Oil prices rose more than $6 on Monday, with Brent crude soaring above $114 a barrel, as European Union nations considered joining the United States in a Russian oil embargo and after a weekend attack on Saudi oil facilities .
Brent crude futures were up $6.52, or 6%, to $114.45 a barrel by 1442 GMT, contributing to a 1.2% gain on Friday.
Prices rose ahead of talks between European Union governments and US President Joe Biden this week in a series of summits aimed at escalating the West’s response to Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine.
EU governments will consider imposing an oil embargo on Russia.
Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vershchuk said early Monday there was no chance the country’s forces would surrender in the besieged eastern port city of Mariupol.
“Optimism about progress in Ukraine’s ceasefire talks has trickled away and that has pushed up oil prices,” said Susannah Streeter, senior markets analyst at UK wealth manager Hargreaves Lansdown.
With little sign of the tension easing, the focus returned to whether the market would be able to replace sanctions-hit Russian casks.
“With the possibility of more than a million barrels a day of Russian oil being snubbed, since the Netherlands and Germany together receive about a quarter of Russia’s crude and light oil exports, demand for crude oil supplies from OPEC+ nations would skyrocket. “
Over the weekend, attacks by Yemen’s Iran-allied Houthi Group caused a temporary drop in production at a Saudi Aramco refinery joint venture in Yanbu, raising concerns in a jittery oil products market where Russia is a key supplier and the global inventories have increased many times over. yearly lows.
The latest report by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and Allies including Russia, collectively known as OPEC+, showed some producers are still not meeting their agreed delivery quotas.
Oil prices have also been sensitive to talks of lifting Hong Kong’s COVID-19 restrictions, which could boost demand, and in response to the growing list of US companies pulling out of Russia – including Baker Hughes, ExxonMobil, Shell and BP.
