The barrel price of Brent oil, which rose to $ 75.92 on Friday, closed the day at $ 72.97. As of 09:45 today, the price of a barrel of Brent oil decreased by 2.36 percent to $ 71.25 compared to the closing date. In the same minutes, West Texas type (WTI) crude oil found buyers at $65.38 a barrel.
Concerns that the developments in the global banking sector will negatively affect oil demand and the increasing uncertainties before the US Federal Reserve (Fed) meeting on Wednesday were effective in the decline in prices.
Despite the measures taken to alleviate the concerns in the markets regarding the banking crisis that started in the USA and spread to Europe, the downward trend in oil prices continues. It was announced yesterday that Switzerland’s largest bank, UBS, will buy Credit Suisse, which is in crisis, for 3 billion Swiss francs ($ 3.3 billion).
Central banks of the USA, Canada, UK, Japan, Europe and Switzerland also decided to increase the frequency of US dollar swap line operations.
Uncertainty regarding the Fed’s monetary policy decisions to be announced on Wednesday also supports the decline in prices. In the pricing in money markets, it is predicted that the bank will not increase interest rates with a 40 percent probability, and a 25 basis point rate increase with a 60 percent probability.
On the supply side, the meeting of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and the OPEC+ group, which consists of some non-OPEC producer countries, will be held on April 3 for the next period production policies.
At the group meeting in October 2022, OPEC+ countries decided to cut their daily oil production by 2 million barrels until the end of 2023.
It is stated that technically, the range of 71.45 to 71.77 dollars in Brent oil can be viewed as a resistance and the range of 71.13 to 70.81 dollars as a support zone.