The price of Texas intermediate oil (WTI) opened this Wednesday with a rise of 1.6%, to 95.94 dollars a barrel, after the OPEC + alliance agreed today to add 100,000 barrels per day of crude oil to its current oil supply.
At 09:00 New York local time (13:00 GMT), WTI futures contracts for delivery in September were up $1.52 from the close of the previous session.
The decision of this increase by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and allies led by Russia, responds only symbolically to pressure from the US and the EU to lower energy prices, with the argument that the capacity of produce more oil is limited.
“The very limited availability” of the capacity to pump more crude in a short period of time “demands that it be used with great caution,” OPEC+ stressed today in a statement published at the end of its monthly teleconference on the OPEC website. Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).
US President Joe Biden went to Saudi Arabia last month hoping to strike a deal to open the taps to higher capacity.
At their June meeting, the OPEC+ ministers had agreed to a gradual monthly increase in production until August, leaving it up in the air how to continue after the summer.