On Friday, global oil prices showed a confident rise. However, experts foresaw that the quotes would close the week with a decline.
Brent futures for June delivery were trading at $65.82 per barrel at the moment of writing the article. Brent crude advanced by 0.64% compared to the reading logged at the end of the trading session on Thursday. Yesterday, Brent rose by 0.1% to $65.4 per barrel.
At the same time, WTI futures for June delivery settled at $61.92 per barrel, inching up by 0.8% from the reading of the previous session. Yesterday, the WTI benchmark advanced by 0.1% to $61.43 per barrel.
Since the beginning of the week, Brent has lost 1.4% and WTI has declined by 1.9%.
Despite this fact, today, oil prices are more than 25% higher than at the beginning of 2021.
At the end of the trading sessions on Tuesday and Wednesday, oil dropped amid the risks about demand. The US oil reserves data also led to a decline. Thus, in the previous week, oil reserves in the US rose by 0.6 million barrels, whereas economists had expected a decrease of 2.9 million barrels.
Moreover, traders are concerned about the epidemiological situation in Japan and India as these countries are the largest oil importers. Analysts suppose that if the situation gets worse, oil prices will be under significant pressure.
At the same time, data from the US and China turned out to be quite encouraging. Both economies are confidently recovering, thus boosting demand for oil. Moreover, economists suppose that OPEC+ will remain the oil product at the current levels to stabilize oil prices.
A short-lived drop in the US dollar also supported oil prices. As a rule, a weakening US dollar boosts commodities, including oil and gold. The US dollar index, that measures the US dollar against a basket of six major currencies, declined by 0.17%.
The US unemployment report also pushed oil prices higher. The data turned out to be below the forecast. As a result, forecasts for oil demand in the US were upwardly revised.
