Oil reacts with tense calm after the US attack on Venezuela and the capture of Maduro
The price of oil reacts with tense calm after the United States attack on Venezuela and the capture of Nicolás Maduro and his wife last Saturday within the framework of operation “Absolute Resolution.” The barrel of Brent crude oil, the benchmark in Europe, falls around 0.5% although it maintains the level of 60 dollars; while US crude West Texas Intermediate fell around 0.7% to $56.89.
These are moderate falls if you take into account that the ‘black gold’ comes from registering in 2025 its biggest decline in the last five years. Brent fell by 19% last year, while WTI fell by around 20%. The cartel of OPEC producers (of which Venezuela is a founding member) and its partners (such as Russia, Mexico and Malaysia) increased pumping after years of cuts; And to this greater supply was added the weakness of demand from large consumers like China.
“Any short-term interruption of Venezuelan production can easily be offset by an increase in production elsewhere,” Neil Shearing, chief economist at the Capital Economics group, told Bloomberg, explaining that the firm anticipates that the increase in global supply over the next year will cause prices to move to around $50.
The Secretary of State of the United States, Marco Rubio, recognized on Sunday that one of the main interests of his Administration is to refine heavy crude oil from Venezuela, the country with the largest proven oil reserves in the world, according to OPEC. “Our refineries on the US Gulf Coast are the best at refining this heavy crude oil. In fact, there have been shortage of heavy crude oil around the world, so I think there would be enormous demand and interest from private industry if they were given the opportunity to do it,” he said in an interview with ABC News.
