Crude Oil Prices Are Pushing High as Supplies Are Swirling  

Crude oil has recovered at the start of this week as countries face supply issues, which continues to cause concern for energy reserves in the face of the coming Northern hemisphere autumn.

Despite the growing stronger USD after the Federal Reserve meeting last week that pointed toward higher rates for longer than the market anticipation.

Last week, Saudi Arabia and OPEC+

placed a floor on oil prices, as Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said that production might be cut if deemed necessary.

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC+) Secretary General Haitham Al-Ghais also cited spare capacity as an ongoing issue for the oil market.

On Monday, unconfirmed reports emerged that the United Arab Emirates, Oman, and Congo support Saud Arabia’s expressed views last week on cutting production if the prices fall.

The political unrest in Libya has started again, compounding the crude oil issue with the market guessing that their production may come under threat. In addition, there are reports of issues with Kazakhstan port facilities impacting their oil exports.

Additionally, hopes of a prompt resolution in resurrecting the 2015 US-Iran nuclear accord have been dashed.

The oil price tension keeps soaring as costs of alternative energy keep increasing, particularly for Europe, where Russia is pulling the strings on supply through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline.

Since crude oil has stopped coming in from Russia, prices have scaled. The European benchmark Dutch Title Transfer Facility (TTF) natural gas futures contract has pulled back below 300 Euro per Mega Watt hour (MWh) after peaking at just under 350Euro per MWh. A welcome reprieve but still well above the June low of 80 Euro per MWh.

This was because the European Union was nearing its gas storage filling target of 80% goal two months ahead of schedule, with reserves now at 79.4%.