Brent climbs above USD 50 per barrel

The price of Brent oil climbed past the USD 50-per-barrel mark today.

Markets saw the commodity climb 31 cents to USD 50.05 per barrel in the morning, a continued bump from the previous day’s rise of 2.3%. This is the highest the price of the oil has been since November 2015.

The high price has been linked to Canada’s wildfires near hydrocarbons assets, the continued fall of Venezuela’s oil and gas market and continued attacks against Nigerian and Libyan energy infrastructure. These events saw global crude production fall nearly 4 million barrels per day.

US fuel costs fell 1.5% to USD 0.43 per litre (USD 1.63 per gallon). The US Energy Information Administration said stockpiles of the commodity grew by more than 2 million barrels last week, against a forecasted fall by analysts.

“Gasoline looks to be the weakest horse right now and the momentum of the recent rally that started on May 10th now looks to be breaking down,” said David Thompson, executive vice-president at energy broker Powerhouse in Washington.