As per the estimation of OPEC or the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, the association of some major oil producing countries, the prices of oil per barrel is expected to reach $200. Chakib Khelil, the president of OPEC, has attributed the situation to the decrease in the worth of the US dollar. According to him, this has increased the attraction of the some other assets like oil for example. The price of oil has reached $120 per barrel in the recent times.
The prices of oil have gone up as a result of a number of strikes and other mishaps in the oil producing network. The two day strike in the Grangemouth Refinery in Scotland was over the pensions of the workers. There has been also a strike in the Forties Pipeline that produces around 33 percent of the entire oil in the United Kingdom. All these have led to a critical situation in the North Sea area. The condition of the oil supply in Nigeria is critical as well as there have been attacks on the pipelines.
The prices of light crude oil in the US recorded an unprecedented $119.93 per barrel but went down to $118.79. On the Friday of the previous week the prices of the US light crude oil had been priced at $119.90 per barrel. During the same period, in London the price of Brent Crude has reached $116.74. On Monday, the prices had reached a high of $117.51.
The shutdown of the Ineos Refinery operated by British Petroleum in Grangemouth has had serious implications on the oil supply network in the North Sea area. As many as 70 platforms in the North Area have had to close operations or else, bring down the amount of production. This has led to a loss of 700,000 barrels of oil in the area. The pipeline operated by the British Petroleum in Forties Oil Fields in the North Sea has also has been adversely affected in this case, as they are highly reliant on the electricity and steam it gets form the Ineos Refinery at Grangemouth.
Even though BP has said it would be able to restart the pipelines within twenty four hours of the closure of the strike there are meant to be serious ramifications, as per the leading experts of this field, of the entire event on the oil network of the area. It is also assumed that it would take a certain amount of time before the full operational capacity of the refinery is restored. The incident in Grangemouth is not a one-off incident and is the latest in a feverish market where the prices of oil have gone up almost 25% in the recent times. The OPEC is not ready to raise the quotas so that the increases in the prices of oil may be curbed to a certain extent.
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