The price of Brent crude has been on the rise for several weeks in a row. So, Brent futures for April delivery grew to $60.26 a barrel on the ICE Futures Exchange in London.
Brent crude is trading at that price for the first time since December 2014. According to experts, oil market participants expect oil prices to increase in the near future.
Importantly, WTI or Texas light sweet has been following the similar trend. WTI has climbed over $52 a barrel.
February 12, the talks in the Norman format in Minsk ended up with an accord on how the armed conflict in South East Ukraine should be settled. The agreement partly eased fears of market participants that a new package of sanctions would be imposed against Moscow.
Apart from the Minsk agreement, oil prices are set to go up amid a lower oil output. Apache Corp., an American independent oil and gas giant, announced its plans to slash a number of drilling rigs by 70%. France’s Total SA, one of the five “Supermajor” oil companies in the world, also unveiled its plans to cut expenses on oilfield exploration as well as a scale of this work.
