OIL FUTURES: Brent recovers day after announcements of oil stocks releases

Crude oil futures gained during mid-afternoon trade in London April 7, recovering from the previous day's fall amid the announcement of oil stocks releases.

At 11:40 am BST, June ICE Brent crude futures were up $1.78/b on the day at $102.85/b, while May NYMEX WTI futures were $1.72/b higher at $97.95/b.

The International Energy Agency agreed April 6 to release 60 million barrels from its emergency reserves to ease the tightness in the wider oil complex.

"More details of specific contributions will be made public soon," tweeted Fatih Birol, Agency Executive Director.

The US will add another 60 million barrels as part of this package, bringing the total to 240 million barrels including 120 million barrels of emergency stocks release announced by the US' Biden Administration during the week ended April 1.

This somewhat eased the prices April 6, when Brent stayed just above $100 and WTI crude dipped to below $100.

The US oil stocks have risen in recent times and levels increased 2.4 million barrels in the previous week, as revealed by the US Department of Energy April 6.

Crude production in the US have risen to 11.8 million b/d and this is expected to rise. "This reveals that the significantly higher oil price level is now causing oil production to be expanded after all," Commerzbank Bank's commodity analyst Carsten Fritsch said in a note April 7.

The UK government issued late April 6 a British Energy Security Strategy which aims to provide long-term energy independence and make it cleaner and more affordable at the same time. Under this plan a licensing round for a new North Sea oil and gas project is to be held in autumn.

This underpins a resolute new view and highlights "the importance of these fuels to the transition and to our energy security, and that producing gas in the UK has a lower carbon footprint than importing from abroad," the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy said in a press release.

British multinational Shell conceded April 7 that its withdrawal from three joint-ventures in Russia would impact the energy giant significantly. "For the first-quarter 2022 results, the post-tax impact from impairment of non-current assets and additional charges relating to Russia activities [is] expected to be $4 billion to $5 billion," the company said in a trading update.

The CBOE OVX index, an indicator of crude oil price volatility, was down on the day at 53.15%.

In the foreign exchange market, the euro was steady against the US dollar at $1.089.