Oil prices lifted by forecasts for extended OPEC+ cuts

Crude oil prices (CL=F, BZ=F) are rising Tuesday, briefly peaking above $85 per barrel as OPEC+ production cuts and slowdowns attributed to geopolitical conflicts are pushing prices higher. Yahoo Finance Ines Ferré examines the price patterns for the commodity amid these events.

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Editor's note: This article was written by Luke Carberry Mogan.

Transcripción del vídeo

BRAD SMITH: US crude futures briefly topping $85 a barrel this morning. This is the first time for that since October. OPEC+ production cuts helping to push the prices higher this morning. Let's bring in Yahoo Finance's Ines Ferre to break it down. Hey, Ines.

INES FERRE: Hey, Brad, yeah. And oil has been rallying recently. And as you just mentioned, briefly topping earlier this morning, $85. But look, right now we're just above $84 a barrel. For Brent Crude, we're about $88 a barrel.

And it's also safe to say that analysts had been predicting what oil targets were going to be this year. And we saw a lot of predictions on Wall Street for Brent around $90 a barrel. And look, we're at $88. So right near the top of the range that some analysts had been predicting.

Year-to-date. I want to mention that we are seeing Brent up 16% year-to-date. WTI up 20% year-to-date. A lot of reasons why we have been seeing oil rallying. One is OPEC, the expectation that OPEC will continue with its production cuts at least until the half of this year, the first half of this year.

Also, you've got the Russian diesel exports that have been lowered. You've got escalating tensions in the Middle East. That is all lifting oil prices. Then you had that hotter-than-expected manufacturing data here in the US.

So that says something about the demand side as well. And I do want to point out what's happening with oil and gas-related stocks because we have been watching XLE up 1%. Yesterday, XLE was also up. Right now we're watching the energy sector at a 52-week high, guys.