Oil futures rise in price. Exchange contract for the supply of Brent crude oil in February 2018. in the course of trading in London went up by 0.8% and reached the price of $ 65.24 per barrel. More expensive $ 65 raw materials cost for the last time on June 24, 2015. This is reported on the website of the international network of exchanges Intercontinental Exchange. The record fell due to the latest news. The day before, on November 11, it became known that the work of the pipeline Forties Pipeline System in the North Sea, one of the most important oil arteries in the world, will be completely stopped because of the revealed damages. The oil pipeline is one of the key links in the Brent oil transportation system, through it more than half of the total volume of physical supplies. Therefore, it is not surprising that such news was frightened by investors.
The cost of oil gradually increased throughout November and the first half of December. Analysts at Bloomberg attribute this to arrests of members of the royal family in Saudi Arabia on suspicion of corruption. According to some reports, 40 people were detained, including a member of the board of the Saudi company Aramco, the former head of the Ministry of Finance of the Kingdom of Ibrahim al-Assaf. Fears for the stability of oil supplies led to a surge in prices.
However, most experts say that the main reason for the rise in price of oil is the fact that the largest producers and exporters of this product managed to reach an agreement on reducing production by the end of 2018. Such a decision was made at a meeting of representatives of OPEC member countries and states outside the cartel in Vienna. At the same time, the members of the association forced Libya and Nigeria to join the agreement - earlier they were exempt from such obligations on the rights of beneficiaries.
The decision to reduce oil production is prolonged for the second time. For the first time such a deal was concluded in November 2016. Then 13 OPEC countries and 11 non-members, including Russia, agreed to cut oil production by 1.
8 million barrels per day (relative to October 2016. The goal of the deal participants is to reduce world oil reserves to five-year average levels in order to stabilize prices.
However, some pressure on oil prices continues to provide data on the growth of drilling rigs in the US. As a result of last week, their number increased by two pieces, or by 0.2%, to 931 units. In annual terms, the number of rigs increased by 307 units, or 1.5 times. Without this circumstance, oil would have risen more quickly.