Oil prices surge on supply worries

Oil prices jumped on Tuesday following the outage of a key oil export terminal in Türkiye after a strong earthquake.

The West Texas Intermediate for March delivery gained 3.03 U.S. dollars, or 4.09 percent, to settle at 77.14 dollars a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude for April delivery added 2.7 dollars, or 3.33 percent, to settle at 83.69 dollars a barrel on the London ICE Futures Exchange.

The rally came as operations at Türkiye’s 1 million barrel per day (bpd) oil export terminal in Ceyhan were halted after a major earthquake hit the region.

Expectations of rising demand in China also lent support to oil.

Traders awaited data on U.S. fuel stockpiles as the U.S. Energy Information Administration will release its weekly petroleum status report on Wednesday. Analysts surveyed by S&P Global Commodity Insights expect a rise of 2.1 million barrels in U.S. crude supplies during the week ending Feb. 3.