Oil Rises After OPEC+ Agrees to Gradual Monthly Output Increases - Bloomberg close

Oil Rises After OPEC+ Agrees to Gradual Monthly Output Increases - Bloomberg

• West Texas Intermediate for May delivery gained $2.29 to settle at $61.45 a barrel
• Brent for June settlement rose $2.12 to end the session at $64.86 a barrel

Oil climbed the most in nearly a week with the OPEC+ alliance’s deal to gradually increase oil-supply affirming expectations that demand will continue to grow.

Futures rose 3.9% in New York after a choppy trading session. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies agreed Thursday to add more than 2 million barrels a day to the market from May to July, which includes a phased rollback of Saudi Arabia’s previous 1 million barrel-a-day cut over the next three months.

“The [supply] deficit that we’re already in is likely to accelerate,” Jeff Currie, head of commodities research at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., said in a Bloomberg Television interview. The demand numbers are “rock solid in the U.S.,” and the lockdowns in Europe present only a “temporary speed bump,” he said.