Specifically, US WTI oil prices increased by 0.99 USD, to 81.35 USD/barrel; while Brent oil prices increased by 0.91 USD, to 85.19 USD/barrel.
Oil prices continued to increase today after OPEC+ planned to cut production, while investors' interest shifted to assessing the demand and impact of high oil prices on the global economy.
In the previous trading session, both Brent and WTI oil prices skyrocketed after OPEC+ announced that it could maintain a voluntary output cut of 1.66 million barrels/day from May until the end of 2023.
This commitment has raised OPEC+'s total cut volume to 3.66 million barrels/day, including a cut of 2 million barrels/day last October, equivalent to about 3.7% of global demand.
Meanwhile, according to Reuters, the US manufacturing PMI fell to 46.3 in March, its lowest since May 2020, down from 47.7 in February, raising concerns about oil demand.
Weak manufacturing activity in China last month also exacerbated the situation. Reuters said that production in China lost momentum in March as export orders were still weak, hampering the economic recovery of the East Asian country.
The production limitation has prompted many analysts to raise their forecast for Brent oil prices to $100/barrel by the end of this year. Goldman Sachs has raised its forecast for Brent oil to $95/barrel by the end of this year and $100/barrel in 2024.
Meanwhile, data from the American Petroleum Institute (API) shows that US crude oil reserves fell by more than 4 million barrels last week.
Market watchers are trying to assess how long the US Federal Reserve (Fed) may need to continue raising interest rates to cool down inflation and whether the US economy may be on the brink of recession.
Domestic retail prices of petroleum on April 5 are specifically as follows: E5 RON 92 gasoline is not more than VND 22,082/liter; RON 95 gasoline is not more than VND 23,125/liter; diesel is not more than VND 19,430/liter; kerosene is not more than VND 19,037/liter; mazut is not more than VND 14,429/kg.
