2023.03.2819:04:00UTC+00Oil Futures Settle At Over 2-week High

Crude oil prices climbed higher and lifted the most active oil futures contract to a more than 2-week closing high on Tuesday.

Easing concerns about global banking sector woes, expectations of higher demand from China, and news about supply disruption risks from Iraq contributed to the jump in oil prices.

A weaker U.S. dollar helped as well.

West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for May ended higher by $0.39 or about 0.5% at $73.20 a barrel.

Brent crude futures were up $0.51 or 0.66% at $78.27 a barrel a little while ago.

According to an annual forecast by a research unit of China National Petroleum Corp., China's crude oil imports will likely rise 6.2% this year to 540 million tonnes.

Meanwhile, Iraq's decision to halt exports from Kurdistan resulted in a loss of 450,000 barrels per day, or about half a percent of global oil supply.

Barclays said any protracted outage of Kurdish exports until the end of the year would imply a $3 a barrel upside to the bank's $92 a barrel Brent price forecast for 2023.

Traders now await the release of weekly oil reports from the American Petroleum Institute (API) and U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).

The API's report is due later today, while the EIA is scheduled to release its inventory data Wednesday morning.