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Crude prices were inching higher on Friday, on the heels of a sharp losses driven by news of the largest-ever release from U.S. crude reserves. Oil was facing its biggest weekly loss since the early days of the pandemic.
Price action
-
West Texas Intermediate crude for May delivery
CL00,
-0.35% CLK22,
-0.35%
slipped 25 cents, or 0.2%, to $100.01 a barrel. Prices tumbled 7% Thursday to settle at $100.28 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the lowest finish since March 16, according to Dow Jones Market Data. Front-month prices closed out the first quarter with a 33% gain and a 4.8% rise for March. -
June Brent crude
BRN00,
-0.04% BRNK22,
-5.43% ,
the global benchmark, rose 24 cents, or 0.2%, to $104.93 a barrel. The contract slumped 4.9% to $107.91 a barrel on ICE Futures Europe Thursday. Expiring May Brent rose nearly 6.9% for the month and 39% for the quarter. -
May natural gas
NGK22,
-1.15%
fell 0.8% to $5.596 per million British thermal units, and saw a March rise of more than 28% and quarterly climb of over 51%. -
April gasoline
RBJ22,
-4.16%
rose 1% to $3.12 a gallon, after slumping 4.1% on Thursday. June heating oil
HOM22,
-0.10%
rose 0.8% to $3.229 a gallon.
Market drivers
Markets were consolidating after Thursday’s selloff, triggered by President Joe Biden authorizing the release of 1 million barrels of oil per day for the next six months from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
Analysts said the move could keep a lid on prices in the near term, but analysts see it as only a temporary fix for tight global supplies, especially as the war in Ukraine grinds on.
Read: What Biden’s historic decision to release oil reserves means for the market
The International Energy Agency was expected to hold an emergency meeting on Friday to discuss potentially also releasing strategic reserves alongside the U.S., Reuters reported.
But a volatile week was set to leave U.S. crude — on a continuous contract basis — with a bruising drop of near 12%, which would mark the biggest weekly decline since a 32% drop in late April 2020, according to FactSet. Brent crude is set for a more than 10% weekly drop, also the worst since April 2020.
Geopolitical headlines continued to attract attention on Friday after Russia accused Ukraine forces of an attack on an oil facility just north of the border between the two countries. Peace talks between the two sides by videoconferencing as fighting on the ground continued.
War in Ukraine: Talks set to resume between negotiators as eastern Ukraine braces for more Russian attacks
Thursday also saw an OPEC+ meeting that rubber-stamped a previously agreed plan that will lift its production target by 432,000 barrels a day in May, The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported on Thursday that domestic natural-gas supplies climbed by 26 billion cubic feet for the week ended March 25.
