Oil Prices Climb As Default Fears Fade

Crude oil began trading this week with a gain after President Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy were reported to have reached a provisional agreement on raising the debt ceiling.

At the time of writing, Brent crude was trading at over $77 per barrel and West Texas Intermediate was changing hands at over $73 per barrel.

Debt ceiling negotiations have been a major factor for oil price movements in the past couple of weeks, mostly because of the apparent inability of Republicans and Democrats in Congress to strike any semblance of an agreement on how to increase the federal government's borrowing power.

According to early reports on the tentative deal, it involves flat spending over the next two years and the recycling of unused Covid funds.

Although such tense negotiations have been relatively regular in past years, they have eventually ended with an agreement, and default has invariably been avoided.

This historical evidence could have served to stabilize prices but it did not, and neither did mixed data about China's recovery. On the one hand, PMI readings are showing an uneven rebound in economic activity, but on the other, demand for oil as evidenced by import rates, is going strong.

To complicate the picture further, OPEC+ is reportedly in two minds about what to do with its output at its next meeting.

According to reports quoting Saudi Energy Minister Abdulaziz bin Salman, he has hinted at another round of output cuts.

According to reports quoting Russia's Deputy Prime Minister and top OPEC+ official Alexander Novak, the co-leader of the extended cartel is fine with production where it is right now.

Thanks to its recent gains, oil's decline since the start of the year has shrunk from about 14% earlier this month to just 9% as of the start of this week, according to Bloomberg.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

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