World oil prices are continuing to grow during Friday against the news of toughened armed conflict in Libya with Islamites near the largest oil platform of the country - Es Sider.
At the same time, owing to the Christmas holidays in Western countries, high volatility remains along with low liquidity, analysts say.
Brent futures for February delivery were up $0.38 or 0,63% to $60.62 per barrel at noon at the London Stock Exchange ICE. WTI futures for February delivery rose $0.56 or 1% to $56.40 per barrel at noon at the NYMEX session. It is noteworthy that the volume of Friday's session is 89% lower than the average reading of the last 100 days.
Mohamed Elharari, a spokesman for National Oil Corp., announced that crude oil production in Libya dropped to 352,000 barrels per day. “The situation is getting worse in Libya and we can pretty much write off supplies from there. Even without an OPEC supply cut, we are getting one from Libya,” Olivier Jakob, managing director at Petromatrix said.
According to John Sfakianakis, a former economic adviser to the country's government, Saudi Arabia, probably, places oil price at the level of $80 per barrel in budget 2015. Participants of commodity market interpreted this information as a sign of Saudi Arabia authorities' confidence in a good future of oil market.
