Oil Rises As OPEC Increases Supply

West Texas Intermediate crude rose for a second day as the International Energy Agency boosted its demand forecast and on concern that tension in Ukraine will disrupt world energy supplies. Brent climbed above $108.

WTI trimmed the biggest weekly decline in two months. The IEA increased its forecast for 2014 global consumption by 95,000 barrels a day, citing economic growth. The U.S. and the European Union are threatening sanctions against Russia if it doesn’t back down from annexing Crimea, which is holding a referendum this weekend on whether to join Russia.

“The IEA report certainly helps the market,” said Michael Lynch, president of Strategic Energy & Economic Research in Winchester, Massachusetts. “It makes people more comfortable about demand. People are worried about the situation in Crimea.”

WTI for April delivery gained 30 cents, or 0.3 percent, to $98.50 a barrel at 12:10 p.m. on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The volume of all futures traded was about 3.8 percent below the 100-day average. Prices are down 4 percent this week.

via Bloomberg

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Alfonso Esparza

Alfonso Esparza

Senior Currency Analyst at Market Pulse
Alfonso Esparza specializes in macro forex strategies for North American and major currency pairs. Upon joining OANDA in 2007, Alfonso Esparza established the MarketPulseFX blog and he has since written extensively about central banks and global economic and political trends. Alfonso has also worked as a professional currency trader focused on North America and emerging markets. He has been published by The MarketWatch, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail, and he also appears regularly as a guest commentator on networks including Bloomberg and BNN. He holds a finance degree from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM) and an MBA with a specialization on financial engineering and marketing from the University of Toronto.
Alfonso Esparza