| US oil drilling equipment/AFP=News1 |
International oil prices surged by nearly 4%. It is expected that it will take longer than expected for oil facilities to normalize in Texas, which was hit by a cold wave last week.
On the 22nd (local time), futures for March delivery of Western Texas crude oil in the US recorded $61.49 per barrel, a jump of $2.25 (3.8%) compared to the battlefield. WTI’s March contract, which expired on this date, was liquidated to the highest level since January of last year.
The new near-month WTI April was signed at $61.70 per barrel, soaring $2.44 (4.1%).
North Sea Brent oil April prices also rose 2.04 dollars (3.2%) to 64.95 dollars per barrel.
It could take at least two weeks to fully normalize crude oil drilling and refineries, which froze in the cold wave that struck Texas last week, multiple industry sources told Reuters.
Most of the state’s electricity has been restored, but intermittent power failures followed, and it took longer than expected to detect damage to oil facilities and restart facilities, Reuters said. Due to the Texas cold wave, the number of crude oil boreholes in the United States has declined for the first time since November last year.
According to Reuters, the cold wave in major oil fields in the United States including Texas stopped production of 2 to 4 million barrels of crude oil on average per day.
Jim Ritter Bush, CEO of Litter Bush, a crude oil consulting company, said, “As both crude oil and gasoline production have decreased significantly, the likelihood of oil prices breaking the new high point within a week has increased.
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