Oil prices are rising today due to fears of lower supply on the global market with a sharp decline in US inventories.

Production in Libya fell due to political protests, while European countries continue to discuss the possibility of limiting imports of Russian energy resources. For example, German Foreign Minister Annalena Berbock said yesterday that Germany will completely refuse to import Russian oil by the end of the year.

The cost of June futures for Brent on the London exchange ICE Futures by 8:15 Moscow time was $107.93 per barrel, which is $1.13 (1.06%) higher than the price at the close of the previous session. At the end of trading on Wednesday, these contracts fell by $0.45 (0.4%) to $106.8 per barrel.

The price of WTI oil futures for June at the electronic trading of the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) amounted to $103.18 per barrel by this time, which is $0.99 (0.97%) higher than the final value of the previous session. The day before, the cost of these contracts increased $0.14 (0.1%), to $102.19 per barrel.

Meanwhile, commercial oil inventories in the States last week fell by 8.02 million barrels, the highest rate since January 2021, to 413.73 million barrels, data from the U.S. Department of Energy showed. Experts surveyed by Bloomberg had on average expected inventories to rise by 3 million barrels.

Stocks at the terminal in Cushing (Oklahoma), where oil traded on Nymex is stored, decreased by 185,000 barrels to 26.2 million barrels, the Energy Ministry said. U.S. oil production rose by 100,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 11.9 million bpd.

Last week gasoline inventories in the United States decreased by 761 thousand barrels, distillates – by 2.66 million barrels. They were expected to decrease by 1.1 mln barrels and 800 thousand barrels respectively.