguing in particular that a prolonged shutdown would have irreversible consequences on the installations, a provision provided for in Russian law and which allows execution to be suspended.
In other bad news for supply, two reports confirmed that members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and their allies in the OPEC+ deal were still well below their production targets.
Although having accelerated significantly in June, the countries of the OPEC+ group still fell behind by 2.5 million barrels per day, according to the specialized agency Argus, or 2.7 million according to S&P Global Commodity Insights.
“They’re still way behind on their quotas and there’s not a lot of unused capacity left,” responded John Kilduff.
“It’s a buyer’s market,” commented Robert Yawger of Mizuho. “At these levels, you have to buy, because there is no more oil” available.
The analyst thus underlined the crude price curve, which testifies to a phenomenon of ” backwardation ” very affected. This means that spot prices or prices for the nearest deadlines are very much higher than those for contracts for more distant delivery.
This attests to strong immediate demand for oil, while the market is expecting a sharp slowdown in the next several months, which would mainly be the consequence of a deceleration in the economy.