US oil prices rose above $85 a barrel on Monday for the first time in seven years, as traders bet that crude supplies would not keep pace with fast-rising global demand and analysts said a wider energy crunch was spreading to petroleum markets.
The latest price surge came as Goldman Sachs estimated that global oil demand had now almost entirely recovered from last year’s coronavirus induced collapse and would “shortly” hit its pre-pandemic peak of 100m barrels a day, as Asian economies rebounded from a wave of Delta variant infections.
The bank said soaring natural gas prices in Asia were also pushing consumers to buy more oil for use in power generation — an unexpected outcome of the energy crunch that was adding at least 1m barrels a day to global demand.
West Texas Intermediate, the US benchmark, rose 2 percent to a high of $85-41 a barrel on Monday morning before falling back to settle flat for the day at $83-76.
Brent, the global crude benchmark, also rose sharply before falling back to $85-99, a 0.5 percent rise for the day.
US stocks meanwhile advanced to highs after a slight pullback at the end of last week.
The blue-chip S&P 500 index rose 0.5 percent, closing at a record high for the second time in the past three sessions. The advance was led by consumerfocused stocks and companies that stand to benefit from elevated commodity prices.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite climbed 0.9 per cent, though it remained about 1 per cent below the record close it hit in September.
Electric carmaker Tesla was among the biggest risers, climbing 13 percent and becoming the first carmaker to hit a $1tn market capitalization after rental company Hertz said it had ordered 100,000 of its vehicles.
Moves in the largest tech companies such as Amazon and Apple were more muted as investors await a flurry of third-quarter earnings announcements.
Facebook reported its latest results after the market close on Monday, while Microsoft and Apple will follow later in the week.
More than 300 companies on Wall Street’s blue-chip index will report in the next fortnight — equivalent to 59 percent of the S&P 500’s market value, according to analysis from Credit Suisse.
Those anticipated corporate updates come after shares in social media platform Snap slid more than a quarter on Friday in response to the company