Oil prices fall more than 3% on Russian oil price cap talks
The Hindu
Contracts fell by as much as $3 per barrel after rising by more than $1 per barrel earlier in the session
Oil prices fell by more than $2 a barrel on Wednesday as the Group of Seven (G7) nations looked at a price cap on Russian oil above where the crude grade is currently trading.
Brent crude futures fell $2.82, or 3.19%, to $85.54 a barrel by 1450 GMT, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were down $2.62, or 3.24%, at $78.33 a barrel.
Both contracts fell by as much as $3 per barrel after rising by more than $1 a barrel earlier in the session, "following reports that the G7 price cap on Russian oil could be above the level it is trading at the moment", said Giovanni Staunovo, commodity analyst at UBS.
G7 nations are looking at a price cap on Russian seaborne oil in the range of $65-70/bbl, according to a European official on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, Urals crude delivered to northwest Europe is trading around $62-$63/bbl, although it is higher in the Mediterranean at around $67-$68/bbl, according to Refinitiv data.
Because production costs are estimated at around $20 per barrel, the cap would still make it profitable for Russia to sell its oil and in this way prevent a supply shortage on the global market.
A senior U.S. Treasury official said on Tuesday that the price cap will probably be adjusted a few times a year.
“Writing, in general, is a very solitary process,” says Yauvanika Chopra, Associate Director at The New India Foundation (NIF), which, earlier this year, announced the 12th edition of its NIF Book Fellowships for research and scholarship about Indian history after Independence. While authors, in general, are built for it, it can still get very lonely, says Chopra, pointing out that the fellowship’s community support is as valuable as the monetary benefits it offers. “There is a solid community of NIF fellows, trustees, language experts, jury members, all of whom are incredibly competent,” she says. “They really help make authors feel supported from manuscript to publication, so you never feel like you’re struggling through isolation.”
Several principals of government and private schools in Delhi on Tuesday said the Directorate of Education (DoE) circular from a day earlier, directing schools to conduct classes in ‘hybrid’ mode, had caused confusion regarding day-to-day operations as they did not know how many students would return to school from Wednesday and how would teachers instruct in two modes — online and in person — at once. The DoE circular on Monday had also stated that the option to “exercise online mode of education, wherever available, shall vest with the students and their guardians”. Several schoolteachers also expressed confusion regarding the DoE order. A government schoolteacher said he was unsure of how to cope with the resumption of physical classes, given that the order directing government offices to ensure that 50% of the employees work from home is still in place. On Monday, the Commission for Air Quality Management in the National Capital Region and Adjoining Areas (CAQM) had, on the orders of the Supreme Court, directed schools in Delhi-NCR to shift classes to the hybrid mode, following which the DoE had issued the circular. The court had urged the Centre’s pollution watchdog to consider restarting physical classes due to many students missing out on the mid-day meals and lacking the necessary means to attend classes online. The CAQM had, on November 20, asked schools in Delhi-NCR to shift to the online mode of teaching.