The price of Petroleum intermediate of Texas (WTI) fell 1% this Friday and stood at 99.27 dollars a barrel, below the psychological barrier of one hundred, after members of the International Energy Agency (IEA) agreed to release more crude from their strategic reserves and continue to be affected by yesterday’s White House announcement to the same effect.
According to data at the end of operations in the New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex), WTI futures contracts for May delivery were down $1.01 from the previous close.
In this way, in the computation of the last five days, the Petroleum from Texas records its worst week in nearly two years after losing more than 12%.
The benchmark crude oil in the US lost value a day after the US government announced that it will release one million barrels of Petroleum a day for the next six months, some 180 million in total, to respond to the spike in energy prices resulting from the war in Ukraine, the largest release of crude oil from its strategic reserves to date.
On Thursday, the Petroleum it plummeted 7% to $100.28 a barrel.
To the US decision was added this Friday that of the members of the IEAwho agreed to release more crude from their strategic reserves, in order to combat price volatility in the market, although they did not detail the amount they will put up for sale.
The specific figure will be released “early next week,” announced the IEA in a statement published at the end of an emergency meeting at the ministerial level, held by videoconference.
The ministers stressed that the war in Ukraine “continues to cause significant tension in oil markets, leading to increased price volatility” while inventories are “at their lowest level since 2014,” the note added.
Shortly after, US President Joe Biden announced that more than 30 countries in the International Energy Agency (IEA) will join the US in putting “tens of millions” of barrels of Petroleum in the market in order to curb the rise in prices.
The IEA already agreed on March 1, a week after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, to release 60 million barrels of Petroleum of the strategic reserves of its members around the world.
It is the third time that President Joe Biden has ordered the use of strategic reserves: he released 50 million in November and another 30 million on March 1, although on those occasions there was no significant impact on the prices of gasoline, diesel and other fuels derived from Petroleum.
Elsewhere, natural gas contracts for May delivery rose 7 cents to $5.72 per thousand cubic feet, and gasoline contracts due the same month rose less than a cent to hold at $3.15. the gallon
