Oil up over 3% on Turkey terminal outage, closing gap on last week’s selloff By

By Barani Krishnan

-- The Foreign exchange platform that gives free money without depositingoutage of an oil export terminal after the earthquake in Turkey gave those long on crude the chance to push prices up sharply for a second day in a row on Tuesday, in a bid to close the gap on last week’s torrid selloff.

New York-traded West Texas Intermediate, or WTI, crude for was up $2.66, or 3.6%, to $76.77 per barrel by 11:45 ET (16:45 GMT). 

The U.S. crude benchmark settled up 1% on Monday after plunging 7.5% last week, to a three-week low of $73.11, on recession fears and the uncertainty about the direction for U.S. interest rates after huge employment gains among Americans in January threatened to bump up again. 

London-traded Brent crude for rose $2.37, or almost 3%, to $83.36, after extending the 1.3% gain from Monday. Like WTI, Brent, the global crude benchmark, tumbled 7.5% last week, touching a three-week low of $79.62.

Operations at Turkey's 1 million barrel per day (bpd) oil export terminal in Ceyhan were halted after a major earthquake hit the region, Reuters reported, adding that the facility, which exports Azeri crude oil to international markets, will be closed Feb. 6-8.

Also supporting crude prices were continued bets on ramped-up Chinese consumption as the world’s largest crude importer returns from a long Lunar New Year break, into an environment free of COVID-19 restrictions.

Adding to oil’s upside was a bold attempt by Saudi Arabia to raise for the first time in six months prices for its Asian-bound crude, also on bets over Chinese demand. The kingdom had previously ratcheted down the so-called OSP, or Official Selling Price, for its Arab Light crude to be competitive against Russia’s Urals crude, which had seen heavy discounting over the past year from Ukraine-war sanctions imposed by the West.

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