Oil reaches seven-year highs and adds seventh week in a row of progress

Oil prices traded at seven-year highs on Friday as geopolitical tensions and heavy snowfall came in US concerns about supply disruptions flared up again, closing for the seventh consecutive week.

crude oil futures Brent They were $ 2.38, or 2.6%, at $ 93.49 a barrel, after reaching their highest since October 2014 of $ 93.70. The oil WTI U.S. crude added $ 2.48, or 2.8%, to $ 91.72 a barrel, after climbing to a seven-year high of $ 92.75 a barrel, after reaching $ 93.17, a high since September 2014

Both measures added their seventh consecutive weekly increase. Brent rose 3.8 percent during the week, and WTI advanced 6.7 percent.

“This latest rise was caused by a cold wave in Texas“raising concerns about production cuts in the Permian basin, the largest shale game in the United States,” said Carsten Fritsch, a commodity analyst at Commerzbank.

A winter storm that dropped ice and heavy snow over a wide area of ​​the city center US this week, hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses were left without power on Friday as bad weather engulfed the Plains and New England regions.

So far this year, the WTI contract has risen by about 22% and Brent 20%. The oil prices They will surely exceed $ 100 on strong global demand, analysts said this week.

Strict oil supplies pushed the six-month market structure for WTI to a sharp downward return rate of $ 9.06 per barrel on Friday, the widest since September 2013.

Oil markets were also strengthened by the crisis in Ukrainewhile Russia continues to deploy thousands of troops to the border with its former Soviet ally, a factor that raises market concerns about already tight oil supplies.

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