Oil prices climbed Monday afternoon, after the Norwegian Sverdrup oil field in the North Sea was shut down following an incident in an electrical transformer station connected to the production site.
Around 3:45 p.m. GMT (4:45 p.m. CET), the price of a barrel of Brent from the North Sea, for delivery in January, rose 2.70% to $72.96.
Its American equivalent, a barrel of West Texas Intermediate (WTI), for delivery in December, gained 2.72% to $68.84.
The shutdown “of Norway's largest oil field is tightening the North Sea market” and pushing up prices, Giovanni Stauvono, analyst at UBS, told AFP.
The Sverdrup oil field, operated by Equinor, in the North Sea, which has a production of around 755,000 barrels per day, was temporarily shut down Monday afternoon, due to smoke spotted in one of the converter stations connected to production site operations.
“Work is currently underway to restore production on the ground,” Equinor spokesperson Gisle Ledel Johannessen told newspaper Dagens Naeringsliv (DN).
Aside from the uncertainty over the duration of this production stoppage, prices nevertheless remain contained by the weakness of Chinese oil demand.
China is the world's leading importer of black gold and the price of the resource is strongly correlated with the economic health of the country.
“Last week's Chinese inflation figures demonstrate the lack of immediate growth in both consumer spending and industrial activity,” explains John Evans, analyst at PVM.
The consumer price index – which measures inflation – for October rose just 0.3% year-on-year, the lowest index in the last four months, demonstrating weak economic activity in China.
For 2025, the International Energy Agency (IEA) forecasts growth in global demand of one million barrels of crude per day, but an increase in production of one and a half million barrels per day alone. for producers who are not members of OPEC+ (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies). This expected excess supply is causing a downward trend in crude oil prices, which lost more than 7% last week.
