The price of Petroleum intermediate of Texas (WTI) opened this Wednesday with a rise of 2.26%, up to 76.82 dollars a barrel, when investors are worried about a possible recession at the same time as encouraged by the reopening of Chinaa large consumer of crude oil.
At 9:00 a.m. local time NY (1400 GMT), WTI futures contracts for February delivery gained $1.70 compared to the previous day’s close.
On Tuesday investors analyzed the statements of the president of the Federal Reserve (Fed) of the United States, Jerome Powell, to find out how the next steps of the central bank will affect the economy and the demand for Petroleum.
Powell said that the central bank is strongly committed to reducing the inflationdespite the fact that interest rate increases to curb economic growth could lead to a recession and, meanwhile, affect the demand for black gold.
Chinathe country that imports the most crude, is also in the spotlight after they opened their borders for the first time since the start of the pandemic.
On the one hand, investors expect energy demand to rise in this country, and even more so if we take into account the holiday season in Lunar New Year.
COVID-19 cases
Although, on the other hand, the increase in cases of covid-19 in the Asian country could negatively affect the consumption of crude oil and create bottlenecks in the supply chains.
Finally, investors await the latest report from the Administration of Energy Information US data for the week ending January 6.
However, according to The Wall Street Journalit is expected that the commercial reserves of Petroleum US crude oil have decreased from the previous week.
