Oil holds onto gains as investors bet on tighter supply
Oil prices edged down slightly on Monday, holding on to most of their recent gains amid expectations of tighter supply from OPEC+ cuts, attacks on Russian refineries and upbeat Chinese manufacturing data.
Brent crude fell 17 cents, or 0.2%, to $86.83 a barrel by 0017 GMT after rising 2.4% last week. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude was at $83.06 a barrel, down 11 cents, or 0.1%, following a 3.2% gain last week.
Trade volumes are expected to be thin on Monday as several countries are closed for Easter holiday.
Both benchmarks finished higher for a third consecutive month, with Brent holding above $85 a barrel since mid-March, as the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and their allies, a group known as OPEC+, pledged to extend production cuts to the end of June which could tighten crude supply during summer in the northern hemisphere.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said on Friday that its oil companies will focus on reducing output rather than exports in the second quarter in order to evenly spread production cuts with other OPEC+ member countries.
Drone attacks knocked out several Russian refineries, which is expected to reduce Russia's fuel exports.
«Geopolitical risks to crude and heavy feedstock supplies add to strong Q2 24 demand fundamentals,» Energy Aspects analysts said in a note.
Almost 1 million barrels per day of Russian crude processing capacity is offline amid the attacks, impacting its high-sulphur fuel oil exports which is processed at Chinese and Indian
