Oil continues its mighty ascent as Kuwait strike helps shake off Doha disappointment
Oil is proving to be not so slippery after all this week, as the benchmark commodity extended yesterday’s gains to climb even further above $40 (£27.90) a barrel this morning.
Brent Crude is now trading at $43.26, up 0.82 per cent and back to levels seen last Friday before the weekend’s shenanigans in Doha, where the world’s largest oil producers failed to agree on a plan to freeze production.
When markets opened on Monday, oil slid by seven per cent as they weighed the disappointing news from Doha. But the plunge was short-lived, as the price picked back up throughout yesterday and has continued its ascent this morning.
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"The fall-out from the inconclusive Opec meeting in Doha was significantly more muted than most had thought. Yesterday the markets took the news in their stride," said David Buik, market commentator at Panmure Gordon.
The politicians may have been unable to strike a deal, but matters were taken out of their hands to some extent as a strike by oil workers in Kuwait wiped out more than 60 per cent of the country’s production.
The small gulf nation pumped an average of 2.8 million barrels of the black stuff a day in March, but that fell to 1.1 million over the weekend – putting a big dent in the worldwide supply glut and helping to prop up the price of oil.