Oil prices up with approval of US debt ceiling

ANKARA (AA/APP): Oil prices increased on Friday as investors priced in the lifting of the US debt ceiling, despite market uncertainty ahead of the much-anticipated OPEC+ meeting, which is widely expected to yield an unchanged production policy.

International benchmark Brent crude traded at $75.08 per barrel at 09.33 a.m. local time (0633 GMT), a 1.07% rise from the closing price of $74.28 a barrel in the previous trading session on Friday.

The American benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) traded at the same time at $70.82 per barrel, up 1.02% from the previous session’s close of $70.10 per barrel.
Both benchmarks are on track to slash their marginal weekly losses after investors throughout the week priced in the US debt ceiling decision to set the maximum amount of outstanding federal debt that the US government can incur.

Averting a first-ever catastrophic default on the nation’s debt before a June 5 deadline, the US Senate passed a bill to suspend the debt ceiling late Thursday. This came as the US Institute for Supply Management (ISM) released the ISM Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI), which indicated a contraction in the country’s manufacturing sector in May for the seventh consecutive month, limiting crude oil prices’ upward trajectory.