Around 11:05 a.m., Brent lost 0.40% to $73.01. Its American equivalent, a barrel of West Texas Intermediate (WTI), fell 0.53% to $68.79.
Oil prices fell slightly on Tuesday with the partial resumption of production from the Norwegian Sverdrup oil field in the North Sea, but remained supported by renewed tensions between Russia and Ukraine.
Around 10:05 GMT (11:05 CET), the price of a barrel of Brent from the North Sea, for delivery in January, lost 0.40% to $73.01.
Its American equivalent, a barrel of West Texas Intermediate (WTI), for delivery in December, fell 0.53% to $68.79.
The Johan Sverdrup oil field, operated by Equinor, has partially restarted its production, after a power outage which led to the cessation of operations the day before.
“We plan to produce two thirds of our normal capacity during the morning hours,” Gisle Ledel told Norwegian business newspaper E24.
The oil field “represents around 36% of Norway’s total oil production”, making it a key player in the country’s production, says Ole Hvalbye, analyst at SEB.
The day before, “the unforeseen shutdown of Sverdrup had led to a considerable increase in prices,” reports Tamas Varga, analyst at PVM, and the rapid return to normal in the volume produced logically caused crude prices to decline.
However, black gold prices remain higher than their level before the North Sea incident, because “the escalation of tensions in the war between Russia and Ukraine” is fueling the rise in prices, explains John Plassard, analyst at Mirabaud.
Russian President Vladimir Putin signed on Tuesday, on the thousandth day of his offensive against Ukraine, the decree expanding the possibilities of using nuclear weapons, just after the United States authorized kyiv to strike Russian soil with its long-range missiles.
This rise in tensions revives the geopolitical risk on prices, this time in Eastern Europe, “the damage that Ukraine could inflict on Russian energy installations over the coming weeks could prove considerable”, affirms Tamas Varga, analyst at PVM.
