The oil prices moderated their sharp rise on Tuesday following the announcement of US sanctions against Russia, after a momentary flare that carried the price of Brent close to the symbolic barrier of 100 dollars.
The price of a barrel North Sea Brent for delivery in April ended with a rise of 1.52% to 96.84 dollars, having reached 99.50 dollars per barrel on the day.
In New York, the barrel of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for March delivery, closed up 1.40% at $92.35 after climbing 4.86% to $95.50.
The two references of the black gold also reached new records in seven years in the session but the curve softened after the announcement of the US sanctions made by President Joe Biden.
While the Russian president, Vladimir Putindefied Western countries by ordering their troops into breakaway territories in eastern Ukraine, the White House announced sanctions against banks and “Russian elites.”
These sanctions are not strong enough to stop Russian crude exports, so we have minimal reaction to rising prices,” said James Williams of WTRG Economics.
Williams stressed that prices would have reacted more strongly to the rise if the sanctions, for example, had excluded Russia from the international Swift payments system, prohibiting it from trading for the export of its oil.
The world’s second largest exporter of crude oil and the first of natural gas, Russia exports “five million barrels of crude oil per day, of which a third goes to China and half to Europe,” the analyst recalled.
kg
