The price of Texas Intermediate Oil (WTI) opened yesterday with a drop of 3.8 percent, to US $94.45 a barrel, affected by the release of strategic crude oil reserves by the United States and other countries, which seek to curb their increase.
In New York City morning hours, WTI futures for May delivery were down $3.81 from the previous day’s close. The benchmark crude in the US continued to decline given the commitment announced last week by the nations that make up the International Energy Agency (IEA) to release, in the next six months, some 120 million barrels of their strategic reserves, of which 60 million are from the United States .
US President Joe Biden has ordered the release of an extraordinary amount of his nation’s so-called black gold storage (one million barrels a day for the next six months).
That contribution to the market “should ease tension in the following months, reducing the need for values to rise in the face of short-term demand destruction,” UBS analyst Giovanni Staunovo told GLM.
Investors are still pending the restrictions to control the resurgence of coronavirus in China, which keep the populous metropolis of Shanghai in confinement, although the authorities announced that they will relax the measures in some areas as of yesterday.
As a background, the war in Ukraine and the economic sanctions of Western countries against Russia continue to influence the price of oil in the international arena, while the European Union continues to study the possibility of vetoing imports of Russian crude.
120 million barrels will be released in the next 6 months.