Expansion in China’s industrial production and the continued drone attacks on Russian refineries by Ukraine helped boost the price of crude oil futures on Monday morning.
At 9:46 am on Monday, May Brent oil futures were at $85.66, up by 0.37 per cent, and May crude oil futures on WTI (West Texas Intermediate) were at $80.97, up by 0.48 per cent.
March crude oil futures were trading at ₹6,746 on Multi Commodity Exchange (MCX) during the initial hour of trading on Monday morning against the previous close of ₹6,720, up by 0.39 per cent, and April futures were trading at ₹6,708 against the previous close of ₹6,680, up by 0.42 per cent.
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Data released by the National Bureau of Statistics of China showed that industrial production in that country expanded by 7 per cent year-on-year in January-February 2024 combined. This was at 6.8 per cent in December 2023. Market was expecting it to expand by 5 per cent during January-February 2024.
This was the fastest industrial production expansion in the last two years. China had seen a 7.5 per cent expansion during January-February 2022.
China is a major consumer of crude oil, and an improvement in industrial activities in that country will help boost the demand for commodities such as crude oil in the global market.
Meanwhile, Ukraine continued with drone attacks on Russian refineries on Saturday also. A Reuters report said that Ukraine launched 35 drones at targets across Russia that sparked a brief fire at the Slavyansk refinery in Kasnodar. This refinery processes 8.5 million tonnes of crude oil a year, or 1,70,000 barrels a day. Reuters report found that the drone attacks have idled around 7 per cent of the refining capacity in Russia during the first quarter of 2024. Russia is a major producer of crude oil.
Russia’s presidential election ended on Sunday. Russia has accused Ukraine of sabotaging election process by attacking its infrastructure. Drone attacks on Russian infrastructure, including refineries, were one of the major recent operations by Ukraine in this two-year-old war.
March natural gas futures were trading at ₹144.10 on MCX during the initial hour of trading on Monday morning against the previous close of ₹138.30, up by 4.19 per cent.