Oil prices posted the first gain in 2022, edging towards $80 a barrel ahead of the meeting of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies, known as OPEC+.
Brent crude futures, global oil benchmark, gained 1.15% to $78.93 a barrel by 9.51 GMT+1 on Monday, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures increased 1.04% to 76.25 a barrel.
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Abhishek Chauhan, head of commodities at Swastika Investmart Limited, told Reuters that “tightened supplies from Libya ahead of OPEC+ meeting kept the market sentiments positive”.
A Reuters poll showed on Friday “that oil analysts have lowered their price forecasts for 2022 as the Omicron coronavirus variant poses headwinds to recovering fuel demand and risks a supply glut as producers pump more oil.”
In 2021, oil prices climbed to a three-year high, at over $80 a barrel.
On December 20, oil prices had dipped to $70 amid rising cases of the Omicron coronavirus variant in Europe and the United States.
According to Reuters, economists and analysts had projected that Brent crude would average $73.57 a barrel in 2022, about 2% lower than the $75.33 consensus in November.
In Nigeria, President Muhammadu Buhari had signed the 2022 budget into law with an average of $60 per barrel for the oil price.
