Oil supplies in America are increasing again after a few weeks. The unrest in the Middle East has pushed up prices in recent days on the mood in the oil market. Problems in Libya are also pushing up the price of crude oil.
The Brent oil benchmark fell relatively sharply from the beginning of this month. At the beginning of this week, Monday, August 5, the low was $76,30 per barrel, which is the level at the beginning of this year. In recent days, the price has also corrected sharply upwards, reaching a value of $78,08 per barrel on Wednesday.
The latest increase appears to be partly due to Hamas's newly appointed leader, Yahya Sinwar. It is still unclear how Israel will respond to this and whether this could endanger the supply of oil. Concerns about Iran are also increasing, now that tensions with Israel have increased significantly. That brings uncertainty, which may have caused the latest price increase. Concerns about Libya also pushed up oil prices. Libya's largest oil field announced reduced production due to protests and security concerns.
Moreover, America's oil storage increased for the first time in weeks by 0,18 million barrels. This was announced by the American Petroleum Institute (API). However, this is lower than the expectation of 0,85 million barrels. This implies higher demand and has a driving effect on crude oil prices.