The oil market settled slightly higher on Friday as investors weighed plans by the US President, Mr Donald Trump, to boost domestic production while demanding that the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) move to lower crude prices.
During the session, Brent crude futures went up by 21 cents or 0.27 per cent to $78.50 a barrel and the US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures rose by 4 cents or 0.05 per cent to $74.66 per barrel.
Brent has lost 2.8 per cent this week while WTI was down 4.1 per cent.
Mr Trump on Friday reiterated his call for OPEC to cut oil prices to hurt oil-rich Russia’s finances and help bring an end to the war in Ukraine.
During his 2024 presidential campaign, Mr Trump made ending Russia’s three-year full-scale invasion of Ukraine a priority and has been seeking to set up a meeting with Putin since winning the election in November.
On Thursday, he told the World Economic Forum (WEF) he would demand that OPEC and its de facto leader, Saudi Arabia, bring down crude prices.
“One way to stop it quickly is for OPEC to stop making so much money and drop the price of oil…. That war will stop right away,” he said on Friday.
In addition to his comments on oil prices, Trump raised the range of tariffs, threatening 25 per cent levies on Canadian and Mexican imports and a 10 per cent duty on Chinese goods.
These remarks added uncertainty to energy trade and global demand forecasts, fueling bearish sentiment.
Market analysts noted that the threat of harsh US sanctions on Russia and Iran – key oil producers – could undermine Trump’s goal of lowering energy costs.
These developments come as there are expectations that non-OPEC countries like the US and Brazil will boost supply this year just as OPEC plans to raise oil output from April.
On Friday, Chevron announced it had started production at a $48 billion expansion of the giant Tengiz oilfield, bringing its output to around 1 per cent of global crude supply.
US crude inventories last week hit their lowest level since March 2022, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) said.