Crude oil prices rose sharply today, Monday, the first trading day of the week; After the announcement of a fire on an oil tanker in the South China Sea near Malaysia, where the explosion occurred on a ship that can carry about 700,000 barrels of oil, which may lead to a shortage of oil supplies in the region.
Oil prices trading today
In today’s trading, the spot contract for Brent crude rose by 2.03% to close at around $76.80 a barrel; Meanwhile, the US West Texas Intermediate crude contract rose 2.37% to close at around $72.99 a barrel.
With regard to energy prices other than crude oil prices, we find that gasoline contracts recorded an increase in today’s trading by 1.50% and reached $2.4139 per gallon. Also, natural gas contracts rose strongly and recorded about 3.09%, to record about $2.203 per million thermal units. Likewise, heating oil contracts recorded an increase of 2.07%, and settled near $2.3628.
Support in spite of the fire
However, crude oil prices found a lot of support in today’s trading, thanks to the news that China, which is the second largest importer of crude oil in the world, recorded an increase in oil and natural gas production in the first quarter of 2023.
The reasons for the rise in oil prices today
With an increase in oil production by 3.8%, as this increase was a reason for the movements of crude oil prices in the markets, because it raised the hopes of investors about the continued increase in demand for crude oil in the markets by China, thanks to the reopening of the markets after closing due to Covid-19.