(Reuters) – Tuesday was the third day in a row that oil prices went up. This was because major oil producers like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates didn’t seem likely to be able to increase production by much, and political unrest in Libya and Ecuador added to supply worries.
At 3:32 GMT, U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures went up by $1.13, or 1%, to $110.7 a barrel. This added to the 1.8% gain from the previous session.
Brent crude futures went up $1.26, or 1.1%, to $116.35 per barrel. This was on top of a 1.7% increase in the previous session.
People thought that the UAE and Saudi Arabia were the only two members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) with enough spare capacity to make up for lost Russian supplies and low output from other members.
The market got a boost from news that supplies were getting tight. In a note, Tobin Gorey, a commodities analyst at the Commonwealth Bank, said that Saudi Arabia and the UAE are either at or very close to their near-term capacity limits.
