The situation on the oil market remains dramatic, even if prices rise again on Wednesday afternoon. The trigger for this is a threat from US President Trump to Iran.
New York / London (dpa) - The oil market continues to be turbulent. After US crude oil in particular had been under pressure since Monday, the European variety Brent was hit mid-week.
The price for a barrel (159 liters) initially fell to $ 15.98 on Wednesday, the lowest level since 1999. The West Texas Intermediate (WTI) variety also went downhill first. In the afternoon, however, the prices recovered visibly.
Decisive for the then rising oil prices was a threat from US President Donald Trump to Iran. Trump tweeted that he had instructed the U.S. Navy to destroy Iranian ships if they got in the way of American ships. The background was an incident on the open sea. After Trump's threat, risk premiums on the oil market rose. The relationship between the United States and oil-rich Iran is heavily strained.
A barrel of North Sea Brent last cost $ 20.45. That was 95 cents more than the previous day. The US variety WTI was traded at $ 14.33 per barrel. It cost $ 1.18 more than on Tuesday. On Monday, the price of a US oil futures contract that had expired had fallen below the zero line. It was the first time that anything like this had happened.
Despite the recent price increases, the situation on the oil market remains dramatic. It is characterized by a sharply falling demand due to the corona crisis, a much too high supply and low storage capacities. On duty, the American Petroleum Institute (API) reported another strong increase in American crude oil stocks. The U.S. Department of Energy followed on Wednesday and also announced a significant increase in oil stocks.
How tense the storage situation is can also be seen from the fact that now more oil is rarely stored on tankers. Ships are currently said to ship 20 million barrels of crude oil off the US west coast alone, according to figures from the Paris-based company Kpler. The company observes the sea movements of these tankers in order to draw conclusions for the raw material markets. Worldwide, a multiple of this amount of oil is said to be on tankers.
On Tuesday evening, Opec's energy ministers met for an unscheduled video conference. However, no noteworthy results were announced. The cartel has already announced production cuts for early May. In view of the crisis-related drop in demand, however, these are considered far too low. At just under 10 million barrels a day, the cuts correspond to just one third of the feared drop in demand.
In the United States, where producers are suffering heavily from low oil prices, a decision to cut production in Texas was postponed to early May. President Trump has pledged financial support to the energy sector. The United States has become one of the largest oil producers in the world in recent years. However, this rise is unlikely to continue for the time being as a result of the oil price crisis.
