The US Department of Energy raised the average forecast for the price of Brent crude in 2022 to $ 74.95 per barrel against $ 70.05 for the previous year, follows from a report by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) of the department, TASS reports.
At the same time, the US Department of Energy expects the average price of WTI crude oil in 2022 at $ 71.32 per barrel.
In addition, the agency lowered its forecast for daily oil production in the United States this year to 11.8 million barrels per day, which is 50 thousand barrels less than the previous estimate.
The price of a Brent crude oil futures in the course of trading on January 11 exceeded $ 83 per barrel. This happened for the first time since November 16, 2021. In turn, the price of the February WTI futures today for the first time since November 16, 2021 exceeded $ 81 per barrel. During the day, the mark has risen in price by 3.5% and at its peak reached $ 81.3 per barrel.
Oil quotes began to rise on January 4, after the ministers of the OPEC + countries decided to keep the plan to increase oil production by 400,000 barrels per day in February. At the meeting, representatives of the states noted that the risks associated with the South African strain of the Omicron coronavirus have decreased, as it turned out that this variant of infection is less likely to cause severe COVID-19 and death.
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