US oil futures touched new highs for 2016 on Friday and were set to post gains for a fifth straight week on growing optimism that major producers would strike a deal to freeze output, while a more benign interest rate environment also supported prices.<\/p>\n
US crude was up 3 cents at $40.23 barrel, after rising to as much as $40.55 – higher than the previous peak of $40.36 reached on Thursday. The benchmark had surged 4.5% to close at $40.20 in the prior session.<\/p>\n
Brent crude’s front-month contract was up 2 cents at $41.56 per barrel and earlier rose to $41.71, a new high for the year. It finished up $1.21 at $41.54 a barrel on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Both contracts have traded down at times throughout the day, suggesting resistance at around $40.<\/p>\n
“The market is trying to price in the moves by the big producers,” said Avtar Sandu, senior commodities manager at Phillip Futures in Singapore. “Otherwise, $40 oil is actually pretty expensive given the oversupply in the market.”<\/p>\n
Oil prices have surged more than 50% from 12-year lows since the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) floated the idea of a production freeze, boosting Brent from about $27 and US crude from around $26.<\/p>\n
US oil is heading for a fifth week of gains, while Brent is on course for a fourth weekly increase, the longest rising streak in about a year for both benchmarks.<\/p>\n
But some are urging caution after the strong gains.<\/p>\n
“Global fundamentals are little changed and oil has instead been lifted by higher risk-appetite,” BNP Paribas said in a note. “A dialogue among key producing countries to address oil output will at best yield a decision to freeze output, but not the much-needed reduction required to rebalance the market.”<\/p>\n
BNP estimates there will be a 1 million barrel increase in global stocks by the end of the first half of 2016.<\/p>\n
OPEC kingpin Saudi Arabia and non-OPEC producers led by Russia will meet on April 17 in the Qatar capital Doha, aiming for the first global supply deal in 15 years.<\/p>\n
Still, for now, oil prices are drawing support from a softening dollar after a Federal Reserve policy decision on Wednesday indicated two US rate hikes this year instead of the expected four. A weak greenback makes commodities priced in the dollar cheaper for holders of other currencies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
US oil futures touched new highs for 2016 on Friday and were set to post gains for a fifth straight week on growing optimism that major producers would strike a deal to freeze output, while a more benign interest rate environment also supported prices. US crude was up 3 cents at $40.23 barrel, after rising to as much as $40.55 – higher than the previous peak of $40.36 reached on Thursday. The benchmark had surged 4.5% to close at $40.20 in the prior session. Brent crude’s front-month contract was up 2 cents at $41.56 per barrel and earlier rose to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[133],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-59869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-oil-gas"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59869\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}