OPEC weekly oil price keeps rising slightly

The weekly average prices of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) continued to increase slightly last week, reaching 74.38 U.S. dollars per barrel, the Vienna-based cartel said Monday.

After its price has stopped declining since the third week this month, OPEC weekly average oil price kept rising for two consecutive weeks.

Last week, OPEC daily average oil price kept decreasing on the first four trading days, falling from 75.96 U.S. dollars per barrel to 72.93 U.S. dollars, which only rebounded back to 73.82 U.S. dollars on the last trading day.

However, due to the original high price level at the beginning of last week, OPEC weekly average oil price maintained its upward trend.

According to some information last week, as the world's largest oil consumer, the U.S. has its lower housing sales and unemployment rate than expected, the Federal Reserve so that made the decision of maintaining the interest rate at current level of near zero, which causes impact on the international crude oil market.

At the same time, the trend of a weaker dollar also put pressure on oil prices to a certain extent.

However, just like the international oil prices, OPEC oil price also had a significant rebound last Friday. The analysts believe that it was not caused by the bullish market, but influenced by the news that the Atlantic storms may move to the Gulf of Mexico, where oil production activities would be affected.

OPEC Secretary-General Abdullah al-Badri also said that OPEC is happy with the current oil price level, stressing that OPEC crude oil production will remain unchanged.

The analysis believes that, as long as the international crude oil market continues to maintain its equilibrium, the crude oil futures would be more like financial products. Its prices would be significantly affected by exchange rate and stock market volatility, and this phenomenon will be continued.

On day 23 this month, the International Energy Agency (IEA) released a report, expecting that in the next five years, global oil demand will continue to rise.

The report predicted that from 2009 to 2015, global crude oil demand may grow 1.4 percent annually, which is a positive signal to the international oil market.

Source:Xinhua