Oil stable as market receives mixed signals

Oil trade sideways on Tuesday: NYMEX WTI front month went +0.4% up to end the trading session at $106.13/b. ICE Brent front month closed stable, losing $0.06/b to $107.45/b.

The trading session summarized the recent mixed prices moves.

The gloomy economic situation (made of inflation, hawkish policy at the Fed and the ECB, the war in Ukraine and the lockdowns in China) paving the way for a recession dragged oil lower. And OPEC cut its forecast of oil demand growth by 310kb in its latest monthly report.

Prices were pushed higher by the European plan to ban Russian oil imports. Another figure from OPEC showed that the cartel’s output increased by 153kb/d in April that is below the 254kb/d target.

However, the updates on the EU embargo also drove prices lower. As Hungary (a land lock country) wants an exemption for oil imported by pipeline: the ban could be removed from the sanction package and be adopted later.

Today, NYMEX WTI quotes 0.9% higher and ICE Brent 1.2% higher.