Global oil prices seen to stay elevated going into 2022

Global oil prices are seen to end the year on a bullish note, according to an international intelligence report.

According to OilPrice, the more expensive prices at the pump can be attributed to the still high demand—as concerns over the Omicron variant of COVID-19 weakening global market appetite turned out to be “overblown”—and the supply disruptions across different continents.

These include Libya’s decision to withhold 300,000 barrels per day from the market as a result of renewed political infighting, Ecuador’s flood-damaged pipeline system and Nigeria’s struggle with the Forcados Terminal.

“Combined with rumors of another week-on-week decline in US crude inventories, the Brent complex moved up to $79.5 per barrel while the West Texas Intermediate has last traded around $76.5 per barrel,” OilPrice said.

Moreover, the recent lifting of the open-pit mining ban in the Philippines is also seen to affect the oil market moving forward.

The Philippines heavily imports its oil supply, making local oil price movements especially vulnerable to the movement of the global market.

Since January, prices of diesel, gas and kerosene have logged a cumulative net increase of P15.80, P16.20 and P11.50 per liter, respectively.

Crude oil prices began to rise even as energy players continued to be rattled by the uncertainty of the coronavirus pandemic.

By August, energy firms began shutting US production prior to Hurricane “Ida’s” landfall wherein at least 94 percent of US oil production in the Gulf of Mexico, or around 1.7 million barrels per day of crude output remained offline. INQ