Oil prices reached seven-year highs on Friday amid rising geopolitical tensions and a winter storm in the United States. The international oil benchmark, Brent crude, gained 1.7% to trade at $92.67 per barrel. West Texas Intermediate crude, the U.S. oil benchmark, rose 1.9% to hit $92.02 per barrel. Both benchmarks were on track for a seventh consecutive weekly gain.
Oil demand is expected to grow to 100.23 million barrels per day (mb/d) in 2022, up 3.5mb/d from 2021 and higher than the pre-pandemic levels in 2019. Despite pressure from top consumers such as the U.S. and India to raise output faster, the OPEC+ decided to stay put in its output increases.
