Oil Gains as Saudis Signal Confidence in Demand With Price Hike - Bloomberg

Oil Gains as Saudis Signal Confidence in Demand With Price Hike - Bloomberg

PRICES

West Texas Intermediate for January delivery gained 2.3% to $67.78 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange at 7:40 a.m. in London after falling 0.4% on Friday. Prices lost 2.8% last week. Brent for February settlement rose 2% to $71.25 a barrel on the ICE Futures Europe exchange after advancing 0.3% on Friday. Brent’s prompt timespread was 41 cents in backwardation, compared with an average of $1.04 last month.

Oil rose after Saudi Arabia boosted the prices of its crude, signaling confidence in the demand outlook despite the spread of the omicron variant of the coronavirus.

Futures in New York advanced more than 2% to trade near $68 a barrel. The kingdom increased its oil prices for customers in Asia and the U.S. for January, just days after the OPEC+ alliance agreed to boost output for the same month. Meanwhile, initial data on omicron from South Africa -- the epicenter of the outbreak -- doesn’t show a resulting surge of hospitalizations.