Libya Outage Pushes Oil Prices Higher Amid Global Supply Constraints
Oil prices broke a five-day losing streak on Wednesday, driven by a supply shock rather than a demand signal. The trigger came from North Africa, where an armed group shut a valve on the pipeline from Libya's El Sharara field, which accounts for roughly a third of the country's output.
The sudden outage took significant supply offline and exposed how little spare cushion remains in the market. Oil prices had spent five sessions pricing de-escalation, but the Libya disruption turned them higher through the European morning. Brent rose above $101 after the five straight losing sessions, as traders weighed efforts to restore flows disrupted by the Middle East conflict.
The U.S. inventory data tempered the bounce, showing a 2.969 million-barrel crude build against an expected 600,000-barrel draw. Crude futures slipped in a delayed reaction, capping how far the Libya rally could run.