New York. The price of intermediate oil of Texas (WTI) closed yesterday with an advance of 2.6% and stood at 69.95 dollars, recovering part of the lost in the massive sales of Friday.
According to data at the end of trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex), WTI futures contracts for delivery in January totaled $ 1.80 compared to the previous session. US oil rebounded, although less than it seemed this morning, after suffering its worst day of the year on Friday, falling more than 13% due to fear of the omicron variant of the coronavirus.
Analysts called these losses “exaggerated” and pointed to an upward correction. “The emergence of another variant of covid-19 decidedly threatens the (price) levels to which oil has managed to recover, but the sell-off was wrong even at the end of a Black Friday downgrade,” said analyst Louise Dickson by Rystad Energy. Experts argue that this variant detected in South Africa would be cause for concern, especially if China reimposes strict confinements to control outbreaks, and that they affect the demand for air travel in that country.
On the other hand, the market continues to digest the US decision to release 50 million barrels of its Strategic Petroleum Reserves in coordination with other nations to curb rising fuel prices.
This week the meeting held by OPEC and its allies (OPEC +) on Friday will be in the spotlight, both for their response to that coordinated initiative to increase global supply and for their reaction to the omicron variant.
The OPEC + countries do not plan for the moment to change their strategy due to the appearance of the new variant of the coronavirus that has received the name of omicron, Russian official sources reported this Monday.
