Oil up over supply fears amid growing tensions in Ukraine

By Ebru Sengul Cevrioglu

ANKARA (AA) - Oil prices increased on Monday over renewed tension between Russia and Ukraine, along with reports of EU discussions on a ban on Russian oil, triggering supply fears.

International benchmark Brent crude cost $112.03 per barrel at 0629 GMT for an 0.3% increase after closing the previous session at $111.70 a barrel.

American benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) traded at $106.66 per barrel at the same time for a 0.3% increase after the previous session closed at $106.38 a barrel.

Over the weekend, tensions grew when Ukrainian troops in the besieged strategic port city of Mariupol held out in defiance against Russia’s siege of the city.

"The city still has not fallen. There (are) still our military forces, our soldiers, so they will fight until the end," Ukraine's Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said in an interview with ABC's This Week program on Sunday.

A total of 1,499 more civilians were evacuated from conflict zones in Ukraine on Friday. Civilians from Mariupol, Berdyansk, Pologov, and Vasilevsky were moved to the Zaporizhzhia region via nine humanitarian corridors that were agreed upon on April 16, the country's Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said on Saturday.

On Sunday, the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called on EU countries to quickly supply weapons to Ukraine for defense against Russia. On the sixth package of sanctions that the EU is preparing against Russia, von der Leyen said they would continue to target the banking sector, especially Sberbank, Russia’s largest bank.

"Of course, there are also energy issues," she added, without giving further details. The top EU official said everything must be done to end the Russia-Ukraine war as soon as possible.

"At the same time, we must prepare ourselves for the fact that in the worst case, the war could last for months or even years," she said.

Meanwhile, putting further pressure on supplies, Libya!s National Oil Corporation (NOC) declared a force majeure on Sunday on oil exports from the El-Feel oilfield in the country’s southwest.

In a statement, the state-owned company reported a halt in oil production until further notice after a group of people entered the facility and prevented employees from working. It did not, however, identify this group of people.

Tribal leaders in southern Libya had earlier announced a halt in production from the oilfield until Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh hands over power to the newly appointed government of Fathi Bashagha.

The El-Feel field can produce 90,000 barrels per day but typically produces closer to 70,000 barrels per day.

Libya has the ninth-largest known oil reserves worldwide and the largest oil reserves in Africa.

To temper supply fears, the oil rig count in the US increased last week, according to the latest data released by oilfield services company Baker Hughes on Friday. The number of oil rigs, an indicator of short-term production in the country, rose by 2 to 548 for the week ending April 15 from 546 the previous week.