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Oil platform off Norway (archive picture): increasing demand
Photo: Nerijus Adomaitis / REUTERS
The oil market remains on the upswing: on Monday, oil prices rose to multi-year highs.
A barrel (159 liters) of the North Sea Brent cost 73.27 US dollars last.
That was 58 cents more than on Friday.
At $ 73.63, the Brent price had previously reached its highest level in about two years.
The price of a barrel of the US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) rose 57 cents to $ 71.48.
At $ 71.69, it had previously climbed to its highest level in several years.
The strong economic recovery and advances in vaccinations in the USA and Europe are providing support.
This supports the demand for crude oil.
Air traffic in the USA has also increased noticeably recently.
In the market, this outweighed concerns about higher oil exports from Iran.
Commodities expert Eugen Weinberg from Commerzbank also justified the rising oil prices with a good mood on the financial markets and an optimistic demand outlook from leading energy agencies.
Last Friday, the International Energy Agency (IEA) confirmed that the world oil market was "in an excellent state," said Weinberg, in spite of the continuing pandemic-related risks.
Dekabank experts also referred to the latest forecast by the International Energy Agency.
According to this, oil demand will exceed pre-pandemic levels by the end of 2022.
"According to the IEA, the OPEC Plus countries would have to increase production significantly in order to avoid further price increases," said an assessment by Dekabank.
mic / dpa-afx